Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
Just to give some perspective.. Demographia International does a study where they find out how many years of salary an average home costs. Regina was the cheapest in Canada where it took 2 years of the average salery to buy the average home. Edmonton was 3.5, Calgary and Toronto were 4.4. Vancouver led the country at 7.7!
Internationally, Regina was one of the world's most affordable cities at 2.0, and Canada overall was one of the most affordable countries with a median of 3.2, compared to other countries such as Australia at 6.6, Ireland at 5.7, and the UK at 5.5. The US was 3.7.
For individual cities Calgary still compares favorably at 4.4 vs major cities in the above countries at high multiples like 7 to the highest of 11.4 in Orange County in LA.
So while I agree that for individuals trying to buy their first home it is very difficult right now, big picture Calgary and Canada are still relatively affordable when compared to a lot of the world, which means people are still going to move here.
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You can't really compare US prices with Canadian prices since Americans get tax breaks, like writing off mortgage interest, that Canadians don't get which allows them to spend more on a house. Because they can spend more, their housing prices are inflated compared to Canadian prices.
The other countries you've listed differ from Canada because they have a lot less usable land for housing then Canadians do.