When Canadians talk about housing affordability, the conversation usually centers on crisis. Toronto condos selling for $800,000. Vancouver detached homes pushing $2 million. Bidding wars, stretched budgets, and entire generations priced out of homeownership.

But that's not the whole story.

While Toronto and Vancouver grabbed headlines with their astronomical price growth, dozens of Canadian cities and towns maintained genuinely affordable housing markets. Places where the median home price stayed under four or five times the median household income. Where a family earning $70,000 to $90,000 could realistically buy a house. Where the math actually worked.

These aren't ghost towns or economic disaster zones. They're functioning communities with jobs, services, and infrastructure. Some are small cities of 50,000 to 100,000 people. Others are mid-sized centers approaching 200,000 or more. They exist in every region of Canada, yet they rarely appear in national housing discussions.

What made these markets different? Why did prices stay reasonable while nearby cities spiraled into unaffordability? And what can we learn from places that avoided the housing crisis altogether?

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Defining "Affordable" in a Canadian Context

First, we need to establish what affordable actually means.

Housing economists typically use the price-to-income ratio as a key affordability measure. A ratio of 3 to 4 is considered affordable—meaning the median home costs three to four times the median household income. At this level, a household earning $80,000 can reasonably afford a home priced at $240,000 to $320,000 with conventional financing.

Canada's housing affordability has deteriorated significantly since 2015. House price growth has consistently outpaced income growth, with prices rising roughly 30% to 40% faster than incomes over the past decade. Toronto and Vancouver face particularly severe challenges, with price-to-income ratios in the range of 10 to 12 in many years, making homeownership mathematically impossible for median earners without substantial external help.

But throughout this period, numerous Canadian markets maintained ratios between 3 and 5. These are the hidden affordable markets.

For this discussion, we're focusing on markets where the median home price stayed under $400,000 to $450,000 through 2020-2024, and where price-to-income ratios remained under 5 to 6. That's not cheap by historical standards, but it's dramatically more affordable than major metros.

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The Geography of Affordability

Canada's affordable housing markets aren't randomly distributed. They cluster in specific regions with identifiable patterns.

The Prairies: Saskatchewan and Manitoba have consistently maintained some of Canada's most affordable markets. Cities like Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Brandon have median home prices that stayed well below national averages throughout the 2010s and 2020s.

In 2024, Regina's average home price sat in the low-$300,000 range, while median household income based on 2021 Census data was in the low-$90,000s for the region. That's a price-to-income ratio around 3.3 to 3.5—textbook affordable. Saskatoon showed similar patterns, with composite benchmark prices in the mid-$300,000s to low-$400,000s depending on property type.

Winnipeg, despite being Manitoba's largest city with a metro population over 800,000, maintained prices well below national averages. The composite benchmark for Winnipeg in mid-2024 was around $361,600, with average prices around $376,770. In a city where median household income sits around $85,000 to $90,000 based on Census data, that translates to a ratio in the mid-4s—tight but still within affordable range.

Atlantic Canada (Outside Halifax): While Halifax followed Toronto and Vancouver into affordability crisis territory, smaller Atlantic cities remained more accessible. Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton in New Brunswick all maintained prices well under $300,000 through the late 2010s, climbing to the $300,000-$350,000 range by 2024-2025.

Saint John is particularly notable. As of late 2025, average prices sat around $328,000, among the lower levels for any significant Canadian city. With median household income around $70,000 to $75,000, the ratio stays in the mid-4s. This represents a market where prices have risen from the low-$200,000s earlier in the decade but remain relatively affordable.

Interior Quebec: Quebec's smaller cities outside Montreal maintained strong affordability. Trois-Rivières, Saguenay, and Sherbrooke all offered prices well under $400,000 through 2024, often in the mid-$200,000s to low-$300,000s depending on property type and timing.

Trois-Rivières, with a metro population around 160,000, had prices in the mid-$200,000s through much of the mid-2020s. Saguenay, home to roughly 145,000 people, showed even lower prices in the $240,000 to $260,000 range for much of this period.

Northern Ontario: Sudbury, Thunder Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie maintained better affordability than southern Ontario markets. Thunder Bay, with metro population around 120,000, had year-to-date median prices around $400,000 by late 2025, with average prices in the mid-$300,000s through 2024. While prices have risen from the low-$300,000s earlier in the decade, they remain far below southern Ontario levels. Sudbury, at roughly 170,000 people, showed prices in the mid-$300,000s to low-$400,000s.

Interior British Columbia (Selective Markets): While Kelowna followed Vancouver's trajectory into unaffordability, smaller BC interior cities like Prince George maintained more moderate pricing. Prince George, BC's northern hub with population around 90,000, had prices in the low-to-mid-$400,000s in 2024—higher than prairie markets but far below coastal British Columbia.

What's striking is the pattern. These aren't all small towns. Several are legitimate cities with populations exceeding 100,000 or even approaching 200,000. They have universities, hospitals, regional services, and diversified economies. Yet they avoided the price explosions that hit major metros.

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Why These Markets Stayed Affordable

Looking across these markets, several common factors emerge that explain their sustained affordability.

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Economic Structure and Job Markets

The most consistent pattern is economic structure. Affordable markets tend to have economies based on sectors that don't generate the extreme income inequality or wealth concentration seen in major metros.

Take Winnipeg. The city's economy is diversified across manufacturing, transportation, public sector employment, and agriculture-related industries. Median household income sits around $85,000 to $90,000 based on Census data, with relatively narrow income distribution. There's a solid middle class, but fewer ultra-high earners driving price competition.

Contrast this with Toronto or Vancouver, where tech sectors, financial services, and international business generate enormous income ranges. When you have households earning $300,000+ competing for housing against households earning $100,000, the upper tier sets prices.

Regina and Saskatoon built economies around resources, agriculture, and public sector employment. During the commodities boom of the 2000s-2010s, these cities saw significant growth and rising incomes. But the wealth wasn't as concentrated as in finance or tech hubs, and when commodity prices softened, so did local housing markets.

Saint John's economy centers on port operations, manufacturing, and energy. Thunder Bay focuses on transportation, forest products, and education. Trois-Rivières has paper manufacturing, aluminum production, and light industry. None of these sectors generate the income extremes that fuel bidding wars.

This matters because housing prices ultimately track what the local buyer pool can pay. If most households earn between $60,000 and $120,000, home prices cluster in a range those incomes support. When you introduce many households earning $200,000+, as happens in tech and finance hubs, price ceilings lift dramatically.

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Limited Speculative Investment

Affordable markets share another characteristic: they attracted minimal speculative investment pressure.

Real estate speculation requires two beliefs: prices will continue rising, and you can find buyers willing to pay more later. These beliefs are self-reinforcing in markets with strong appreciation trends. When Toronto prices climbed 10% to 15% annually through the 2010s, investors piled in, fueling further increases.

Affordable markets never entered that cycle. Regina home prices actually declined or stagnated in the late 2010s after the commodity boom ended. Average prices rose from roughly $124,000 in 2005 to around $278,000 by 2011—essentially doubling during the boom—but then fell from the mid-$310,000s in 2014-2017 to the low $300,000s by 2018-2019, a decline of roughly 10% from peak to trough. Winnipeg saw modest appreciation of 2% to 4% annually—enough to keep pace with inflation but not enough to attract speculative capital.

Saint John home prices showed minimal growth from 2010 to 2018, averaging under 2% annual appreciation. From an investor's perspective, that's not interesting. Why tie up capital in Saint John real estate earning 2% when Toronto was delivering 10% to 12%?

This created a virtuous cycle for affordability. Without investor demand, prices stayed tied to local incomes. Without rapid appreciation, investors stayed away. The market served actual residents rather than speculators.

The contrast with markets that became unaffordable is stark. Research has documented significant investor activity in Vancouver and Toronto through the 2010s, with studies finding investor-buyer shares around 20% to 25% nationally and higher in some large CMAs during the late 2010s and early 2020s. This investment demand pushed prices beyond what local incomes supported.

Affordable markets largely avoided this. When investors buy in a market, they're often willing to accept negative cash flow in exchange for appreciation. This lets them bid higher than owner-occupants who need the monthly payments to work. In markets without investor interest, owner-occupants set prices, and those prices reflect actual household budgets.

