Toronto Housing Crisis: Mortgage Payments Hit 110% of Median Income, Report Says

The financial burden of mortgage payments across major urban centers in Ontario has reached a severe threshold, according to a new study raising alarms about soaring costs and stagnant income levels.

A report titled “Home Ownership and Rent Affordability in Canadian CMAs,” released by the Fraser Institute, a policy think tank, highlights the crisis. The study found that between 2014 and 2023, mortgage payments consumed more than 50% of the local median after-tax income in the province’s 14 largest urban areas.

The Breakdown: Toronto Tops the Unaffordability Chart

Among these major cities, the financial strain is severe across the board, but Toronto registered the most extreme results:

• Ottawa-Gatineau: The typical monthly mortgage payment utilized 50.4% of the monthly median income during the study period.

• Toronto: The city topped the charts, requiring a staggering 110.2% of the local median after-tax family income for a monthly mortgage payment on a typical home, assuming a 20% down payment.

“There is a perception that housing outside of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is still somewhat affordable, but that’s not true,” said Austin Thompson, senior policy analyst with the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report. “Even in cities like Windsor and Kingston, buying a typical home would require a family earning the local median income to spend more than half of its after-tax earnings on mortgage payments.”

Stagnating Wages Worsen the Crisis

The report identifies the central cause of this critical imbalance between mortgage costs and earnings as the province’s lagging wage growth.

“Housing affordability is a function of both home prices and incomes, and as wages and incomes have flatlined across Ontario in recent years, the housing unaffordability crisis has worsened,” commented Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and study co-author.

Globerman advocates that the solution lies in policy focus: “policymakers in Ontario [must] focus on increasing wages and incomes as part of the overall solution” to correct this imbalance.

A Historical Comparison

The extent of the affordability erosion is stark when comparing current figures to the past:

• In 2014, the share of median after-tax household income required for a mortgage payment on an average Toronto home was a comparatively low 56%—roughly half of the income needed by 2023.

Furthermore, market data suggests the situation has only deteriorated since the study period ended in 2023. Provincial labor market data indicates that the average hourly wage in Ontario stood at $37.36 as of April 2025. This translates to an annual income of approximately $71,731 for a full-time worker. Meanwhile, the salary required to qualify for a mortgage on an average home in Toronto remained well above $200,000 throughout 2025, effectively limiting home ownership to the highest earning bracket in the city.