US and Canada most affordable property markets

The survey, which compares a city's median house prices with its average income, found the city of Saginaw in Michigan to be the most affordable market in the English-speaking world. Altanta and Cleveland also ranked well, as did Canada's Windsor and Thunder Bay, both in the state of Ontario.

Most unaffordable was Hong Kong (fairly unsurprisingly, given its limited space for new housing supply), followed closely by Sydney, Vancouver and the UK's Bournemouth & Dorset. US geographer and author Joel Kotkin, in the foreword to the report, indicated the burst in the housing bubble had done little to hamper housing prices in the major cities.

Over the past decade the rate of housing prices to incomes has shown a steady increase, said Kotkin. Places such as London, Vancouver and Toronto all experience high ratios, but perhaps most remarkable has been the shift in Australia, once the examplar of modestly priced, middle-class housing.