Data
Measuring affordability without fooling ourselves
Affordability looks precise because it is a ratio. The ratio is only as honest as its numerator, its denominator, and its geography.
What You'll Learn
- Index versus multiple versus rent-to-income burden
- Why 2015 = 100 is not a cost of living number
- How to compare countries without mixing incompatible series
- What this site will not publish
Housing arguments go wrong when they treat every number as the same kind of number. 'Unaffordable' is a conclusion. Affordability is a method.
Definition
Price-to-income index
In the OECD housing-prices dataset used on this site, price-to-income is nominal house prices divided by nominal disposable income per head, expressed as an index with 2015 = 100.[1] It answers whether prices have outpaced income since the base year. It does not answer 'how many years of salary is this house?'
Definition
Rent overburden
OECD describes low-income tenant households as overburdened when they spend more than 40% of disposable income on rent.[2] Other agencies use 30%. Mixing the two without a note is a common way to manufacture a more frightening chart.
What can be compared
Countries inside the same OECD series can be compared as index movements. That is why this site's first comparison chart uses Canada, the United States, Australia, the OECD average, and the United Kingdom on 2015 = 100.[1][3]
What cannot be compared without a warning
- A UK HPI average price in pounds and a U.S. median sales price in dollars
- Asking prices from property portals and official transaction indices
- A UN adequacy headcount and an OECD rent-burden share
- A political housing target and a completions total
How this publication will behave
Every statistic on this site should carry a value, a unit, a geography, a period, a source, and a retrieval date. If those cannot be filled, the number is not ready. Demo data, if used in interface tests, will be marked Demo Data in the open. It will not appear in The State of Housing as if it were fact.
Key Takeaways
- OECD price-to-income is an index, 2015 = 100.
- Rent overburden here follows the OECD 40% of disposable income threshold unless another source is named.
- UK HPI pounds and Canadian dollar average prices are not convertible into a world ranking without a method.
- When methods diverge, we explain rather than force a chart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the OECD price-to-income figure a 5x or 8x income multiple?
No. The OECD price-to-income indicator used here is an index with 2015 set to 100. A value of 128 means prices have outpaced disposable income per head by 28% relative to 2015. It is not the same as a city's median price divided by median household income.
Sources & Data
[1] Tier 1 — Primary
OECD. Housing prices indicators.
Accessed: 16 September 2026Type: datasetScope: OECD countriesSupports: Definition of OECD price-to-income and price-to-rent indices.
Open original source[2] Tier 1 — Primary
OECD. Affordable housing.
Accessed: 16 September 2026Type: researchScope: OECD countriesSupports: 40% rent-to-income overburden threshold for low-income tenants.
Open original source[3] Tier 1 — Primary
OECD. HM1.2 House prices.
Dataset period: through early 2025 where availableAccessed: 16 September 2026Type: datasetScope: OECD countriesSupports: Historical movement of OECD house prices and price-to-income.
Open original source
About Stephen S. Jemal
Stephen S. Jemal is a Brooklyn-born entrepreneur, the founder of Nobody Beats The Wiz, and President and CEO of JemRock Organization LLC. He writes on housing as a business operator, not as an academic economist.
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