Got $300K For A Home? Here's What That'll Get You In Canada
At least it's worse in Vancouver than Montreal...
Houses in Trois-Rivières, where everything is a little cheaper.
Let's face it: renting sucks and it's terrible. But where owning your home used to seem achievable, the Canadian housing market is doing everything in its power to make it nearly impossible for the average person. Just how hard is it? Real estate trend analyzer Point2 has an answer, but you're not going to like it.
The median cost for a Canadian house right now is around $630,000: more than ten times the median income in the country. If you halve that number and round down, you're working with $300,000 to buy a house — this is where Point2 started.
In the 20 most populous cities in the country (that includes Montreal), Point2 found that $300,000 can't even buy you 500 square feet. Yikes.
In fact, the three Canadian cities with the least square footage available for $300,000 are Vancouver (243 square feet), downtown Toronto (247 square feet) and good old Montreal, at 262 square feet.
But for most of the rest of Quebec, Montreal is a stark outlier — some of the most populated cities in the province actually offer the most space for $300,000. If you want to move to Saguenay or Trois-Rivières, you can bag yourself 1,685 square feet for that same price. These two towns have the best value for your money in Canada, compared to the other cities in the analysis.
For a little extra context, when Point2 surveyed Canadians about their ideal house size, they found it was between 1,000 and 1,500 square feet. So if you're looking to be satisfied with a lot of space on a tight budget in a big city, it might be time to give up that dream and move into the hinterlands of Quebec.