As housing affordability erodes in major Canadian cities, the question on most first-time buyer’s minds is where on earth are the affordable homes these days? And if affordable homes are already hard to find… what about cheap homes?
While the national median home price currently sits around $716,000, twenty-four of Canada’s fifty largest cities have benchmark prices higher than $1 million, so it might be hard to imagine being able to snag a home for around $200,000.
According to data from Point2, homes listed for under $200,000 are nearly impossible to find in almost all major Canadian cities, but they do still exist – offering a small nugget of hope for first-time buyers in an otherwise bleak national market.
So… where are these wild and elusive listings? Let’s start with where they aren’t.
Big cities, little savings
If you’re looking for a home in a big city, expect to pay a bigger price – no matter where you’re looking. Larger and more expensive cities in Canada are naturally more desirable to prospective buyers, which means prices soar alongside demand. These red-hot housing markets leave little space left for affordable options.
Only 15 large Canadian cities currently offer homes around the $200,000 mark – up from 12 in 2022, but not a whole lot to get excited about.
Among those 15 cities, listings for homes under $200,000 make up less than 1 per cent of the overall housing inventory. Only two cities – Waterloo and Kawartha Lakes in Ontario, stand out with shares of affordable homes at 3.13 per cent and 2.62 per cent respectively.
Slim pickings on the West Coast
The bleakest of all the Canadian housing markets, British Columbia’s five largest cities offered a total of four homes under $200,000 at the time Point2 gathered its data.
Two were located in Surrey, one in Abbotsford and the last in Richmond. The province’s remaining cities – Vancouver and Burnaby – offered no listings below $200,000.
Ontari-no…
In Ontario’s five largest cities, only Hamilton, Ottawa and Toronto had homes under $200,000 available at the time Point2 collected its data. However, the numbers still weren’t looking good.
Only seven homes were found in Hamilton, five in Ottawa and two in Toronto.
What about Quebec?
Out of Quebec’s five largest cities, Quebec City has the highest shares of listings under $200,000 at 9.85 per cent – which translates to about 240 homes.
Considering the median price of a home in Quebec City hovers around $331,000 – the most affordable median price in the region, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
However, other cities in the province are less forgiving to first-time buyers on a budget.
While Longueuil, Gatineau, Laval and Montreal all offer homes for under a $200,000 price tag, the number of affordable listings ranged between 0-2 per cent.
Atlantic Canada and The Prairies offer some hope
Here’s some good news for first-time buyers: Atlantic Canada and The Prairies have the highest proportion of homes listed for under $200,000.
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia leads the pack with nearly 45 per cent of listings falling under the $200,000 mark. Saint John, New Brunswick is close behind with just over 36 per cent of listings within that price range.
Both cities boast the lowest benchmark home prices of all the cities Point2 included in its list – with the average home going for well below $300,000.
Further West, some of the largest cities in The Prairies aren’t far behind in terms of affordability.
Regina, Lethbridge and Edmonton boast the highest shares of homes under $200,000 in the region – ranging between 36-24 per cent of total listings.
