Pittsburgh has been named the most affordable city for housing, as accommodation costs around the globe surge. 

Hong Kong, long the world’s most expensive city for housing, ranked bottom of the 92 housing markets assessed in the Demographia International Housing study. New York ranked 73rd while London came in at 79th.

The U.S. was the most affordable country in the study, which also examined markets in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.K. In most major economies, home prices boomed during the pandemic, with buyers pouring their lockdown savings into real estate. 

“There has been an unprecedented deterioration in housing affordability during the pandemic,” author Wendell Cox wrote in the report, which compared incomes to home prices in the third quarter of 2021. “The number of severely unaffordable markets rose 60 per cent in 2021 compared to 2019.”

Most affordable:

  • Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.
  • Oklahoma City, OK, U.S.
  • Rochester, N.Y., U.S.
  • Edmonton, AB, Canada
  • St Louis, MO-IL, U.S. 

Oklahoma City and Rochester, New York, ranked second and third on the affordability list, the authors said. Sydney and Vancouver ranked among the least affordable. 

In a sign of the growing tensions in many markets, Canada is banning most foreigners from buying homes for two years and providing billions of dollars to spur construction activity in an attempt to cool off a surging real-estate market. 

Least affordable:

  • Hong Kong, China
  • Sydney, Australia
  • Vancouver, Canada
  • San Jose, CA, U.S.
  • Melbourne, Australia