Most expensive cities in the world for housing mapped - as California dominates the list

Four of California's top cities have made the top 10 of a list detailing the least-affordable housing markets in the world.

While Hong Kong in China took the number one spot on Visual Capitalist's 'Impossibly Unaffordable Housing Markets' map, California cities San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego took spots number 4, 5, 8, and 10, respectively.

It's not entirely a surprise as sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in May for the third straight month. Rising mortgage rates and record-high prices discourage many prospective homebuyers during what’s traditionally the housing market’s busiest the year.

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In this map list, the median price-to-income ratio compares the median house price to the median household income within each market. What they found was that San Jose homes are almost 11 times the average salary for that area, while LA follows behind at a quiet but horrifying 10 times the average salary for a home.

Honolulu was the only other American city to make it on the list, following Los Angeles, with another housing market that's charging 10 times the median salary. San Francisco is at 9.7 times, and San Diego at 9.5.

The creators of the list say that an affordable range would be three times the income - and all the cities on the list way exceed that.

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Existing home sales fell 0.7 percent last month from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million, the National Association of Realtors said Friday.

Sales also fell 2.8 percent compared with May last year. According to FactSet, the latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.07 million pace economists were expecting. There are more homes than ever on the market; however, a trend that could help lead to more sales in a market that is still constrained by a thin inventory.

However, for some good news - US cities made up nearly the entire top 10 of affordable housing markets as well. The same company took the list, flipped it and reversed it to see where humans can afford homes.

Pittsburgh (3.1), Rochester, St. Louis, Cleaveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, and Louisville are all at below four times the range.

Canada’s Edmonton, Singapore (capital region), and Blackpool & Lancashire in the UK also came in with the right prices for homes.