In what may be no surprise for many prospective home buyers, three of Australia’s capital cities have been ranked in the top 10 most unaffordable housing markets in the English-speaking world.
Chapman University’s Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s Demographia International Housing Affordability report ranks middle-income housing affordability in markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States.
Academics from the US-based research centre looked at data from the third quarter of 2023 and ranked a total of 94 cities across all eight countries from least to most affordable.
According to its findings, Sydney was the second-least affordable market in 2023.
Coming in at number 93, it was labelled as “impossibly unaffordable”.
In 15 of the past 16 years, Sydney had the first, second or third least affordable housing of any major market, the report said.
Alongside other markets such as San Francisco, Vancouver, Honolulu and Auckland, house prices relative to household incomes have tripled in Sydney.
The Australian city wasn’t the only one to place in the top 10 for most unaffordable housing, with Melbourne and Adelaide also crowned “impossibly unaffordable”.
Brisbane and Perth managed to secure a “severely unaffordable” rating, ranking 80 and 75 respectively.
Comparing Australia’s least affordable market (Sydney) with its most (Perth), the report highlighted the substantial difference between the two cities, with Perth being at least 50 per cent more affordable than Sydney.
“All five of Australia’s major housing markets have been severely unaffordable since the early 2000s or before,” the report said.
Of the eight nations, Australia ranked equal fifth with the United States for home ownership (66 per cent), while Singapore came out on top (89 per cent).
Hong Kong was ranked the most unaffordable market across all eight nations.
The top four most affordable markets to buy a home were all in the US: Pittsburgh, Rochester and St Louis.
“Coming out of the turbulence of the COVID-19 lockdowns, housing affordability remained severely challenged across most markets in 2023,” Frontier Centre for Public Policy president Peter Holle said.
