https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crea-housing-january-1.5463837The group that represents realtors said in a release on Friday that the average price of a Canadian home that sold in January was $504,350. That's an increase of 11.2 per cent from the same month a year earlier.
Note: The places with the lowest averages have the fewest jobs (mining etc excluded). This is about twice the American average (I'm not correcting for currency because Canadians are paid in Canadian dollars, and make less than Americans, on average).
Now for the #latestagecapitalism
https://blog.remax.ca/housing-affordability-in-canada/62 per cent of brokers surveyed in major Canadian cities are seeing buyers priced out of their market; however, 75 per cent of brokers agree that their market is undervalued
75% of brokers surveyed in major Canadian cities (not brokers from rural Canada) say their market is undervalued?
This is a sleight of hand. 75% of the cities in their report are "undervalued." Those cities, however, have fewer than 75% of the jobs or population. Moreover, undervalued actually means "affordable," which is defined as average priced house (using old numbers) can be purchased for 32% of "2019 income estimate." The income estimates are absurdly high. It is not clear what this income estimate means, and whether it's for one, two or, three income earners. From there report:
Emerging trends like co-ownership with friends and family have become common in hot markets such as Vancouver and Toronto, in order to overcome the hurdle of high housing prices. In regions such as Brampton, Edmonton and Ottawa, sharing a single-family home between two families, dividing the floors between them, or children seeking financial support from parents for down payments are becoming more common practices.
Be right back, just going to co-own a one $800k condo (yes, they say "single-family home" but their house values are not limited to single family homes) with another family and get the down payment from my broke elderly parents.
Another piece of deception is that the report assumes a 25% down payment. 5% is the minimum required. 20% is required if you don't want mortgage default insurance (why should banks who makes tens of billions a year take the risk). So the average house becomes affordable in Victoria if you have an income of $105k, can put $184,653 down, can then spend 31% of your income on a mortgage. Sounds undervalued/affordable to me.