By Krys­tle Chow, Ottawa Busi­ness Jour­nal Staff

Home afford­abil­ity improved across Canada in the first quar­ter, bring­ing buy­ers back into the mar­ket in every major city in the coun­try, accord­ing to a new RBC Eco­nom­ics report released Wednesday.

All four hous­ing seg­ments reg­is­tered improve­ments in hous­ing afford­abil­ity, which meant a smaller pro­por­tion of pre-tax house­hold income needed to ser­vice the costs of own­ing a home.

The most sig­nif­i­cant change was in the cost of own­ing a stan­dard two-storey home, which fell to 44.7% of pre-tax income from 49.7% in the pre­vi­ous quar­ter. This was fol­lowed by a four-percentage-point improve­ment in the afford­abil­ity of a detached bun­ga­low, to 39.4%.

“With the tur­moil in finan­cial mar­kets par­tially sub­sid­ing and the flow of credit increas­ing, home resale activ­ity has ral­lied impres­sively since the late win­ter,” said RBC senior econ­o­mist Robert Hogue in a state­ment. “What’s most impres­sive is how wide­spread this rebound has been, with all major cities in Canada expe­ri­enc­ing a revival.”

The report cited large mort­gage rate cuts and the fed­eral government’s aggres­sive role in sup­port­ing the mort­gage secu­ri­ties mar­ket as rea­sons for the declin­ing costs of home ownership.

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Related posts:

1. Hous­ing afford­abil­ity improves across most of Canada, says RBC Economics
2. Hous­ing afford­abil­ity hits lev­els not seen in 5 years
3. Afford­able Cana­dian homes slip­ping away?
4. Hous­ing afford­abil­ity dete­ri­o­rates across Canada
5. Hous­ing afford­abil­ity: the great quandary