(CNN) — 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.”
The report compared average incomes with average home prices. It found that pandemic-driven demand for homes with outside space, land use policies aimed at limiting urban sprawl, and investors piling into markets had sent prices soaring.
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 homes 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.