This year's soaring housing prices have pushed how long it will take aspiring homebuyers to save enough for down payments, as evidenced by new data.
The National Bank of Canada's most recent report concluded that during this year's second fiscal quarter, housing affordability levels had decreased by its most considerable margin in almost 30 years.
If you saved 10 per cent of your average pre-tax household income, it would take just under six years, - 69 months - to come up with enough cash for a down payment on an average Canadian home. A fairly sizeable increase from the 57 months of saving over the same terms, this time last year. If you live in Vancouver, Victoria or Toronto, this could decades, if you were able to put away 10 per cent of you pre-tax household income.
Sitting at the top of the list, unsurprisingly, is Vancouver, where it would take an astonishing 34 years of saving to to be able to afford an average home - which sits at 1.47$ million currently. It would take just under five years, to save for a down payment on an average condo in Vancouver.
In Victoria, it would take approximately 28 years of saving to make a down payment on the current average home price of $1.03 million. It would take 47 months of saving for a condo down payment.
In Toronto, a usual suspect in unaffordability, it would take 26.5 years of saving to make a down payment on the average home price of about $1.2 million. A condo would require just under 5 years of saving.
In Montreal, it would take a reasonable 3.5 years to save enough for a down payment on a non-condo home - currently priced at an average of $492,777. Saving for a condo, would take just over two years.
In Calgary, you would need to save for just under 3 years for a home and for about half that time for a condo.
Potential buyers in Edmonton would need to save for 2.5 years for a down payment on a non-condo home, priced at an average of $428,600.
Affording a down payment in Winnipeg, would require just over 2 years of saving, in order for a down payment on the average $370,000 home. You'd need 18 months of saving for a condo.