Real estate flatline

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The relentless climb of Nanaimo property values paused for a breather last year. Assessment notices went out to all Nanaimo property owners last week and many are finding the value little changed from 2011.

Average values for single-family homes, based on property assessments done by the agency on July 1 are down 1.27% from 2010.

Values rose slightly in several areas, but most neighbourhoods saw values down.

The most noticeable drops are clustered in north-end neighbourhoods, though central and south Nanaimo did not go unscathed.

One central-Nanaimo area saw average values down more than 10%.

A decade-long period of almost continuous growth was sidelined in 2011 by events outside local market forces. Housing sales slipped, especially at the higher end of the scale, where there are fewer buyers. Property values that doubled during the 2000s stopped rising. For the smart buyer, it creates a rare opportunity to get an ocean-view or waterfront property.

It isn’t the first time Nanaimo’s housing industry has skipped a beat and it is the nature of real estate markets to run in cycles.

“You look at the pressures in the market – unemployment, challenges with new builders, with HST, overall higher-end market challenges, it’s got to come out,” said Jim Stewart, Vancouver Island Real Estate Board past-president.

Realtors saw 2011 end with an average home selling price of $362,680, just $305 less than a year earlier, or essentially unchanged.

“Late last spring there was waiting with anticipation for the outcome of the HST vote, and (then) everyone was waiting to know who the next premier was to set the agenda for the year. Then in the fall everyone was concerned about the world market. Is Greece going to fail? You look at little Vancouver Island, there are places elsewhere in Canada prices are down doubledigit,” Stewart said.

The 2012 assessment roll puts a total value on all Nanaimo property at $12.742 billion, the bulk of which, $10.769 billion, is residential.

Those numbers are down slightly from 2011′s $12,683 billion total and $10.786 billion in residential. Those totals include about $1 billion in churches, downtown revitalization, pollution-control and other taxexempt property classes.

The B.C. Assessment Authority divides the city into 17 neighbourhoods, and the numbers it produces for each neighbourhood are what matter to homeowners.

Excluding apartments, vacant lots and condominiums, Jingle Pot/College Heights and Hawthorne saw average property values rise the most, at 1.14%. Average home values rose by less than 1% in Chase River/Cinnabar, Uplands/Sunshine Ridge/ Country Club, Hammond Bay and the extended downtown core areas.

The most noticeable drop was in the Commercial Industrial Bowen/Northfield area, where assessments fell 10.28%.

All other areas saw average values drop, with decreases of greater than 4% assessed in Townsite/Hospital, Dover/Dickenson, Long Lake North Island Highway and Protection Island areas.

For most homeowners, this year will be easier than most to figure out their property taxes simply by looking at their property’s assessed value.

Because the average value is so close to 2011, anyone whose assessment is close to last year’s can expect to pay close to the tax rate set by city council this spring.

“Assessments are unchanged, so it should be relatively easy to tell,” said Bill MacGougan, Nanaimo assessor.

While the HST and a sluggish economy are both hurting sales in higher-end properties classes, some see it as an opportunity to buy that dream property.

“When you think the average waterfront home is $800,000, if you get something for less than $800,000 it’s probably a pretty good buy,” Stewart said. Those deals exist because “there’s not that many buyers in that range.”

First-time buyers would be wise to make 2012 a year to renovate, rather than sell.

“If you bought in the last year or so it’s going to be challenging for you to exit on the profit side,” Stewart said.

http://www.canada.com/Real+estate+flatline/5983621/story.html

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To freeze or not to freeze: that is the question

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Winnipeg politicians will soon decide whether to continue the property-tax freeze for a 15th consecutive year.

Council finance chairman Scott Fielding (St. James) said officials have started to review whether it’s possible to maintain the property-tax freeze for the 2012 operating budget, the blueprint that outlines spending on all city programs, including police, pest control and snow removal. Fielding said it will be a challenge to continue the long-standing tax freeze, but there is a possibility the city may be able to transfer a surplus from the 2011 budget in an attempt to stave off a hike.

The latest city financial report at the end of October forecast a $600,000 surplus by the end of 2011, due in part to additional permit revenue and savings from its summer street program and corporate expenses. Fielding said it’s possible the city picked up additional surplus money in November and December, though officials will not have the year-end total until late January.

“It is going to be challenging to maintain a property-tax freeze,” Fielding said.

