Homebuying affordability — mortgage payments as a share of income
The cost of buying in: the mortgage payment on a median-priced home, expressed as a share of median household income (MPPI), plus the years it takes to save a down payment. Across eleven Canadian markets the national composite sits at 52.3% in Q1 2026 — and even after nine straight quarters of improvement, every market remains above its own 25-year norm.
Related metrics. This measures the cost of entering the housing market — distinct from the cost of staying housed and from the repayment stress on existing borrowers. See also:
Housing cost burden — the ongoing shelter cost for households already housed (30% / 40%-of-income lines, cross-country comparable).
Housing affordability gets measured several different ways, and the measures do not agree because they are not asking the same question. This page asks the narrowest and most demanding one: if you wanted to buy a typical home today, what would it cost you? The answer — a mortgage payment that eats more than half of a median income, and a down payment that takes years to assemble — is the part of the housing story that the standard cost-burden figures, calculated over households who already own or rent, largely miss.
What this measures — and what it doesn't
Three different housing metrics in this tool answer three different questions. Read together, not interchangeably:
Homebuying affordability (this page) — the cost of entry. The mortgage payment and down payment a buyer faces today on a newly purchased median home, against current income. It captures the price of getting in.
Housing cost burden — the cost of staying. The ongoing share of income that households already housed spend on rent or an existing mortgage. On the internationally comparable 40%-of-income basis, Canada sits near the EU average — precisely because that measure is dominated by people who bought or signed leases years ago, at older prices and rates.
Canada's affordability problem shows up most sharply in the cost of entry — exactly the dimension a flow measure of those already housed understates. That is the gap this page fills.
National MPPI · Q1 2026
52.3%
Share of median household income to carry a mortgage on a median-priced home — +11.7 pp above the 25-year norm of 40.6%.
Months to save a down payment
66.5
Months to save a 10% down payment nationally at a 10% savings rate — versus a since-2000 norm of 40.8 months.
Improving streak now reversing
9 qtrs
Nine straight quarters of improvement — the longest on record — driven by rate cuts. Rates resumed rising in Q2 2026.
The cost of entry, market by market
Across all eleven markets tracked, the current mortgage-payment burden sits above its 25-year average — in several by 15 points or more. In Vancouver a mortgage on a median home consumes 81.9% of a median income; in Toronto, 70.9%; in Victoria, 74.5%. Even the most affordable markets — Winnipeg (32.7%) and Edmonton (33.3%) — sit above their own historical norms. There is no Canadian market where buying in today is normal by its own standard.
Mortgage payment as a share of median income (MPPI), current vs. average since 2000 — all dwellings, %
Source: National Bank of Canada Housing Affordability Monitor, Q1 2026 (Dahms & Gosselin, 26 May 2026), all-dwellings series; underlying inputs from Statistics Canada, Teranet–National Bank HPI, and CREA. "National" is NBC's C10 composite of the ten markets shown. Chart is Benchmark Canada's own rendering of the published values.
The down-payment wall
The monthly payment is only half the barrier. Assembling the minimum down payment — saved, in NBC's framing, at an aggressive 10% of pre-tax income — now takes 66.5 months (about five and a half years) nationally, against a long-run norm of 40.8. In Vancouver it is 121.9 months — more than a decade — and on a detached (non-condo) home, a barely conceivable 412 months. This entry hurdle is invisible to a cost-of-income measure of those already housed, and it is where the affordability gap bites hardest for first-time buyers.
Months to save a 10% down payment, current vs. average since 2000 — all dwellings
Source: National Bank of Canada Housing Affordability Monitor, Q1 2026. Assumes a 10% pre-tax household savings rate toward the minimum down payment on a median-priced home. "National" is NBC's C10 composite. Chart is Benchmark Canada's own rendering of the published values.
The long arc, 2000–2026
The full quarterly history tells the most important story: a long climb, a violent 2021–22 spike as prices ran ahead of incomes, then nine consecutive quarters of walk-back as the Bank of Canada cut rates seven times from late 2023 and incomes caught up. But the line never returned to its norm — Q1 2026 is still 11.7 points above the 40.6% long-term average — and rates turning higher again in Q2 2026 puts the recovery at risk. The NBC report publishes this series as a chart only; the underlying quarterly values are being obtained before this view is drawn, rather than approximated.
National composite MPPI, quarterly 2000–2026, with the 40.6% long-term average reference
Chart pending source data
The quarterly 2000–2026 series is not published as values in the NBC report (chart only). It is being requested from NBC Economics & Strategy / reconstructed from archived quarterly reports before plotting — no figures are approximated here. Two anchor points are confirmed: Q1 2026 = 52.3% and the since-2000 average = 40.6%.
