Is Canada's Real Estate Expensive?

By Mark Jennings-Bates

Is Kelowna the 13 most expensive real estate market in the world?

Like me, that is probably what you were left thinking after a recent news report. So much so, that time and time again in coffee shop discussions I have heard the statement "We are now the 13th most expensive city for housing in the world". It sure left me confused, and it was interesting to see the reaction of people, which ranged from horror to glee that their houses might be worth so much on a global scale.

Since I have been touting the line that Kelowna offers some of the best value resort real estate in the world, I though it was time to go digging.

Firstly, whilst Kelowna is indeed a City and whilst the Economic Development Commission have done a fantastic job of creating economic diversity within the region, there is no doubt that Kelowna will transition into a full service resort region with strong retirement and pre-retirement demographics. Straight away, one of the first things that came to mind is why did we not consider resort markets in this comparison instead of major urban centres? Certainly, Kelowna cannot be considered a major urban centre although if you have lived here for your whole life, you may not be comfortable with the changes and size for the City today. Taking a comparison within a similar real estate market will give us a very different glimpse of the world. If we were to look at Whistler, Canmore, Telluride, Aspen, Palm Springs, Puerto Vallarta, Carmel, Cannes, Majorca and other world renowned resort destinations, there is no doubt at all that Kelowna is one of the least expensive regions to offer one of the most fantastic retirement lifestyles.

That thought made me realize that I should study the actual survey in more detail. Perhaps it was in fact categorizing us unnaturally, at least in my opinion. Then I started to think about international City's, like Perth Australia, New York, London, Dublin, Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. Just a short list of cities, that if I travel to, makes me think twice about moving there because of the cost of housing in the urban areas. What was I missing? In short, the detail behind the study!

The survey, The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey actually defined it's criteria as " median house price divided by median household income to assess housing affordability". Now I felt I was getting somewhere, because perhaps you, like me simply read (and heard on the radio!) "Kelowna ranked as Canada's least affordable community". That is not true, I just moved from Canmore Alberta and I have friends who live in Whistler... lets talk about affordability.

Clearly, with this data, the context of the report was very different to that portrayed in the headlines we all read. In relation to the average income in Kelowna, housing is less affordable. Does that mean we have the most expensive housing in Canada. NO!

It does indicate that most people moving here are less concerned about finding a job. That would match the demographic we have been talking about for a few years in our articles. It does mean that many people are making recreational property investments as we have been talking about for a few years. It also means that there is a challenge in inviting a labour pool to the community because of the relative affordability of Kelowna. That would be the reason that Mr. Robert Fine, from the Economic Development office, spends so much time on aircraft heading to other destinations and promoting Kelowna as a great place to live, work and set up business.

Interestingly, those destinations are likely to have more expensive housing than Kelowna which is why we can say, on a global scale, Kelowna offers tremendous value to the property investor, retiree and pre-retiree and we don't see that changing in the near term.

One good reason to work with a professional realtor is to have someone explain the ramifications of the statistics that can at first appear confusing or can be used by an overly aggressive media to create a headline that takes your breath away... it did mine!

Interestingly, in that same month as that report was released, the local real estate board issued a media release announcing continued growth in the real estate market in the month of January compared to the same month last year. What does the rest of the year hold... we'll tell you more as we get into it.
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