"Want to buy a house in Vancouver? Hope you have lots of cash. The average price of a house in Lotus Land hit $490,004 in February. Think about it for a second. That's nearly half a million dollars--and 26.5% higher than a year ago. Put another way, it now takes a household income of $142,000 a year to comfortably purchase a place to live. Wasn't the real estate market supposed to slow down this year? Apparently not. And it's not just Vancouver that's experiencing double-digit price increases so far this year. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) figures show the average home price from February 2005 to February 2006 rose 26% in Calgary and 15.5% in Edmonton, both economic boomtowns of late. But even relatively moribund Toronto saw an increase of nearly 6%, for an average price of almost $354,000. That's a lot of money to put on the line if you're thinking of investing in the real estate market--let alone looking for a place to live. No wonder people are
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