The 10 most expensive cities around the world to buy property

Housing affordability in Australia is always a hot topic but how do we compare with the rest of the world? The 2024 Demographia International Housing Affordability report crunched the numbers on 94 major housing markets (metropolitan areas) in eight nations – Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. It uses something called a “median multiple” – which is the median house price divided by the pre-tax median household income – to rate housing affordability.

The ratings are as follows:

Affordable: 3.0 and under

Moderately Unaffordable: 3.1 to 4.0

Seriously Unaffordable: 4.1 to 5.0

Severely Unaffordable: 5.1 to 8.9

Impossibly Unaffordable: 9.0 and over

The 2024 edition of the report found Sydney to be the 93rd least affordable of all 94 metropolitan markets, just behind Hong Kong, and author Wendell Cox, of the Urban Reform Institute, said it paints a worrying picture.

“Middle-income households face rapidly escalating housing costs, which is the primary cause of the present cost-of-living crisis,” said Cox, noting that the housing crisis “stems principally from land use policies that artificially restrict housing supply, driving up land prices and making homeownership unattainable for many.”

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The 10 least affordable major cities around the world

So which major markets are the least affordable around the world?

1. Hong Kong, China
Median multiple: 16.7

2. Sydney, Australia
Median multiple: 13.8

3. Vancouver, Canada
Median multiple: 12.3

4. San Jose, USA
Median multiple: 11.9

5. Los Angeles, USA
Median multiple: 10.9

6. Honolulu, USA
Median multiple: 10.5

7. Melbourne, Victoria
Median multiple: 9.8

8. Adelaide, South Australia & San Francisco, USA 
Median multiple: 9.7

9. San Diego, USA
Median multiple: 9.5

10. Toronto, Canada
Median multiple: 9.3

What about the rest of Australia?

It probably didn’t surprise many people that Sydney and Melbourne were among the 10 least affordable markets around the world but the South Australian capital of Adelaide has now joined them. You may be thinking how did the other major Aussie cities fare? The news isn’t great. According to the report, all five of Australia’s major housing markets have been severely unaffordable since the early 2000s, and currently, Brisbane (8.1) sits at equal 12th place on the list with the Greater London area in the UK and Miami in the USA and Perth (6.8) at equal 15th with Boston, USA. Hobart and Darwin have not currently made the list.

Cover image source: f11photo/Shutterstock.com