journal features

toronto housing prices

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2012.05.14

I looked up some figures and have come to an unsurprising conclusion: Toronto's housing prices are unaffordable.

Here, the median house price is $570k, and the median family income is $78k. Dividing the former by the latter, you get 7.3. Which seems pretty high. Of course, the average "stand-alone" house price (excluding duplexes, townhouses, and who knows what else) is $830k (see the first link above), for a multiple of 10.6. Which seems insane.

Another way of looking at this: we're renting a 2+ bedroom apartment in a decent neighbourhood in Toronto for a price that I could sustain for well over 40 years before I'd hit that $830k price, and that doesn't include all of the repairs, taxes, fees, and renovation costs.

So. Home ownership is out of the question in this city for our humble family.

rand()m quote

In the wake of 9/11, we [in America] have made the decision as a society that we can never again create something in which we can take pride, for fear that someone will destroy it. Moreover, we must suppress any trace of individualism, lest someone have the desire to rise above the bland sameness that protects us. I have, alas, no idea how to recapture our courage.

—Anonymous post to boingboing.net, 2009