An airplane flies over downtown San Jose, Calif., into the the Mineta San Jose Airport in 2019. Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home.
US cities on the West Coast and Hawaii occupied five of the top 10 most unaffordable places, according to the annual Demographic International Housing Affordability report, which has been tracking house prices for 20 years. Australia is the only other country besides the US to dominate the “impossibly unaffordable” list, led by Sydney and the southern cities of Melbourne in Victoria and Adelaide in South Australia.
Hong Kong may be the least affordable city worldwide, but potential home buyers may be encouraged to know that it’s not as unaffordable as it once was. “The middle-class is under siege principally due to the escalation of land costs. As land has been rationed in an effort to curb urban sprawl, the excess of demand over supply has driven prices up,” the report said.Frontier Centre for Public PolicyCox points to a policy, “Going for Housing Growth,” introduced by New Zealand’s coalition government that requires local authorities to immediately zone for 30 years of housing growth.