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Geographic and Climate Factors

An uncomfortable truth: many affordable markets have geographic or climate characteristics that limit appeal to mobile buyers.

Winnipeg is cold. Really cold. Average January temperatures around -16°C, with wind chills making it feel even worse. For six months of the year, it's genuinely harsh. This matters when competing with Toronto or Vancouver, where winters are milder.

Regina and Saskatoon are isolated. Regina is roughly 575 kilometers from Calgary, 730 kilometers from Winnipeg. It's not a place you casually pass through. This isolation limits the pool of potential buyers to people specifically choosing to live there, usually for work or family reasons.

Thunder Bay is even more isolated, sitting roughly 700 kilometers from Toronto and 1,400 kilometers from Winnipeg. It's surrounded by sparsely populated wilderness. The isolation creates a natural barrier to in-migration.

Saguenay is geographically isolated from Montreal and Quebec City, sitting 200+ kilometers north of the St. Lawrence River main corridor. Getting there requires deliberate travel through less populated regions.

These factors don't make these cities unlivable. Millions of Canadians live productive, happy lives in cold or isolated places. But when housing markets became competitive and mobile workers could choose where to live, particularly during the remote work revolution of 2020-2022, many chose warmer, more connected locations.

The pandemic demonstrated this clearly. While Toronto and Vancouver saw wealthy professionals buying second homes in cottage country and smaller Ontario communities, driving prices up, there is limited evidence of large influxes of remote workers to Regina or Saskatoon from expensive metros, even though cost of living was far lower. Climate and geography mattered. Moncton did experience notable pandemic-driven in-migration from Halifax and Ontario, showing that Atlantic markets closer to major population centers saw different patterns.

This geographic friction acts as a natural moderator on demand. In economic terms, it reduces the elasticity of housing demand—fewer marginal buyers are willing to move in when prices are low, which prevents speculative bubbles.

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Responsive Housing Supply

Several affordable markets maintained affordability partly through steady housing construction that kept pace with demand.

Saskatoon provides a good example. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, during the resource boom, the city experienced strong population and income growth. Prices rose, but not explosively, partly because developers responded with significant new construction.

Between 2006 and 2016, Saskatoon's population grew by roughly 16%, from 233,000 to 270,000. Housing starts climbed accordingly, with thousands of new units added annually during peak years. This supply response prevented the demand-supply imbalances that characterized Toronto and Vancouver.

Winnipeg similarly maintained steady construction through this period. Despite being a much larger city, Winnipeg added housing stock at rates that roughly matched population growth plus household formation. The city's relatively flat geography and available developable land made this expansion easier than in geographically constrained markets.

The contrast with Vancouver is instructive. Vancouver's geography—surrounded by ocean, mountains, and the agricultural land reserve—creates hard constraints on expansion. Even when demand surged, supply couldn't respond proportionally. Vancouver's housing starts consistently lagged demand through the 2010s, contributing to price escalation.

Affordable prairie and Atlantic markets faced fewer geographic constraints and generally less restrictive zoning. When demand increased, supply could adjust more easily. This isn't to say these cities have perfect housing policy—they face their own zoning and development challenges—but the overall responsiveness was higher than in major metros.

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Local vs. External Demand

Perhaps the most important factor: affordable markets are primarily driven by local demand rather than external buyers.

In Toronto and Vancouver through the 2010s, significant portions of demand came from outside the local economy. This included international buyers, investors from other Canadian cities, and wealth transfers from parents to adult children relocating from other regions.

Research and provincial data from British Columbia and Ontario show that non-resident and investor buyers were disproportionately concentrated in these expensive metros during peak years, though measuring exact shares requires careful methodology and varies by time period.

This external demand is particularly problematic for affordability because it's not constrained by local incomes. A Toronto investor buying a Vancouver condo doesn't care about Vancouver wages. An international buyer converting foreign wealth into Canadian real estate isn't limited by Canadian earnings. This breaks the normal relationship between local incomes and local prices.

