demographics
04. demographics Residents on Canada’s best coast pay the most for their housing services. Is it too much? In some cases, yes.
THE OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS ARE NICE, BUT…
It would be disingenuous at best, and false at worst, to state an opposing view to that of housing being expensive—in some cases, VERY expensive—in British Columbia. And one need not only consider the level and rate of recent changes in (benchmark) home prices, especially in the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley board areas (which rose by 36% and 73% to $1.26 million and $1.20 million, respectively, during the 26 months to April 2022)—the proportion of income being spent on housing is also relatively high out west. More specifically, a higher share of households spend at least 30% of their gross income on housing in many metro areas in BC versus their counterparts throughout the country. While a threshold of 30% of income going to housing costs is generally considered the upper limit of what constitutes “affordable” housing, newly-released data from the 2021 Census show that more than 1 in 5 households (21%) actually exceed this threshold nationally, with there being considerable variation in this proportion among Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) across the country. Toronto tops this
dubious list, with 30.3% of households spending more than 30% of their income on housing, with Vancouver right on its tail, at 29.6%. Metro areas in BC actually account for 5 of the 8 most expensive CMAs in Canada per the shelter-to-income-cost metric, with Victoria and Kelowna at 26%, Abbotsford- Mission and Nanaimo at 23%. Of course, this aggregate measure of housing affordability belies tremendous nuance, of which much is germane to discussions about who can and can’t afford a suitable and adequate home. For instance, and without delving into the data here, renters tend to spend more of their income on housing than do owners; within the ownership group, those that have mortgages spend significantly more of their income on housing than do those who are mortgage-free. Policy and related analysis therefore need to be similarly nuanced as the challenge of making housing more affordable for those who need it continues.
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