Detroit has some of world’s most-affordable housing, Demographia survey says

Hong Kong remained the least affordable housing market for the third year in a row in the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey.

The survey by the US-based property forum, in its ninth year, listed the US, Canada and Ireland markets as the most affordable of 337 metropolitan markets surveyed.

The most affordable major housing market was Detroit, reflecting the depressed state of its economy, Australia's Fairfax media wrote. 

Outside the US, the most affordable markets were Edmonton in Canada, Dublin and Ottawa-Gatineau.

Meanwhile, housing markets in New Zealand, Australia and the UK were also surveyed.

All the major markets of Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong were "severely unaffordable," according to the survey, as cited by Russia Today. 

Thirty of the 39 Australian locations were classified as "severely unaffordable," with Sydney ranked the least affordable.

"Rising incomes and flat or declining house prices improved the median multiples in Australia's major markets. However each of the five major markets continues to be severely unaffordable, reflecting vastly overpriced housing."

Hong Kong's ranking came despite recent government steps to cool the demand for housing by increasing supply.

There was a material worsening of housing affordability in the city-state, the report said.

For its annual evaluation of urban markets, Demographia uses measure recommended by the World Bank and United Nations, and which is used by the Harvard University Joint Center on Housing, RT wrote.