House Price to Income Ratio Calculator
See how a property price stacks up against your household income.
How this is calculated
Property price divided by gross annual household income gives the price-to-income ratio, classified against standard OECD-style affordability benchmarks. It's a rough but widely used shorthand for housing affordability, because it strips out financing details — interest rate, deposit, and loan term — that vary between buyers and change over time, leaving a single number that's easy to compare across markets and years.
Using this calculator's defaults — a $400,000 property against $100,000 of gross annual household income — the ratio is $400,000 / $100,000 = 4.0×, which falls into the "stretched" band (3–5×). This ratio only tells you whether the price looks reasonable relative to income; it doesn't tell you whether you can actually get approved for the loan. For that, see the Maximum Affordable Property calculator to work out your borrowing limit, the Mortgage calculator for the resulting monthly payment, and the Mortgage Stress Test calculator to see how that payment holds up if rates rise.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a "good" price-to-income ratio?
- 3x or below is generally considered affordable, 3-5x stretched, 5-8x unaffordable, and above 8x severely unaffordable — a widely used rule of thumb, not a hard rule.
- Does this account for mortgage rates or deposit size?
- No — this is a pure price-to-income benchmark. Use the Max Affordable Property or Mortgage Stress Test calculators to factor in rates, term, and deposit.
- What is the house price to income ratio?
- The house price to income ratio divides a property's price by gross annual household income, giving a quick, comparable measure of affordability that doesn't depend on interest rates or loan terms — useful for comparing housing markets or tracking affordability over time.
- What ratio is considered affordable?
- As a rule of thumb: 3× or below is affordable, 3–5× is stretched, 5–8× is unaffordable, and above 8× is severely unaffordable. These bands are widely used by housing economists but are approximate — actual affordability also depends on interest rates, deposit size, and other debts.
- How does the UK/US/Australia compare on this measure?
- National price-to-income ratios vary substantially and change over time with interest rates and house prices. Major cities in the UK and Australia have at times exceeded 8–10× median income, well into "severely unaffordable" territory, while many US metro areas sit lower, though coastal cities often rival the UK and Australia.
- How does the ratio affect how much I can borrow?
- This ratio alone doesn't determine borrowing capacity — lenders look at your actual monthly payment relative to income, factoring in interest rate, loan term, and existing debts. Use the Max Affordable Property calculator to translate your income into an actual borrowing limit.
- What is the difference between this ratio and the mortgage-to-income ratio?
- Price-to-income compares the full property price against annual income, ignoring financing entirely. Mortgage-to-income (or payment-to-income) compares your actual monthly mortgage payment against monthly income, which depends on your interest rate, deposit, and loan term — see the Mortgage Stress Test calculator for that view.
- Has affordability worsened over time?
- In most major English-speaking housing markets, price-to-income ratios have trended upward over recent decades as house prices have grown faster than wages, particularly in large cities — meaning it now typically takes more years of income to buy the same relative property than it did a generation ago.