OKC AMONG MOST AFFORDABLE GLOBAL HOUSING MARKETS

Reporting on data from the Demographia International Housing Study, Bloomberg recently noted Oklahoma City is the 2nd-most affordable housing market among 92 international markets studied in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the U.K., and the United States, as housing costs across the globe continue to increase.

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While Hong Kong, Syndey, and Vancouver were the top three least affordable, Pittsburg, OKC, and Rochester were the most affordable markets in the study, followed by Edmonton and St. Louis. The U.S. was the most affordable country overall, just edging out the U.K. Report author Wendell Cox described the use of the "median multiple" method to rank markets, which is the median home price in the market divided by the pre-tax median household income: rather than focusing on prices alone, the study also takes into account income and the local labor market. The U.S. median was 5.0 compared to the U.K.'s 5.1 overall figure.

Cox also noted, "Housing markets are metropolitan areas, which are also labor markets. In a well-functioning market, the median-priced house should be affordable to a large portion of middle-income households."

Worldwide, "there has been an unprecedented deterioration in housing affordability during the pandemic. The number of severely unaffordable markets rose 60% in 2021 compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year," he added.

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