Buying a home is no easy feat, and buying a home on one income is even more difficult.
Real estate site Zoocasa has rounded up the most and least affordable housing markets for single homebuyers in Canada, based on median incomes for Canadians aged 25-64 and average home prices.
It found the most affordable housing markets for single people are all in the Prairies or Atlantic Canada, with Regina taking the top spot.
There, a single homebuyer would need an income of $38,798 to buy a home at the average price of $284,424. The actual median income there is $58,823, leaving a surplus of over $20,000.
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Unsurprisingly, the least affordable cities are Vancouver and Toronto, in that order.
In Vancouver, the average home is over $1 million, and the median income of $50,721 falls short of the $139,082 needed to buy — that's over $88,000 short of the income needed.
In Toronto, the average home price sits at $748,328, and the median income of $55,221 still falls almost $47,000 short.
The study assumes a 20 per cent down payment and 3.29 per cent interest rate, amortized over 30 years.
The study also looked at differences in single homebuyer affordability among different age groups.
Generally speaking, if a market is unaffordable for some, it's unaffordable for all— with one exception.
In Ottawa, the median income for people ages 25-34 ($49,581) and 55-64 ($56,370) falls just short of the $59,042 in income needed to buy a home at the average price of $432,829.