Source (pending): National Bank of Canada Housing Affordability Monitor historical series. See methodology note on the data gap.
How to read the down-payment figures. The months-to-save numbers assume households put aside 10% of pre-tax income every month toward a down payment — in NBC's own words an aggressive target. Treat them as a best-case floor: most households save less, so real saving times are longer. The mortgage-payment measure (MPPI) carries no savings-rate assumption and is the cleaner primary gauge — lead with it.
Findings
Finding 1
Improving — but from an extreme
Nine consecutive quarters of improvement is the longest such streak on record, driven by seven rate cuts since late 2023 and incomes outpacing prices. Yet national MPPI is still 52.3% — 11.7 points above its 25-year norm. The trend is good; the level is not.
Finding 2
The gains are rate-fragile
The recovery was almost entirely a rate story, not a price story. With rates resuming their rise in Q2 2026, the improvement can reverse without any fall in home prices — affordability bought with cheaper credit is affordability that cheaper credit can take back.
Finding 3
Two Canadas, diverging
The most stretched markets improved most — Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, and Hamilton all eased. But Quebec City and Montreal deteriorated, and Quebec City now sits 13.1 points above its own norm. Affordability is improving where it was worst and worsening where it was best.
Finding 4
The entry barrier the burden figures miss
On the internationally comparable cost-burden measure, Canada looks ordinary. On the cost of entry it does not: 66.5 months to save a down payment nationally, 121.9 in Vancouver, 412 on a detached Vancouver home. The affordability problem is a problem of getting in.
All markets, Q1 2026
The full current-quarter table, all-dwellings. Every market sits above its 25-year affordability norm.
Homebuying affordability by market, Q1 2026 — all dwellings
Market
MPPI now (%)
MPPI avg since 2000 (%)
Spread (pp)
Months to save
Median price
National (C10)
52.3
40.6
+11.7
66.5
$778,130
Vancouver
81.9
66.1
+15.8
121.9
$1,211,551
Victoria
74.5
59.3
+15.2
106.3
$1,044,501
Toronto
70.9
54.4
+16.5
102.3
$1,083,443
Hamilton
59.0
42.6
+16.4
78.6
$862,731
Montreal
44.7
32.3
+12.4
48.4
$591,849
Ottawa-Gatineau
43.3
33.2
+10.1
52.1
$696,064
Calgary
39.3
36.3
+3.0
46.3
$670,543
Quebec City
37.2
24.1
+13.1
34.9
$483,585
Edmonton
33.3
30.2
+3.1
31.2
$491,773
Winnipeg
32.7
26.2
+6.5
30.6
$432,846
Source: National Bank of Canada Housing Affordability Monitor, Q1 2026, all-dwellings series. Months-to-save assumes a 10% pre-tax savings rate. Non-condo (detached) callouts: Toronto MPPI 73.2% / 106.5 months; Vancouver MPPI 110.0% / 412 months; national non-condo MPPI 58.4%.
Statistics Canada — median household income inputs behind the ratio.
Teranet–National Bank House Price Index and CREA — home-price inputs.
Methodology notes
MPPI. The monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home (25-year amortization, 5-year term) expressed as a share of median household income. No savings-rate assumption — the primary measure on this page.
Months to save. Months to accumulate the minimum CMHC-insured down payment, assuming a 10% pre-tax household savings rate — an aggressive target, so figures are best-case.
What is distinct here. This is a cost-of-entry measure (buying today), not a cost-of-staying measure. It is deliberately separate from Housing cost burden (ongoing shelter cost for households already housed, on the 30% / OECD-40% lines) and from the Financing-pillar repayment-stress metrics (mortgage delinquencies, household credit stress). The three should be read together, never substituted.
Data gap. NBC publishes the 2000–2026 quarterly MPPI as a chart, not as values; the national trend chart on this page is held pending the underlying series (requested from NBC / reconstructable from archived quarterlies). No quarterly values are approximated. Statistics Canada's www150 portal is not reachable in the build sandbox, so income/price inputs are verified separately.
Attribution. The NBC report is copyrighted; this page reproduces the published data values (facts) with full attribution and renders its own charts from them — it does not reproduce NBC's chart images or text, and the methodology is paraphrased.
Companion workbook. The editable series live in Elevating_Homebuying-Affordability_Data.xlsx: current MPPI and months-to-save by market, a stub for the pending historical series, and source notes.
Page last reviewed June 2026 · Data current to Q1 2026 — the latest published by National Bank of Canada