Buy an Ontario house for less than $275,000

October 5, 2018

While high-priced areas of Greater Toronto grab the headlines on home affordability fears, many places in Ontario offer detached houses for less than $275,000—far below the national benchmark price.
In September 2018, RBC reported that, “housing affordability in Canada hit the worst level in 27 years in the second quarter of this year.”
The Toronto area was the hardest hit, where RBC says affordability was the worst ever measured in the city.
However, new analysis of data from Ontario’s real estate boards by information portal Zoocasa found that many residents could easily afford a home in their community. Buyers in Thunder Bay would only need $31,067 in income to purchase an average home priced at $227,750, for example.
In Sudbury, where the average house price is $272,500, a buyer would require an income of only $37,274. In Waterloo, the average home sells for $493,358 and the required income is $67,298, but the median income in the southern Ontario city is $83,045.
Even in Ottawa, where the average home price in August was $433,684, a buyer could qualify with an income of $59,980 in a city where the median income is $85,981, according to Zoocasa.