ASEAN housing affordability improves as prices level off and wages rise

In the wake of pandemic-era low rates, some of Southeast Asia’s major economies saw a sustained run-up in house prices. As that growth levels off, a combination with firmer wage gains is offering some relief to the region’s prospective homeowners.

The Philippines saw the strongest house-price gains in 2022-23, with the booming expat hub of Singapore not far behind. Malaysian gains were also robust, according to our cross-country analysis of national housing benchmarks. Since the height of the gains in late 2022, house-price growth has steadily slowed across the ASEAN-5 in recent months, with Thailand’s market dipping into outright contraction.

Our second chart demonstrates the effect of rising take-home pay on affordability by adjusting national home-price gains to reflect wage growth. Affordability has been improving in all ASEAN-5 nations since the middle of last year, and even longer if the Philippines are excluded.

Our third chart returns to the Philippine boom and its consequences. At one point in 2023, prime residential prices in Manila were surging the most of any city in the world, according to Knight Frank. Average wages were not keeping pace in 2023-24. But wage gains have been on an improving trend through 2025; meanwhile, a national corruption scandal hit the stock market and chilled sentiment in the property sector. The Philippines stands out in ASEAN for falling prices recently.

Thailand is the region’s outlier: it never really joined the regional property boom as indebted households de-levered themselves, as we wrote last week. Amid a glut of properties in Bangkok, Thai developers are not optimistic about a rebound, as the survey in our final chart shows.