More Affordable, Yes – But Still Room for Improvement
If you’re a field-goal kicker for, say, the Calgary Stampeders, putting 23 of 28 kicks through the uprights wouldn’t be too shabby. Answering 23 out of 28, skill-testing, questions correctly on a test, exam, or quiz – nothing to be ashamed of. Heck, if you pull out your scorecard and you’re able to (honestly) mark yourself down as 5-under, after the first 28 strokes on the golf-course, wow – that’s something to brag about.
But if your city ranks, say, 23rd out of 28 with regards to national affordability – or on a broader scale, if it ranks 188th out of 272 internationally, I wouldn’t blame you for being a little less willing to celebrate. A little less willing to shout it from the roof-tops. You get the picture.
And that’s the case in a recent study ranking the most affordable and least affordable cities in Canada, and the world, to live in right now. And this Calgary Herald article gives a quick synopsis of where Calgary ranks, in relation to other cities in this category.
Have a read through the article and it’s not surprising to find Windsor and Thunder Bay as the front-runners, ie. the most affordable cities to live, in Canada, right now. They and several other centres, in the more populace areas of Ontario and Quebec, took a significant hit when manufacturing markets sagged during the recent major economic downturn.
But perhaps what’s more startling is that Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria and (for the first time in decades) Montreal are either flirting with or considered full-blown, “severely unaffordable.” And Calgary isn’t that far behind, considering the latest number-crunching as an indicator.
Ironically, our city actually inched-up on the affordability scale, up 0.2 over 2008. So perhaps any positive news (be it even slight) is good news. But it will be very interesting to see where we end up, say, at the end of 2010 or in Q1 of 2011 if the housing market keeps it’s steady rebound pace.
Further hazing the crystal-ball, so to speak, will be how we react to any and all rising interest rates, changes to amortization periods (should the feds choose to change the rules), continued price increases in various metro-markets, employment rate changes and income rates in these centres, and the typical cycle of supply & demand for real estate. Many or all of these factors will affect future affordability with regards to home ownership.
If there is a silver-lining here for Calgarians, it’s most likely the fact that we’re still affordable compared to Vancouver – which ranked #1 out of 272 international cities as the least affordable, in case you were wondering.
Thoughts? Tell me if you’re surprised by these results.
