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Vancouver home ownership now costs 92 per cent of income: RBC

Local buyers are locked out of market, report concludes.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

If you think it's still nearly impossible to afford to buy a home in Vancouver, you're right.

The Canadian Press has the story:

TORONTO -- The cost of home ownership in Vancouver soared in the second quarter, making it by far the country's most expensive city to own a house or condo, RBC Economics reported Monday.

The quarterly report says detached bungalows in Vancouver were especially expensive, with the cost of mortgages payments, utilities and property taxes equivalent to 92.5 per cent of a typical household's monthly income.

That's up 10.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

The report says there's growing evidence that the cost of home ownership is keeping local buyers out of the Vancouver market.

"Vancouver's housing market is without a doubt the most stressed in Canada and is facing the highest risk of a downturn,'' said Craig Wright, chief economist for RBC.

By contrast the measure for the second-most expensive major city, Toronto, was 51.9 per cent (up 2.0 percentage points) and the national figure was 43.3 per cent (up 1.7 percentage points).

In Montreal, home ownership cost about 42.6 per cent of a typical family's pre-tax income, up 1.4 percentage points from the first quarter.

Other major cities in the survey include: Ottawa (41.2 per cent, up 1.3 points), Calgary (37.1 per cent, up 0.6 points) and Edmonton (33.8 per cent, up 0.6 points).

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