Auckland's housing affordability has worsened with the city climbing from the world's ninth most expensive city to fifth in a year.
The annual Demographia survey, released yesterday, compares prices to incomes in 367 cities. Auckland is one of the worst in the world due to extremely high house prices coupled with moderate wages.
With a median price of $748,700, and a $77,500 median income, Auckland has a house price-wage multiple of of 9.7. Any more than 3 is classified as unaffordable by the report's authors.
Report authors Hugh Pavletich, a Christchurch-based former property developer, and American Wendell Cox argue that a shortage of land drives up prices.
Don Brash, former Reserve Bank governor, said housing affordability was "overwhelmingly a function of one thing: the extent to which governments place artificial restrictions on the supply of residential land".