Low-End of Market Rental Housing Monitor (LEMR)
March 15, 2024 9:54 PM Subscribe
“About the LEMR Housing Monitor
The Low-End of Market Rental (LEMR) Housing Monitor is a centralized data mapping tool that presents critical information on the location and characteristics of the affordable “low-end” of market rental housing stock in six urban regions across Canada: Calgary, Halifax, Greater Montreal Area, Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver Area, and Winnipeg.”
“By integrating and aggregating data from various sources, the LEMR Housing Monitor demonstrates how the affordable rental stock has changed over time, and uncovers key trends impacting the affordability of housing, for example related to evictions and new housing developments.”
Data Maps
Data Stories
“A lack of affordable rental housing has resulted in a crisis in communities across Canada. Among the millions of people who are affected, lower-income renters are facing especially alarming difficulties securing a home they can afford. Despite growing attention paid to this issue, not enough is known about the scale and scope of the deeply affordable housing stock that currently exists in Canada, or about the changes that are taking place at the low-end of the private rental market that so many people rely on.”
Halifax Examiner: New data tool helps address data gap around affordable rental housing stock in Halifax [strong paywall, sorry; but provides useful additional context - relevant section quoted below]
The Low-End of Market Rental (LEMR) Housing Monitor is a centralized data mapping tool that presents critical information on the location and characteristics of the affordable “low-end” of market rental housing stock in six urban regions across Canada: Calgary, Halifax, Greater Montreal Area, Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver Area, and Winnipeg.”
“By integrating and aggregating data from various sources, the LEMR Housing Monitor demonstrates how the affordable rental stock has changed over time, and uncovers key trends impacting the affordability of housing, for example related to evictions and new housing developments.”
Data Maps
Data Stories
- An overview of Canada’s affordable rental stock
- Case study: Affordability of rental housing in Spryfield, Halifax
“A lack of affordable rental housing has resulted in a crisis in communities across Canada. Among the millions of people who are affected, lower-income renters are facing especially alarming difficulties securing a home they can afford. Despite growing attention paid to this issue, not enough is known about the scale and scope of the deeply affordable housing stock that currently exists in Canada, or about the changes that are taking place at the low-end of the private rental market that so many people rely on.”
Halifax Examiner: New data tool helps address data gap around affordable rental housing stock in Halifax [strong paywall, sorry; but provides useful additional context - relevant section quoted below]
Rapid loss of existing affordable housing
With a national conversation focussed on increasing housing supply, Hodgins said CCHR and its partners are “particularly” concerned about the rapid loss of existing affordable housing and the need to preserve it.
“CHRC is acutely aware that when residents of low end of market rental housing lose their homes, they’re more likely to become homeless,” she said. “So the LEMR rental housing monitor is filling an important gap by providing open access data that allows us to track and understand what’s happening to the low end of market rental housing stock and the people who rely on it.”
Thursday’s launch also included a demonstration of the data tool by ONPHA data scientist Adam Fraser. The community he selected to highlight as a case study was Spryfield, Nova Scotia. Pointing to his slide presentation, Fraser noted that while Spryfield offers a “relatively high” availability of affordable housing at 61% for a one-person household, it has also been experiencing a “tremendous amount of loss.”
“This implies that this community might be an area of interest to zoom into and try to gather a deeper context,” Fraser said.
Spryfield data digging
He also noted that while the percentage of affordable units in Spryfield is decreasing for all bedroom sizes, the loss of affordable housing is most significant for one-person households (zero and one bedroom units). The data showed a “fairly substantial” decrease of 39%.
“It appears that this pressure on affordability isn’t uniform across all bedroom types in this region, but it’s particularly connected to zero and one bedroom units,” Fraser explained, pointing to the LEMR map.
The tool also showed how the construction of purpose-built rental stock essentially stopped after the 1970s, while the rate of construction fell “far behind” other regions in HRM.
