Sask Leads Home Affordability

On a dollar-for-dollar basis, this may be the best opportunity to buy a house in Saskatchewan.

RBC Royal Bank’s quarterly Affordability report is headlined with the suggestion that any relief from rising house prices delivered by the pandemic was short lived and the upward trend is on again nationally….the one exception is the Prairies especially Saskatchewan.

For communities like Weyburn which have mounted a campaign to encourage big city residents to relocate to a far more affordable community such as Weyburn, the bank notes there is some movement on this front as multiple smaller centres are attracting residents from the large metro areas where home prices continue to climb.

In Saskatchewan, the bank looks only at the two cities for this report, but it shows Regina is perhaps the most affordable community out there right now, requiring only 26.5% of the average household income to purchase the average property. Saskatoon is almost as affordable at 31%.

But all the demand and thin supply has the potential to push prices higher as we move through the remainder of the year, giving rise to the ‘buy now’ idea .