Cost of Housing Across Canada Hits 30-Year High, Vancouver Market in ‘Full-Blown Crisis’: RBC

Canada’s housing affordability is at its worst in more than 30 years with several urban markets struggling to regain their footing and the Vancouver market in a “full-blown crisis,” a new RBC report says. Despite the likelihood of interest rate reductions later this year, the scope for improvement in the year ahead will be small compared to the dramatic loss of affordability that occurred during the pandemic, according to the report written by RBC assistant chief economist Robert Hogue. The average Canadian household needed to spend 63.5 percent of its income in the fourth quarter of 2023 to cover the costs of owning a typical market-price home, the report found. And RBC doesn’t expect that trend to change much until 2025....