Affordability key real estate concern in latest bubble index report

Most cities in UBS Group AG’s Global Real Estate Bubble Index are overvalued or at risk of a bubble, according to the Swiss bank’s 2018 report on housing prices.

Chicago is the only undervalued housing market in the 20-city index, while Milan, Singapore and Boston are deemed fairly valued, the report released Thursday shows. Ten cities — from New York to Sydney to Stockholm — are overvalued, while six are in bubble-risk territory, with Hong Kong’s market the most inflated. A year ago, New York had been scored as fairly valued.

Typical signs of a bubble include real estate prices rising out of sync with incomes, as well as economic imbalances such as excessive lending and construction activity, according to the bank’s researchers. Unlike the boom of the mid-2000s, there is no evidence of simultaneous excesses in lending and construction, the report said, and outstanding mortgage volumes are growing at about half the rate of the precrisis period.

“Although many financial centres remain at risk of a housing bubble, we should not compare today’s situation with precrisis conditions,” Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a statement.

Although prices aren’t rising as fast as they had in prior years, affordability remains a key concern. Housing prices in major cities have increased by 35 per cent on average over the past five years, according to the report.

Incomes simply aren’t climbing fast enough to keep pace with the prices in many areas. For a skilled service worker in Hong Kong, for example, it would take 22 years of their average annual income to buy a 650square-foot apartment near the city centre. A decade ago it was 12 years.

For other cities, buying real estate is more feasible. In Milan, it would take 5.7 years of annual income; it would be under five years in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles.