These 2 Canadian Cities Made The Top 10 Most Affordable Housing Markets In The World

There are a lot of reasons to choose to live in Alberta, with its stunning natural scenery and access to some of the greatest hikes in the world. However, a new report has also found that Edmonton and Calgary are actually two of the most affordable cities for housing in the world, so now your wallet will be happy too.

In the 2022 edition of the Demographia International Housing Affordability report, the Urban Reform Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy looked at the affordability of housing in eight nations around the world.

Edmonton was found to be the fourth most affordable city, behind Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City and Rochester in the U.S. Alberta's representation was strong, as Calgary also made the list, rounding out the top 10.

Affordability was measured using "median multiples," a price-to-income ratio, which is the median house price divided by the gross median household income before tax.

While Edmonton and Calgary can celebrate their affordability, other Canadian cities were not as lucky. Vancouver was found to have the least affordable housing in Canada and it was also the third least affordable in the world. This has impacted prices in other B.C. markets such as Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley, Kelowna and Vancouver Island.

A similar issue was found in Toronto, which found itself in the top 10 least affordable cities in the world, leading to unaffordable housing spreading to smaller Ontario markets such as Kitchener-Waterloo, Brantford, London and Guelph.

As a whole, the report said Canada's housing markets are "severely unaffordable"

While some cities on the list are still fairly affordable, the report said there was an "unprecedented deterioration" in housing affordability during the pandemic.

"The number of severely unaffordable markets rose 60% in 2021 compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year," it added.