You'll need a household income of over $320K to afford a home in Vancouver

Aug 17 2022, 5:49 pm

The latest housing affordability monitor from the National Bank of Canada is a reminder of what it takes to afford a home in Vancouver.

In June, Daily Hive covered a previous version of this report from NBC, which said it could take 40 years to save for a down payment (saving rate of 10%). While that is still the case, other metrics in the report suggested that the affordability situation was worsening.

As of Q2 2022, you need to have a household income of $328,822 to afford the representative home (non-condo) in the metropolitan market, which is $1,743,716.

Unless you’re a medical specialist, the prime minister of Canada, or a YouTube sensation, the odds of buying a home on a single income in Vancouver is highly unlikely. Other factors indicate the situation is getting worse.

According to the NBC report, the price of the representative condo in the market is $733,013, which would require an annual household income of around $161,400. To save for a down payment (saving rate of 10%), you’d need to save for 65 months. That’s a lot better than 472 when looking at how long it could take to save for a non-condo home.

NBC said that the market saw “steep deteriorations in all types of dwelling.”

In fact, Q2 marked the worst quarterly and annual deteriorations in 41 years.

vancouver housing affordability

Vancouver stats (National Bank of Canada)

Vancouver is right at the top of the heap when compared to the rest of Canada for all types of dwellings combined and non-condo dwellings. Toronto beat out Vancouver when looking specifically at condo prices.

National Bank of Canada

Victoria ranks as the third most expensive locale in Canada for condos and non-condos.

While all major markets saw affordability deterioration, Victoria saw the biggest deterioration, followed by Toronto and Vancouver, respectively.

National Bank of Canada

Nationally, home prices grew 4.8% compared to the last quarter “from their already elevated levels and interest rates continued to grow, trends that a 0.9% quarterly increase in income simply could not offset.”

Long story short, if you want to buy a home in Vancouver that isn’t funded by an inheritance or a job that pays way beyond the average salary, good luck.

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