15-07-2025
Hong Kong has once again ranked as the most unaffordable city in the world for home ownership
The 2025 edition of the Demographia International Housing Affordability report has been released, rating 95 major metropolitan areas across eight nations for housing affordability in the third quarter of 2024, and the results don't bode well for us. Hong Kong has once again been ranked as the most unaffordable city in the world for buying a home.
For over 20 years, this report has assessed housing affordability by comparing median house prices to median household incomes, naming this median price-to-income ratio the 'median multiple'. This presents a more accurate view than just looking at housing prices, and also better represents middle- and lower-income households. Based on the median multiple, housing markets are then ranked from 'affordable' to 'impossibly unaffordable' – and to no Hongkonger's surprise, we're high up there in the latter category. Median multiples of nine and above fall into the 'impossibly unaffordable' grouping, and Hong Kong has a score of 14.4.
In fact, Hong Kong has been the least affordable market in the Demographia report for the past 14 years. However, the statistics show that this is already an improvement from our median multiple of 16.7 in 2023 and 20.8 pre-pandemic in 2019. Limited land supply and land use are among the biggest culprits of housing unaffordability worldwide, but Demographia does add that there are two projects that could contribute greatly to Hong Kong's housing stock. The Northern Metropolis project could add more than 900,000 new housing units near the Shenzhen border, while Lantau Vision Tomorrow could provide more than 200,000 units on reclaimed islands.
Troublingly, the housing market is worsening globally. The 'impossibly unaffordable' category was added last year to better reflect modern circumstances, when 'affordable' was the predominant standard only three decades ago. This year, there are 12 impossibly unaffordable markets and, for the first time ever, no markets ranked affordable at all.
On the far end of the scale, Pittsburgh in the United States was the most affordable market for the fifth year in a row, with a median multiple of 3.2, which classifies it under 'moderately unaffordable'. See the list of top 10 most unaffordable markets below, and visit Demographia for the full list and report.
Top 10 most unaffordable housing markets in the world
Hong Kong (Median multiple 14.4)
Sydney, Australia (13.8)
San Jose, USA (12.1)
Vancouver, Canada (11.8)
Los Angeles, USA (11.2)
Adelaide, Australia (10.9)
Honolulu, USA (10.8)
San Francisco, USA (10)
Melbourne, Australia (9.7)
San Diego, USA (9.5)
