Edmonton a top contender for Toronto, Vancouver residents seeking housing affordability

People in Toronto and Vancouver who are considering packing their bags for a more affordable housing market are eyeing Edmonton, a new survey suggests.

Real estate firm Royal LePage released a new list Wednesday of the 15 most affordable Canadian cities, ranking them based on how much a median household income would be eaten up by a monthly mortgage payment, with the same lending terms, in each city.

That analysis puts Edmonton as the fifth most affordable city for homebuyers, while Red Deer comes in third. Thunder Bay is at the top of the affordability list, and Regina, Quebec City and Winnipeg are also in the top 10.

A Royal LePage survey asked people in Canada's three largest urban areas — Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal — whether they'd consider relocating to buy a home in one of the cities that made the top 15. Half the respondents said yes, and those in Toronto and Vancouver were most likely to pick Edmonton as their first choice for a possible move, provided they'd be able to find a job or work remotely.

After a year that saw both Edmonton and Calgary break population growth records, with high numbers of new immigrants and people making interprovincial moves, the stream of new arrivals in Alberta doesn't seem to be slowing down.

Edmonton real-estate agent Kimberly Graham said relocation clients made up about 40 per cent of her business last year, and affordability is a top reason people are looking to move.

"It's always about the cost of living and what you can get for your house more than anything else," she said.

"But if you go deeper into that, people don't want to work two jobs. They don't want to have to work overtime and weekends just to have kids, and take their kids to taekwondo or go to Mexico, or the mountains. They want that balance."

Edmonton housing prices haven't seen Calgary spike

With more than a million residents, Edmonton is the biggest city that survey respondents could choose as a relocation option.

Royal LePage data that aggregates condo and single-detached home prices puts Edmonton's median housing price in the first quarter of 2024 at $442,200. That stacks up against Alberta's median total household income of $95,900 as of 2022, which is the most recent year with available data from Statistics Canada.

The same aggregate housing price measure for both Vancouver and Toronto, according to Royal LePage, is more than $1 million.

Graham said in the past, relocations were more likely to be based around work, especially for things like RCMP or military transfers. That still happens, but she now sees more young professionals deciding to move on their own, or multiple members of one family moving to Edmonton, using the profits from selling one B.C. home to help cover the cost of several properties here.

"We see a second and third generation of relocations coming in, so that's a huge trend as well," Graham said.

Calgary, which has been a hub for people leaving Canada's major cities for less expensive housing options, wasn't one of the choices in the survey because it didn't make the top 15 affordability list.

The city's median housing price is sitting slightly above $675,000, according to Royal LePage data — an increase of almost 10 per cent compared to the same time last year, and about $230,000 higher than Edmonton.

Royal LePage Noralta agent Ed Lastiwka said homes have been moving quickly as the market picked up this spring. But Edmonton still has yet to see the kind of price increases that happened in Calgary.

"We have noticed that there are more and more people inquiring from B.C. — even in in the Okanagan, the prices are kind of going wild," he said.

"I think they're just looking at affordability, saving some money and getting into a city that has all the amenities as some of the bigger cities like Vancouver and Toronto."

Data for the Royal LePage survey was collected via a Leger online panel from May 13 to 16 this year.

It includes 900 Canadian adults living in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Equal sampling was done within each city, with age and gender quotas.

Because an online panel is a non-probability sample, it doesn't come with a margin of error. For comparative purposes, a probability sample of 900 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent, 19 times out of 20.