Last year, Winnipeg’s operating budget increased by $30 million from the previous year due to the rising cost of police and emergency services. About 40 per cent of Winnipeg’s $847.4-million operating budget in 2011 was devoted to police and fire paramedic services.

The city hiked property frontage levies to cover the cost of increased program spending.

Coun. Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge) said only members of council’s executive policy committee are involved in operating budget discussions and she does not know how big of a funding gap the city faces. She said Winnipeg is coping with the cost of hiring additional police officers, pension benefits and paying down debt.

Gerbasi said cities such as Calgary have imposed modest property tax increases every year to generate revenue, while Winnipeg has frozen it for so long programs are “starving.” She said it’s possible the city is looking at raising fees — such as the frontage levy — like it did last year to avoid a tax increase. Gerbasi said she and other members of council worry executive policy committee may consider selling city-owned assets such as golf courses to generate revenue.

“A lot of us are very concerned about it,” Gerbasi said.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/to-freeze-or-not-to-freeze-that-is-the-question-136645423.html

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Homeowner grant threshold raised to $1.285M

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The B.C. government has raised the threshold for homeowner property grant to $1.285 million to accommodate rising property values.

The news comes as hundreds of thousands of annual property assessments are being prepared for B.C. property owners by the government. Last year, the threshold was $1.15 million. The grant effectively reduces the property tax paid by most B.C. homeowners by up to $1,045

Every year the province adjusts the grant to ensure 95.5 per cent of homeowners receive the full amount of the grant. Those with homes above the threshold may still be eligible for part of the grant.

“The homeowner grant provides a maximum reduction in residential property taxes on principal residences of $570 in the Capital, Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley regional districts and $770 elsewhere in the province,” said a statement issued by the government on Tuesday.

“An additional grant of $275 is available to those who are age 65 or over, permanently disabled or a veteran of certain wars,.”

“We continue to see challenging economic times around the world. By maintaining the homeowner grant, we continue to help families with the costs of owning their homes,” said Finance Minister Kevin Falcon in the statement.

The grant is only available to Canadian citizens and to landed immigrants who normally reside in B.C.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/01/03/bc-homeowner-grant.html

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Big bus fare hike pending

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Winnipeg Transit fares will increase a nickel on Sunday, but whether they’ll go up another 20 cents on June 1 remains to be seen.

On Nov. 16 city council voted 8-6 in favour of a surprise proposal from Coun. Justin Swandel to add 20 more cents on top of a routine five-cent increase in bus fares and dedicate the difference to rapid transit expansion.

“The ridiculous conversations that go on between the city and province are not going to fund our infrastructure. We’ve got to get off our butts and fund this thing,” Swandel said at the time.

The five-cent increase is going ahead as planned Jan. 1, making the full cash fare $2.45 as of Sunday. However, both the city and province have said the extra 20 cents will only be added June 1 if no other funding mechanism can be found to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to expand Winnipeg’s fledgling rapid transit system.

So far it doesn’t appear as though there’s been a lot of movement in the six weeks since the vote.

“We have until June. If the province comes up with an alternative source, which everyone can agree on, then it won’t happen. Otherwise it probably will happen. We still have time to work on that one,” Mayor Sam Katz told the Winnipeg Sun just before Christmas.

Premier Greg Selinger’s preference is to fund the line with tax increment financing, a sort of back-door funding mechanism that sees the money roll in once the project is complete.

“We thought tax increment financing would be a way to look at financing it. As rapid transit expands, there are opportunities for urban development projects, and the revenues generated off that can pay for the infrastructure,” he said.

TIF, introduced by the provincial government just a few years ago, allows the government to divert a portion of the property taxes from certain properties when their assessed value increases. The province hopes rapid transit corridors will spur development nearby, which will increase the value of those properties. When the value increases, so too do the property taxes, and the province would divert the difference in its education portion back to the city.

Whether or not that can raise the $200 million or more needed to push rapid transit to the University of Manitoba remains to be seen.

Transit riders would be well advised to start saving their nickels just in case.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/12/28/big-bus-fare-hike-pending

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Reassessment jump may not mean tax hike

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YOU opened your property reassessment notice back in June and probably shrieked in horror.

Yes, the portioned assessed value of all properties across Winnipeg has increased by 14.6 per cent over the past two years, said Nelson Karpa, the city’s director of assessment and taxation.

