Jamie and Jenny Sorensen hoped that 2016 would be the year that they finally settled down in Vancouver. Instead it gave them a crushing education in the realities of buying property there.

Jenny and Jamie Sorensen. (Photo courtesy of Jamie Sorensen) After months of searching, the expectant couple landed on a two-bedroom, 960-square-foot condo in Vancouver's popular Main Street area. It had its own patio and a separate entrance, and they soon fell in love with it. It was listed at $699,000 after an identical unit had sold for $690,000 in the same building. They put in for $750,000. A neighbour who lived in the building said that seemed a little high.

Vancouver's Main Street area. (Photo: Flickr user Beth Taylor/Licence) But the Sorensens' offer was topped by a competing bid of $820,000 — about $120,000 over asking, and way over market value, their realtor told them. "I guess market value doesn't mean anything right now," Jamie said. "It's so in flux." The defeat was crushing enough to take them out of the house hunt for a time. But it also gave them a premonition of what's coming — a day in which even the average condo is out of reach for working-class Vancouverites. A day, by the way, that may be coming sooner than people think. Housing costs vs. incomes across Canada The year 2020 could prove a milestone in the history of Vancouver real estate, if an analysis by The Huffington Post Canada is borne out. It would mark the final year before monthly payments on a single-family home exceed the average monthly income in the city. And it would be the last year in which condos could be considered within the range of housing affordability (30 per cent of income), if trends continue as they have.

Condos along Downtown Vancouver's waterfront. (Photo: Compass and Camera/Getty Images) You might call it Vancouver's "Rubicon" year, a point of no return at which basically every form of housing is unaffordable for local residents. The graph below shows where average income (blue) could grow to over the next decade, if current trends continues. The red line represents the benchmark price of a single-family home, the orange line condo prices. The purple line is the affordability cutoff — the maximum amount the average homebuyer should be devoting to housing. It shows condos bumping up against the maximum affordability range in just five years: Greater Vancouver: Create line charts

(Scroll to the bottom of the story for methodology)

These forecasts don't account for possible developments such as an interest rate hike, nor any possible new regulation by the federal government, or a crackdown on capital outflows from China (which is entirely possible).

It merely shows just how difficult buying conditions could be for local residents if nothing changes.

The trend was concerning, if not particularly surprising, for David Eby, the B.C. NDP's housing critic.

He said prices are being driven by external factors, such as foreign money snapping up Vancouver real estate market, creating a situation where it "doesn't really matter to the market that mortgage payments exceed incomes."