A study out of Chapman University in the US has found nearly all of Australia’s major cities rank in the top 25 per cent of least affordable housing markets in the world.used data to rate middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets across eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US.
"Affordability is disappearing in high-income nations as housing costs now far outpace income growth," the report said. Australia’s housing markets were all placed in either the ‘severely unaffordable’ category, or impossibly unaffordable’. Picture: Chapman University/2024 Demographia International Housing Affordability
“Melbourne, with a impossibly unaffordable median multiple of 9.8, is the 88th least affordable of the 94 markets. In a chapter titled “The existential threat to the middle class”, it acknowledged the “hallmark” of a strong middle class was the widespread ability to own a home.