Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
Immigration numbers as a % of the population have basically been dead flat for the last 30 years at just over 1% of the population per year. That will likely go up in the coming years, but that hasn't had an impact on housing prices yet.
And there have been ~200K housing starts per year for the last decade, so with the average Canadian household size of 2.9 people, that should be enough housing for almost 600K additional people every year, well above the rate of population growth of 300-350K per year over the last several years.
Sale prices have gone up so fast primarily because of exceptionally low interest rates that were maintained far too long, and because people are having to compete more with investors for purchases than they did in the past. About 1/3rd of new supply in most Canadian cities is ending up in the hands of investors, and in the hottest markets its even higher (nearly 50% of the units completed in the last 5 years in BC are investor-owned).
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All of these factors play a role, but to say more people moving onto the same amount of land hasn't is absurd.
Sure lots of closing starts, but what's the quality of these starts? Detached houses? Or small condos? Housing starts is a totally meaningless figure. Canada's population has grown by 23% over the last twenty years. Has the amount of land we can build residential buildings on also increased in proportion?
The fact is that because of zoning restrictions and restrictions on expanding cities, we've been cramming more and more people into the same space. The answer is simple, if you want more people to live here, you need to open up more land. And yes of course everything else, like interest rates, transfer of generational wealth, investors, foreign cash, etc all contribute. It's not a one or the other thing. They all have a cumulative effect.