10th Annual Demographia Ranking of Canada's 6 Biggest Metros

Thanks to Hugh Pavletich and Wendell Cox co-authors of the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. This table shows that Vancouver BC continues to rank as the least affordable city out of the 35 largest Canadian cities with a multiple of 10.3 times median household income required to buy a median priced house. As of Q3 2013 the 6 cities ranked from least to more affordable are: Vancouver 10.3, Toronto 6.2, Montreal 4.7, Calgary 4.3, Edmonton 3.9 and Ottawa 3.8 

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All 35 Demographia ranked cities in Canada are tabled below on this page

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10th Annual Demographia Price/Income Ranks of 35 Canadian Cities
Affordable when under 3 ~ Severely Unaffordable when over 5 Data Source

The table below is sorted with the highest ratio of median housing cost to median household income at the top showing that Vancouver is the most unaffordable city in Canada requiring a buyer to pay 10.3 times annual income. Vancouver ranks 2nd most unaffordable city in 360 world markets after Hong Kong (1) and before Honolulu (3). 

"As a city develops, nothing is more important than maintaining mobility and housing affordability." Alain Bertaud Affordability is the ability for any urban household to be able to rent a dwelling for less than a 25% of its monthly income, or to buy one for less than about three time its yearly income. The mobility and affordability objectives are tightly related. A residential location that only allows access to only a small segment of the job market in less than an hour commuting time has not much value to households, even if it is theoretically affordable.

10th ANNUAL DEMOGRAPHIA to Q3 2013 ~ SOURCE: http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

Snapshot below of EOY 2013 Trends going into 2014

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January 2014 Notes on the 3 thumbnails above:

1. In Canada services account for more than 70% of GDP. Within services the most important are: Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing and management of companies and enterprises (21% of total GDP); Retail and wholesale trade (12%), Health (8%) and Public administration (6%). Manufacturing accounts for 13% of the output and Construction for 6%. Mining and oil and gas extraction constitute only 4% of GDP, yet Canada is a net exporter of energy. Also, although Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting account for 2% of output, the country is one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products. 
2. In Canada, Productivity is the real value of output produced by a unit of labor during a certain time. It is used to measure efficiency of the economy. 
3. The Current Account is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid).