Income required to buy a home in Ottawa drops $6,000 over the summer

A new home is displayed for sale in a housing development in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

The income required to purchase a new home in Ottawa has dropped approximately $6,000 since the spring, as interest rates declined across the country.

A new report from Ratehub.ca shows homebuyers needed an average income of $126,100 in September to buy the average priced home for sale in Ottawa, down from $127,830 in August. In May, the average income required to buy a home in Ottawa was $132,060.

“Interest rates continued to drop month-over-month, which means affordability improved in the majority of the cities we looked at," Penelope Graham, mortgage expert at Ratehub.ca, said in a statement.

“The effects of the Bank of Canada’s first three rate cuts are becoming more prominent, as mortgage rates and the stress test continued to drop in September. However, demand combined with those factors is creating an affordability sweet spot for active real estate buyers.”

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The average price to buy a home in Ottawa was $642,800 in September, down from $646,000 in August.

Ratehub looks at the income required to buy an average price home in Canadian markets based on a 20 per cent downpayment, 25-year amortization and $4,000 in annual property taxes, with a mortgage rate of 5.04 per cent and a stress test rate of 7.04 per cent.

The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate three times over the summer from 5 per cent to 4.25 per cent. In September, the central bank lowered its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent.

Ratehub.ca says the changing mortgage rates and stress test rates are impacting the income needed to buy a home.

The average income to buy a new home in September dropped $5,000 in Vancouver, $4,300 in Toronto and $3,060 in Hamilton. The income required to buy a home increased $350 in Montreal to $108,900 in September.

In July 2023, the average salary required to buy a home in Ottawa was $138,260.