Vancouver has Canada’s most costly real estate market
Posted November 27, 2013 7:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It is becoming even more expensive for the average Canadian family to own a home, and nowhere is it worse than right here in Vancouver.
No one is talking about a market crash anymore as concerns swing back to unaffordability for much of the Lower Mainland.
Comparing major cities across the country, the latest RBC Housing Trends and Affordability Report finds it now takes more than 84.2 per cent of pre-tax household income to service the cost of owning a bungalow in Vancouver, a jump of 2.0 percentage points from the previous quarter of this year. Toronto is a distant second at 55.6 per cent. Montreal is third at just 38.3 per cent.
RBC Economics calls affordability in Vancouver “uncomfortably strained” and says the housing market is “by far the most costly in Canada”.
After reaching a four-year low earlier this year, home resales in Vancouver jumped by nearly 42 per cent in the last two quarters.
“As impressive as this rebound was, it does not suggest that the Vancouver area’s housing market is on the verge of overheating. In fact, a 10 per cent drop in October suggests that this rebound may have run its course, and that activity may soon stabilize at lower than average levels,” says Craig Wright, senior vice-president and chief economist at RBC.
The RBC Housing Affordability Measure is based on the costs of owning a detached bungalow at market value.
