The broad picture is that this ratio is now much higher than it was in the mid 1990s, and only a little below what it was in the late 1980s. BIS Review 49/2008  3  There are three factors that drive changes in this measure: house prices; household incomes; and interest rates. Chart 6 shows how these factors have changed in recent years.
The top panel of the graph shows the ratio of median house prices to average annual household income. In the mid 1990s, house prices were around 3 times average annual income; by the end of the housing boom in late 2003, this ratio had risen to about 6.