It’s not surprising to hear that Vancouver’s housing market is grossly unaffordable, but a new report by RBC paints a bleak picture. According to RBC’s latest quarterly affordability report, only 12% of Vancouver families can actually afford to buy a home in the city.
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This ranking, which used the percentage of families whose income meets debt service standards for an average home bought in Q1 2019, found that Vancouver is still the least affordable housing market in Canada.
Toronto came in second place, while Victoria rounded out the top three.
“It’s been a rough couple of years for the Vancouver-area market but it looks like re-sale activity finally ended its lengthy and steep slide this spring”, reads the report.
“Not that we expect a sharp snapback anytime soon”.
So what does this all mean?
If you’re a buyer in Vancouver, you’d have to spend 82% of your income to purchase an average-priced home.
In Victoria, a buyer would have to spend 58.6% of their income to purchase an average-priced home.
The report also highlights that some policies have contributed to undoing some of the earlier affordability losses in Vancouver.