Shudder.

But does that mean your school property taxes will go up that much?

Probably not.

OK, so that’s not all that reassuring, but let’s walk through it and figure out whether you’re going to get whomped on your school taxes next year after trustees set their budgets in March.

Bottom line, the Selinger government has been encouraging school boards to freeze their property-tax increases, dangling tax incentive grants in front of school board noses. If Education Minister Nancy Allan renews the grants — she’ll issue her annual funding decree in late January — then, if your property’s value increased close to the average, your bill shouldn’t change much.

Let’s take the Winnipeg School Division as an example.

The value of all houses has gone up 14.56 per cent between April 1, 2008 and April 1, 2010, calculates chief assessor Karpa.

If your property’s reassessed value is in that ballpark, you should be laughing.

If your property went up 25 per cent, then yes, you’ll pay more in taxes, because you’ll be paying a greater share of the overall tax burden. If it went up six per cent, you should be paying less in 2012.

Why won’t it stay exactly the same, if you’re at 14.56 per cent and the WSD trustees freeze taxes? Because. Depends. Listen up.

The value of apartment buildings has gone up substantially higher than houses, so apartment building owners will pay a greater share of the tax burden, thus reducing the hit on homeowners by a few bucks.

But the value of businesses, with the exception of those in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division, has gone up at a slower rate than houses’ value, so a few dollars and cents of the business share of the tax burden shift over to individual homeowners.

And finally, there will be new properties coming on the tax rolls for the first time, which should nudge down existing properties’ share — such as new homes in Waverley West, Sage Creek, Amber Trails.

Clear?

The jump in values is nowhere near as dramatic as in the last reassessment two years ago, which was based on a five-year change in market values, said Karpa. This increase is smaller: “Values are still going up, but not to the same trajectory,” he said.

Two years ago, there was a considerable shift from business to homes, but the change in their relative values has been far less significant a change this time.

“It’s not a very material shift,” Karpa said.

The values of owner-occupied condos have shown the most fluctuation, rising about twice as much in Seven Oaks than in Pembina Trails and St. Norbert.

And just to complicate, confuse and confound the picture even more, mill rates will go down next year if school boards freeze taxes. Lower mill rates mean a lower tax bill, right?

Um, no.

Municipalities and school boards calculate mill rates by dividing the assessment base into the amount of money they want to collect through property taxes.

If school boards freeze property taxes, then the only new money will be provincial grants, and the amount collected through taxes should remain constant.

A larger assessment base divided into a constant amount of property taxes collected produces a lower mill rate.

But since that lower mill rate gets multiplied by the higher property value to produce your tax bill, it should all even out.

Obvious, eh?

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/reassessment-jump-may-not-mean-tax-hike-136420428.html

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Canadians very responsible when handling their mortgage debt

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Canadians homeowners are comfortable with their mortgage debt, have significant home equity and could withstand an increase in their mortgage interest rate, according to the sixth annual State of the Residential Mortgage Market report from the Canadian Association Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP).

The report concluded that the vast majority of Canadians with mortgages are able to afford at least a $300 increase in their monthly mortgage payments.

In addition, slightly over one in three mortgage holders have either increased their payments or made a lump sum payment on their mortgage in the last year.

“Canadians are being smart and responsible with their mortgages, “said Jim Murphy, president and CEO of CAAMP. “They are building equity in their homes and making informed long-term mortgage decisions. The survey results speak to the strength of our mortgage market, especially when compared to the United States.”

According to the report, 89 per cent of Canadian homeowners have at least 10 per cent equity in their homes and 80 per cent have more than 20 per cent equity.

Overall home equity is at 72 per cent of the total value of housing in Canada; for homeowners who have mortgages, equity levels averages 50 per cent.

As of August 2010, there was $1.01 trillion in outstanding residential mortgage credit in Canada, an increase of 7.6 per cent from last year.

Most Canadians agree that buying a home is a good long term investment and are focused on their mortgages to support that investment.

Many mortgage holders are making voluntary additional payment; 16 per cent have increased monthly payments during the past year, 12 per cent have made lump sum payments and seven per cent did both.

Canadians are exercising caution when taking out their mortgages, with their mortgages, with a majority at 66 per cent choosing a fixed-rate. A five year fixed rate mortgage remains the most popular option in Canada.

