Depressing news for Montrealers, the latest Demographia Housing Affordability Study demonstrates that after two years on the decline, Montreal home prices have risen sharply.The unaffordability index had fallen 0.4 for two straight years and some might have hoped that we'd be back in 2008 levels when it took the average earner 3.9 years of salary to pay off the average home.
Instead the count went up 0.6, so we're back in some seriously unaffordable territory when it comes to the dream of owning your own home as the median home price was $293,000, while the median household income was $59,000.
The report authors frequently blame the unaffordability on zoning policies which protect farmlands from development, most notably in Vancouver and Toronto.
Urban sprawl should be tolerated, they feel.
The fast-growing South Shore could be seen as a culprit in these optics, as the agrarian properties sit relatively close to downtown Montreal.
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