You need to make at least $79,000 a year to buy a home in Calgary right now
If you want to buy a home in Calgary, you would have to make at least $79,000 a year, according to a new report.
In Calgary, average home prices would need to fall a staggering $83,000 to make it affordable for a typical young person to carry a mortgage that covers 80% of the value of an average-priced home at current interest rates. So for people to be able to afford to buy a home in Calgary, the price would be a 16% drop from the 2021 rate.
When you translate that to what you can get with a salary, typical full-time earnings would need to increase to $79,000/year, which is 20% higher than current levels.
Generation Squeeze
The report added that it takes 10 years of full-time work for the typical young person to save for a 20% down payment on an average-priced home, four more years than when today’s aging population started out as young people.
For Calgarians that are locked out of home ownership, the average rent for a two-bedroom unit in Calgary in 2021 was $16,260 per year, compared to average rents closer to $14,761 per year in 1981.
Things could be worse though — nationally, you need to make $108,000 per year to afford a home, and in Metro Vancouver that number skyrockets to $186,000.
Homes in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia have the lowest average prices, while Quebec and Alberta fall somewhere in the middle.
With files from Laine Mitchell
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