Depressing news for Montrealers, the latest Demographia Housing Affordability Study demonstrates that after two years on the decline, Montreal home prices have risen sharply.The unaffordability index had fallen 0.4 for two straight years and some might have hoped that we'd be back in 2008 levels when it took the average earner 3.9 years of salary to pay off the average home.
Instead the count went up 0.6, so we're back in some seriously unaffordable territory when it comes to the dream of owning your own home as the median home price was $293,000, while the median household income was $59,000.
The report authors frequently blame the unaffordability on zoning policies which protect farmlands from development, most notably in Vancouver and Toronto.
Urban sprawl should be tolerated, they feel.
The fast-growing South Shore could be seen as a culprit in these optics, as the agrarian properties sit relatively close to downtown Montreal.
These are the most affordable cities.
These are the cities to avoid.
A vacant shack in Vancouver in a nice residential area just sold for 2.4 million.
ReplyDeleteThis place is to be torn down as it is not fit for human habitation just for rats.
People have looked at this place and was on the news and nobody could believe the selling price. Owning a home for $293,000 doesn't seem too bad now I suspect.
I have been to every city on the "Most Affordable" list. They range from "abandoned burnt out husk of a city" (Detroit / Buffalo) to "Meh - not so bad if you can manage to find a job and avoid certain extremely dangerous parts of town" (Cleveland). I'd prefer to be a lifelong renter in Montreal than to own a 4 bedroom home in any of them.
ReplyDeleteThe average price of a home in my suburb 50km north of Toronto went from $400 000 to $700 000 in 4 years. New small row houses are going for $750 000!...if blinged out they go for $900 000. People line up to buy 2-3 years before closing. Deindustrialization of rural Ontario...aka manufacturing has vanished from small towns, plus globalization of citizenship, has resulted in a historic mismatch between home supply and demand. I don't see it abating anytime soon. The pull of the Toronto region is still strong. By the way, I hear lots of Montreal French these days too, when walking about.
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