To Buy or Not to Buy: A look at Real Estate Opportunities Around the World

The real estate market is a attracts great interest for many investors and particularly young adults wanting to make a start in life. But as a first time buyer, trying to get in the Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney or Australia housing markets might not be a wise decision as these markets are the world’s leading most expensive housing markets.
As a first time buyer, you have to either be really wealthy or save for some more years to be able to buy a house in these markets.

But the worst is not over as it even takes more years to save up for buying a home in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara in California or buying a place in New Zealand.

Data from Demographia shows the world’s most unaffordable housing markets by comparing the median household incomes to the median home prices in 406 cities. These figures give buyers an insight into the prices range of homes in their preferred markets.

Looking at the best markets to buy a home, the United States markets takes the leads in having most of the cheapest cities according to the Demographia, with the average home costing 3.9x the household income of people.

But when it comes to the worst markets to buy a home, you might think twice about your pocket when considering buying a home in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland and Singapore. For the past seven years, Hong Kong has taken the lead of the most unaffordable market to buy a home, followed by Sydney.

Recently, Vancouver has landed the third place as one of the most expensive cities.
In Hong Kong it will take a middle class earner to save over 18 years to be able to buy a home with the average home price at $5.4 million.

Last year, home constructors in Hong Kong saw a decline in the market as the government implemented a 15% tax on homes first time buyers could not afford and also a 15% on homes with no permanent residents for more than seven years.

In Sydney however, it takes 12.1 years worth of a household income to be able to buy a home while in Vancouver, it takes 11.8x earnings. This made the city to be the third most unaffordable city in the Demographia report.