Price-to-Income Ratio in Canada: Home Prices vs Household Income

The price-to-income ratio is the simplest way to compare home prices with what households earn: the price of a home divided by a typical household’s annual income before tax. A ratio of 8 means the home costs eight years of gross income. This page tracks Canada’s ratio year by year using the Canadian Real Estate Association’s (CREA) national average price and Statistics Canada’s median income, shows the ratio in major cities, and explains why prices have pulled ahead of incomes. It is part of the site’s housing market analysis section.

How the ratio is calculated here

• Price: CREA’s national annual average MLS sale price. An average is the total value of homes sold divided by the number sold, so it moves with the mix of homes that sell, not only with prices.
• Income: the median total (before-tax) income of economic families and people living alone from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey (table 11-10-0190-01), the survey’s closest measure to household income. Statistics Canada publishes these figures in 2024 constant dollars; the table below converts each year back to that year’s dollars with the annual Consumer Price Index so price and income are in the same dollars.

Other analysts use median prices, benchmark prices or after-tax income, so their ratios differ from these. What matters most is using one method consistently over time.

Canada’s price-to-income ratio by year

Sources: CREA annual average prices; Statistics Canada, Canadian Income Survey, table 11-10-0190-01; Statistics Canada CPI (table 18-10-0005-01) for the dollar conversion. Ratios are computed from those figures.

Over this period the ratio moved from 7.7 in 2016 to 8.0 in 2024, a change of +3.4%. The jump in 2020 and 2021 came mostly from prices: CREA’s annual average changed by 13.4% in 2020 and 21.2% in 2021.

Home prices since 2016

CREA’s national annual average, and the year-over-year change computed from it:

The highest monthly national average on record is $816,720, set in February 2022. In August 2026 the national average was $668,219 and the MLS HPI composite benchmark, the price of a typical home, was $657,500. The month-by-month national figures are in the national housing market snapshot, and the average house price in Canada page compares averages by province and city.

The price-to-income ratio by city

City ratios use each real estate board’s latest price and the 2024 median income for the census metropolitan area, the most recent year Statistics Canada has published. Because the income figure is older than the price, the ratios are approximate and best read as a comparison between cities. Where the board publishes an MLS HPI benchmark (the price of a typical home), that is used; Montreal and Winnipeg publish no benchmark, so their averages are computed from the board’s totals.

Sources: each city’s real estate board release (see the city’s market page); Statistics Canada, Canadian Income Survey, table 11-10-0190-01. Board areas and census metropolitan areas don’t match exactly: TRREB’s GTA, for example, is larger than the Toronto CMA.

Benchmarks and averages measure different things, so a city priced by its benchmark and one priced by its average are not perfectly comparable. Each city’s market page has its averages, medians and benchmarks by home type.

What pushed prices ahead of incomes

Several forces have raised what buyers pay faster than what they earn:

• Interest rates. When mortgage rates fall, the same monthly payment supports a larger loan, and buyers competing for the same homes bid with that extra borrowing power. Rates were low through most of the 2010s and fell further in 2020; the interest rate forecast page covers where rates may go next.
• Supply. Construction has not kept up with population growth in many cities. The housing shortage analysis covers CMHC’s estimate of the gap, and Canadian housing starts has the current construction figures.
• Zoning and approvals. Much urban land is zoned for detached houses only, and rezoning for more homes on the same land is slow, which limits supply where demand is highest.
• Housing as an investment. The principal residence exemption from capital gains tax, the leverage a mortgage provides and years of rising prices have made housing the largest asset for many households; the housing’s share of household wealth page tracks how concentrated that has become. Investors also compete with owner-occupiers for the same homes, as the analysis of investors’ share of home purchases shows.

What the ratio does and doesn’t tell you

A high ratio says homes are expensive relative to income. It doesn’t say what owning costs each month, which depends on the mortgage rate, the down payment and property taxes. That is what housing affordability in Canada measures, using ownership costs as a share of income; the guide to carrying costs lists every cost of owning a home. The income needed to afford a home page works out the income a lender requires for a given price, with the stress test and debt-service limits. Whether today’s ratio signals overvaluation is the question the housing bubble analysis takes up, and where prices may head next is covered in home price forecasts.

Related

• Housing affordability in Canada
• The generational homeownership gap
• Income needed to afford a home
• Mortgage affordability calculator