Photo Credit: Pexels
According to a new report, the average monthly mortgage payment in Hamilton-Burlington is now $5,034, up from $1,680 in 2013.
That means that the average monthly mortgage payment has increased by almost 200 per cent in just ten years, rising by $3,354.
The report says that a consistent upward climb in housing prices and the 15-year high in interest rates have both combined to fuel the increase.
The report also notes that income growth is “struggling to keep pace” and thus “some homebuyers are taking a step back from the real estate market” altogether.
The analysis was written by Zoocasa, a brokerage and property technology company, and was released last week.
The company analyzed home prices from 2013 to 2023 in 17 Canadian cities.
It calculated the average monthly mortgage payments during that time period assuming an average-priced home with the minimum possible down payment, an amortization period of 25 years, and using the five-year fixed rate in September of each year.
Average payments were then compared to average annual income numbers for each year from Statistics Canada data.
The report says that five-year fixed mortgage rates were sourced from Ratehub.
It should also be noted that the analysis pairs Hamilton and Burlington together, so data is not available for each city separately.
The other 16 Canadian cities/areas analyzed are Victoria, Greater Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Barrie District, Kitchener-Waterloo, London-St. Thomas, Ottawa, Greater Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, and Halifax-Dartmouth.
The five-year fixed rate in September 2013 was 3.29 per cent, before declining to 1.64 per cent in September 2020 during the pandemic, but then climbing to 5.49 per cent as of September 2023.
Home prices over that time span in Hamilton and Burlington went from an average of $348,200 in 2013 to $854,200 in 2023.
Meanwhile, data shows that the average income during that time only increased from $49,200 in 2013 to $55,500 as of 2021 (the most recent available data).
So while the average home price has increased by 145.3 per cent over the past ten years in Hamilton-Burlington and the average monthly mortgage payment has gone up by almost 200 per cent, the average income has only risen by 12.8 per cent.
Of the cities analyzed, Hamilton-Burlington ranked as the fourth least affordable in terms of monthly mortgage payment at $5,034 per month.
Greater Vancouver, British Columbia was least affordable at $5,870 per month, followed by Greater Toronto, Ontario at $5,498 and Victoria, British Columbia at $5,212.
The most affordable three cities of those analyzed are Saint John, New Brunswick at $1,792 per month, Regina, Saskatchewan at $1,860, and Quebec City, Quebec at $2,008.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
