Canadians have long known Vancouver housing to be incredibly unaffordable, but a new ranking has named it the third least affordable city in the world.
The west coast hub ranks just behind Hong Kong and Sydney, according to the 2022 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. Interestingly, this is one spot lower for Vancouver compared to last year's survey where is placed second.
"Severely unaffordable housing has spread from Vancouver to smaller markets, as metro Vancouver has shed domestic migration to smaller markets in British Columbia, such as Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley, and Kelowna and markets on Vancouver Island," the survey reads.
Demographia
The annual survey looked at the 2021 price-to-income ratio across 92 markets in eight different countries including Canada, the U.S., Australia, China, the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand, and Singapore. Vancouver earned a median multiple of 13.3, meaning that homes in the Canadian city cost 13.3 times the average income. This is up noticeably from 11.9 in 2019.
Canada's markets in general are seeing increasingly unaffordable prices. In 2021, the country's median multiple rose to 6.0 -- up from 4.4 pre-pandemic. Toronto followed behind Vancouver as Canada's second least affordable city, and is the 10th least affordable in the world. Its median multiple sits at 10.5, which is up from 8.6 in 2019.
Demographia
"Overall housing affordability in Toronto has deteriorated precipitously, by 6.6 median multiple points from 2004, when the median multiple was 3.9," the report reads. "By contrast, there was no housing affordability deterioration in the more than three decades from 1970 to 2004. Severely unaffordable housing has spread to smaller markets in Ontario, such as Kitchener-Waterloo, Brantford, London and Guelph, as residents of metro Toronto seek lower costs of living."
Montreal and Ottawa-Gatineau are also considered "severely unaffordable," the report says, with median multiples of 6.1 and 5.4 respectively. Canada's most affordable major market, however, can be found in Edmonton where the median multiple is 3.6.