Fraser also noted how the map can flag issues like residential standards violations, or mandatory safety concerns reported to the city. He pointed to several buildings on the Spryfield map where multiple different violations had been filed.
“This shows that this community has had a higher rate of residential standards violations filed since 2020 than any other census tract in Halifax, with approximately one filing for every two and a half primary market buildings,” Fraser explained.
Using rental data from Statistics Canada, Fraser said it was possible to determine that the community had a “fairly special and precarious affordable rental stock.” Through municipal and provincial data, he evaluated building history and activity, which showed how affordability is “closely tied” to specific buildings. This was more the case in Spryfield than in other HRM communities.
“This distinction could suggest there would be a benefit to a more targeted intervention in a community like Spryfield, which focuses on the preservation of its existing affordable housing, as opposed to the more generalized strategies that might be applied in areas facing stronger, demand-driven affordability pressures,” Fraser said.
Canadian Centre for Housing Rights: Groundbreaking new data mapping tool centralizes 18 years of information demonstrating changes in Canada’s affordable rental housing stock
posted by eviemath at 9:58 PM on March 15 [3 favorites]
I really don't understand how Canada and Australia could allow their housing sectors just get so utterly f---ed.
Well I do, since everybody goes got-mine-f-you once they get into a house, and thus the ratchet continues.
Japan also f'ed themselves in the 1980s with the mother of all housing bubbles and suffered the Lost Decade(s) after that, but the fall-off on births and low immigration has reversed that over-extension to some extent.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1ilLp is the housing trends to compare.the 3 experiences.
posted by torokunai at 12:31 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
Well I do, since everybody goes got-mine-f-you once they get into a house, and thus the ratchet continues.
"For example, many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live. The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now in developed countries than it has been at any time in several generations."https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-police-future-trends-1.7138046
Japan also f'ed themselves in the 1980s with the mother of all housing bubbles and suffered the Lost Decade(s) after that, but the fall-off on births and low immigration has reversed that over-extension to some extent.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1ilLp is the housing trends to compare.the 3 experiences.
posted by torokunai at 12:31 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I live and rent in East Vancouver. The only reason I can afford where I live is that I have been here so long. It's a larger, crapped out 1 bedroom that doesn't get the attention it needs from the landlord.
I have been here in my apartment for twenty years. In that period the average rent in Vancouver has gone up roughly 400%. My income has not.
I'm not sure I'm reading it right but it says my neighbourhood has roughly 18% affordable(1000 a month) places but as soon as someone moves the rent gets jacked because we don't have vacancy control. Those affordable units are lost.
Canada, under Mulroney and Chretien, got out of the housing game under the aegis of supply side economics, and conversely, on a local level, the building of things like co-ops and other affordable housing pretty much dried up. We are in a crisis in this country and out political class is beholden to the donor class, so we get minuscule band aid solutions, but things that work, like vacancy control, are not even on the table for discussion.
City Hall has released a plan for the future of the area, The Vancouver Plan, that will flood this part of the city with high rises going west. Roughly 4500 people will have to be evicted for the plan. All those places torn down for unaffordable housing. The city defines affordable market rates as 1600-1750 a month for a place like mine. The city is addicted to developer's fees, it makes up a huge part of city revenues, so they plan accordingly. Along with the building explosion comes the speculators, who also drive up prices.
Because Vancouver is between the mountains and the ocean land cost is at a premium and the cost to build is very, very expensive.
Vancouver is also considered a safe place to park money, so lots of international capital finds its way here as well and ends up in the local real estate market. As someone said Vancouver is a great place to be rich. For the rest of us, not so much.
I live paycheque to paycheque, and even though have a BC Government job I am below the median for annual income in BC. Years and years of right wing governments have eviscerated the idea of the civil service as a decently paying job. This year my wage increase is going to be 90 cents an hour. Thanks union!
If I had the resources to move I would, this city has become untenable; slowly hollowing out and morphing into a tourist destination and moneyed theme park for the wealthy. So many of my friends are gone now, housing being the reason for everyone I know who has left.
I am tired, it's late here, and I am rambling so I think I will leave now. Discussions on Vancouver housing have the same effect as caffeine on my central nervous system so I felt compelled to comment.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:08 AM on March 16 [13 favorites]
I have been here in my apartment for twenty years. In that period the average rent in Vancouver has gone up roughly 400%. My income has not.
I'm not sure I'm reading it right but it says my neighbourhood has roughly 18% affordable(1000 a month) places but as soon as someone moves the rent gets jacked because we don't have vacancy control. Those affordable units are lost.
Canada, under Mulroney and Chretien, got out of the housing game under the aegis of supply side economics, and conversely, on a local level, the building of things like co-ops and other affordable housing pretty much dried up. We are in a crisis in this country and out political class is beholden to the donor class, so we get minuscule band aid solutions, but things that work, like vacancy control, are not even on the table for discussion.
City Hall has released a plan for the future of the area, The Vancouver Plan, that will flood this part of the city with high rises going west. Roughly 4500 people will have to be evicted for the plan. All those places torn down for unaffordable housing. The city defines affordable market rates as 1600-1750 a month for a place like mine. The city is addicted to developer's fees, it makes up a huge part of city revenues, so they plan accordingly. Along with the building explosion comes the speculators, who also drive up prices.
Because Vancouver is between the mountains and the ocean land cost is at a premium and the cost to build is very, very expensive.
Vancouver is also considered a safe place to park money, so lots of international capital finds its way here as well and ends up in the local real estate market. As someone said Vancouver is a great place to be rich. For the rest of us, not so much.
I live paycheque to paycheque, and even though have a BC Government job I am below the median for annual income in BC. Years and years of right wing governments have eviscerated the idea of the civil service as a decently paying job. This year my wage increase is going to be 90 cents an hour. Thanks union!
If I had the resources to move I would, this city has become untenable; slowly hollowing out and morphing into a tourist destination and moneyed theme park for the wealthy. So many of my friends are gone now, housing being the reason for everyone I know who has left.
I am tired, it's late here, and I am rambling so I think I will leave now. Discussions on Vancouver housing have the same effect as caffeine on my central nervous system so I felt compelled to comment.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:08 AM on March 16 [13 favorites]
It really is borked up here. I live in Kingston, a modest city three hours east of the GTA and while I am sure this will paint me as out of touch, I still can't believe that landlords are asking $1500+ for bachelors and 1 bedrooms in fucking Kingston.
All new builds that have gone up are shoebox condos going for bananapants prices, or more suburban sprawl, all equally unaffordable to the average renter or potential owner. Well, I mean someone has to be buying them, right? Townies put a lot of weight on Queen's University kids all being rich and thus affording their rents or whatever, but I don't entirely buy that either.
So our unhoused population has doubled, people can't afford to move or buy, people are getting renovicted --this happened to a neighbour of mine across the street; the landlord said family was moving so she had to go, only the unit sat empty for nearly two years--and yet here we are, asking GTA prices for rents in fucking Kingston.*
*I absolutely love Kingston but we ain't the GTA
posted by Kitteh at 4:24 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
All new builds that have gone up are shoebox condos going for bananapants prices, or more suburban sprawl, all equally unaffordable to the average renter or potential owner. Well, I mean someone has to be buying them, right? Townies put a lot of weight on Queen's University kids all being rich and thus affording their rents or whatever, but I don't entirely buy that either.
So our unhoused population has doubled, people can't afford to move or buy, people are getting renovicted --this happened to a neighbour of mine across the street; the landlord said family was moving so she had to go, only the unit sat empty for nearly two years--and yet here we are, asking GTA prices for rents in fucking Kingston.*
*I absolutely love Kingston but we ain't the GTA
posted by Kitteh at 4:24 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I love to hate on the big tech ceos but truth is the people first up against the wall should be corporate residential landlords.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:52 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:52 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
This is a good resource, thanks for posting it. I was surprised to see Toronto even more fucked than Vancouver on the "Percentage of rental units that are affordable" scale.
