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Not necessarily. A substantial decline in prices could make buying more attainable, but the claim that Canada needs one specific price level to fix housing affordability is Fausto Gaudio’s argument, not an established national target. The evidence points to a broader problem: housing costs remain burdensome for many households, while affordability depends on prices, incomes, borrowing costs, ongoing expenses and whether enough homes are built.
What the CEO says needs to change
In an interview published by Canadian Mortgage Professional on 9 October 2026, Fausto Gaudio, president and CEO of IC Savings, argued that Canadian home prices are too high relative to household incomes. The article’s indexed text attributes to him a comparison between a historical price-to-average-household-income range of about 3.5 to 4 times and a current level around nine times, after a pandemic-market peak near 12 times.
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Those figures should be read as Gaudio’s reported framing, not as a verified national statistic or an official affordability benchmark. The interview page’s text is not independently confirmed here, and the figures do not establish a suitable target for every region, household or type of home.
Gaudio also argues that lower interest rates alone may not resolve the problem: cheaper borrowing can enable buyers to bid more, potentially putting upward pressure on prices. He criticizes speculative condo investment in the Greater Toronto Area and supports more affordable and nonprofit housing. These are his positions, not settled findings about the causes of unaffordability or the effects of any particular policy.
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What current measures say about affordability
Different measures answer different questions. Statistics Canada’s shelter-cost measure describes the share of households spending a large portion of income on housing. The federal mortgage-payment measure compares monthly payments with wages. CMHC’s adjusted homebuying ratio incorporates mortgage rates and estimated ongoing ownership expenses. None is interchangeable with Gaudio’s price-to-income comparison.
| Measure | What it reports | What it can and cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics Canada: shelter-cost burden | In the ten provinces, 23.2% of households spent at least 30% of income on shelter costs in 2024, compared with 22.0% in 2022. In 2024, the share was 33.7% for renters, 17.4% for owners and 26.1% for homeowners with mortgages; the mortgaged-homeowner figure was 23.6% in 2022. Statistics Canada released these results on 21 September 2026. | It captures current housing costs for renters and owners, not just the cost of buying a home or making mortgage payments. Statistics Canada says the renter-owner gap has been stable since the survey’s first cycle in 2018. |
| Department of Finance Canada: mortgage payments relative to wages | About 60% in early 2026, down from a September 2023 peak of 87%, according to the Spring Economic Update 2026. | This is monthly mortgage payments relative to median monthly wages, not the share of housing costs in household budgets and not a home-price-to-income ratio. The update attributes the improvement to lower mortgage rates, declining prices and income growth. |
| Bank of Canada: typical home price | The price of a typical home was about 5% lower over the 12 months to the 2026 Financial Stability Report and 20% below its 2022 peak, according to the Bank’s household section. | A national price movement does not establish whether a particular home is affordable to a particular household, or what is happening in a specific local market. |
| CMHC: adjusted homebuying affordability ratio | CMHC adjusts the average house-price-to-average-gross-household-income ratio for five-year fixed discounted mortgage rates and estimated monthly homeowner costs, including property taxes, utilities, maintenance and insurance. Its framework describes historical and projected ratios; see Canada’s housing supply shortages: moving to a new framework. | It accounts for financing and running costs as well as prices and incomes. It is a different comparison from the ratio Gaudio cited. |
Why a price drop is not the whole affordability answer
Prices and incomes
A lower purchase price can reduce the amount a buyer needs to borrow and improve the price-to-income relationship. But a national average cannot show what is attainable in a particular city or for a household with a particular income, down payment and housing need. A useful price target would need to account for those differences; the interview’s historical comparison does not supply one.
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Mortgage rates and monthly payments
Borrowing costs affect how much a buyer can afford to finance. The improvement in the federal payment-to-wage measure since its September 2023 peak shows that affordability can change even as multiple forces move together. It does not prove that lower rates will always raise prices, or that rate changes alone can make homes affordable.
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Ongoing costs and renting
Ownership also brings property taxes, utilities, maintenance and insurance. CMHC includes estimated homeowner expenses in its adjusted ratio because a manageable purchase price does not, by itself, guarantee manageable monthly costs. Renters face a related but distinct affordability problem: in Statistics Canada’s 2024 survey, their unaffordable-housing rate was higher than that of owners.
Construction and supply
Affordability policy also faces a supply trade-off. The Spring Economic Update 2026 describes weaker homeownership-oriented construction amid soft demand, high costs and greater inventories. Lower prices or softer demand may ease pressure on buyers, but weak project economics can also weigh on construction. This is policy context, not a forecast of where prices or building activity will go.
How to assess the claim for your situation
For a household deciding whether it can afford a home, a national price ratio or price decline is only one input. Compare the full monthly cost with your own finances, and distinguish buying affordability from the cost of housing generally.
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- For buying: assess the purchase price against household income, then include the mortgage rate and expected monthly ownership costs.
- For payment pressure: consider mortgage payments relative to income, while remembering that this does not include every shelter expense.
- For housing burden: look at total shelter costs as a share of income, whether you rent or own.
- For market conditions: treat national price changes as context, not a substitute for local prices, housing type or household circumstances.
- For long-term affordability: consider whether policy and financing conditions allow new housing to be built, as well as whether existing homes become less expensive.
So, must prices plunge?
Gaudio’s argument highlights a genuine tension: if prices are high relative to incomes, a meaningful price adjustment could help buyers. But current official measures show several dimensions of affordability, and they do not establish that a plunge to a particular national price-to-income ratio is the only way to improve it. Lower housing costs, income growth, financing conditions, ownership expenses, rental affordability and housing supply all matter—and their effects can differ across Canada.
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