A dubious income and market affordability report unsurprisingly revealed that Vancouver is one of the most unaffordable places in the world and that the crisis is spreading to areas that were once a lot more affordable.
The report comes from the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy and the New California Coalition, and was co-published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, an independent Canadian public policy think tank that’s based in Western Canada.
The report assesses housing affordability in 96 major markets across eight nations, including Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the United States. The report looks at the third quarter of 2025, or July to September and uses a median price-to-income ratio to determine affordability.
Of all 96 cities covered, Vancouver ranked 92nd in the affordability list, meaning only four markets in the world were less affordable. The report reveals that not much has changed over the past two decades.
“Vancouver is the least affordable in Canada and the 92nd least affordable, with an impossibly unaffordable median multiple of 10.8, making it more unaffordable than all markets except Hong Kong, Sydney, San Jose, and Adelaide. Vancouver has been among the five least affordable major markets in each of the last 18 years,” it states.
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The report says that by 2023, it was clear that smaller B.C. markets, like in the Fraser Valley and in cities like Chilliwack, and even further out like in Kelowna and cities on Vancouver Island, were following Vancouver and seeing worsening affordability.
“From 2015 to 2023, housing affordability worsened by the equivalent of 2.5 years of median household income in smaller markets outside Vancouver, an even greater loss than the 1.2 years in the Vancouver market itself,” the report reveals.
Toronto was named the second least affordable market in Canada, but still ranked 11 spots higher than Vancouver at 81.
Edmonton was deemed the most affordable Canadian market and among the top three in the world.
“In Canada, the least affordable housing market (Vancouver) is three times as costly relative to median household income as the most affordable (Edmonton).”
If the “impossibly unaffordable” designation sounds familiar, it’s because a similar 2025 report said the same thing, when Vancouver ranked 92nd out of 95 cities.
You can find the full 2026 report on the Frontier Centre website.