by RogerHousing affordability just improved in Canada – mostly in these expensive cities
A “trifecta” of conditions in Canada’s housing market last quarter translated into the biggest improvement in affordability since 2019, National Bank of Canada said Thursday.
The institution’s Housing Affordability Monitor showed “widespread” improvement in each of the 10 largest markets it tracks. National Bank gauges housing affordability by tracking the mortgage payment as a percentage of income for the median home price.
This statistic fell 3.1 percentage points to 58.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, marking the largest quarter-to-quarter improvement since Q2 of 2019.
That came after the bank’s affordability monitor stood at its worst levels since the 1980s to the end of 2023.
National Bank said the “greatest” improvement was seen in Canada’s three least affordable housing markets of Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria, thanks to relatively steeper drops in home prices in the quarter.
