Best and worst places in Canada to buy a home on one income

If you ever dreamed of buying property on your own — without a partner, without a co-ownership arrangement, without family support — Greater Vancouver is definitely not the place to do it.

Greater Vancouver is the least affordable place in Canada to buy property on a single income, according to a new study conducted by Toronto-based real estate brokerage Zoocasa. The most affordable? Saint John or Greater Moncton in New Brunswick, or Trois-Rivières in Quebec.

Using February 2018 home price data from the Canadian Real Estate Association and median household income data from Statistics Canada, the study calculated each city’s home-price-to-income ratio by looking at how many years it would take to pay off the average home if a buyer contributed the equivalent of 100 per cent of their annual income to the purchase price.

Of course, if you don’t already have the equivalent saved up, it’s not realistic to contribute all of your annual income into a home purchase, but this affordability measure does show where in Canada purchasing a home might be easier on a single-income household. The higher the ratio, the longer it would take to pay down the home.

The top three most affordable places on a single income were Saint John, N.B., Greater Moncton, and Trois-Rivières, Que., all tied with a ratio of 4.

Meanwhile, the top three least affordable places on a single income were Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and Greater Toronto.