Global study ranks two Canadian cities high on list of most expensive places to buy a home

As Canadians continue to struggle with the extremely high cost of buying a home in some of the country’s major urban centres, a new global report is underscoring just how expensive some of those markets are.

As Canadians continue to struggle with the extremely high cost of buying a home in some of the country’s major urban centres, a new global report is underscoring just how expensive some of those markets are.

A study by Demographia, which examines international housing affordability, has deemed Vancouver and Toronto as “impossibly unaffordable."

David MacDonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the findings of the study aren't surprising.

“This is a long time coming. We haven't been building enough housing, we certainly haven't had enough government investment in affordable housing for decades, and the chickens are coming home to roost,” he said.

The report analyzed middle-income affordability across 94 major markets in eight countries, including Canada, China, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. Each city is ranked based on its median multiple score which is determined by dividing the average house price in a city by its gross median household income.

A score under three is considered “affordable”, a score between 3.1 to four is considered “moderately unaffordable”, a score between 4.1 to five is considered “seriously unaffordable,” a score between 5.1 to 8.9 is considered “severely unaffordable” and this year, a new category of “impossibly unaffordable” was added for cities scoring nine or higher.

Toronto scored 9.3 and ranks 11th on the housing unaffordability list and Vancouver scored 12.3 and ranks third on the list.