Affordable markets don't attract this external demand at similar scale. Few international buyers are purchasing in Thunder Bay or Moncton in significant numbers. Investor interest from Toronto or Vancouver is minimal. These markets are driven predominantly by people who live and work locally.

This keeps prices tethered to local economic fundamentals. When the vast majority of buyers are local residents, median home prices naturally cluster around what median local incomes can support. The market self-regulates.

The pandemic briefly disrupted this pattern in some markets. Moncton experienced notable influxes of buyers from Toronto and Halifax during 2021-2022, driving up prices. But the effect was smaller in more isolated prairie cities, and many markets remained primarily local-driven.

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Case Studies: Markets That Stayed Affordable

Let's examine a few specific markets in detail to understand how these factors played out in practice.

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Regina, Saskatchewan

Regina is perhaps the textbook example of sustained affordability in a functioning mid-sized city.

With metro population around 250,000 and average home prices in the low-$300,000s in recent years, Regina maintains a price-to-income ratio in the 3.3 to 3.5 range based on regional Census income data. That's better than what most Canadian cities achieved even in the early 2000s.

What kept Regina affordable?

Economic structure: Regina's economy centers on resources (potash, oil and gas), agriculture, public administration, and services. The provincial government is a major employer. During the commodities boom of 2005-2014, Regina saw strong income growth and housing appreciation. Average prices roughly doubled from around $124,000 in 2005 to approximately $278,000 by 2011.

But when oil prices collapsed in 2014-2015, Regina's market cooled immediately. Home prices fell from the mid-$310,000s in 2014-2017 to the low $300,000s by 2018-2019, a decline of roughly 10% from peak to trough. This commodity sensitivity prevented sustained appreciation and speculative interest.

Limited external demand: Few people move to Regina who aren't specifically choosing it for work or family. The climate is harsh—cold winters, isolated location. Remote work during the pandemic didn't trigger a large influx because geography and climate deterred outsiders.

Supply response: Saskatchewan has relatively permissive development policies and abundant land. When demand rose during the boom years, construction responded. When demand softened post-2014, construction slowed, preventing oversupply. The market adjusted both directions.

Result: A city where median earners can realistically buy homes. A household earning $95,000 can secure a mortgage on a $315,000 home with a reasonable down payment. The monthly payment on a $280,000 mortgage (assuming $35,000 down) at 5.5% over 25 years is roughly $1,700—about 21% of gross monthly income, well within affordable range.

Compare that to Toronto, where a median household earning $95,000 cannot afford the median home price of $1.1 million+ without stretching beyond reasonable debt-to-income ratios or relying on external help.

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Winnipeg, Manitoba

Winnipeg is a larger test case—a major city of 800,000+ maintaining affordability despite having big-city amenities.

The composite benchmark for Winnipeg in mid-2024 was around $361,600, with average prices around $376,770. Against median household income around $85,000 to $90,000 based on Census data, this gives a ratio around 4 to 4.5. That's tighter than Regina but still within affordable range.

Economic diversity: Winnipeg has a genuinely diversified economy. Manufacturing (aerospace, food processing), transportation (central location for rail and trucking), financial services (several major insurance companies), healthcare, education, and public administration all contribute significantly.

This diversity provides economic stability. No single sector dominates, so downturns in one area don't collapse the whole market. But the sectors aren't wealth-concentrating like tech or international finance, so income distribution remains relatively compressed.

Steady fundamentals: Winnipeg avoided boom-bust cycles. Prices appreciated roughly 3% to 5% annually through most of the 2010s—enough to keep pace with inflation plus modest real gains, but not enough to attract significant speculative interest.

Development capacity: Winnipeg's flat geography and available land allow continued expansion. The city has room to grow outward, and development hasn't faced the severe constraints of Toronto or Vancouver.

Strong rental market alternative: Winnipeg maintained a healthy rental market with reasonable rents. CMHC data shows average two-bedroom rent in the low-$1,200s to mid-$1,300s, meaning renters could save for down payments without being crushed by rent costs. This reduced desperation buying and kept owner-occupied demand rational.

Result: A major city where working professionals can afford homes. A dual-income household earning $100,000 combined can purchase a detached home in many neighborhoods. The math works without heroic assumptions or family assistance.

