Big Trouble for the City of Glass

A new report from the RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) shows that the cost of owning a home becoming more unattainable for Canadians in general and nearly impossible for Vancouver's citizens specifically. The CBCsummarizes:

In Vancouver, which is Canada's most expensive real-estate market, RBC assumes an owner would need $155,900 of annual income to make mortgage payments on a bungalow priced at $832,600.

Based on those figures, the owners would have to direct $8.89 of every ten dollars earned each year towards mortgage payments, utility costs and property taxes.88.9% of a families total income for housing costs alone. Couple this with some of the highest rents and lowest vacancy rates in the country and you have a recipe for disaster. People are leaving Vancouver or avoiding it altogether and those that stay, even those that are doing well, are pushed into a kind of poverty that doesn't exist in other cities: middle class professionals that are cash poor, unable to pay of debt and unprepared for retirement or emergencies.

Douglas Coupland dubbed Vancouver the City of Glass in reference to our famous glass towers. I say we keep the name, but instead of soaring towers, in reference to the economic and social fragility caused by towering debt.