Housing affordability in Saskatoon shows modest year-over-year improvement
I can’t imagine that it would come as much of a surprise to anyone that the cost of home ownership in Saskatoon has skyrocketed in recent years. According to the recently released “6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey” owning a Saskatoon home priced at the median in Q3/2009 would have cost about 4.4 times the median household income, a sharp increase from 2.6 times median income we enjoyed in Q3/2006. Saskatoon saw one of the steepest declines in affordability between 2006 and 2008 placing us among the ranks of the “seriously unaffordable,” according to Demographia’s ranking system. On the brighter side, our city saw some small improvements from Q3/2008 when 4.6 years of income was required to buy that home.
The following chart shows the changes in affordability levels in some of Canada’s most active real estate markets over the past five surveys. Click the image for a larger view.
I was a bit surprised to see that affordability at a national level really hasn’t changed significantly in the past five years. Canada’s “median multiple” comes in at 3.7 years, up from the lows of 3.1 in Q3/2007 but just slightly higher than the 3.6 years in Q3/2005.
Vancouver “wins the gold medal” as the most severely unaffordable housing market in the world requiring 9.3 times to median household income, an increase of almost a year in just twelve months time.
See the entire Demographia survey for 2010 and past reports for 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
There's 13 Comments So Far
January 28th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Interesting that Saskatoon is so much less affordable than Regina.
Regina should benefit from any provincial advantage Saskatoon has,
and have a similar economic situation.
I would think Saskatoon being that much less affordable than Regina either means that Reginans make substantially more, that housing in Saskatoon is substantially over priced, or both!
January 28th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Hi Sarah,
Incomes in Regina have always been on the higher side. In fact, Regina is in the upper 30% of all Canadian markets surveyed for this report, and roughly eight percent higher than Saskatoon. House prices appear to be 11-12% higher in Saskatoon when looking at the averages and the medians. One of my colleagues in Regina suggests that they have more “lower end” homes and that these make up a larger sale of the sales, and therefore bring down the averages but I don’t know if his perceptions are accurate. His family is from the Saskatoon area and he believes that similar homes, in similar areas trade for similar dollars.
January 28th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Can’t speak for your fair city but the nutbars that run this one seem to be reading material that justifies continued ‘EcoDensity’. It’s a charter in this city that says paint it green but pack em in. It’s our attempt at a civic social doctrine to help us live closer together better.
I don’t think there is a flatlander amoungst you who would consider a 270 sq. ft. + – apartment renting at $675 as something livable without driving you insane – even on one of Vancouver’s sunniest days. Methinks most of your two holers on the back 40 are larger than that!
The author of the demographia report specifically makes a point of saying the data most city fathers are using as a foundation for their decisions is based on an incorrect premise.
They might want to ask why parking in these high density green city cores goes for $40,000 a stall.
Reminds me of a long ago experiment where they just kept adding mice to box. For a while everything was friendly – all the little mice got along. At a crucial point however, that next mouse caused all hell to break loose. Cannibalism ensued until the level of density was reduced to an acceptable level.
With that gruesome thought I’m off to get my Red Rider BB gun and some black and white self stick circles.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Thanks Larry. Our council has expressed concern about “urban sprawl” and those concerns are evident in more recent neighbourhood plans. We are seeing parcels getting smaller and houses getting closer together. Land man! They’re not making any more of it, you know?
January 29th, 2010 at 12:59 am
Urban sprawl in some cities means going 40 stories up.
As to no more land – with tongue in cheek and with a view to the locale of your recent break you must know that on those islands there is land being made everyday. Of course, much like Vancouver RE, it’s too hot to handle.:)
January 29th, 2010 at 7:42 am
Urban sprawl in some cities means going 40 stories up.
Touche.
…you must know that on those islands there is land being made everyday.
I suppose that’s technically true, but isn’t permanence supposed to be characteristic of land? They say that land will sink into the ocean in the next 80 million years or so. I’m a long term thinker.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Hmmmm, is that why Vancouver land is so expensive – b/c there’s a time limit on it as the ocean rises and everyone is scrambling to get a piece of it? Or perhaps that should decrease the value? I mean you’d think sask land will be around at least a couple million years longer than Vancouver land…. that gives me a great idea, invest in all the sask land I can and eventually it will be west coast land and it’ll be worth millions! Although my descendants will probably moved on to other planets by the time that happens so they won’t care anyway…
January 29th, 2010 at 10:18 am
There’s only one thing on the planet that’s more abundant than land… salt water.
Land near downtown of a major urban centre… ok – it’s limited.
captcha: assures all
January 29th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Larry, the lesson of your rodent cannabilism story directly contradicts the established wisdom of the age old children’s song “the more we get together the happier we’ll be”. So, you’re saying at a certain critical mass the song suddenly changes to “the more we get together the chubbier we’ll be?” Now I’m so confused… With Saskatoon growning every year I now feel a sense of urgency to discover what this critical mass is before it’s too late. On a side note, could this be the explanation to parliamentary behavior? Too many politicians?
January 29th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Norm – “isn’t permanence supposed to be characteristic of land. ”
Seems to me that stuff being made is pretty ‘rock’ hard. Got a few dents in my skull that serves to prove that point.
Jeremy – RE critical mass question
- It occurs the nano-second your neighbor starts looking like lunch.:)
January 29th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
When you buy a house on one of the new area lots it seems you don’t get much actual land for the price.
And when you buy a condo you get NO land.
January 30th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
An article you might find interesting..I’d like to here your take on this sometime (tech and opening up of info)..
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-battle-to-unlock-the-housing-market/article1450088/
January 30th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
DM,
Thank you. I think the story is so full of misrepresentations that it’s nearly laughable. Take this one for example.
“While American consumers are using their phones to scope out houses they drive by, the best Canadians can hope for is CREA’s low-tech mobile website, which provides the phone number of the relevant agent for a property. And that only works if you know the property’s six-digit Multiple Listing Service number, which someone whizzing past in a car would not. A more feature-rich version is expected to be in place by summer.”
Then have a look at Find and view all Saskatoon MLS listings in your iPhone. (This tool is available in pretty much all major markets in Canada)
Feel free to browse the datatbase of Saskatoon MLS listings here, or I could point you to about 150 other websites where you could find the same information.
If there’s a single person who doesn’t know how to find info on private sales there’s a great website at http://www.saskhouses.com that has a large percentage of them.
It has never been easier to disseminate information and it’s pretty much impossible to keep a secret nowadays.