UN report: Owning home in Syria would require nearly 87 years of household income

The World Cities Report 2026: The Global Housing Crisis – Pathways for Action, published by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), has found that Syria ranks as the least affordable country in the Arab world for home ownership. According to the report, the price of an average home is equivalent to 86.7 years of a household's annual income, or approximately 1,039 months of earnings.

The report explained that the affordability indicator measures the ratio of the median house price to the average annual household income and does not reflect the time required to repay a mortgage. It noted that the internationally accepted benchmark is a house price equivalent to roughly three times a household's annual income, making Syria's affordability ratio by far the highest in the region.

According to the report, Syria's figure is approximately 7.7 times higher than the global average of 11.2 years. It also far exceeds that of Lebanon, which ranked second among Arab countries at 18.3 years, a difference of more than 68 years.

Lebanon was followed by Algeria at 16 years, Morocco at 14.2 years, Egypt at 12 years, Tunisia at 11.9 years, Kuwait at 11.5 years, Sudan at 9.2 years, Bahrain at 8.6 years, and Iraq at 8.1 years.

The report's findings place Arab countries within the context of a deepening global housing crisis. According to UN-Habitat, nearly 3 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate housing, while around 1.16 billion people live in slums or informal settlements.

The report also found that 44% of renter households globally spend more than 30% of their income on housing. It estimates that providing adequate and affordable housing will require between USD 3 trillion and USD 4 trillion in global investment annually through 2030, alongside continued maintenance and upgrading of the existing housing stock.

The report noted that Syria's ranking does not necessarily mean that property prices are the highest in the Arab world. Rather, it reflects the sharp decline in household incomes relative to real estate values, making home ownership an increasingly unattainable goal for Syrian families without long-term financing or government support.