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VANCOUVER — Housing affordability has improved significantly in British Columbia during the first three months of the year, but it`s still well about the national average, according to a report released today by RBC Economics.
Affordability improvements in the province ranged from 7.4 percentage points for a standard two-storey home to 3.5 percentage points for a standard condominium.
So while in the last quarter of 2008 it took 72.7 per cent of pre-tax income to service the purchase of a two-storey home in the province, that number dropped to 65.3 per cent in the first three months of 2008.
Condominiums were still the most affordable, requiring only 32.7 per cent of income at the beginning of the year, compared to 36.2 per cent at the end of last year.
In Vancouver, the decreases were more significant: from 8.6 percentage points for standard two-storey home — from 77.5 to 68.9 — to 3.6 percentage points for a condominium — from 39.7 to 36.1. When coupled with earlier drops, affordability has improved year-over-year by 14.7 percentage points for a two-storey home in the city to 8.9 percentage points for a condominium, one of the steepest drops in Canada, the report said.
"We`re quite encouraged because affordability had deteriorated quite substantially during the boom and it had put tremendous weight on the [housing] market," RBC senior economist Robert Hogue said in an interview.
And that increased affordability has led to a rebound in the sale of houses.
Read the full article here.
Affordability improvements in the province ranged from 7.4 percentage points for a standard two-storey home to 3.5 percentage points for a standard condominium.
So while in the last quarter of 2008 it took 72.7 per cent of pre-tax income to service the purchase of a two-storey home in the province, that number dropped to 65.3 per cent in the first three months of 2008.
Condominiums were still the most affordable, requiring only 32.7 per cent of income at the beginning of the year, compared to 36.2 per cent at the end of last year.
In Vancouver, the decreases were more significant: from 8.6 percentage points for standard two-storey home — from 77.5 to 68.9 — to 3.6 percentage points for a condominium — from 39.7 to 36.1. When coupled with earlier drops, affordability has improved year-over-year by 14.7 percentage points for a two-storey home in the city to 8.9 percentage points for a condominium, one of the steepest drops in Canada, the report said.
"We`re quite encouraged because affordability had deteriorated quite substantially during the boom and it had put tremendous weight on the [housing] market," RBC senior economist Robert Hogue said in an interview.
And that increased affordability has led to a rebound in the sale of houses.
Read the full article here.