Buying a house? These US cities now among the world’s most ‘impossibly unaffordable’

Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home.

Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home. But a new report sums up the feeling of many potential home buyers by creating a category that labels some major cities as “impossibly unaffordable.” US cities on the West Coast and Hawaii occupied five of the top 10 most unaffordable places, according to the annual Demographic International Housing Affordability report, which has been tracking house prices for 20 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most expensive US cities to buy home are in California, where San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego have all made the top 10. The Hawaiian capital of Honolulu also rates a mention in sixth place of 94 major markets surveyed in eight countries. Australia is the only other country besides the US to dominate the “impossibly unaffordable” list, led by Sydney and the southern cities of Melbourne in Victoria and Adelaide in South Australia.