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Saint John, New Brunswick

Saint John represents a market where homes remained relatively affordable by Canadian standards, though prices have risen from earlier lows.

By late 2025, average prices sat around $328,000, up from the low-to-mid-$200,000s in the pandemic's early years but still well below national averages. With median household income around $70,000 to $75,000 based on Census data, the ratio sits in the mid-4s.

Economic challenges as affordability drivers: Saint John's affordability partly stems from economic challenges. The city has struggled with population stagnation and limited job growth compared to faster-growing Canadian metros. The Saint John CMA has population over 130,000, with limited in-migration historically.

The local economy centers on the port, oil refining, and traditional manufacturing. These sectors provide stable employment but haven't grown dramatically. Without strong economic growth driving demand, prices stayed relatively flat until recent years.

Supply exceeding demand: Unlike many markets where supply constraints drove prices up, Saint John has adequate housing supply relative to demand. New construction has been modest but sufficient given historical population patterns.

Geographic isolation: Saint John sits on the Bay of Fundy, somewhat isolated from other major Atlantic centers. Halifax is 250+ kilometers away. The city doesn't attract casual buyers or investors from elsewhere at the scale seen in other markets.

Result: A city where modest earners can afford homeownership, though current prices are higher than a few years ago. A household earning $75,000 can realistically purchase a home at current price levels. The monthly mortgage payment on $295,000 (with $33,000 down) at 5.5% over 25 years is roughly $1,800—about 29% of gross monthly income.

This remains more affordable than major metros. The tradeoff is living in a city with more limited economic opportunities than larger centers.

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Thunder Bay, Ontario

Thunder Bay is notable as a more affordable market in Ontario, the province with some of Canada's most expensive housing.

With year-to-date median prices around $400,000 and average prices in the mid-$300,000s by late 2024-2025, and median household income around $80,000 to $85,000, Thunder Bay maintains a ratio in the mid-4s to low-5s—higher than prairie markets but far below southern Ontario.

Geographic isolation as protection: Thunder Bay sits 700 kilometers from Toronto, surrounded by wilderness and small towns. This extreme isolation insulates the market from southern Ontario's price pressures. When Toronto buyers look for cheaper alternatives, they typically consider places within 2-3 hours' drive—Barrie, Peterborough, Kingston. Thunder Bay doesn't enter the conversation.

Economic base: The economy centers on transportation (port and rail), forestry, healthcare, and education (Lakehead University). These sectors provide stable employment for the local population but don't attract many workers from elsewhere.

Aging demographics: Thunder Bay has an aging population, with more seniors than young families compared to Canadian averages. This demographic profile reduces housing demand—older homeowners downsizing or aging in place don't generate the same buying pressure as young families purchasing first homes.

Climate and lifestyle tradeoffs: Thunder Bay winters are long and cold. The city is isolated from other population centers. For outdoor enthusiasts, this is appealing—access to wilderness, water, and recreation. For others, it's a drawback. These factors segment the buyer pool to people specifically choosing Thunder Bay's lifestyle.

Result: An Ontario city where homeownership remains more accessible to typical earners than in southern markets. The tradeoff is isolation and limited career opportunities outside specific sectors.

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The Lessons: What Makes Affordability Possible

Looking across these markets, several lessons emerge about what enables sustained affordability.

Economic structure matters more than policy. The common thread across affordable markets isn't innovative housing policy or progressive zoning. It's economic structure. Markets driven by public sector employment, traditional manufacturing, resources, and agriculture tend to maintain more compressed income distributions and less speculative interest. This keeps prices tied to local fundamentals.

External demand breaks affordability. Markets that attracted significant international buyers, domestic investors, or inter-regional relocations saw affordability deteriorate. Markets that remained primarily local-driven stayed affordable. This suggests that policy tools targeting external demand—foreign buyer taxes, speculation taxes, vacancy taxes—address real drivers of unaffordability, even if they're politically controversial.

Supply responsiveness matters, but isn't sufficient. Several affordable markets maintained steady construction, which helped. But supply response alone doesn't explain affordability. Vancouver built thousands of units annually and still became unaffordable because demand exceeded supply response capacity. Affordable markets had supply keep pace partly because demand itself was more moderate.

