Page 8 - Advice Matters Magazine - FWP - Dec 24

The World’s Least Affordable

Housing Markets in 2024

Many cities around the world have become very expensive to buy a home in, but
which ones are the absolute most unattainable?

In this graphic, we highlight a number
of housing markets that are deemed
to be “impossibly unaffordable” in
2024, ranked by their median price-
to-income ratio.

Data and Key Takeaway
The median price-to-income
ratio compares median house
price to median household
income within each market. A higher
ratio (higher prices relative to incomes)
means a city is less affordable.
See the following table for all of the
data we used to create this graphic.
Note that this analysis covers 94
markets across eight countries:
Australia, Canada, China, Ireland,
New Zealand, Singapore, the United
Kingdom, and the United States.

According to the Demographia report,
cities with a median price-to-income
ratio of over 9.0 are considered
“impossibly unaffordable”.
We can see that the top city in this
ranking, Hong Kong, has a ratio
of 16.7. This means that the median
price of a home is 16.7 times greater
than the median income.
Which Cities are More Affordable?

On the flipside, here are the top 12
most affordable cities that were
analyzed in the Demographia report.

Cities with a median price-to-income
ratio of less than 3.0 are considered
“affordable”, while those between
3.1 and 4.0 are considered Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/
mapped-the-worlds-least-affordable-housing-
“moderately unaffordable”. markets-in-2024/

8
DECEMBER 2024