Homes more affordable than most think

November 22, 2018

Vancouver and Toronto represent about 12 per cent of Canada’s housing stock but if you remove these housing markets from national statistics, the real average price for a Canadian home emerges.
It is a lot lower than most think, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. Instead of the often reported average close to $500,000, the average price of a home for the vast majority of Canadians is now $383,000. Home prices are also falling in most of the country.
Across the Prairies, benchmark home prices were down from a year ago by an average of 2.4 per cent. Nationally they are 1.5% lower in October than a year ago.
The outliers are, naturally Greater Toronto, where the benchmark price is up 2.6 per cent from a year ago to $807,000, and Vancouver where the composite home price is up 1 cent from October 2017, to just over $1 million.
Understanding the real price of homes for most Canadians is important, because media coverage of the “housing crisis” – record mortgage debt and skyrocketing prices – can be traced to just two cities. This in turn impacts national legislation, such as the mortgage stress test, that affects the ability of all Canadians to buy a home.