Despite the fact that variable rate mortgage have become much less expensive compared to fix rates, the majority choice is still fixed rates. This decision is based on people’s individual assessments of risk, not just the cost difference.

The CAAMP study found that a vast majority of Canadians have significant capabilities to afford higher payments if and when mortgage interest rates rise, with 84 per cent reporting that they could weather an increase of $300 or more on their monthly payments.

Most of the people who have low tolerances for increased payments have fixed rate mortgages. By the time their mortgages are due for renewal, their financial capacity will have expanded and their mortgage principal will have been reduced.

Also, Canadians have been able to negotiate better than posted mortgage interest rates. For five year fixed rate mortgages arranged in the past year, the average rate is 4.23 per cent, which is 1.42 points lower than typical advertised rates.
Of the 1.4 million Canadians who renewed their mortgage in the past year, 72 per cent were able to renegotiate a decreased rate. On average, rates are 1.09 percentage points less than rates prior to renegotiating.

Canadians home equity is impressively high. Among homeowners who have mortgages, the average amount of equity is about $146,000 or 50 per cent of the average value of their homes.

The amount of equity take-out in the past year is unchanged from last year with around one-in-five homeowners, or 18 percent taking equity out of their home at an average of $46,000. The most common purpose for equity take-out is debt consolidation and repayment followed by home renovations, purchases and education investments.

The report was written by CAAMP chief economist Will Dunning and based on information gathered by Maritz Research Canada in a survey of Canadian consumers conducted in October.

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Long road to completion

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The City of Winnipeg will take a step toward fulfilling a 43-year-old plan to build an inner ring road with the opening of the eastern extension of Chief Peguis Trail this morning.

Following the conclusion of an 11 a.m. political ceremony, motorists in northeast Winnipeg will be able to travel between Henderson Highway and Lagimodiere Boulevard on a $109-million roadway that serves as another link in a “suburban beltway” originally envisioned by transportation planners in 1968.

At the time, a report called the Winnipeg Area Transportation Study recommended the construction of a ring road inside the Perimeter Highway to carry both passenger and commercial vehicles. A strip of land between Henderson and Lagimodiere was reserved for the North Kildonan component of this road — and finally used when construction began in 2010.

“It was held and now it’s built,” said North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty on Thursday before city officials were taken on a tour of the new roadway, which is expected to relieve the burden of traffic on east-west streets in northeast Winnipeg, such as Springfield Road and McLeod Avenue.

These narrow arteries were not designed to handle high volumes of traffic, both in terms of width and durability, said Brad Sacher, Winnipeg’s public works director.

In contrast, the Chief Peguis Trail extension was built like a highway, with a deep base of granular material covered in a layer of asphalt, Sacher said. On a high-volume roadway with a granular base, it’s cheaper to maintain an asphalt surface over the long term, he said, adding concrete still makes more financial sense as a surface for lower-volume roads.

Originally slated to open next fall, the new roadway is ready now because of sunny weather this summer and a seven-day work schedule employed by construction consortium DBF2, the city’s partner in the project, Sacher said. Under the terms of a private-public partnership, the city will pay the consortium $8.2 million a year for 30 years for the design, construction and maintenance of the roadway.

Ottawa contributed $25 million to the project, using a fund set aside for public-private partnerships. Manitoba also redirected $9 million from existing budgets after the scope of the project was increased to $109 million from $65 million to include the cost of an underpass at Rothesay Street.

The new roadway also features remodelled intersections at Henderson and Lagimodiere, a new signalized intersection at Gateway Road, street closings at both Raleigh Street and De Vries Avenue and a bike-and-pedestrian overpass at the Northeast Pioneers Greenway, one of the city’s busier active-transportation corridors.

The city has long-term plans to extend Chief Peguis Trail west from Main Street to McPhillips Street and eventually to Route 90, as well as east from Lagimodiere to the Perimeter Highway. According to the city’s Transportation Master Plan, this will be accomplished by 2031, when the city is supposed to complete the inner ring road.

The price tag for completing the ring road is $670 million in 2011 dollars. Transportation advocates say the City of Winnipeg won’t be able to afford it without raising the money through funding mechanisms such as road tolls, gasoline taxes and property-tax increases.

