By Rob Woodward, Economic Times: The global pandemic has caused havoc in the housing market, especially when it comes to the least affordable property prices in cities around the world.

Coming in at number one as the least affordable city in the world was Hong Kong with a whopping 23.20 median multiple (or 23.2 times the average income). But much as that was expected – even more shocking is how many Australian cities landed inside the top 20.

Hong Kong, Sydney, Vancouver BC, San Jose California and Melbourne Australia made the top five most expensive cities in the world this year.

This was followed up by Honolulu, San Fransico, Auckland, Los Angeles and Toronto which makes up the top 10.

Six cities in the USA and three in Australia made the next ten most expensive property prices, with London raking No 13 at 8 times income multiple.

Overall, the United States was the most affordable country in the study, which also examined markets in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.K.

 

 

In most major economies, property prices boomed during the pandemic, with buyers pouring their lockdown savings into real estate.

“There has been an unprecedented deterioration in housing affordability during the pandemic,” author Wendell Cox wrote in the report, which compared incomes to home prices in the third quarter of 2021. “The number of severely unaffordable markets rose 60% in 2021 compared to 2019.”

In a sign of the growing tensions in many markets, Canada is banning most foreigners from buying homes for two years and providing billions of dollars to spur construction activity in an attempt to cool off a surging real estate market.

Back in 2019, an OECD report highlighted the presence of the “Squeezed Middle Class” where the “costs of some goods and services such as property prices, which are essential for a middle-class lifestyle, have risen faster than earnings and overall inflation.”