Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver top list of the world’s least affordable cities for housing

London comes in at number eight

The Hong Kong skyline

The world’s least affordable housing markets have been revealed – and London features high on the list.

Demographia’s annual International Housing Affordability Survey rated the housing markets in Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver as the most expensive places to buy a house in terms of people’s average income, with Hong Kong setting a new record for the survey.

Demographia has ranked the cities by their middle-income housing affordability, which is calculated by using the median multiple, a house price-to-income ratio. The cities have the least affordable housing markets of 87 metropolitan regions across nine countries.

Using data from the third quarter of 2015, Hong Kong’s average house prices were found to be 19 times the median gross annual household income – the highest rate recorded since the study began 12 years ago.

It is also the sixth year in a row that Hong Kong has been named the least affordable city for housing.

London ranked at number eight on the list with a median multiple of 8.5, sitting just above San Diego and Los Angeles.

The United States housed the most affordable markets, including Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, Buffalo and Rochester in New York State, and Cincinnati and Cleveland in Ohio.