I did a mortgage pre-approval a couple of months ago - I'm one of those proverbial Toronto people who has, in fact, spent 20+ years saving up enough for a downpayment - and they checked to make sure that my housing expenses wouldn't exceed 30-40% of my income.
That got me wondering what they look at when someone is buying an investment condo to rent out. Do they look at prevailing rents to make sure market rent will cover all the housing expenses? Because if that's what they're doing, you could have a market where banks are approving mortgages based on $2,500-$2,700/month for a one bedroom (e.g. my neighbourhood), even if that's only possible because renters are spending 60-70% of their income on housing.
Does anybody who knows about mortgage approvals know if that is, in fact, a backdoor hack they're using to fuck the economy?
posted by clawsoon at 6:08 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I did a mortgage pre-approval a couple of months ago - I'm one of those proverbial Toronto people who has, in fact, spent 20+ years saving up enough for a downpayment - and they checked to make sure that my housing expenses wouldn't exceed 30-40% of my income.
That got me wondering what they look at when someone is buying an investment condo to rent out. Do they look at prevailing rents to make sure market rent will cover all the housing expenses? Because if that's what they're doing, you could have a market where banks are approving mortgages based on $2,500-$2,700/month for a one bedroom (e.g. my neighbourhood), even if that's only possible because renters are spending 60-70% of their income on housing.
Does anybody who knows about mortgage approvals know if that is, in fact, a backdoor hack they're using to fuck the economy?
posted by clawsoon at 6:08 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
The rate of landlord eviction filings in Toronto appears to be insane compared to the rest of Canada, even adjusted for population.
...although it's interesting to see the big drop starting in 2020, from ~30,000 per year down to ~20,000. Maybe that has something to do with the publicity around fines for bad-faith evictions being increased from $25,000 to $50,000, even though those fine have only actually been levied 13 times in the past 4 years (and only 3 of those times were in Toronto)?
posted by clawsoon at 6:59 AM on March 16
...although it's interesting to see the big drop starting in 2020, from ~30,000 per year down to ~20,000. Maybe that has something to do with the publicity around fines for bad-faith evictions being increased from $25,000 to $50,000, even though those fine have only actually been levied 13 times in the past 4 years (and only 3 of those times were in Toronto)?
posted by clawsoon at 6:59 AM on March 16
It's really hard to track bad faith evictions, because once the landlord has trotted out some lie of a legal excuse, the tenant is gone and who's going to camp on the unit and make sure the landlord moves in a relative, or that the unit gets repaired, or whatever. It's the barest fig-leaf of a hand-wave towards tenant's rights.
On my floor of 9 units an acquaintance was yeeted because "family needed the unit" then it sat empty for six months, then it was renovated, then it was sold for $730K. I have no standing on this and no actual proof about what went on as far as a arbitration board might believe, and who's to say that "family did need the unit, but then changed their minds" or whatever, but that's what went down overall, and it sucked.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:09 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
On my floor of 9 units an acquaintance was yeeted because "family needed the unit" then it sat empty for six months, then it was renovated, then it was sold for $730K. I have no standing on this and no actual proof about what went on as far as a arbitration board might believe, and who's to say that "family did need the unit, but then changed their minds" or whatever, but that's what went down overall, and it sucked.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:09 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
On my floor of 9 units an acquaintance was yeeted because "family needed the unit" then it sat empty for six months, then it was renovated, then it was sold for $730K. I have no standing on this and no actual proof about what went on as far as a arbitration board might believe, but that's what happened and I know it's true.
From what I've read, you have to actually prove that the landlord's intentions at the beginning of the process were bad-faith intentions. If the landlord is at all good at lying, they can just say, "Oh, we totally meant to move in, but then life intervened," and that's enough to get them off.
