The country’s housing market has seemed to be spinning out of control over the past two years, and we’ve all sat and watched as household debt climbed and prices soared. But when you stack all those numbers side by side, and compare them with where they were just over a decade ago, it’s really shocking just how high – and how quickly – those numbers have soared.
150%
In 1998 you could find a home in Canada for an average price of $152,378. Today, that price for the same average house has increased to $379,725 – an increase of 150%! Prices are expected to continue rising, with experts and analysts saying they expect a slight increase of 1.5 to 2 per cent in 2014.
163%
This is the number our household debt to disposable income has reached this year, indicating that consumers are spending now more than ever. And with the holidays coming, that’s not likely to go down any time too soon.
7.8
It used to be that you needed about three times your annual income to buy a home, but few would expect anyone to be able to buy an average home with that amount. Going into 2014, you need about 7.8 times your annual income to purchase a home.
171 + 53,000
There’s no question that Toronto has a lot of condos. With 171,000 condo developments already filling the GTA, there are 53,000 condo units still under construction. That’s three times as many condos that are in Chicago and twice the number of New York City. Three times as many people live in New York City.
13.5%
This is the amount of jobs are related to the construction industry alone, never mind the mortgage market, real estate agents, and others in the housing market. This is the highest our own number has been in 40 years, and makes the American rate of 5.8 per cent of jobs related to the construction industry pale in comparison.
Which of these figures do you find most shocking, and where do you think our housing market is headed for the coming year?
