Housing affordability eroding, RBC says

The Canadian Press Posted: Nov 27, 2013 8:50 AM ET 

The Royal Bank says higher prices and an increase in mortgage rates have made home ownership less affordable for the average Canadian family.

RBC's latest research on the proportion of average household income needed to maintain a home — mortgage payments, utilities and municipal taxes — increased over the summer for a second consecutive quarter.

The level of deterioration differs from region to region and on the type of home, but RBC says that for the average bungalow the affordability measure rose to 43.3 per cent of a family's pre-tax income — up seven-tenths of a percentage point.

The bank says on two-storey homes, the affordability reading rose 0.6 of a percentage point to 48.9 per cent, and condos remained the most affordable by far with at 28 per cent of pre-tax income.

But city affordability issues were the worst in Vancouver, where it would take 84.2 per cent of an average household's pre-tax income to maintain a home.

That compared with a still high affordability measure of 55.6 per cent in Toronto.

Elsewhere, affordability scales that were closer to historic norms, with Montreal at 38.3 per cent; Ottawa at 37.3, Calgary at 33.7 and Edmonton at 32.9 per cent of household pre-tax income.