HOME PRICES COULD REACH PEAK LEVELS BY NEXT YEAR, SET NEW HIGHS IN 2026, CMHC REPORT SHOWS
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is forecasting home prices could match peak levels seen in early 2022 by next year and reach new highs by 2026. The agency’s latest housing market outlook, released Thursday, says despite an increase in rental housing coming on the market in 2023, supply is not forecast to keep up with demand, leading to higher rents and lower vacancy rates in the coming years. “Unfavourable financing conditions are expected to make it more difficult for home builders to...
read moreSURGE IN APARTMENT STARTS OFFSET PLUNGE IN SINGLE-DETACHED HOME BUILDS IN 2023, CMHC SAYS
The number of single-detached homes being built in Canada’s big metropolitan areas plunged in 2023, even though overall starts were down only slightly, according to housing supply data released Wednesday by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. CMHC’s report on new housing construction trends in Canada’s six largest census metropolitan areas (CMAs) — Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal — found that housing construction dropped by 0.5 per cent compared to 2022, with a total...
read moreTHE EVIDENCE LEAVES NO DOUBT – RENT CONTROL HURTS RENTAL SUPPLY
Many housing advocates champion rent controls as a panacea for rising rents, but a wealth of empirical evidence indicates that while such controls may offer temporary respite to current tenants of controlled units, they invariably inflict long-term damage on future renters. This is because landlords grappling with rents that don’t cover improvement costs often neglect maintenance, leading to a decline in housing quality. This neglect is not just a theoretical possibility, but a real-life...
read moreFREELAND TOUTS ‘AFFORDABLE’ DEVELOPMENT RENTING 330-SQUARE-FOOT UNITS FOR $1,600
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland toured a new building on Monday offering micro-apartments starting at $1,600 per month that she said was illustrative of the homes that her government is getting built for “low and middle income Canadians.”“This is an apartment building that has 227 apartments for low and middle income Canadians and it was built thanks to our Apartment Construction Loan Program,” said Freeland in a video shot at the site of Hudson House, a new 23-storey rental high-rise...
read moreNDP WANTS RATE HIKES CAPPED AT FIVE PER CENT. NO CHANCE UCP WILL AGREE
The UCP will almost certainly squash an NDP bill that comes up in the legislature next Monday. It calls for rent control, a constant no-no over decades of conservative governments. But the UCP needs to think hard about some form of relief from rent hikes that often hit double digits and hundreds of dollars a month.NDP Leader Rachel Notley calls the proposal “a very modest form of rent oversight.” The private-member’s bill, from NDP MLA Janis Irwin, would tie rent increases to the rate of...
read moreHEAD OF MAYORS’ GROUP PUSHES BACK ON POILIEVRE, SAYS CANADIAN CITIES ‘NOT GATEKEEPERS’
Mayors are community builders, not gatekeepers, Canada’s municipal governments said Monday as their spokesperson pushed back against language that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre often uses to attack city leaders. Scott Pearce, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, was speaking at a news conference in Ottawa ahead of the spring budget to call on the federal government for more infrastructure money. When asked about Poilievre’s proposed housing plan, Pearce...
read moreDEVELOPERS CLAIM THEY’RE NOT HOARDING VACANT LAND, FEARING USE-IT-OR-LOSE-IT POLICY
Ontario’s construction industry is pushing back against claims that developers are sitting on thousands of approved building permits, as the Ford government develops new use-it-or-lose-it policies. Amid sluggish housing construction starts in Ontario, the Progressive Conservative government has been weighing new policies that would target “land banking” and speed up development as the province looks to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. Currently, according to the government housing tracker, the...
read moreSTUDENT VISA CAP TO SLOW CANADA RENTAL DEMAND GROWTH, RBC SAYS
Canada’s new cap on international study permits should slow the increase in demand for rental units from foreign students by about half this year, according to the country’s largest lender. The number of international students in Canada is expected to grow by 100,000 in 2024, or 55% less than the net increase last year, assuming similar enrollment rates and outflow patterns after the pandemic, Rachel Battaglia, an economist at Royal Bank of Canada, wrote in a note on Wednesday. The impact on...
read moreEXECUTIVE COMMITTEE APPROVES UPDATES TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING INCENTIVE
Another slate of updates to a standing city policy meant to increase affordable housing in Regina will be headed for final approval next week, after initial debate Wednesday at executive committee. Recommendations to update the Housing Incentives Policy (HIP) passed with a unanimous vote in favour at Wednesday’s meeting, after discussion among city councillors about the purpose of the program. HIP offers a $1.5 million capital grant stream and five-year tax exemptions for affordable home...
read moreB.C. COURT UPHOLDS RULING QUASHING VANCOUVER RENT CONTROL BYLAW
A City of Vancouver bylaw that sought to control rents at single room occupancy buildings is facing another legal defeat. The BC Court of Appeal upheld a previous ruling that found the city didn’t have the jurisdiction to limit rents in the SROs. In the initial ruling, a Supreme Court judge found the city’s decision to adopt the bylaws was “unreasonable,” and it was subsequently quashed. The city appealed this initial decision, but the court found, once again, that provisions in the Vancouver...
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