Mortgages in Ontario cities are totally out of control and Toronto is the worst of all

The financial weight of mortgage payments in major Ontario cities has reached a breaking point in recent years, according to a new study that raises alarm bells about runaway costs and stagnating wages.

The Home Ownership and Rent Affordability in Canadian CMAs study from The Fraser Institute, a politically conservative think tank, states that mortgage payments have grown to chew up more than 50 per cent of the local median after-tax income in the province's 14 major urban centres in the period from 2014 to 2023.

Of these large cities, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical Ottawa-Gatineau home ate up between 50.4 per cent of monthly median incomes during this period, while Toronto topped the charts, with a monthly payment requiring a staggering 110.2 per cent of the local median after-tax family income after a 20 per cent down payment.

"There is a perception that housing outside of the GTA is still somewhat affordable, but that's not true. 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," said Austin Thompson, senior policy analyst with the Fraser Institute, and co-author of the report.

The report attributes the core of this mortgage-to-wage imbalance to stagnating wages in the province. 

"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," said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and study co-author.

Globerman argues that the fix to this imbalance is for policymakers in Ontario to "focus on increasing wages and incomes as part of the overall solution."

The Fraser Institute report notes that the share of median after-tax household income required to make a mortgage payment on the average home was a comparably low 56 per cent in Toronto in 2014 — approximately half of the required income in 2023.

And even though this data only covers the period from 2014 to 2023, it's clear that the situation has not improved in the two years since.

According to provincial labour market data, the average hourly wage in Ontario sat at $37.36 as of April 2025, translating to a pre-tax monthly income of $5,977.60, or an annual income of $71,731.20 for workers logging 40 hours per week.

Meanwhile, the annual salary required to afford a mortgage for the average home in the city remained well north of $200,000 through 2025, keeping home ownership limited to the highest earners in town.