For those interested in making international comparisons concerning rents and housing prices, Numbeo is a potential god-send. I say potential, because there are still some big data quality concerns. But the basic idea is sound: crowd-source estimates of rents and housing prices (as well as costs for all sorts of other things), both for the “centre” of cities and farther out. The end result is a real competitor to even iffier rankings for things like quality of life (looking at you Economist Intelligence Unit!) I’ve been playing around with crowd-sourced data again recently, so I was reminded of Numbeo and thought I’d take a look.

How is Numbeo holding up? And what can it tell us about current housing dynamics? First let’s see what Numbeo tells us about Vancouver, based upon 18 months of crowd-sourced data from 93 contributors (as of Oct 24, 2018):

RENT: Numbeo estimates that rent for a 1BR in the centre of Vancouver average about $1930.86 (CAD). This compares nicely to a listing informed estimate of $1950 for Vancouver 1BRs from Louie Dinh (confirmed as approximate for Downtown unfurnished apartments by a scraper who shall remain anonymous). This runs high compared to CMHC Rental Market estimates of rents for Downtown Vancouver ($1468), but that’s to be expected given that CMHC includes all renters, including long-timers protected by rent control. That said, the CMHC’s estimate for Downtown Condos rented out ($1900) is a lot closer (see p. 35 of report).  All things considered, Numbeo estimates strike me as reasonable for current rents on offer given the vague parameters (Vancouver centre).

PRICE: Numbeo estimates price per square foot for an apartment in the centre of Vancouver at $1,091/sqft. Looking around, this compares pretty reasonably – if a little low – with recent RE/MAX estimates ($1,195/sqft) and even better with realtor Steve Saretsky‘s handy reporting for Sept 2018 ($1,026/sqft). Worth noting that some lag may be expected given the 18 month reporting period from Numbeo.

INCOME: Numbeo estimates an average monthly net salary (after-tax) for Vancouver of $3,170/month. Looking at the Canadian Income Survey (CANSIM 11-10-0238-01), the average monthly after-tax income in 2016 was estimated at $3,042/month, and it’s surely gone up since. Again, seems pretty reasonable as an estimate.

I think it’s worth continuing to check in on Numbeo estimates, which may also vary dramatically from place to place, especially since the number of observers doing the crowd-sourcing also varies a lot (only 18 in Albuquerque!). But on the whole, Numbeo seems to be doing ok for Vancouver, the city I know best.

COMPARISONS: So if Numbeo data seems to be doing ok where I know it best, let’s do some comparisons! Here I provide some basic data for selected North American cities from Numbeo on one-bedroom apartment rents and price per square foot of apartments centrally located in select cities. From here on out, everything is reported in US dollars (just because it made things a little easier).

Cities are ordered by 1 BR centre rents, and the extreme high rent American cities – San Francisco, New York – lead the pack. It takes awhile to get to a Canadian city, starting with Toronto (right after Nashville!) before hitting Vancouver. After that, I pick out a few more of the big Canadian cities. I also add places like Honolulu (expensive resort city) and Albuquerque (one of my home cities!), just for kicks, and low-rent Montreal rounds out the pack at the bottom. Rent and price are correlated (r=0.84), but not perfectly. Strikingly, compared with American cities, all of the Canadian cities have higher prices than one might predict based upon their rents. Of cities examined here, Vancouver ranks 4th highest in price, but 17th in rents.

What happens if we add incomes into the picture? Below I take the same cities and divide both rents and prices by incomes to get simple estimates of relative housing costs. Now the familiar (to Vancouverites) pattern emerges of Vancouver being the priciest real estate in North America, followed by New York and Toronto. Canadian cities look pricey in no small part because our after-tax incomes look relatively low compared to Americans. Rent-wise the story is a bit different. New York and Miami lead the continent, followed by Vancouver, Toronto, LA, San Francisco, and Boston, all hanging reasonably close together.

Relative to income, there’s no doubt both Vancouver and Toronto are expensive places to live in North America. But these are also places with a lot of international immigration. Immigrants make up nearly half the population of Toronto (46%), followed closely by Vancouver (40%). And immigration is increasingly Asian, especially in Vancouver. As I’ve pointed out before, it’s also useful to put Vancouver – in particular – in the context of the broader Pacific Rim.

Here’s base rents and prices (USD), drawn from Numbeo.

San Francisco still leads by rent, but it’s got nothing on Hong Kong when it comes to price. Notably, the price per square foot for apartments in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, and Shenzhen are also more expensive than in San Francisco. Add Tokyo and Taipei to the list of Pacific Rim cities with more expensive prices than Vancouver. This helps put Vancouver’s prices into context. Compared to most cities of the Pacific Rim, we’re still cheap. And lots of people are probably coming here with real estate money in their pockets from holdings they’ve sold (or in some cases held onto) back home.

Let’s run the same comparison checking in on income.

Compared to incomes, Vancouver stands out for its pricey real estate in North America. But again, in the broader context of the Pacific Rim from whence many of its immigrants arrive, Vancouver still looks cheap. Real estate is crazy expensive in Hong Kong and the major cities of Mainland China. It’s only slightly less expensive in Taipei and Seoul. Vancouver and Tokyo look quite similar.

The picture for rents is less dramatic than for purchase, and also holds different possible lessons. Average rents for available apartments are still crazy high in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Taipei, consuming over two-thirds the take-home pay of the average income earner. But rents aren’t far behind in Vancouver, San Francisco, and LA, which all hang close to ratios for Shenzhen and Guangzhou. There are a lot of high rent Pacific Rim cities. As I’ve argued before, rents are probably the most important thing to focus on in terms of insuring people can live in our cities. But it’s worth noting that available 1 BR rents take up under 40% of average incomes in Seoul and Tokyo. What might they be doing right in terms of taking care of renters that other Pacific Rim cities could emulate?

At any rate, as before, I’d love feedback on Numbeo numbers! They’re already showing up in academic papers. Do they look right to you? Way off? Better or worse than last time I checked in?

Hit me up with your thoughts!

Addendum: If you want to play around with my data download & the excel sheet I used for the above, here it is: Numbeo-Look-Oct-2018-B  Note that the income data from Numbeo was hand entered, because I couldn’t find a central source for it, unlike the pricing data by City.