Moody's Investor Service calculates Sydney mortgages consume 33 per cent of ...

Houses in Australia are still unaffordable despite a record fall in real estate values.

Moody's Investors Service, a global credit ratings agency, calculated that home borrowers in Sydney were still paying 33 per cent of their household income on monthly mortgage repayments.

Economists and the Reserve Bank of Australia generally define mortgage stress as a situation where borrowers are paying a third or more of their after-tax income on home loan repayments.

During the past year alone, Sydney's median house and apartment prices have dived by 10.9 per cent,  CoreLogic data showed.

House prices have dived by a record 16.1 per, or $169,146, since peaking in July 2017. 

A year ago, a Sydney mortgage swallowed up an average 37.9 per cent of a household's take-home pay. 

Now, a typical mortgage in Australia's biggest city consumes 33.2 per cent of a borrower's income, as of March 2019.

Sydney, already Australia's most expensive housing market, had the biggest improvement in housing affordability, even though the median house price of $880,594 is still more than 10 times an average full-time salary of $83,500.