Toronto housing is officially less affordable than New York or LA

May 20 2021, 8:46 pm

Toronto officially beat out two of the most notoriously expensive North American cities to live in, landing second place on a new ranking of the continent’s cities with the least affordable housing.

According to a new report from Oxford Economics, Toronto has a worse affordable housing index than cities like Los Angeles and New York. Vancouver, however, edged out the top spot as the most unaffordable city in North America.

Two other Ontario cities — Hamilton and Ottawa — also landed on the least affordable list, along with Montreal, which came in ninth place.

toronto housing affordable

Oxford Economics

Canadian real estate markets have been red hot throughout the past year, which is something the Oxford Economics report says has made them even more unaffordable.

“Unaffordability is a persistent issue in Toronto and Vancouver, and the recent price surge has served to exacerbate this more than decade-old trend,” the report reads. “Hamilton and Ottawa have joined the ranks of Canada’s least affordable metros, while homes in the Prairies and Quebec remain within reach of local households.”

Oxford Economics

A number of Canadian cities, however, also made it onto the most affordable housing list. Quebec City ranked third after Chicago and Columbus, and Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Calgary made it into the top 10 too.

“In the Prairies, homes are comparatively more affordable and well within reach of local median income households,” the report reads.

toronto housing affordable

Oxford Economics

Despite this, the report says that overall, housing in Canada is much less affordable than in the United States. Although the report does predict that affordability will decrease in major cities like New York once we move out of the pandemic, it goes on to say that “housing is, and will remain, much more affordable in the US than in Canada.”

Laura HanrahanLaura Hanrahan

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+ Urbanized
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