But, hey, if your acquaintance wants to pursue it you could always forward them the info and/or show up as a witness. Last summer the max fines were increased to $100,000, and on the off chance that the landlords aren't able to hide their scumminess from the adjudicator you might end up doing some good in the world.
posted by clawsoon at 7:16 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
From what I've read, you have to actually prove that the landlord's intentions at the beginning of the process were bad-faith intentions. If the landlord is at all good at lying, they can just say, "Oh, we totally meant to move in, but then life intervened," and that's enough to get them off.
But, hey, if your acquaintance wants to pursue it you could always forward them the info and/or show up as a witness. Last summer the max fines were increased to $100,000, and on the off chance that the landlords aren't able to hide their scumminess from the adjudicator you might end up doing some good in the world.
posted by clawsoon at 7:16 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
If you think Kingston is bad, Kitteh, take a look at Cambridge. At least Kingston has its own university is and a population/regional hub for the area. Cambridge doesn't have the same importance regionally. It is only home to one department of a nearby university (although it has a college that is going above and beyond to recruit foreign students).
That whole metric about spending 30 per cent (give or take) of your take home income on housing has always flummoxed me. I never able to get it down that low. Mine was always closer to 50 per cent. Maybe it's my fault for prioritizing my living conditions and being willing to sacrifice in other areas (entertainment, eating out, buying non-necessities, etc.) but I never found cheap rent anywhere. And then the few times I've looked into mortgages, the lending institutions lowballed me: "You can't afford more than X." "Well, no, I can afford X + Y% because that's what I've been paying for Z years and I've never missed a payment, and while I don't want to pay that much that's what both the rental market and the housing market demand."
posted by sardonyx at 9:31 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
That whole metric about spending 30 per cent (give or take) of your take home income on housing has always flummoxed me. I never able to get it down that low. Mine was always closer to 50 per cent. Maybe it's my fault for prioritizing my living conditions and being willing to sacrifice in other areas (entertainment, eating out, buying non-necessities, etc.) but I never found cheap rent anywhere. And then the few times I've looked into mortgages, the lending institutions lowballed me: "You can't afford more than X." "Well, no, I can afford X + Y% because that's what I've been paying for Z years and I've never missed a payment, and while I don't want to pay that much that's what both the rental market and the housing market demand."
posted by sardonyx at 9:31 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Canadians Present A Major Threat If They Realize They Won’t Own A Home: RCMP
Covers the same report as the CBC article torukunai linked above in less detail but focuses on the housing aspect, and, well, can't beat that headline. I expect the government (any government) will heavily invest in policing to meet the rising crisis. Any real solution would have to lower housing values by definition, which would absolutely crater the economy. It will happen eventually anyways, but no government will take us there intentionally.
posted by rodlymight at 11:13 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Covers the same report as the CBC article torukunai linked above in less detail but focuses on the housing aspect, and, well, can't beat that headline. I expect the government (any government) will heavily invest in policing to meet the rising crisis. Any real solution would have to lower housing values by definition, which would absolutely crater the economy. It will happen eventually anyways, but no government will take us there intentionally.
posted by rodlymight at 11:13 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
He pointed to several buildings on the Spryfield map where multiple different violations had been filed.
Hmmm...I wonder what the connection among them might be!
posted by praemunire at 12:02 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Hmmm...I wonder what the connection among them might be!
posted by praemunire at 12:02 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Jeff Bezos bought the single nicest residence I've ever been in physical proximity to, and also
hello? Is this thing on??
posted by torokunai at 12:14 PM on March 16
hello? Is this thing on??
posted by torokunai at 12:14 PM on March 16
but no government will take us there intentionally
Japan, Korea, & Taiwan benefited from land tenancy reforms in the postwar apparently.
