This is what voting for stupid politicians, idiot Central bankers and ultra greedy Banksters will do to inflation. Negative real interest rates will always cause inflation. Stupid politicians will always cater to parasites and borrow to shower them with free money for nothing to get their votes.
Typical Toronto Home Mortgage Now Costs Families 110% of Income
Jennifer Cowan
12/1/2025|Updated: 12/1/2025
Mortgage payments for an average home now surpass 50 percent of median after-tax income in more than 60 percent of major Canadian cities, and are more than 100 percent in Vancouver and Toronto, a new study suggests.
A Vancouver family earning the local median income now has to spend more than 112 percent of after-tax earnings on a monthly mortgage payment to buy a typical home, slightly more than 2 percent above the Toronto average of 110 percent, according to a recently released report from the Fraser Institute.
The median income represents the midpoint in the income distribution of a population, indicating that half of the individuals or households earn above this level, while the other half earn below it.
A 20 percent down payment on a typical home required the equivalent of 14.1 months of median after-tax family income in 2014, the study found. This figure rose to 22 months by 2023.
A mortgage payment for a standard home during the same timeframe increased from 29.9 percent of the median after-tax family income to 56.6 percent on average across the 36 cities examined.
No Canadian city had average homes on the market in 2023 that were affordable for families earning the local median after-tax income, unless they had an exceptionally large down payment or received external financial assistance, the report said.
The study examined the average monthly mortgage payments that families are required to pay, depending on their location in Canada. Here’s a look at how the different regions stack up
.Ontario
The monthly mortgage payment necessary for purchasing an average home in Ontario’s 14 largest cities ranged between 50.4 percent in Ottawa-Gatineau and 110.2 percent in Toronto, based on the local median after-tax family income following a 20 percent down payment on the home purchase.
“There is a perception that housing outside of the GTA is still somewhat affordable, but that’s not true,” report co-author and Fraser Institute senior policy analyst Austin Thompson said in a press release. “Even in cities like Windsor and Kingston, buying a typical home would require a family earning the local median income to spend more than half of its after-tax earnings on mortgage payments.”
Toronto was the only city where the mortgage payment on an average house exceeded 100 percent of the local median after-tax family income, but Oshawa wasn’t far behind at 92.2 percent.
Hamilton sits at 76.9 percent, followed by Barrie at 74.7 percent, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo at 73.9 percent, Brantford at 70.1 percent, and Guelph at 69.8 percent.
Mortgage payments in St. Catherines-Niagara take 67.9 percent of the local median after-tax family income, while payments in Peterborough were just a fraction less at 67.8 percent. This was followed by Windsor at 63.2 percent, London at 61.8 percent, Belleville-Quinte West at 58.4 percent, and Kingston at 51.2 percent. Ottawa-Gatineau had the lowest mortgage payment-to-income ratio 50.4 percent.
Fraser Institute senior fellow and study co-author Steven Globerman described housing affordability as a function of both home prices and incomes.
“And as wages and incomes have flatlined across Ontario in recent years, [the] housing unaffordability crisis has worsened,” he said in the press release.
BC and the Prairies
The monthly mortgage payment necessary to buy an average home in the six largest cities of British Columbia varied from 61.3 percent in Kamloops to 112.3 percent in Vancouver based on the local median after-tax family income. The calculation was based on a 20 percent down payment on the house purchase.
Vancouver was the lone city to have a rate above the 100 percent mark, but Abbotsford-Mission came close with mortgage payments taking up 96.8 percent of the local median after-tax family income. That was followed by Victoria at 74.8 percent, Chilliwack at 71.8 percent, and Kelowna at 61.8 percent.
Mortgage payments in the prairie provinces took up less of the median after-tax family income. Calgary came in at 45.1 percent, followed by Winnipeg at 35 percent, Saskatoon at 33.8 percent, Edmonton at 32.2 percent, and Regina at 28.2 percent.
Quebec and Atlantic Canada
Montreal had the highest mortgage costs in relation to the median after-tax family income among all cities located east of Ontario at 53 percent, but was closely followed by Halifax at 52 percent. Sherbrooke, Que., was next at 38.9 percent, followed by Charlottetown at 38.7 percent, Moncton at 38.7 percent, St. John’s, Nfld., at 32.1 percent, and Quebec City at 31.3 percent.
The cheapest Quebec cities were Drummondville at 29.5 percent and Trois-Rivières at 28.2 percent.
Fredericton had the lowest mortgage payment to median income ratio of all the Canadian cities measured, coming in at 27.2 percent.
The study noted that while the prairies, the Atlantic provinces, and Quebec were able to maintain house prices that are comparatively more affordable than Ontario and B.C., housing affordability still declined in these areas during the period from 2014 to 2023.
The authors said that while Vancouver and Toronto were outliers on the cost of homeownership relative to income, it is still a cause for concern.
“This poses a challenge not only for residents of these areas, but for the Canadian economy at large,” the authors said, noting that the two cities account for a large share of Canada’s overall population and economic output.
The authors said government policies have failed to improve housing affordability, which has continued to deteriorate since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The resulting deterioration in housing affordability can be well described as a ‘crisis,’ particularly in Canada’s most populous and economically important cities,” they said. “Arguably, new approaches are needed to better align the supply of housing with demand and to accelerate the growth of Canadians’ after-tax incomes.” |
