In Hong Kong, you save for 25 years to buy a median home. In Pittsburgh, it's 8. Same planet. Very different math.
Hong Kong: 13.7× median income to buy a median home. Pittsburgh: 3.4×. The gap is a policy choice, not a law of nature.
13.7× — the world's worst ratio
The Demographia affordability metric is simple: median home price divided by median household income. Above 5.0 is "severely unaffordable." Most of Australia, Canada, and coastal US have blown past that.
The least affordable markets in 2024:
- Hong Kong — 13.7× (25+ years saving at 20% of gross income)
- Sydney — 13.3×
- Vancouver — 12.3×
The most affordable:
- Pittsburgh — 3.4×
- Edmonton, Rochester — both below 4.0×
Three forces making it worse simultaneously
Supply is throttled. Restrictive zoning and slow approvals in Sydney, Vancouver, and California have choked new builds for decades. Markets with flexible planning systems consistently show lower ratios.
Rate hikes hit buyers, not prices. Rate increases from 2022-2024 raised mortgage costs without dropping home prices in most markets. Affordability worsened even as demand cooled.
Wages fell behind. US median home prices up 40% from 2020-2025. Median incomes up 22%. The same gap played out across the UK, Australia, and Canada.
US home prices rose 40% in five years. Incomes rose 22%. The gap between owning and renting a life keeps widening.
67% of US builders are now offering incentives
Builders are capitulating. 67% now offer sales incentives — sharply up. 41% have cut prices outright. Median home size is stuck at 2,155 sq ft as builders try to hold price points by shrinking the product.
The 2025 idea that drew the most debate: a 50-year mortgage. Lower monthly payments, yes. Also: a lifetime of debt and dramatically more interest paid overall.
A 50-year mortgage was seriously floated in 2025. Paying off your home by age 80 is now a mainstream proposal.
The K-shape is the whole story
Households with existing equity keep buying and building wealth. First-time buyers — especially younger, lower-income, without family wealth — face arithmetic that simply doesn't work. In the US and Australia, property purchases are concentrating among the already-wealthy. Ownership without inherited advantage is narrowing to a narrow path in most major markets.
It's structural, not cyclical
The affordability crisis won't self-correct. Supply constraints are political, not accidental. The markets holding their ratios low — Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Rochester — all share one trait: planning systems that let supply respond to demand. Until that changes elsewhere, the gap keeps growing.