This annual report assesses housing affordability in 94 major markets across eight nations (Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom and the, United States). The 2024 edition focuses on data from the third quarter of 2023.
KEY POINTS
Ratings: The report uses a median price-to-income ratio (“median multiple”) to determine affordability.
Affordability Categories: Housing markets are rated from “affordable” to “impossibly unafford-able” based on their median multiple (Table (ES-1).
Geography: Housing markets are labor markets (which are also metropolitan areas), largely defined by the “commuting shed.” Housing affordability comparisons can be made, (1) between housing markets (such as a comparison between Adelaide and Melbourne) or (2) over time within the same housing market (such as between years in Adelaide).
Variations within Nations: The report emphasizes that affordability often varies significantly between markets within the same country. National averages aren’t always representative.
Download the full report here. (33 pages)
Read the press release here.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, a St. Louis based international public policy consulting firm, a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Demographics and Policy. He is author of Demographia World Urban Areas, the only regularly published resource for the population, land area and population densities of world urban areas. Cox was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC) by Mayor Tom Bradley and has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM), a national university in Paris and as vice-president of CODATU, a France based research organization dedicated to improving transportation in developing countries.
