Carrus Group chairman Paul Adams said that, in his view, Tauranga's housing was affordable, it was the city's wages that affected the Demographia rating.
He said average wages in Tauranga were lower than in other cities in New Zealand. To address that, the standard of education needed to be raised, which was why it was vital to get the new university campus under way. It would also create additional jobs and raise the standard of living in the city, Mr Adams said.
"Until the Resource Management Act, the Building Act and the ever-increasing council fee structure against your land developers and builders are addressed, we're not truly going to be able to address the cost of housing.
"All of those things add up to a cost of $50,000 per average house in the Bay that can be reduced."
Classic Builders director Peter Cooney agreed that Tauranga's low wages impacted the affordability rating.
"Our average pay rate in Tauranga has never been the best. We've got the people who are not on high-earning jobs and those that are earning higher wages, there's a lot less in that middle sector.
"On the same basis, if that is the case we should be catering for those people because we need those people to work in the factories and that, so we need to provide the housing to cater to those people."
Land availability affected affordability in Tauranga, Mr Cooney said. "They say we've got plenty of land available but the majority of land for development is owned by a limited number of developers.
"Rural land is very expensive to purchase because, if it's any good, it's being used for horticulture or kiwifruit and you've got to pay top dollar for it."
High development contribution fees also played a part, as did construction costs.
"Our construction costs are way more expensive than in America or Australia."
Survey co-author Hugh Pavletich, of Performance Urban Planning in Christchurch, said the two major reasons Tauranga's houses were unaffordable was because of land supply and unaffordable financing of key infrastructure.
In northern United States cities, starter housing was in place for about $1000 per square metre, Mr Pavletich said.
"We're well in excess of that in Tauranga and the rest of New Zealand. We need to learn from that. We're not talking about inventing affordable housing, but restoring it."
Ross Stanway, chief executive of Eves and Bayleys Real Estate, said he thought both arguments "held water".
"The benchmark used in this survey is a pretty blunt instrument, it ignores the fact we have some very affordable homes in Tauranga."
