U.s. Housing more affordable than housing in rest of english-speaking world

Would-be American home-buyers can take heart: U.S. housing is more affordable than in other English-speaking countries, according to a study of metropolitan areas around the world.

The median home price in the United States as a whole was three times pre-tax household income in the third quarter of 2011, on the cusp of what Demographia, a public policy firm which conducted the survey, deems "affordable".

In major U.S. metropolitan areas, the ratio was 3.1, down from 4.6 in 2007, before the worst of the U.S. housing market slump that dragged the economy into recession, and 3.3 in 2010.

Detroit, at 1.4 times, was the most affordable big city in any of the 325 areas surveyed in six countries and in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.

Source: HuffingtonPost.com