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Home affordability improves: RBC

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In Brief...

For the first time since 2009, housing affordability has improved in Canada, according to a report from RBC. "The improvement in affordability during the third quarter has relieved some of the stress that had been mounting in Canada's housing market over the past year," said Robert Hogue, senior economist, RBC. Conventional fixed mortgage rates came down in the third quarter, with the five-year posted rate falling more than 0.5% to an average of 5.52%, reversing the rise in the second quarter.. Saskatchewan home resales rebounded since August and reversed most of their slide in the first half of this year; however, the earlier softening of activity had a lingering effect on home prices which fell across all housing types relative to the second quarter. RBC's measure fell between 1.3 and 2.4 percentage points, fully reversing the increase in the second quarter. During the third quarter of 2010, measures at the national level fell between 1.4 and 2.5 percentage points across the housing types tracked by RBC.

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