If you’ve been holding off buying a home, waiting for prices to drop, you might want to re-consider.
A new report says the affordability of owning a home in Canada is expected to get worse than it is now.
The Royal Bank report says its affordability index deteriorated once again during the first quarter of this year, the third quarter that has occurred out of the past four.
Not surprisingly, the index has grown worse in the hot markets of Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
The report says that even if prices stabilize or drop, an expected rise in interest rates would counteract that, keeping homes out-of-reach for many people.
The index shows just how unaffordable an average single family home is in Vancouver.
Vancouver’s affordability index sits at 82.4, up almost a full point from last year.
That means the cost of owning a home including mortgage, utilities and property taxes eats up more than 82 per cent of the city’s average pre-tax income.
The average price for a single-family detached home in Vancouver hit $1,361,023 in February of 2014.
That figure is well above the country’s other two hot markets. In Toronto, the index is 56.1 and in Calgary it’s 34.5.
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