In Brief:

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Media Release: 7th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY – HOW DOES YOUR CITY RATE?

•  Housing is “severely unaffordable” for homebuyers in six Canadian markets. Vancouver is the third most unaffordable of the entire survey behind only Hong Kong and Sydney (Australia);
• Housing affordability is not primarily influenced by national factors such as interest rates or mortgage regulations. Such factors apply evenly across the nation, despite large variations in affordability from market to market. Local factors such as planning laws are the key driver of affordability;

 

• As a nation, Canada has reasonable housing affordability. Around half of the Canadian markets in the survey are either at, below, or very near the affordability threshold of three years’ income to buy a house;
• Broken down into regions, the most affordable market in Canada, Windsor, ON, is almost five times more affordable than the least affordable, Vancouver, B.C. Vancouver is also the third most unaffordable market out of 325 housing markets worldwide;
• Four out of the six severely unaffordable markets are in British Columbia;
• Montreal is less affordable than Toronto for the first time in this index;
• Saskatoon is less affordable than both Calgary and Edmonton, something that would have been unthinkable only five years ago. Saskatchewan has been losing affordability throughout its recent economic renaissance.

• The Median Multiple is calculated from the median household income and median house sale price in each market. The median household income for each Canadian market is before tax. It is sourced from the Census and extrapolated between census years using economic growth figures. The median house sale price is taken from house sale figures in the third quarter of 2010;
• Because the Median Multiple is an income-based ratio, differences in income are already allowed for in the methodology. Differences in affordability reported in this survey, therefore, do not inadvertently reflect income differences.
• “Metropolitan Markets” are defined as areas of contiguous economic activity rather than municipal boundaries. For example the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby are both included in the Vancouver market, whereas Victoria is a separate market.
   

   

 

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David Seymour

direct the Centre’s Saskatchewan office from 2007 to 2011. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Philosophy from the University of Auckland, where he also tutored Economics.  In four years working for the Frontier Centre, David carried out extensive media work, presenting policy analysis through local and national television, newspapers, and radio.  His policy columns have been published in newspapers in every province as well as the Globe and Mail and the National Post. David has produced policy research papers on telecommunications privatization, education, environmental policy, fiscal policy, poverty, and taxi deregulation. However, his major project with the Frontier Centre is the annual Local Government Performance Index (LGPI). The inaugural LGPI was released in November 2007 and comes at a time when municipal accounting standards in Canada must improve if the municipal government sector is to reach its potential as an economic growth engine for Canada. David is now a policy advisor in Wellington, New Zealand.