Affordable Housing in the Crowsnest Pass, Is it really an Issue?

The dream of every young family to purchase their own home.
Lets take a look at what's available in the Crowsnest Pass, the average home in the Crowsnest Pass is now valued at $220,000.
What does $220,000 get you? well on the MLS site for the Crowsnest Pass there are presently 97 listings, 35 of which fall in to that $220,000 range or lower.
Today $220,000 will get you a 940 square foot house on a 30x100 lot in Bellevue, 893 square foot house on a 30x100 lot in Coleman, 1176 square foot mobile home on a 50x115 lot in Blairmore and finally a 921 square foot house on a 50x100 square foot lot in Coleman.
So obviously there are homes available in our community in that "average" price range, now is that "affordable".
What is the mortgage on a $220,000 home? Assuming you have $20000 to put down and you get a 25 year mortgage at 7% the payment will be $1400.83 per month. Taxes on a average home in the Crowsnest Pass $1729.72 per year or $144.14 per month.
So how much money do you need to make to "afford" the types of homes listed above?
The banks used a formula to calculate that, it's called "IPTH" which stands for Interest, Principal, Taxes, and Heat. Using the numbers for an average home that comes to Interest/Principal $1400.83, Taxes $144.14 and Heat $150 for a total of $1694.97 per month.
That number cannot exceed 32% of your gross Income (that's regular income they won't let you include overtime).
Which means you must be making $63600 per year to meet the banks standard to get a mortgage for a $220,000 home.
But keep in mind the banks will not allow your total payments to exceed 40% of your income. Which means you can't have more than another $424 per month in payments of other things (Car, recreational vehicles, credit cards, etc).
"Affordable Housing" is a tremendous issue in the Crowsnest Pass, prices have climbed so much, so fast. Four years ago you could buy that average home for less than $100,000 nobody's wages have climbed that fast! What's really scary is we are fast approaching the point where using the banks numbers somebody in the Crowsnest Pass making $75,000 a year will not qualify to purchase a decent home. This time next year that average home could be selling for $250,000 to $260,000.