Living in The Golden State is not cheap.
It’s “impossibly unaffordable” to buy a home in four major California metropolitan areas — San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego — according to a May study by the Chapman University Center for Demographics and Policy. The study compared the median home price to median incomes of 95 housing markets in the third quarter of 2024.
The Honolulu area, where the median home price is 10 times the median income, also made the top 10 list of unaffordable housing markets.
Of the markets analyzed, 12 were classified as “impossibly unaffordable,” and not a single one was deemed “affordable,” the study found. “Impossibly unaffordable” housing markets had price-to-income ratios of nine or higher, while an “affordable” market was one where the median home price was no more than three times the area’s median annual income.
The most unaffordable market was Hong Kong, where the median house price was more than 14 times the median income of a worker in the city. Australia was also notably unaffordable. Metropolitan areas of Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne were all in the top 10 as well.