“At the end of the day, the political will has to exist. Otherwise the plan is just a plan,” said Chris Lorenc, a former city councillor who regularly appears before the current council to argue in favour of more investment in infrastructure. “We can not simply sit around and wait for someone to drop a pile of money on the City of Winnipeg. It’s not going to happen.”

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/long-road-to-completion-134896743.

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Comments flow after running-water story

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Two developers are going back to the future to help make it easier for some Winnipeggers to buy a downtown condominium.

The developers behind the heritage-building conversions at 111 Princess St. (the former Penthouse Furniture Building) and 128 James Ave. both plan to offer a rent-to-own option when they begin marketing condos within the next few months.

In the case of 128 James, James Avenue Holdings Ltd. plans to give prospective buyers the option of signing one-, two-, or three-year leases. A portion of each month’s rent, which will be set higher than they would normally pay, will be put into a special account for use as a down payment on the purchase of the unit when the lease expires.
Taurean Global Properties, which is converting the Penthouse building into 60 condos, hasn’t worked out the details yet for its rent-to-own package, which will be administered by an outside party.

Both James Avenue Holdings president Kurtis Sawatzky and Taurean Global spokesman Alf Kaech said the idea is to give people who can’t afford a condo right away an opportunity to save up money and purchase one a few years down the road. “It definitely gives them some options,” Kaech said. “We’re excited to be able to offer it.”

“We’re just trying to be a little innovative in what we do,” Sawatzky said. “It’s just another wrinkle in our marketing approach.”

Bill Thiessen, the Re/Max Professional Realty agent who expects to begin marketing the James condos within the next few weeks, said rent-to-own isn’t new. He remembers hearing about it when he started selling homes in the 1980s.
But it hasn’t been used much in recent years, he said, adding he isn’t aware of any other local downtown developers offering the option.

Thiessen, one of the most active agents in the downtown condo market, said he expects some tenants to jump at the chance to rent for a few years before buying.

“It’s basically a forced savings program, which can help you make the transition from renting to owning,” he said. “Sure your rents are going to be higher, but very quickly you’re going to create this pool of equity.”

Thiessen said the lease can also stipulate what the purchase price will be at the end of the lease, “so it takes away all of the unpredictable parts of it.”

Sawatzky said he plans to sell three of the 10 condos in the James building and to rent out the rest. He’s also willing to rent out some of the units month-to-month in case prospective buyers want to see if they like living downtown before committing to buy. The only catch is if the unit is sold, they will have to move.

He said rent-to-own is best suited to people who are already committed to living downtown because they won’t get their money back if they change their mind.

That’s because his company will be holding the unit for them and will be paying the property taxes and other costs during the leasing period.

Sawatzky said most of the rental units will have two bedrooms and range from 976 square feet to 1,138 sq. ft. The basic monthly rent will be $1,450 to $1,695, depending on the unit. They haven’t decided yet what the additional premium will be for the rent-to-own program.

Kaech said Taurean Global will likely set aside 10 to 12 units for its rent-to-own program. The rest will be sold.
The James project is one of two condo developments Sawatzky is involved in. Another company he partly owns — Stonebridge Development Corp. Ltd. — is converting the former First Church of Christ, Scientist Church at 511 River Ave. into 46 one-bedroom condos.

The company has spent the last two years preparing the building for redevelopment, but has now started construction with a goal of having the condos ready for occupancy a year from now, he said.

Stonebridge had originally hoped to have that project completed before the end of 2009, but Sawatzky said it took longer than expected to obtain city permits and to complete the design and financing.

But that’s all done now, the interior has been gutted, and they’re starting to pour concrete footings in the basement for the new support beams that will hold up the four new interior floors.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/condo-living-in-core-made-easy-a-look-at-three-condo-developments-in-winnipeg-134579708.html

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Winnipeg homebuyers have something to smile about

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The gods were smiling on Winnipeg homebuyers in the third quarter of this year, according to a new housing affordability report from RBC Economics.

The bank said Friday Manitoba saw some of the country’s biggest improvements in housing affordability during the quarter that ended Sept. 30.

Not only did mortgage rates decline from the second to third quarters, but selling prices also did an about-face, declining across the board after racking up some record-breaking gains in the second quarter.

The bank said the biggest retreat was in the price of a standard two-storey home, which declined by 2.4 per cent to $282,000. The average selling price of a detached bungalow fell by 1.6 per cent to $263,700, while the average price of a standard condominium dipped by 0.3 per cent to $157,700.

