An international study of home affordability has placed most Australian capital cities among the world's least affordable, with Sydney ranking the second worst globally.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00For the first time in the 20-year history of Chapman University's Demographia study,
00:06a new category called Impossibly Unaffordable has been added and unfortunately Sydney is
00:11almost at the top of that list.
00:13In fact, nearly all Australian capitals fall within the top 25% of unaffordable markets
00:18in a list of 94 cities across 8 countries.
00:21To compare those markets, the study uses a metric which measures a middle-income household's
00:26ability to buy a median-priced home.
00:29Using that criteria, Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver are the most unaffordable markets
00:33for those buyers.
00:35Sydney was ranked the second most unaffordable city to buy a home and it's actually the 15th
00:40time in the past 16 years that it's made the top 3 global ranking.
00:44The study shows that house prices in Sydney are 14 times more than the average income.
00:49Some of our other capitals weren't far off.
00:51Melbourne ranked in at number 7 and Adelaide in at number 9.
00:55The study shows that all 5 of Australia's major housing markets have been severely unaffordable
01:00since the early 2000s.
01:02The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that in Australia, more
01:06than 210,000 dwellings are built every year, but for demand to match supply, that number
01:11needs to rise to roughly 240,000.
01:14An analyst recently told the ABC that median income owners would need to spend about 60%
01:20of their gross income to be able to purchase a median-priced home.
01:24The study says that much of the housing crisis stems from land use policies which are restricting
01:29supply and therefore driving up prices, so the study points to reforms which free up
01:34land for development as one solution for more affordable housing.