Co-authored by Jens von Bergmann and cross-posted at MountainMath

Residential floor space offers a common denominator for trying to standardize across a range of housing metrics (e.g. price per square foot). Unfortunately we don’t have it in the Census in Canada, but we can play around with rooms to get some pretty similar results. Here we investigate how shelter costs per room have changed over time, across various regions, and by age group to construct some comparable figures to those recently coming out of the UK.

Long story short: shelter cost per room has been getting more expensive, especially for young folks, and in those metro areas where we see the greatest housing shortages, and the age discrepancy mostly comes from older folks locking in past prices, especially as they transition into ownership.

Continue reading →