Frequently asked questions
Short, plain answers. If you do not see your question, open an issue on GitHub.
Is my data sent anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. There is no backend. The site is static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript served from a CDN. No analytics, no tracking pixels, no cookies you did not opt into.
Why is my country's median price so much lower than my city?
We use national medians for cross-country comparability. London is roughly 2× the UK median, San Francisco 2.5× the US median, Sydney 1.6× the Australia median, Paris 1.8× the France median.
If you live in a high-cost city, multiply the country median by 1.5-2.5× for a city-realistic figure.
Why does the down payment requirement differ so much by country?
Bank regulation, central bank macro-prudential rules, and cultural norms. Anglo countries (US, UK, Canada) developed liberal mortgage markets with very low minimums (5% or less). Continental Europe runs 10-20%. East Asia runs 25-30%, partly to cool speculative demand and partly because banks have less recourse on defaults.
Should I include rent in monthly debt obligations?
No. Lenders care about debts that follow you into the new mortgage — student loans, car loans, credit-card minimums. Rent ends when you buy, so it does not count against your debt-to-income.
What is a price-to-income ratio?
Country median home price divided by country median household income. The most-cited cross-country measure of housing affordability.
Demographia's bands: under 3× is highly affordable (rare in 2025), 3-4× affordable, 4-5× moderately unaffordable, 5+× severely unaffordable. The OECD long-term average from 1990-2010 was ~4.3×.
Why is housing so unaffordable now?
Three big drivers: 1) restrictive zoning has held supply growth below household formation in most rich-country cities since 1990; 2) two decades of falling interest rates made existing homes more valuable as a financial asset; 3) housing has become a vehicle for global capital, especially in supply-constrained cities.
The calculator does not solve the housing crisis. It tries to make the math visible.
Should I buy or rent?
Depends on hold period (typically 5+ years to break even), local price-to-rent ratio (under 15× rent is buy territory, over 25× is rent territory), and the opportunity cost of your down payment if invested elsewhere.
We may add a buy-vs-rent calculator. For now this tool focuses on affordability, not the optimal choice.
How accurate are the country numbers?
Median prices and incomes are accurate to within a few percent for OECD countries. For non-OECD countries (Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria) we are sometimes working from less consistent national stats and the numbers should be treated as ballpark.
Does this account for property tax, insurance, maintenance?
No, not yet. Those add 1-3% per year of the home price in most countries. Build a buffer into your max-affordable-price.
What about FHA / Help-to-Buy / equivalent schemes?
We use standard private-bank minimum down payments. Government schemes can lower these (e.g. FHA loans 3.5% in the US, prior UK Help to Buy 5%). Check the schemes available in your country.