Limerick most affordable place to buy home out of 367 cities

Limerick is the most affordable place to buy a home across 367 global cities in nine countries, a new survey has found.

According to the 12th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, with a median ("middle" value in a list of numbers) household income of €51,200, and median house prices of €92,800, a typical person looking to buy a home in the city, famous for its rugby, can do so with just 1.8 times their income. This is far less than the 3.5 income multiple introduced by the Central Bank last year.

Limerick is followed by another Munster city, Waterford, which is in joint second place with eight other US cities. Residents of the Déise need 2.1 times a median income of €47,700 to buy a house in the city, given a median house price of just €100,000. The Irish figures are drawn from data from the Central Statistics Office.

Other affordable cities with an income multiple of 2.1 are all in the US and include Decatur, Illinois; Topeka, Kansas; and Elmira, New York.

“Seriously unaffordable”

Although Ireland as a whole is the most affordable out of the nine countries surveyed, with a median income multiple of less than 3, Dublin however, is deemed to be “seriously unaffordable”, and is ranked alongside the likes of Las Vegas and Tokyo.

With an average house price of € 263,000, and a median household income of €59,000, Dublin is in the middle third of the table, in 128th position, with 4.5 times income needed to be able to afford a home.

Most expensive

Hong Kong is the least affordable place out of the 367 places surveyed in which to buy a house, with someone needing 19 times the median household annual income of a hefty $293,000, to be able to buy a home. Between 2003 and September 2015 prices soared by 370 per cent and the median house price is now $5.6m, according to the survey.

Second least affordable is Sydney in Australia, with the typical person needing 12.2 times their income ($84,600) in order to buy, followed by Vancouver (10.8) and San Jose, California (9.7). London is 8th with an income multiple of 8.5 and a median household income of £46,900.