Click here to see different classifications of housing affordability to visually see how data can be manipulated.
If I was a journalist showing housing costs of only Vancouver, I would use Natural Breaks because it allows for the most error free and accurate representation of the data. A journalist tries to stay bias free, and Natural Breaks runs through an algorithm free of bias. I would ensure that the classes were rounded to ensure it was more user-friendly. As a real estate agent I would use the Equal Interval classification because it demonstrates to my intended audience that there are more options for housing in Vancouver. It allows me to do this because it separates the data equally, making one class group a larger range of housing costs making housing in Vancouver to be more affordable. The ethical implications tied with this decision are that it is not really a true representation of housing affordability in Vancouver, but as a real estate agent you would not want to scare off potential buyers.
Click here to see a map comparing housing affordability in Ottawa and Vancouver.
Affordability is based on a ratio of housing costs to total household income. You have to include income when looking at housing affordability because that determines whether someone can buy a house.
Housing Affordability Rating Categories
Rating Median Multiple
by The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey
- Severely Unaffordable 5.1 & Over
- Seriously Unaffordable 4.1 to 5.0
- Moderately Unaffordable 3.1 to 4.0
- Affordable 3.0 & Under
“The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey uses the “Median Multiple” (median house price divided by gross annual median household income) to assess housing affordability. The Median Multiple is widely used for evaluating urban markets, and has been recommended by the World Bank and the United Nations and is used by the Harvard University Joint Center on Housing. More elaborate indicators, which often mix housing affordability and mortgage affordability can mask the structural elements of house pricing, are often not well understood outside the financial sector. The mixed indicators provide only a “snapshot,” because interest rates can vary over the term of a mortgage; however the price paid for the house does not. The Median Multiple is a reliable, easily understood and essential structural indicator for measuring the health of residential markets and facilitates meaningful and transparent comparisons of housing affordability. Further to this, the Median Multiple provides a solid foundation for the consideration of structural policy options for restoring and maintaining housing affordability in local markets.”
(retrieved from http://www.demographia.com/dhi-ratings.pdf)
Affordability can be a good measure of a cities ‘livability’ because it is important for young people and young families to be able to purchase a home to start a base for the next generation. Not being able to purchase a home could force this demographic to move elsewhere taking with them potential for new communities lowering, in my opinion, a cities livability.