Vancouver seems to be getting a lot of attention right now for the disparity between house prices and incomes:
The median cost of a Vancouver home, adjusted for purchasing power parity, is US$672,000 — costly but still 15 per cent to 26 per cent below that of San Jose and San Francisco, the two most expensive housing markets, according to Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, whose study accounted for the difference in buying power of a dollar across geographies and currencies.
What pushes Vancouver to the top of the unaffordability rankings is paltry wages. In Canada’s third-largest city, the median household earns the equivalent of US$61,036 a year — in line with Columbus and less than families in Omaha, Nebraska, Kansas City, Missouri and even Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a rural community of 59,000 known for cornfields.
fortunately the solution is simple: cut house prices in half or double up current household incomes. Read the full article here.
