Halifax house prices much higher on average than what households can afford: report

A recent report found that house prices in Halifax are, on average, 74 per cent higher than what the typical household can afford.

Affordability has not improved in recent years, says watchdog

A row of houses is seen from the back of the buildings

A recent report from Ottawa’s fiscal watchdog found that house prices in Halifax are 74 per cent higher on average than what the typical household can afford.

Affordability has not improved since the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s previous assessment of house prices in February 2022, said director of policy Louis Perrault.

“It stayed relatively fixed or actually a bit worse than it was before.”

That’s in contrast with cities like Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., where affordability has improved. Out of the 11 Canadian cities studied by the report, Halifax has the widest gap between house prices and what the typical household could afford.

“Over the post-pandemic period, house prices have moderated in some of the most expensive CMAs [census metropolitan areas] but have continued to increase in other markets such as Halifax,” the report said.

Halifax Realtor Umme Sardar said the housing market when she began her career in the Greater Toronto Area around 2002 was similar to that of Halifax during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was “the crazy seller’s market, the bidding wars,” she said, adding that currently in Halifax the market for condos and higher-priced homes has softened slightly.

Sardar said one reason prices continue to rise is that demand still outstrips supply.

“The government … they seriously are working on reducing the red tape and the bureaucracy to streamline housing starts, but it’s still not enough,” she said. “We are playing catch-up.”

According to the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors, homes in Halifax-Dartmouth sold for more than $600,000 on average in the first nine months of this year. That's up 3.9 per cent from last year.

The report also gauged how far households are stretching their finances to purchase a home, based on “mortgage debt service ratios” — the share of household income that goes toward paying off a home loan.

By that measure, things have gotten “much worse” in Halifax compared to just over a decade ago, said Perrault.

Now, the typical household in Halifax would spend close to one-fifth of its before-tax income on mortgage payments to afford the average house — nearly double what the measure was between 2012 and 2014. That’s based on a down payment of 33 per cent.

Still, the Halifax debt service ratio is “not as bad as it was in other parts of the country,” said Perrault.

He pointed to Vancouver as an example, where the typical household would spend more than one-third of its income on mortgage payments for the average home.

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Andrew Lam

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Andrew Lam (they/she) is a Chinese-Canadian and trans reporter for CBC Nova Scotia. They are interested in 2SLGBTQIA+, labour and data-driven stories. Andrew also has a professional background in data analytics and visualization.

With files from The Canadian Press