the most expensive city of the world

Vancouver is the most expensive city in the world to own a house today, says a report on worldwide housing markets released Monday.

The annual report on housing affordability around the world by Canada's Frontier Centre for Public Policy said, 'Vancouver is the most unaffordable of the 28 housing markets measured in Canada and the most unaffordable of the 272 metropolitan markets ranked in Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, the US and Canada.''

Vancouver is followed by Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, London , New York and San Francisco as the world's least affordable places to own a house today, according to the report.

Toronto and Montreal, two biggest Canadian cities, were 'severely affordable'' and 'seriously affordable'' respectively, the sixth annual report - titled Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey - said.

With the median sale value of a house at $540,900 and the median household income just at $58,200, Vancouver was the most unaffordable place on earth to own a house today, according to the report by the Winnipeg-based centre.

'The recent increases (in housing prices) to almost ten years' income are thus unprecedented in modern history,'' said the study.

Blaming urban land use policies for making housing unaffordable for most middle class families, the report urged use of cheap land on urban fringes to alleviate housing woes.

Report authors Wendell Cox and Hugh Pavletich sad that to be affordable, housing prices have to be equivalent to approximately three years' income.