WEEK OF MARCH 25 2024 NEWSREEL WITH VANESSA TOPPLE
While the immigration minister is announcing new immigration caps – no one is paying attention to what the finance minister is doing. We tell you what she’s up to.
read moreSOME ONTARIO LANDLORDS ARE CALLING FOR ‘AUTOMATIC’ EVICTIONS FOR TENANTS WHO DON’T PAY RENT
When Zahid Mahmood bought a house in Oshawa, Ont., in 2021, he hoped rental income would help him and his wife save money to pay for post-secondary education for their three children. Walking into the house last month, Mahmood says he was faced with piles of trash, bottles of urine, rodents and dog feces — the mess left behind by former tenants. Mahmood says the tenants moved into the house in May 2022 and stopped paying rent a year later. In August, he and his wife gave the tenants an N4...
read moreN.S. GOVERNMENT EXTENDS REGISTRATION DEADLINE FOR SHORT-TERM RENTALS
Airbnb operators and other short-term rentals in Nova Scotia are being handed a break by the Houston government. The Tourist Accommodations Registration Act came into effect in April 2020 requiring accommodations with 28 days or less rent to register each year. Starting last April, short-term accommodations within a host’s primary residence like Airbnb were added to the act. According to a release, the province extended registration today until September to allow “visitors and hosts more time...
read moreTPG SAID IN TALKS TO BUY CANADA REIT’S MANUFACTURED HOUSING UNIT
Alternative asset manager TPG Inc. is in talks to buy the manufactured housing business of Canadian Apartment Properties REIT, a move by a major US investor to gain exposure to the historically tight real estate market of its northern neighbour. TPG is in exclusive discussions to acquire the business for more than C$700 million ($519 million), according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. A transaction is not imminent and if a deal...
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 moreWEEK OF MARCH 18 2024 NEWSREEL WITH VANESSA TOPPLE
As more stories about the housing crisis, housing affordability and every other doom and gloom article is published, we unfortunately will be hearing more and more about rent control. This week we debunk the first of many to come.
read moreFIRST WE TRIED TINY CONDOS, NOW ARE TINY HOUSE RENTALS GOING TO HELP OUR HOUSING CRISIS?
The latest is a report from the Task Force for Housing and Climate, which is made up of politicians, academics and private sector stakeholders, with over 140 policy actions they recommended for federal, provincial and municipal governments. While all of this effort is welcomed given the extent of our housing affordability crisis, it once again shows that good intentions alone are not enough when it comes to housing policy. It takes very little for policies to incentivize the wrong behaviour in...
read moreMONTREAL REVAMPS SOCIAL HOUSING BYLAW, AIMS TO GET MORE DEVELOPERS ON BOARD
In 2021, a bylaw took effect with the goal of forcing Montreal developers to include social, family and affordable housing in their projects. Nearly three years later, and with many questions swirling about the effectiveness of that bylaw, the city is revamping its rules and being more lenient with developers. Benoit Dorais, the vice-president of Montreal’s executive committee who is in charge of the housing file, said the bylaw, which is called the Règlement pour une métropole...
read moreHOUSING WILL BE KEY IN BUDGET 2024. FOR NDP, THAT MEANS RENOVICTION REFORM
Ahead of what’s expected to be a tight federal budget next month, the NDP is calling for a rental protection fund to stop renovictions as part of what the party is coining its “budget demands.” But there’s no word on what such a proposal could cost, or whether it can fit into what Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and others have stressed is a “constrained” fiscal environment. “If we see rents continue to rise the way they are, and if we can continue to see affordable homes being sold off to...
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...
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