People love our city, but it comes at a high price

Despite the high cost of real estate in our region, people continue to buy homes.

• Home ownership in our region was 65% in 2006.
  Statistics Canada and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
• More of our young people are taking the plunge, with 22% of our young people age 15 to 24 (excluding those who still live with their parents) owning their own home. This compares to 20% in Toronto and 11% in Montreal.
  Canadian Housing Observer 2009

The economic slowdown helped ease some of the upward pressure on housing prices because there was less demand for housing. However, the downturn also created issues in the housing sector.

• The number of new housing starts (new home construction) dropped by almost 57% between 2008 and 2009.
  Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Housing Observer 2009, Housing Now 2010
• Only 4% of new housing starts were designated as rental housing in 2008, even though renters made up approximately 35% of all households across the region
  Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Housing Observer 2009, Housing Now 2010
• More households fell behind on their mortgage payments. The number of owners across BC who were behind on their mortgage payments increased 175% from 2008 to 2010 to a total of 2,399 mortgages. However, this represents only a small percentage of all mortgages and is significantly below the number of mortgage arrears or defaults in the United States (where closer to one in 10 mortgages are reported to be in trouble).
• Despite the increase in the number of mortgages in arrears across BC, we are still doing slightly better than other parts of Canada with 0.41% of all mortgages being in arrears in BC compared to 0.44% across Canada.
  Canadians Bankers Association, March 2010

It costs more to own here

The cost of ownership is higher in Metro Vancouver when compared with other markets.

• Owning a standard condo costs an average of 41% of our pre-tax income but ownership rates continue to increase which shows that people are willing to find a way to live here. In Toronto, a standard condo costs approximately 33% of resident’s pre-tax income, while those in Montreal pay 32%.
• The average income needed to qualify for a standard condo in metro Vancouver is $74,700.
  Royal Bank of Canada and Statistics Canada

• After years of tight rental market conditions (a vacancy rate of less than 1%), the vacancy rate rose to 2.1% in 2009. This is closer to a balanced market and reflects a significant improvement from the 0.5% rate in 2008.
  Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Rental Market Report December 2009