Geography creates natural market segmentation. Isolation, climate, and distance from major metros act as natural barriers to demand pressure. This is economically inefficient in some ways—it means labor and capital don't flow freely to opportunities. But it also protects local markets from speculation and external demand shocks.

Modest appreciation can be healthy. Affordable markets didn't have zero appreciation. They had moderate, steady appreciation around 2% to 5% annually. This is healthy—it allows homeowners to build modest equity and keeps pace with inflation without triggering speculation.

The contrast with unaffordable markets is instructive. Toronto and Vancouver had multiple years of 10% to 15% appreciation, triggering speculative cycles. When prices rise faster than incomes for extended periods, affordability necessarily deteriorates. Affordable markets avoided this trap.

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The Tradeoffs: What Affordable Markets Sacrifice

Understanding why these markets stayed affordable also means acknowledging what they sacrifice compared to major metros.

Economic opportunity: Toronto and Vancouver are expensive partly because they offer diverse, high-paying job markets. If you're in tech, finance, international business, or creative industries, opportunities in Regina or Saint John are limited. Career advancement often requires moving to major metros.

Amenities and services: Large metros offer restaurants, entertainment, cultural institutions, and services that smaller cities can't match. Thunder Bay has good restaurants and local culture, but it's not comparable to Toronto's diversity and depth.

Connectivity: Major metros are transportation hubs with international airports, extensive transit, and connections to other regions. Affordable markets tend to be more isolated, requiring car ownership and making travel more expensive and time-consuming.

Diversity: Large metros attract diverse populations and international communities that smaller cities can't replicate. For immigrants, visible minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals, larger cities often provide more welcoming and supportive environments.

Housing quality and choice: While affordable markets have lower median prices, they also typically have older housing stock and fewer new, high-quality options. Vancouver and Toronto have abundant new construction with modern designs and amenities. Affordable markets often have limited new inventory, and existing homes may need significant renovation.

These tradeoffs are real. Affordable housing doesn't mean better housing or better quality of life universally. For many Canadians, particularly those in industries concentrated in major metros or those who value diversity and amenities, the tradeoffs aren't worth it.

But for others—particularly families prioritizing homeownership and space, or people in professions with opportunities in smaller cities (healthcare, education, government, trades)—affordable markets offer genuine advantages.

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Can Unaffordable Markets Learn From Affordable Ones?

The natural question: can Toronto or Vancouver become affordable by copying what worked in Regina or Winnipeg?

Mostly no, because the fundamental drivers are different and largely outside policy control.

You can't make Toronto geographically isolated. It's Canada's largest city, economic hub, and primary destination for international immigration. External demand pressure won't disappear through policy.

You can't transform Toronto's economy from finance and tech to agriculture and resources. The economic structure that creates high incomes and wealth concentration also attracts jobs and talent.

You can't add vast empty prairies around Vancouver for sprawling development. Geographic constraints are permanent.

But there are lessons:

Managing external demand matters. Affordable markets stayed affordable partly by remaining unattractive to external buyers at scale. Major metros can't become unattractive, but they can manage external demand through policy. Foreign buyer restrictions, speculation taxes, and investor-targeted measures address real drivers. The evidence from affordable markets suggests this external demand is a primary cause of affordability collapse.

Supply must keep pace with demand, but that requires accepting density. Geographically constrained cities can only increase supply through density. This means towers, mid-rises, and intensification. The politics are difficult, but it's the only path. Affordable markets succeeded partly through sprawl, but that's not an option for Vancouver or Toronto long-term.

Moderate appreciation is sustainable; rapid appreciation isn't. Policy tools that moderate price growth—whether through supply expansion, demand management, or market cooling measures—serve long-term affordability. When markets see 15% annual gains, speculation inevitably follows. Breaking that cycle requires accepting that homeowners won't see massive equity gains.

