If you wanted to know that Tampa's average home price is one-ninth that of Dubai's, or that a modest house in Ireland will bust your mortgage at $1.6-million, Coldwell Banker's annual home price comparison index is for you.

The realty company's not-so-scientific survey of home prices in 398 markets around the world came out Tuesday. In each market, Coldwell seeks out 2,200-square-foot houses with four bedrooms and 21/2 bathrooms fit for a mid-level executive.

Tampa, with an average price of $285,000 for that narrowly defined home, came in 146th in the affordability rankings. It was 19 percent below last year's average price of $350,000 that put Tampa in 177th place in 2007.

Tampa was the fourth-most-affordable market of the 17 Coldwell Banker examined in Florida. Once again, the state's most expensive market was Key West, where a 2,200-square-foot house went for $818,239.

"It was designed to give people thinking about relocating an idea what their house is worth in their own market and enable them to plop it in a completely different market and see how much house they can get," Coldwell's Heather Roberts said.

For real crazy prices, you had to hang a left for the West Coast or go abroad. Domestically, La Jolla, Calif., topped the least-affordable category with an average price of $1.8-million. The San Diego suburb beat out last year's winner, Beverly Hills. In Dubai, set amid oil rich states of the Middle East, a junior executive would have to cough up a cool $2.45-million. Even Dublin, Ireland, and Bucharest, Romania, were in the million-dollar club. On the other end of the spectrum, you can get a four-bedroom home in Quito, Ecuador, for less than $96,750.

Coldwell admitted it struggles to find comparable home sales in congested foreign cities where apartment living is the norm and big houses are a rare luxury. Manhattan is omitted from the list for that reason. "Sometimes this type of home might not directly translate internationally," Roberts said. "The goal is try to get as close as you can.''