There are no surprises here! Sydney Has Officially Been Named The World’s Second Least Affordable City – See The Other Cities That Made In The Top 10
- Sydney Ranked 2nd Least Affordable City in the World
- Melbourne came in at number nine
Sydney has been ranked as the second least affordable city in the world.
The capital of New South Wales has been awarded for the second consecutive year in the Demographia International Housing Affordability report.
Sydney was ranked second behind Hong Kong, which ranked first, while Melbourne also featured in the top 10, ranking number nine.
Adelaide was ranked 14th, Brisbane 15th and Perth 50th.
Sydney has been ranked as the second least affordable city in the world.
Sydney was ranked the third least affordable city in the world in the 2021 report before moving up to second in 2022.
The report revealed that house prices had outpaced inflation by up to six times the rate.
“Sydney prices rose 6.0 times CPI, Brisbane 5.2 times, Melbourne 4.9 times and Perth 4.2 times,” it said.
‘In each of these five real estate markets, house price inflation since 2000 has exceeded that of all the product groups that make up the CPI.’
The report warned that rising prices could lead to a drastic decline in living standards.
“As the pandemic and lockdowns continued for another year, the movement of homes from denser urban neighborhoods to larger houses, often with large patios (gardens) in suburban and outlying areas, continued,” it read.
‘The result has been an increase in prices at an unprecedented rate in many markets.
“As a result, many low- and middle-income households that have already suffered the brunt of housing inflation will see their standard of living further reduced.”
Wendell Cox of the Urban Reform Institute described rising house prices as an “existential threat” to the middle class.
“There is a widespread view that deteriorating housing affordability is an existential threat to the middle class,” he said.
“Housing affordability in 2022 continued to reflect the huge price increases that occurred during the pandemic demand shock.
“Since then, there have been some improvements in housing affordability and more are likely as the demand shock is expected to be replaced by more normal market trends.”
House prices are expected to rebound once interest rates stop rising and some new immigrants opt to buy homes as the influx fuels a rental crisis, experts say.
Net annual immigration from Australia in the year to September 2022 was 303,700 people, the highest in 15 years, bringing the overall population above 26.1 million.
This was the largest increase abroad since late 2008 and includes skilled immigrants, family reunions and international students.
The number of immigrants was also significantly higher than the October budget forecast of 180,000 for 2022-23 and the level of 235,000 projected for 2024-25.
Tim Lawless, head of research at property data group CoreLogic, said more immigration is likely to help restore home values once the Reserve Bank of Australia stops raising interest rates.
Overall population growth of 1.6 percent returned to pre-pandemic levels, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
By comparison, New Zealand’s population grew just 0.2 percent over the same time period, while the US population rose 0.4 percent last year, with one expert blaming the rise in international students due to Australia’s rental crisis.
Melbourne also made an appearance in the Top 10 World’s Least Affordable Cities, coming in at number nine.
