There’s a little good news when it comes to housing affordability in Vancouver — but just a little.
The National Bank of Canada says housing affordability for the Greater Vancouver region improved slightly in the first few months of this year.
“The quarterly improvement stems from a 3.1% decline in home prices in the quarter combined with a 0.9% increase in income and a slight decrease in interest rates,” the bank’s latest Housing Affordability Monitor said, which shows the improvement happened at the fastest clip since early 2019.
But, to put it in perspective, the report says Vancouver remains the least affordable urban area in Canada for buying a home, with home buyers paying an 89.9 per cent premium compared to the national urban composite.
The price of what the report calls a “representative non-condo home” in the metropolitan market was $1,587,439 in the first quarter of 2023.
The average household income needed to afford that home is $322,245.
At that income, the number of months needed to save for a down payment, at a saving rate of 10 per cent, is 454 months — or just under 38 years.
The figures are more reasonable for condominiums in Greater Vancouver, but still very expensive. With a representative condo priced at $721,230, an annual household income of $171,052 is needed to afford it, and 67 months, or just over five and a half years, of saving for a down payment.
The National Bank calculates a non-condo mortgage payment is actually 126% of the typical income for the region, down slightly from the previous quarter.
A typical condo payment in Vancouver represents 57 per cent of income, also down slightly.
source & photo : CityNews
