The gap between downtown real estate and houses in the suburbs narrowed significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, a development that may make markets outside big cities even more vulnerable to a slowdown.

That’s one of the main takeaways from a recently released analysis by the Bank of Canada that looked at housing valuations in 15 cities across the country, both before the pandemic and now.

The annual ranking of the world’s most livable cities has just been released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and 2022’s Global Liveability Index shows some marked differences from the previous year.

overall country winner was Canada. The Great White North had three of its cities represented — Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto.

“Cities that were towards the top of our rankings before the pandemic have rebounded on the back of their stability, good infrastructure and services, as well as enjoyable leisure activities,” the index’s authors wrote.

Rising borrowing costs, dimming economic prospects and stricter lending rules are taking some of the air out of housing bubbles in Canada, the United States and other markets in which strong demand, tight supply and speculative fever have driven prices to record levels and deepened an already serious affordability crisis.

Canada needs an additional 5.8 million homes by the end of the decade to help lower average home costs and ensure households are not spending more than 40 per cent of their disposable income on shelter, according to a new government report.

That target blows past the current projection of 2.3 million new homes by 2030, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. report, and would require building of new homes to more than double from current levels.

Canada’s current pace of homebuilding will see the country face a gap of 3.5 million units by 2030, falling well short of the bar for housing affordability, according to a new report.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) published its latest analysis on Canada’s housing stock challenges Thursday.

According to a statement from the telecom titan, this investment is expected to create more than 8,000 new jobs for Albertans.

“This significant investment by Telus in our community further connects citizens to the tools they need to thrive, and will create more well-paying jobs for Calgarians,” said Mayor Jyoti Gondek.

Toronto home prices are falling, but not everywhere.

The median home price in the greater Toronto area has slipped 8.9% in the last two months under the weight of back-to-back Bank of Canada rate hikes. This followed a 54.5% surge in two years to a record median home price of C$1.2 million ($930,160) in February.

Those pandemic gains propelled Toronto into the No. 2 spot on the UBS real estate bubble index.

But the declines are masking the resilience of Toronto’s core, where the median price has not fallen but rather climbed 5.2% from February to April.