The average selling price of a Canadian home was $391,820 in October,which is up 8.5 percent,comparing to last year.But a closer look at the numbers indicates a split between hot markets in the Westtern part, and cooler ones in Eastern Canada.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said the number of homes sold in October was 8.3 per cent higher in 2013 than it was in the same month a year earlier.Howevr, the increase is almost coming from Western Canada.Speaking of the total sales,Calgary,Edmonton and Vancouver are the hottest markets in 2013.

When i first got here, in vancouver,lookng for a house where I can stay,that would be five years ago,the average house price was like around $ 300,000.It wasn’t that hard to find a comfortable and price-fair house.Take a look at Vancouver now, the average house price is incredibly mountaining to a almost unreachable level and then remain unchanged.I felt lucky that my family bought a house five years ago which was much cheaper than they already are.  Anyone who didn’t already possess a home before the bubble began to grow ends up giving up much more of their income only to pay for a place to stay.

House prices increase much faster than wages, meaning that houses become less and less affordable.And not only house buyers who are influenced: pretty soon rents rise up as well, including in social housing.

This increase in prices incur a great increase in the amount of money that buyers spent on mortgage repayments in the first place. For example, while in 1996 the amount of take home salary that a person on an average salary buying an average house would spend on their mortgage was 17.5%, by 2008 this had risen to 49.3%. In London the figures are even more shocking, rising from 22.2% of take home pay spent on their mortgage in 1997 to 66.6% in 2008.

(image from:CBC news  http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/average-house-price-in-canada-rises-8-to-391-820-1.2427778)