The 14th Demographia International Housing Affordability Report provides little comfort for hopeful homebuyers in Australia. By Demographia's measure, all 22 cities examined were considered to be "unaffordable".

Demographia uses the median multiple formula - median house prices divided by median household income - to calculate how affordable a city is.

Any region with a median multiple of 3.0 or less is considered affordable. Any with a figure higher is considered unaffordable. Median multiples higher than 5.1 indicate severe unaffordability, according to Demographia.

The latest report covers 293 metropolitan housing markets in nine countries: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. The data is for the third quarter of 2017. 

In Australia, Demographia looked at the following cities.

All housing markets, Q3 2017

Source: Demographia.

And the situation in Australia is not good, according to the report.

Demographia finds that Hong Kong was, again, the least affordable market, with a median multiple of 19.4 up from 18.1 last year.

Sydney, again, was the second least affordable city in the world, with a median multiple of 12.9. Melbourne is in sixth place, with a median multiple of 9.9.

But even Ballarat, Bendigo, Bundaberg, Canberra, Cairns, Perth, Hobart, Brisbane, the Fraser Coast, Adelaide, and Geelong were rated as "severely unaffordable" by the Demographia model.

The least affordable housing markets ranked by affordability

Source: Demographia.

All five of Australia's major housing markets - cities with populations of more than one million - are considered to be severely unaffordable.

Of all the 22 Australian cities looked at, 15 were considered to be severely unaffordable, five were seriously unaffordable, and only two were moderately unaffordable. No Australian metropolitan areas looked at were considered to be affordable.

Source: Demographia.

Image: Demographia. Adapted from RBA courtesy Frontier Centre of Public Policy.

"Sydney is again Australia’s least affordable market," states the report.

"At 12.9, Sydney's median multiple is the poorest major housing affordability ever recorded by the survey outside Hong Kong."

The report also notes that UBS rates Sydney as having the world’s fourth-worst housing bubble risk, along with Vancouver.

The report says that affordability in both Sydney and Melbourne has deteriorated most rapidly since 2001.

The most affordable markets in Australia are moderately affordable, according to the report, noting Gladstone and Rockhampton.

Demographia singled out "urban containment" policies are driving house prices higher. Urban containment is a policy in which housing does not spread outwards, but instead density is increased.

Demographia singled our New Zealand and Singapore for their government's efforts to improve housing affordability - New Zealand for opening up for land for housing, and Singapore for making housing a key priority over decades.

Tim Lawless told the ABC he did not agree with the Demographia analysis. He said the study only looks at house prices in Australia, not all dwellings, which distorts the findings. Lawless also told the ABC that urban containment does not appear to be helping affordability.

Click here to read the 14th Demographia International Housing Affordability Report.

Read more about housing affordability in Australia:

Demographia report links lack of affordable housing to rise of populism

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Affordability is improving, and first-home buyers are back in the market