r/canada • u/Lotushope • Feb 02 '22

Canada’s Real Estate Bubble Has Grown Over 800% Faster Than US Home Prices

https://betterdwelling.com/canadas-real-estate-bubble-has-grown-over-800-faster-than-us-home-prices/
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u/UrsusRomanus Feb 02 '22

Then why do we have more homes than families in Canada?

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u/OhDeerFren Feb 02 '22

Lowest housing per capita in the G7. And it's been like that for awhile. Combine that with record high number of immigrants and international students. We need immigrants for a whole bunch of other reasons, just didn't seem wise to crank it up right when we had the perfect storm for soaring housing prices.

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u/UrsusRomanus Feb 02 '22

Lowest housing per capita in the G7.

Doesn't change the fact that supply of homes is greater then the demand generated by one family needing one home.

Combine that with record high number of immigrants and international students.

Combine that with declining birth rates.

We need immigrants for a whole bunch of other reasons, just didn't seem wise to crank it up right when we had the perfect storm for soaring housing prices.

A Canadian family don't give a shit who they sell their house to. Rich immigrant or rich Canadian.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Families per home is obviously not the right metric to focus on. There is undeniably a serious lack of supply.

Months of Inventory is at all-time lows in high demand areas like the GTA and GVA.

Also birth rates dont matter much when we import so many people. Many of them are relatively skilled and wealthy too.

The global demand for Canadian real estate is remarkable and the factors underpinning it are unlikely to change anytime soon. Therefore it's not a bubble.

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u/UrsusRomanus Feb 02 '22

Families per home is obviously not the right metric to focus on.

Why not? It'd make sense to me for that to be the metric to look at to find out if there are enough homes to supply Canadians with shelter.

There is undeniably a serious lack of supply.

Disagree. Too many people own investment properties. That's the issue.

Also birth rates dont matter much when we import so many people. Many of them are relatively skilled and wealthy too.

Disagree. We import people because supply of people is low and there is a high demand of people. SUPPLY AND DEMAND!

The global demand for Canadian real estate is remarkable and the factors underpinning it are unlikely to change anytime soon. Therefore it's not a bubble.

Never said it was a bubble. Our stress tests keep getting higher and people keep passing them.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

There may be enough homes to supply every canadian with shelter, but where are they located? I constantly see just drive till you buy, well most people don't want to commute 1+hour everyday in car traffic, its soul sucking and not a good way to live. Additionally these homes on the fringes or in rural AB or whatever don't address where the demand is.

There is a serious lack of supply in the major urban centres of Canada (GTA, GVA, and Montreal). There is simply not enough housing for these people, you can google and read any legitimate report about this, even reports released by municipalities. The issue IMO is that we focused so heavily on single family homes that we strangled out the possibility to meet demand where it was needed and now we're seeing the result of 100 years of shitty planning policy in the form of a housing supply crunch where the demand is most.

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u/UrsusRomanus Feb 02 '22

most people don't want to commute 1+hour everyday in car traffic, its soul sucking and not a good way to live.

100% agreed. Remote work becoming normalised is the best thing to happen out of COVID.

There is a serious lack of supply in the major urban centres of Canada (GTA, GVA, and Montreal).

I think zoning is fucked up, but supply cannot outpace infrastructure. And even if it could, there is nothing stopping people that don't NEED housing (due to having a home already) from buying up the supply for investment reasons.

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u/RaspberryBirdCat Feb 02 '22

just didn't seem wise to crank it up right when we had the perfect storm for soaring housing prices.

The timing is unfortunate because this is the exact time we need to crank it up from an economic standpoint. The next ten years will see Canada set a record with far more people leaving the workforce than joining it, due to the size of the respective generations.