The average Greater Victoria home will take residents with a qualifying household income 28 years to save up a down payment for, the National Bank of Canada revealed in its second quarter housing report Aug. 3.
The quarterly Housing Affordability Monitor looks at income and housing prices across 10 Canadian markets, including Victoria. In its latest data analysis, all 10 markets saw a deterioration in affordability, with the price of Greater Victoria homes jumping 6.1 per cent over last quarter.
The report breaks housing down into condos and non-condos and income into the qualifying amount needed to afford specifically priced homes and the actual median income in the region.
For non-condos, the representative home price in Greater Victoria is listed at $1,026,918, with the qualifying before tax household income at $176,349 and median income at $72,942. At the qualifying income, the report estimates it would take residents 28 years – assuming a saving rate of 10 per cent – to save for a down payment.
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The saving time becomes slightly more reasonable for a condo. Listed at the representative price of $533,119, residents with a qualifying household income of $108,361 would need just shy of four years to save up a down payment. Those with the median household income of $72,942 would need longer.
Those who have managed to save up a down payment are still contributing a huge percentage of their income to their mortgage, the report shows. The mortgage payment as per cent of income (MPPI) rose 5.4 points to 69.7 per cent for non-condos and 1.8 points to 36.2 per cent for condos over the last quarter. This is the largest change on record for Greater Victoria since the second quarter of 1994.
According to 2016 census data, 14 per cent of Greater Victoria residents own condos and 49 per cent own non-condo homes. Taken together, the region has the third lowest home-ownership rate of the 10 studied areas, after Quebec City and Montreal.
Greater Victoria’s median home price, including condos and non-condos, is the third highest at $959,209, after Vancouver at $1,189,562 and Toronto at $1,070,054. The region’s median home price used for the study rose 17.3 per cent over 2020.
The most affordable homes can be found in Quebec City, Winnipeg and Edmonton.
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