Calgary housing market "seriously unaffordable" compared to other cities

A new report is confirming what most Calgarians already know: the city’s housing market is “seriously unaffordable.”

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), a Canadian think tank, released its 2024 Demographia International Housing Affordability Report on June 3 and Calgary’s real estate market is not looking too hot.

Authored by FCPP senior fellow Wendell Cox, the report assesses housing affordability in eight countries across 94 major markets — Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, and the US — and covers the third quarter of 2023.

Cox used a median price-to-income ratio (median multiple) to determine affordability and rated housing markets from “affordable” to “impossibly unaffordable” based on this median multiple.

Canada’s housing affordability falls in the “severely unaffordable range” with a median multiple of 5.6.

Any market with a median multiple over 9.0 was considered “impossibly unaffordable,” and Calgary came in with a score of 4.6 and was deemed “seriously unaffordable.”

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP)

While the city isn’t the most expensive on the list, it ranked #38 for affordability of the 94 major markets included on the list.

It might be time for locals to start thinking about moving north, with the same report finding Edmonton the most affordable big city in Canada.

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Two major Canadian cities unsurprisingly landed in the top 10 for the most unaffordable, with Toronto’s score of 9.3 falling into the “impossibly unaffordable” category, while Vancouver’s was a whopping 12.3.

Both Montreal (5.8) and Ottawa-Gatineau (5.3) were in the severely unaffordable category in the report.

Do you think Calgary is an unaffordable city to live in? Let us know in the comments!

With files from Imaan Sheikh