Vancouver is 13th least affordable city in world

Vancouver has crept up the ladder of unaffordable cities around the world, with the median house now costing almost eight times the median income here.

An international study of housing affordability done by Demographia places Vancouver as 13th worst in the world for affordability -- up from 15th last year -- since it takes 7.7 times the median income of $58,100 to buy the median house at $448,800.

This year's study also included Victoria for the first time, ranking it at 23rd among the 25 most unaffordable housing markets in the world.

The report is the third annual study done by Demographia, a company owned by American public-policy professor Wendell Cox, which looks at housing prices in six major industrialized countries.

Other places included among the "most unaffordable" markets were Los Angeles-Orange County, in the No. 1 spot, San Diego, Honolulu, San Francisco and London, England.

Victoria was tied with Sacramento, Calif., Sarasota, Fla., and Melbourne, Australia. According to the report, it takes 6.6 times the median income to buy the median-priced house at $370,500 in those cities. Regina was the city ranked as the most affordable in the Demographia report.

Overall, the unaffordable cities have just become slightly more so. Cox and fellow author, New Zealand property-investment manager Hugh Pavletich, both blame the effect of smart-growth-style policies and strong planning controls for global unaffordability. 

See the full study here.