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U.S., Canada most affordable housing markets

February 1, 2011 - Americans who are considering hiring international moving companies and relocating abroad may want to reconsider their plans, according to a new survey.

Demographia compared the housing markets of 325 major metropolitan areas in the English-speaking world. Cities in Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong, China, were studied, with the firm looking to compare local housing costs with median household incomes. The results determined all of the world's 115 most affordable markets - where housing costs no more than three times the median income - were found in the United States and Canada.

Comparatively, Hong Kong and Australia were extraordinarily unaffordable. Homes in Hong Kong cost 11.4 times household incomes while properties in Sydney, Australia were 9.6 times local incomes. All but five Australian cities were considered "severely unaffordable."

Those moving to Atlanta enjoyed the most affordable housing prices in the English-speaking world, with prices at 2.3 times local incomes.

Joel Kotkin, a fellow at Chapman University in Orange, California, blamed poor land use and restrictions against "urban sprawl" with driving up home prices in select markets. Additionally, governments have limited the construction of the types of housing residents prefer, driving up the prices of those properties and making housing most costly overall, he said.
 

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