The first thing Canadian alt rock legends the Barenaked Ladies sang that they’d do if they had a million dollars back in 1988 was buy a house — but how much house could they actually get these days in a Canadian city?
A report from brokerage Royal LePage released Thursday seeks to answer that question by looking at the average size and amenities in a home valued at roughly $1 million in today’s Canadian housing markets.
Country-wide, the average home worth a million dollars (give or take $50,000) comes with approximately 3.2 bedrooms, 2.6 baths and 1,763 square feet of living space, according to the brokerage’s data from December 2022.
But in the core of Canada’s biggest cities, a million dollars gets you a lot less space.
In Vancouver, that price tag would usually come with under 1,000 square feet of space, an average of 1.9 bedrooms and 2.8 baths, according to Royal LePage.
In Toronto’s core, the typical million-dollar home has an average of 2.8 bedrooms and 1.9 bathrooms amid 1,232 square feet of living space.
The Greater Toronto and Greater Vancouver areas see more average space and a higher number of rooms than just looking at their cores, Royal LePage said.
Your million dollars will get you more space in cities such as Halifax, N.S., which boasts an average of 3.7 bedrooms, 2.8 baths and 2,596 square feet of space.
Montreal’s average $1-million property has an above-average 3.9 bedrooms and 2,153 square feet of living space alongside 2.4 bathrooms.
Rounding out the Royal LePage report with above-average spaces and numbers of baths and bedrooms are Ottawa, Ont., Calgary and Edmonton, Alta., and Winnipeg, Man.
To put the Barenaked Ladies’ lyrics in a modern context, a million dollars in 1988 works out to roughly $2.12 million of purchasing power in 2023, adjusting for inflation, according to the calculator maintained by former Google engineer Ian Webster.
With that kind of money, you could afford any of the average homes in these Canadian cities with cash leftover to buy furniture for your house — maybe a nice chesterfield, or an ottoman.