Kelowna more unaffordable than Kamloops but both score poorly: international survey

A nine-country survey of housing affordability in 309 cities lists Kelowna in the worst possible classification as severely unaffordable. Kamloops does better, being just seriously unaffordable.

The 16th annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey is from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and divides the median house price by the median household income to come up with its rankings.

Topping the list of the most affordable of all the cities on the list is Fort MacMurray at 1.8. Anything with a ranking of three or less is considered affordable.

Kamloops comes in at 222nd on the list. It has a median house price of $387,000 and a median household income of $79,700 for a rating of 4.9. That barely keeps it within the seriously unaffordable classification that goes from 4.1 to 5.

Any ranking more than five hits the highest unaffordability classification called severely unaffordable.

Kelowna comes in at 6.7, good for the 274th most unaffordable city on the list with median house prices of $515,000 and median household income of $77,200.

Penticton and Vernon are not on the list.

Vancouver ranks as the worst city in Canada with an 11.9 unaffordability rate, good for 308th spot. The only city more unaffordable than Vancouver is Hong Kong at 20.8.

Still, Canada is the second most affordable of the nine countries with an overall ranking of 4.4, second only to the U.S. at 3.9.

The other countries in the study are the United Kingdom, China (Hong Kong), Australia, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore.

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