The Housing Market is Ablaze

“Nothing short of spectacular.” “Home resales skyrocketed.”

Those are the words the economists at RBC Royal Bank are using to describe the residential real estate market in this province’s two largest cities in its latest quarterly report on ownership affordability.

It looks at average home prices and then matches that against average income levels in various communities across the country to come up with what it calls its Affordability Index. And this year has been an interesting one with COVID putting pressure in income levels but sparking a run in home prices.

The upshot is that home ownership became slightly less affordable over the summer as low interest rates encouraged buyers to snap inventory faster than it was coming onto the market. In Saskatoon, the Index rose eight-tenths of a point to 30.8. That is still on the lower end in the country.

In Regina, successive monthly sales records resulted in the tightest supply-demand conditons in eight years. But we had a lot of catching up to do so even after this activity, Regina is still the most affordable market in Western Canada with an Index of 26.4.