Local buyer priority might make sense. Controversial idea: maybe markets should prioritize housing access for local residents and workers over external buyers and investors. Several countries restrict property ownership for non-residents or non-citizens. Canadian provinces could implement residency or work requirements for property purchases, effectively reserving housing for people actually living in the community. This would be a major policy shift and remains speculative rather than established policy, but affordable markets demonstrate that local-buyer-driven markets stay more affordable.

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The Future: Will Affordable Markets Stay That Way?

The question for 2025 and beyond: will Canada's hidden affordable markets remain affordable, or will they follow Halifax into crisis?

Several factors could push prices up:

Remote work normalization: If remote work remains widespread, some professionals may relocate from expensive metros to affordable cities, bringing external demand and higher incomes. Moncton experienced this during the pandemic. Other cities could follow.

Climate change migration: As climate impacts intensify, some climate-vulnerable or extreme-temperature regions may become less attractive, while others become more so. This could shift population patterns in unexpected ways.

Demographic shifts: Canada's population growth through immigration is historically high. Where these new Canadians settle matters enormously. If immigration increasingly flows to mid-sized cities rather than concentrating in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, demand in affordable markets will rise.

Investment seeking yield: As returns in major metros moderate, investors may look to smaller markets for better yields. This could introduce speculative pressure to markets that previously avoided it.

But several factors favor continued relative affordability:

Economic fundamentals remain moderate: Unless these cities see dramatic economic transformations, local income growth will remain modest. Without high incomes supporting high prices, speculation is limited.

Supply responsiveness can continue: Most affordable markets have room to expand and less restrictive zoning than major metros. If demand increases, supply can respond more easily.

Geographic and climate barriers persist: Winnipeg winters aren't getting warmer. Thunder Bay isn't getting closer to Toronto. The geographic factors that limited demand historically will continue limiting it.

Market memory matters: Real estate markets have long memories. The fact that Regina and Winnipeg didn't appreciate rapidly in the past makes investors skeptical they will in the future. This becomes self-fulfilling—without speculative interest, rapid appreciation doesn't occur.

The most likely outcome: modest appreciation in most affordable markets, with a few (particularly those within 2-3 hours of major metros or with strong remote work appeal) seeing more significant pressure. But wholesale transformation into unaffordability seems unlikely for most.

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The Bottom Line

Canada's hidden affordable housing markets aren't accidents. They're the product of specific economic, geographic, and demographic factors that limit demand pressure while allowing supply to adjust.

These markets—places like Regina, Winnipeg, Saint John, Thunder Bay, Moncton, and dozens of smaller cities—demonstrate that affordable housing is possible in functioning Canadian communities with jobs, services, and quality of life. The tradeoff is usually climate, isolation, or limited economic opportunities compared to major metros.

The key factors enabling affordability are:

• Economic structures that don't generate extreme income inequality or wealth concentration
• Minimal external demand from investors, foreign buyers, or large-scale inter-regional migration
• Geographic or climate characteristics that naturally limit buyer pools
• Housing supply that can respond to demand without severe constraints
• Markets driven primarily by local residents rather than external capital

For policymakers, the lessons are mixed. Some factors enabling affordability can't be replicated in major metros—you can't make Toronto isolated or change its economic structure. But managing external demand, supporting supply responsiveness, and prioritizing local residents over external buyers are actionable policies supported by provincial measures already implemented in BC and Ontario.

For Canadians facing unaffordable housing in major metros, these markets offer an alternative, but one that requires accepting real tradeoffs. Career opportunities, amenities, diversity, and connectivity are all typically more limited. For some families, that's worth it for homeownership and lower cost of living. For others, it's not.

The existence of these affordable markets also challenges narratives that housing unaffordability is universal or inevitable in Canada. It's not. Statistics Canada's 2024 work explicitly highlights high unaffordability in large CMAs and better outcomes in many smaller centers. Affordability challenges are concentrated in specific markets that attracted concentrated demand. Understanding why some markets stayed affordable while others didn't points to both the causes of the crisis and potential solutions.

Perhaps most importantly, these markets demonstrate what sustainable housing looks like: prices in the 4 to 5 times income range, steady appreciation around inflation, and markets primarily serving local residents. That's not exciting for investors or homeowners hoping for massive equity gains, but it's how housing markets are supposed to function.