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View all search resultsHong Kong retains title of world's costliest home market
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Hong Kong retained its rank as the most expensive housing market among 406 major metropolitan regions in the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. (Shutterstock/File)
H
ong Kong retained its rank as the most expensive housing market among 406 major metropolitan regions in the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey for the seventh year in a row.
The median price of a home in Hong Kong last year was 18.1 times the median annual pretax household income, the survey showed. While that’s a modest improvement in affordability compared with 19 times in the previous year, Demographia considers a score of more than 5.1 as “severely unaffordable,” according to its website.
Hong Kong’s median multiple “represents a substantial deterioration in its housing affordability,” Demographia said in the report, citing a median multiple of 11.4 times in 2010.
The world's least affordable housing markets.(Bloomberg/File)
(Read also: University of Hong Kong sees increase in Indonesian student applications)
The dearth of affordable housing in Hong Kong has been a persistent headache for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, despite a raft of taxes and mortgage caps introduced under his administration. Prices of secondary homes, which account for about 70 percent of volume, are up nearly 40 percent since he took office in July 2012 and increased 7.7 percent last year. They are hovering just 2.6 percent shy of their September 2015 record.
Sydney held its title as the second-costliest housing market in the world, with a median multiple of 12.2, according to the Demographia survey. Vancouver was the third-most expensive, while Auckland ranked fourth.
