The typical cost of owning a home in Prince George is about a third of that in Vancouver, according to a B.C. Northern Real Estate Board study.
In Prince George, the median percentage of household income going into mortgage payments, municipal taxes and fees and utilities was 31.4 per cent in 2011.
In Vancouver, the figure was 90.6 per cent, meaning that a person earning the median income there can no longer
afford to buy a single-detached house.
"They're going to buy something else, like a condo," said real estate board
executive director Alexandra Goseltine.
Prince George's figure was in line with those of most communities in northern B.C.
"Historically, the largest contributor to the difference is house prices," report author Rory Conroy said. "This trend continued in 2011; the average price of a single family home in northern British Columbia was about $229,000 compared with almost $820,000 in
Vancouver."
While the affordability index in northern B.C. remained relatively stable, the level for Vancouver jumped noticeably from 69 per cent in 2009.
Kitimat's housing affordability was the best at 15.3 per cent, followed by 21.8 per cent for Mackenzie, where the average house price rose 23.5 per cent to $110,500, Conroy noted.
The least affordable in the region was 100 Mile House at 46.7 per cent, which Conroy said was a function of low reported incomes from the 2006 Census and strong house prices, while the figures for Kitimat indicated an opposite situation.
Conroy based his study on one conducted by RBC that focused on major cities.
