Canada’s two largest metropolitan areas, Vancouver and Toronto, may have many things to boast about, but affordable housing isn’t one of them (well, and recent Stanley Cup Finals runs). That’s according to the latest Demographia International Housing Affordability report which rates middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. The 2024 edition has been released, covering the third quarter of 2023, singling out Edmonton as its most affordable Canadian city and fifth most affordable of the markets surveyed. “This report provides housing affordability ratings for 94 major markets,” said Peter Holle president of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, headquartered in Winnipeg, in the report’s opening statement. “Housing affordability measures necessarily relate the costs of housing to income. Demographia uses the median multiple, a price-to-income ratio that divides the median house price by the median household income.” The ratios per category are: affordable 3.0 & under; moderately unaffordable 3.1 to 4; seriously unaffordable 4.1 to 5; severely unaffordable 5 to 8.9, and; impossibly unaffordable 9.0 & over. The ‘impossibly unaffordable’ category has been added for the first time this year because of the large affordability deterioration in markets measured. Additionally, for the first time in Demographia’s surveying, there were no markets in the ‘affordable’ category. Holle said the chasm between household income and median house price has widened, severely deteriorating affordability. “Generally, housing affordability is worse, and the cost of living is higher, where land use regulation is the most restrictive at the housing market (metropolitan area) level,” he said. “Coming out of the turbulence of the COVID-19 lockdowns, housing affordability remained severely challenged across most markets in 2023 with slightly increasing unaffordability in major Canadian markets surveyed." Holle said housing initiatives in Canada are missing the mark. “In Canada, policy makers are scrambling to “magic wand” more housing but continue to mostly ignore the main reason for our dysfunctional costly housing markets, (which is) suburban land use restrictions.” he said. Canadian market median multiples are: Edmonton 3.6; Calgary 4.3; Ottawa-Gatineau 5.3; Montreal 5.8; Toronto 9.5, and; Vancouver 12.3. Vancouver and Toronto have seen a considerable loss of housing affordability since the mid-2000s, whereas between 1971 and 2004, there had been no affordability deterioration in Toronto, according to Demographia. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s 12.3 rating is the least affordable in Canada and the third least affordable of all 94 markets, making it more unaffordable than all markets except Hong Kong and Sydney,Aus. The cost of land has been the number one issue driving up costs in Vancouver and Toronto. Demographia compares the cost of land in the two largest market to that in Winnipeg. “The estimated construction costs for a 1,500-sq.-ft. house in Toronto were less than five percent more than that of Winnipeg, compared to a more than nine times (900%) difference in land and related costs,” says the report. “In Vancouver, the construction costs for the 1,500-sq.-ft. house were less than 30% more than that of Winnipeg, compared to a more than 12 times (1200%) difference in land and related costs.” “Moreover, rising house prices can be driven even higher by the attractive returns from speculative activity. The net effect is that land values and house prices have become skewed against the middle-class, whose existence depends upon the very competitive land market destroyed by the planning orthodoxy.” The United States landed five markets in the top 10 least affordable and nine of top 10 most affordable markets. 10 least affordable markets The 10 least affordable market in the world in 2023 was Hong Kong, with a median multiple of 16.7, followed by Sydney (AUS) at 13.3, Vancouver at 12.3, San Jose (CA) at 11.9, Los Angeles at 10.9, Honolulu at 10.5, Melbourne (AUS) at 9.8, San Francisco and Adelaide (AUS) at 9.7, San Diego at 9.5, and Toronto at 9.3. Top 10 most affordable markets Pittsburgh PA at 3.1, Rochester NY at 3.4, St. Louis, MO-IL at 3.4, Cleveland OH at 3.5, Edmonton, at 3.6, Buffalo, NY at 3.6, Detroit, MI at 3.6, Oklahoma City, OK at 3.6, Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN at 3.7 and Louisville, KY-IN at 3.7
