Housing affordability and its impact on middle-income households worldwide is emerging as a major concern throughout the developed world. According to the London-based consultancy Knight Frank, housing prices in the world's largest cities rose by 3 percent on average during the last year. The strongest growth was observed in Turkey where average housing prices increased by 18 percent in the last year. In contrast, across the Black Sea in the Ukraine, property prices declined by 12 percent last year. The US house price index published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows a similar increase in property prices, disrupted only by the global recession in 2008-09.
Aside from property prices, household incomes and lending rates in a country also affect the affordability of housing. As a result, a variety of indicators investigating the affordability of property have emerged:
Bloomberg ranked global cities based on the A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index score. Cities were scored on a scale of zero to 100 according to 26 metrics in five dimensions: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement. In 2014 New York kept the first place by the overall score and in the business activity ranking. Fast-growing Asian megacities: Bejing, Shanghai, Singapore - improved their positions. Source: Global Cities Index, 2014 For the methodology of the sub-indices see the bottom of the page
The Worldwide Cost of Living (WCOL) is a twice yearly Economist Intelligence Unit survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services. These include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs. The survey designed to help human resources and finance managers calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for expatriates and business travellers. The survey incorporates easy-to-understand comparative cost-of-living indices between cities. The most expensive city in the world...
Make better educated travel decisions with the price index series presented in today's Viz of the Day. The figures highlight common travel-related expenditures, ranging from accommodation, transportation, and urban transit to beer and soccer, and may well help individual travelers to better gauge the relative cost of travel to their destinations of choice. See also: Transportation Price Index | Beer Price Index Source: GoEuro