A new report on housing affordability across 30 municipalities in southern British Columbia shows there are still areas where young people can realistically afford a home, albeit a small one, to start.

People looking to enter the real-estate market might want to start in Surrey. For an area relatively close to the region’s urban core and connected via public transit, the price of an apartment there is pretty good: $259,900 was the median cost during a 12-month period ending in February 2017.

White Rock might be another good place to start. The median price for an apartment there is $318,000.

That’s actually down about four percent from the previous year, making an apartment in White Rock one of the only housing categories in just about any municipality in the Lower Mainland that actually decreased in value during that period.

Although they are slightly farther afield, apartments are also still relatively affordable in New Westminster and Langley (township).

The median price for an apartment in New West is $380,000, up 20 percent from the previous year.

For Langley, those numbers were $304,000 and 10 percent.

In the heart of the Lower Mainland’s housing-affordability crisis, the City of Vancouver, the median price of an apartment has surpassed half a million for the first time, rising 15 percent to $550,000.

“A year after the province began tweaking its tax policies to mitigate the impact of rising home prices, the most recent sales data for Metro Vancouver and surrounding municipalities reveal several pockets of affordability,” the report reads.

“Apartments are affordable anywhere east of Boundary Road, the border between Vancouver and the rest of the region. On Vancouver Island, Sidney, the Saanich Peninsula and Esquimalt await.”

The report, however, warns that housing affordability is no longer a problem confined to in-demand areas of the Lower Mainland, where high prices are widely expected.

“While the least affordable municipalities include such usual suspects as Vancouver and West Vancouver, neighbouring municipalities have been drawn into the vortex of diminishing affordability,” it reads.

The report was published on June 6 by Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (Vancity).