Showing posts with label median income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label median income. Show all posts

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Median Family Incomes Increase but Housing Remains Expensive

On Thursday, Stats Can released income figures for 2008 here.

Even compared to the highest incomes in Canada house prices in Alberta remain elevated.

According to Mike Fotiou for the first 17 days of September the median price of a single family home is at $390,000. This level is 4.26 times the median family income.

Whats does this buy? On Mike's site you can view daily sales prices and on Sept 17th there was one house which sold for exactly $390,000. A 1808 sqft 2 story home in Panorama Hills.

In Edmonton the median price for a single family home dropped to $350,000 in August. This is almost 4 times the median family income of $88,190. This 1600 sqft Ormsby home listed at $361,000 could theoretically sell for $350,000 given a typical discount (no sales prices are available).

For comparison the ratio in the US appears to be about 3.5 from this post but may have declined since then.

Homes in Alberta are pricey compared to local incomes but not overwhelmingly so. Considering how low interest rates are factors besides affordability are probably driving the current decline, such as lagging employment and saturated demand.