Housing news & insights

The CPC's plan for housing falls victim to ‘silver bullet’ thinking on housing, suggesting that building more homes will solve all of our problems. It’s a nice picture, and it sounds simple enough. The villains are clear — the fault lies with municipal ‘gatekeepers’ who unfairly stand in the way of development, or bureaucrats who line their own pockets while failing to do their jobs well. The rest of us are off the hook. Sadly, the answer just isn’t this easy. 

While strong majority support should incline politicians to be honest about the need for home prices to stop rising, most dodge the topic. This is a big problem, because we can’t fix the housing crisis until we convince politicians it is politically safe for them to stand by this hard truth.

It would be nice if the solution to Canada’s housing crisis were as straightforward as ramping up supply. But it’s not. Happily, most Canadians seem to have a good grasp of what's needed to restore affordability.

The Prime Minister boldly acknowledging that house prices must stall strengthens all other housing policy commitments. Ambitious targets for building more homes do little good if we ignore the prices for which these homes will sell. Without deep subsidies funded by tax dollars, new market units will price in the rising land values that have already soared well beyond what most can afford to rent or buy with local earnings.

Talk of “youth issues” is distracting, drawing attention from the root causes of the problems, which have less to do with younger generations than their treatment by older ones as a result of past policy decisions. To begin to fix this, Ottawa should launch a general fairness council to investigate why Canada no longer works fairly for all generations.

After a short pause triggered by interest rate hikes, home prices have returned to their relentless, decades-long upward trend, punishing the finances of young people, newcomers and most non-owners. The policy positions of the two main parties in Canada share responsibility for home prices having left behind local earnings. To rejuvenate the ability for young people to pay for housing, version 2.0 of the National Housing Strategy must focus more on the regular market, starting with a clear goal that has wide public support: Home prices should stall.

Gen Squeeze founder Dr. Paul Kershaw recently joined TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin for a discussion about how life milestone timelines are changing and even disappearing. If the standard life-stage achievements for graduation, career, marriage, children, homeowning, and retirement created predictability and comfort, what happens when people don't meet those marks?

Affordability is a top concern for Alberta voters. So it is surprising that the United Conservative Party and the NDP have blind spots on this issue, especially when it comes to younger Albertans. 

Canada’s addiction to high and rising home prices has made our country lazy when it comes to planning for economic growth. This has hurt the finances of younger Canadians and newcomers, while ballooning the wealth of older homeowners.

Our research identifies low-interest rates as a contributing force driving the run-up in home prices. So we were not surprised to see the market cool off when The Bank of Canada increased interest rates, undermining the cheap credit system that helped buyers bid up home prices. The Bank of Canada managed to do the unthinkable - cool off one of the world's hottest housing markets - by raising interest rates. So why do they rarely ever mention this?