{"id":355,"date":"2014-06-17T17:49:45","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T17:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/?post_type=chapter&p=355"},"modified":"2014-09-02T14:55:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T21:55:16","slug":"case-study-2-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/chapter\/case-study-2-2\/","title":{"raw":"Case Study 2: Housing Affordability","rendered":"Case Study 2: Housing Affordability"},"content":{"raw":"

The Cost of Real Estate and Access to Housing<\/h2>\r\nAffordability of housing\u00a0in\u00a0<\/span>Canada\u00a0presents a complex paradox. Canada is considered to be among the more affordable places in the Global North to live, with\u00a0<\/span>80% of Canadians being served by market-based housing,\u00a0which\u00a0includes individual home ownership and private rental housing.<\/span>\u00a0However BC and specifically Vancouver do not fare well in this national picture of affordability.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe rising inequality gap of affordable housing presents a significant challenge for BC households who are priced out of rental and ownership housing markets. Statistics Canada reported that while Canada's real GDP) per capita increased by about 50% between 1980 and 2006,\u00a0and the average earnings among the top 20% of full-time full-year employees grew by 17.9%,\u00a0among those in the bottom 25% of the distribution average earnings decreased by 13.3% (Statistics Canada, 2006).\u00a0Lack of affordable housing is one of a number of\u00a0complex\u00a0factors that leads to homelessness\u00a0(Hulchanski, 2009).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_78\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure 2.5 Housing cost in Vancouver, BC, compared with\u00a0other cities in Canada (source: Royal Bank of Canada, 2012)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAccording to\u00a0the urban planning think tank Demographia (2014), says Metro Vancouver has the second-highest housing prices in the world.\u00a0The research compared urban areas with over\u00a0one million residents in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development<\/strong><\/strong>)<\/strong> countries around the world, and\u00a0Vancouver came out second when income and cost of housing were compared. Blame has been placed on Vancouver\u2019s strong urban containment policies (Hutton, 2004), which are said to\u00a0have caused the city\u2019s affordability to deteriorate markedly.\u00a0The average house price in Metro Vancouver is $670,300, which would require 80% of the average median household income to service the mortgage.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nVancouver is seen as a very desirable city to live in, and therefore it comes with a cost. This situation is not limited to Greater Vancouver as the Demographia research shows that\u00a0Victoria, Kelowna and the Fraser Valley are also some of the most unaffordable places in Canada.\r\n<\/span>\r\n

Attributions<\/h2>\r\n