The housing affordability crisis has moved beyond the Greater Toronto Area. A new Fraser Institute analysis found that mortgage payments on a typical home now consume more than 50% of median after-tax family income across all 14 of Ontario's largest urban centres, with Toronto reaching an unsustainable 110.2%.
"There is a perception that housing outside of the GTA is still somewhat affordable, but that's not true," said Austin Thompson, senior policy analyst with the Fraser Institute.
"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."
The deterioration since 2014
The data reveals how quickly conditions have shifted. In 2014, the range across Ontario spanned from 21.1% in Windsor to 56% in Toronto. A decade later, Windsor had doubled to 63.2%, while Toronto more than doubled to 110.2%. All examined markets now exceed the 50% threshold.
Oshawa (92.2%), Hamilton (76.9%), and Barrie (74.7%) round out the top affordability challenges, suggesting the crisis has metastasized well beyond the metropolitan core.
Meanwhile, Ontario’s mortgage delinquency rate climbed to 0.23%, overtaking the national average for the first time since at least 2012. In Toronto, the rate jumped from 0.15% in Q2 2024 to 0.24% in Q2 2025. That's a 60% year-over-year surge and the highest level since 2012, according to the latest Residential Mortgage Industry Report (RMIR) from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Wages haven't kept pace
While home prices surged across the province, worker compensation stalled. Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of the report, noted this wage-price divergence as central to the crisis.
"Housing affordability is a function of both home prices and incomes, and as wages and incomes have flatlined across Ontario in recent years, housing unaffordability crisis has worsened," Globerman said.
"To make housing more affordable for Ontario families, policymakers should focus on increasing wages and incomes as part of the overall solution."
This policy recommendation marks a departure from supply-side arguments alone. The report suggests that income growth strategies merit equal consideration alongside housing construction initiatives.
According to the Pollara Credit Protection Insurance (CPI) Segmentation Study, 44% of mortgage holders reported that the current economic climate had negatively affected their personal finances, while 57% expressed concerns about job loss in the coming year.
The broader implication
With mortgage payments approaching or exceeding household income across the board, Ontario's labour market competitiveness faces pressure.
Prospective residents and young professionals increasingly face barriers to entry that transcend geography, complicating workforce attraction and retention across the province.
The Fraser Institute analysis tracked 36 Canadian metropolitan areas from 2014 to 2023, using median after-tax family income benchmarks and typical home prices to calculate affordability ratios. The methodology assumes a 20% down payment and 25-year amortization at prevailing mortgage rates.
The Fraser Institute study came in the wake of a Ratehub.ca analysis which found that 10 of 13 major cities saw borrowers require less income to purchase the average home, driven almost entirely by modest price declines rather than lower mortgage rates.
CMP
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