Housing Affordability Is About More Than Home Prices

In BC, the affordability debate centered on home prices, but incomes also mattered when judging whether homeownership was realistically within reach for buyers.
BC's provincial government proposed taxing newly completed condos left vacant and unsold, aiming to move standing inventory and encourage lower pricing for buyers.
The BC market was already correcting, while slow sales, minimal presales, and high construction and financing costs left developers needing inventory to move.
In BC, Real Estate and construction directly accounted for ~28% of GDP, and construction alone supported >190K jobs, tying affordability closely to incomes.
The broader BC takeaway: keep addressing housing cost and supply, while also strengthening incomes through investment, productivity, job creation, and a more diversified economy.