A new report says lower housing prices and stable borrowing costs improved home affordability in most major Canadian markets in the last three months of 2012.

Vancouver showed the biggest improvement but remained the least affordable home property market tracked by RBC Economics Research.

In that city, the cost of mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes for a benchmark detached bungalow would eat up 82.2 per cent of a typical household's pre-tax income.

That's down 2.6 percentage points from the third quarter of the 2012 but still indicates the cost of basic home expenses in Vancouver is beyond the reach of many people.

On a national basis, the bank estimates the cost of owning a detached bungalow eased by two-tenths of a point to 42.1 per cent of household pre-tax income.

Similarly, RBC estimates it took 28 per cent of pre-tax income to cover a condo's basic costs and 47.8 per cent of a typical family paycheque to pay for a two-storey home — down two-tenths of a point and three-tenths of a point respectively.