"Land to the Tiller" was an abortive effort to reverse communist gains in Vietnam.
https://staff.washington.edu/sherrye/project/documents/landToTheTiller.pdf
"In total, the United States financed 339 million US dollars of the reform's 441 million dollars of expenses."[1]
France's landlord class either fled or went to the guillotines, until those revolutionaries eventually went after themselves.
Nobody had a mortgage to pay when the USSR and satellite WP countries fell apart in the early 90s. People just got their houses & apartments free & clear apparently as the neoliberals took over things.
posted by torokunai at 1:26 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Japan, Korea, & Taiwan benefited from land tenancy reforms in the postwar apparently.
"Land to the Tiller" was an abortive effort to reverse communist gains in Vietnam.
https://staff.washington.edu/sherrye/project/documents/landToTheTiller.pdf
"In total, the United States financed 339 million US dollars of the reform's 441 million dollars of expenses."[1]
France's landlord class either fled or went to the guillotines, until those revolutionaries eventually went after themselves.
Nobody had a mortgage to pay when the USSR and satellite WP countries fell apart in the early 90s. People just got their houses & apartments free & clear apparently as the neoliberals took over things.
posted by torokunai at 1:26 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
torokunai: Japan, Korea, & Taiwan benefited from land tenancy reforms in the postwar apparently.
The author of The Jakarta Method argued that this policy was intentionally supported by the US in the nations closest to the Communist world in order to promote industrialization, since they wanted those countries to have the ability to fight a modern war.
Countries that were further away, like Indonesia and various Latin American countries, had their land reform movements crushed in order to keep them as low-cost suppliers of raw materials to the leading industrial nations. They could industrialize a bit, but they'd never be allowed to get rid of their plantations or transform the landless agricultural labour that worked the plantations into a middle class.
I don't know if this is an accepted thesis in whatever the applicable discipline is, but it seems plausible.
posted by clawsoon at 3:20 PM on March 16 [5 favorites]
The author of The Jakarta Method argued that this policy was intentionally supported by the US in the nations closest to the Communist world in order to promote industrialization, since they wanted those countries to have the ability to fight a modern war.
Countries that were further away, like Indonesia and various Latin American countries, had their land reform movements crushed in order to keep them as low-cost suppliers of raw materials to the leading industrial nations. They could industrialize a bit, but they'd never be allowed to get rid of their plantations or transform the landless agricultural labour that worked the plantations into a middle class.
I don't know if this is an accepted thesis in whatever the applicable discipline is, but it seems plausible.
posted by clawsoon at 3:20 PM on March 16 [5 favorites]
When I lived in Vancouver, about 20 years ago, it was already a place where you brought money you made somewhere else. There were plenty of jobs, don't get me wrong. Fourth Avenue in Kitsilano was lined with little trendy boutiques and skate shops, every damn one of them with a help wanted sign in the window. But of course they wouldn't pay you anywhere near what it cost to live there. If you had to work for a living, you couldn't live in Vancouver. I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten since then.
posted by Naberius at 3:27 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 3:27 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten since then.
A couple graphs:
Change in Metro Vancouver households by income bracket, 2005 to 2015. Because we have lots of jobs and not enough housing, prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to force people to give up and move away, matching those who stay with the limited supply of housing.
Yes, younger people do have it worse. Cost of home ownership as a percentage of average household income, going back to 1986. It's gotten a lot worse since Covid.
I love to hate on the big tech ceos but truth is the people first up against the wall should be corporate residential landlords.
In BC, most evictions are by individual landlords for "personal use." Purpose-built apartment buildings which are owned by institutions like pension funds and REITs are actually better at providing secure housing compared to renting a condo or basement suite from an individual landlord. (BC has rent stabilization, unlike some provinces.) For decades, BC has been building condos and hardly any new purpose-built rentals. Thanks to incentives at all levels of government, this has now reversed. The financialization diagnosis is wrong.
posted by russilwvong at 4:37 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
A couple graphs:
Change in Metro Vancouver households by income bracket, 2005 to 2015. Because we have lots of jobs and not enough housing, prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to force people to give up and move away, matching those who stay with the limited supply of housing.
