Owners bear the brunt of price growth, while renters have to contend with inflamed competition
The cost of Canadian housing – which also covers water and utilities – shot up by more than 208.68% in the decades since 1980, according to Statistics Canada.
The latest edition of the agency’s consumer price index also found that rent had a 144.2% increase during this period, while owner costs (inclusive of carrying costs) went up by 205.6%.
Tuition had the most dramatic growth at 932.16%, Better Dwelling reported.
Data released by CREA earlier this month showed that Canadian home prices went up by 5.8% annually in October, up to around $525,000. However, this was mostly because of the impact of the nation’s two largest markets.
“The national average price is heavily skewed by sales in the GVA and GTA, two of Canada’s most active and expensive housing markets,” CREA explained. “Excluding these two markets from calculations cuts almost $125,000 from the national average price, trimming it to around $400,000 and reducing the year-over-year gain to 4.7%.”
A significant driver of price increases was the influence of the Greater Golden Horseshoe, in particular.
“In markets further east, price growth has been trending higher for the last three or four years,” CREA added. “Comparing home prices to year-ago levels yields considerable variations across the country, with mostly declines in western Canada and mostly price gains in eastern Canada.”
