Medium incomes in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls about $25,000/year short of home ownership dreams

Bad news for future homeowners in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and the rest of Niagara Region – you probably don’t make enough for that dream to come true.

According to figures just released from Zoocasa, an online broker information service, the average home in Niagara runs about $686,400, meaning the median household income needs to be $111,638.

However, their figures show the actual median household income in this region is $87,510 – nearly $25,000/year too little.

The highest home value a median $87,510 income could net is one worth $493,223, a low-ball number in Niagara, one of the 20 markets examined for the survey.

To determine the extent of affordability for median-income households, Zoocasa calculated the maximum mortgage a household with a median income could afford, assuming a 5.14 per cent interest rate and a 25-year amortization.

Of the 20 markets analyzed, buyers with a median household income could afford to buy in a little over half of them.

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The news is slightly better elsewhere in the province. Ottawa, Thunder Bay, and Windsor/Essex are the more affordable cities in Ontario, with the median income being higher than the income required for the average home by over $16,000, $47,700 and $7,000, respectively.

But Toronto residents are the worst off. Toronto would require an income of $176,738 to afford the average home costing $1,086,762 — 82.8 per cent more than the median income of $96,700.

According to the figures, the best bet for home ownership is to pack up and head either east or west out of Ontario. The median incomes in Halifax, Newfoundland and Saint John, New Brunswick, as well as Regina, Saskatoon and Edmonton are all much higher than the amount needed to afford a house.

– With files with Anthony Urciuoli