That news may come as a surprise to Winnipeggers who have grown accustomed to double-digit price increases for much of the last eight years.

But Peter Squire, residential market analyst for the WinnipegRealtors, said it’s not unusual for average selling prices to bounce around from month to month or quarter to quarter because of seasonal variations in the marketplace. He noted, for example, there tends to be more sales and more upward pressure on prices during the spring and summer than in the fall and winter.

But if you compare prices on a year-over-year basis, which is what the WR does in its monthly market reports, it shows the average selling price for a single-family, detached home in Winnipeg is still 7.4 per cent higher than it was in the third quarter of last year — $253,163 versus $235,822, he said.

Robert Hogue, senior economist for RBC Economics, said while selling prices are higher than they were a year ago, they’ve cooled a bit in recent months, and he expects them to remain fairly stable through to year-end.

Hogue said affordability in Manitoba remains near historic norms, “which is a telltale sign that home ownership in the province is reasonably achievable.”

RBC’s quarterly Housing Trends and Affordability report measures the affordability of housing in 13 Canadian markets by calculating the proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the cost of owning a home at the going market value.

An affordability rating of 50 per cent means home ownership costs, including mortgage payments, utility bills and property taxes, take up 50 per cent of a typical household’s monthly pre-tax income. So the higher the rating, the more costly it is to afford a home.

The bank said Manitoba’s affordability rate declined in the third quarter for all three housing types. For bungalows, it fell 1.2 percentage points to 35.6 per cent; for two-storeys it dropped by 1.5 per cent to 37.9; and for condos it fell 0.5 per cent to 21.4.

Vancouver and Toronto had the two least affordable markets, with affordability ratings for a benchmark detached bungalow of 90.6 per cent and 52.1 per cent respectively. Other examples are 40.9 per cent for Montreal, 40.8 per cent for Ottawa, 37.6 per cent for Calgary and 33.2 per cent for Edmonton.

RBC said most of those markets also saw the affordability of bungalows improve from the second to third quarters. The lone exception was Calgary, which saw an erosion in affordability.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/winnipeg-homebuyers-have-something-to-smile-about-134525028.html

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Manitoba’s housing affordability improves noticeably in the third quarter: RBC Economics

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Manitoba’s housing affordability experienced some of the most noticeable improvements in the country during the third quarter of 2011, according to the latest Housing Trends and Affordability Report issued today by RBC Economics. Homeownership costs in the province fell, as mortgage rates eased and home prices reversed some of the record-breaking gains made in the second quarter.

“Manitoba’s affordability levels continue to stand near their historic norms – a telltale sign that homeownership in the province is reasonably achievable,” said Robert Hogue, senior economist, RBC. “Homebuyers took advantage of this more affordable market in the third quarter, pushing home resales higher by 5.3 per cent.”

RBC’s housing affordability measures for Manitoba, which capture the provinces proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the costs of owning a home at the going market value, decreased across all housing types in the third quarter of 2011 (a decrease represents a gain in affordability). The measure for the benchmark detached bungalow in the province fell to 35.6 per cent (a decrease of 1.2 percentage points from the previous quarter), the standard condominium to 21.4 (down 0.5 percentage points) and the standard two-storey home to 37.9 per cent (a decrease of 1.5 percentage points).

RBC’s housing affordability measure for the benchmark detached bungalow in Canada’s largest cities is as follows: Vancouver 90.6 per cent (down 1.5 percentage points from the previous quarter), Toronto 52.1 per cent (up 0.1 percentage points), Montreal 40.9 per cent (down 1.3 percentage points), Ottawa 40.8 per cent (down 0.6 percentage points), Calgary 37.6 per cent (up 0.5 percentage points) and Edmonton 33.2 per cent (down 0.6 percentage points).

The RBC Housing Affordability Measure, which has been compiled since 1985, is based on the costs of owning a detached bungalow, a reasonable property benchmark for the housing market in Canada. Alternative housing types are also presented including a standard two-storey home and a standard condominium. The higher the reading, the more costly it is to afford a home. For example, an affordability reading of 50 per cent means that the homeownership costs, including mortage payments, utilities and property taxes, take up 50 per cent of a typical household’s monthly pre-taxed income.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/884395/manitoba-s-housing-affordability-improves-noticeably-in-the-third-quarter-rbc-economics

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