Yes, younger people do have it worse. Cost of home ownership as a percentage of average household income, going back to 1986. It's gotten a lot worse since Covid.
I love to hate on the big tech ceos but truth is the people first up against the wall should be corporate residential landlords.
In BC, most evictions are by individual landlords for "personal use." Purpose-built apartment buildings which are owned by institutions like pension funds and REITs are actually better at providing secure housing compared to renting a condo or basement suite from an individual landlord. (BC has rent stabilization, unlike some provinces.) For decades, BC has been building condos and hardly any new purpose-built rentals. Thanks to incentives at all levels of government, this has now reversed. The financialization diagnosis is wrong.
posted by russilwvong at 4:37 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
The rate of landlord eviction filings in Toronto appears to be insane compared to the rest of Canada, even adjusted for population.
Data is collected differently (or just, like, not collected) in the different regions monitored by the new site, so this may be a bit hard to compare. Other places seem to rely more heavily on renovictions, which are just a non-renewal of tenancy and don’t count toward eviction stats, for example. Also, parts of Toronto have more active tenants unions, so the traditional informal eviction of tenants who don’t know their rights or who are more vulnerable to intimidation tactics might be a small part of keeping official eviction stats low some other places (like where I live).
Hmmm...I wonder what the connection among them might be!
Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinking - they are all owned by the same one or two corporate landlords
posted by eviemath at 4:54 PM on March 16
Data is collected differently (or just, like, not collected) in the different regions monitored by the new site, so this may be a bit hard to compare. Other places seem to rely more heavily on renovictions, which are just a non-renewal of tenancy and don’t count toward eviction stats, for example. Also, parts of Toronto have more active tenants unions, so the traditional informal eviction of tenants who don’t know their rights or who are more vulnerable to intimidation tactics might be a small part of keeping official eviction stats low some other places (like where I live).
Hmmm...I wonder what the connection among them might be!
Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinking - they are all owned by the same one or two corporate landlords
posted by eviemath at 4:54 PM on March 16
" The financialization diagnosis is wrong...[from link] prices reflect scarcity"
Hmmm, could you explain the mechanism of this, do the prices get together and discuss scarcity and then put on their little price-suits and go down to the Internet to raise themselves?
I mean, in the rentals market, it seems far more likely to me that large asset holders realized that it is almost impossible to participate in society if you exit from the housing market and thus that, if they acquired a significant portion of the housing stock, they could drain the last drops of blood from renters, but your theory seems a lot more quaint and reassuring. Prices! They just rose!
posted by praemunire at 10:04 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Hmmm, could you explain the mechanism of this, do the prices get together and discuss scarcity and then put on their little price-suits and go down to the Internet to raise themselves?
I mean, in the rentals market, it seems far more likely to me that large asset holders realized that it is almost impossible to participate in society if you exit from the housing market and thus that, if they acquired a significant portion of the housing stock, they could drain the last drops of blood from renters, but your theory seems a lot more quaint and reassuring. Prices! They just rose!
posted by praemunire at 10:04 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Hmmm, could you explain the mechanism of this
Sure, here's an example of what it looks like in Vancouver. A tweet from January 7, 2022:
Housing is like a ladder, it's all connected. When we block new housing, the people who would have lived there don't vanish into thin air: they move down the housing ladder, competing with everyone else who's currently looking for a place to live. They're able to pay higher rents. What happens is you get a cascade of trickle-down evictions and tremendous pressure on people near the bottom of the ladder.
You get a similar phenomenon with people moving from more expensive neighbourhoods to cheaper ones, driving up prices and rents there. People often think of “gentrification” as “new buildings” - they’re expensive, and that’s what causes higher-income people to move into a lower-income neighbourhood, right?
In fact it’s almost exactly the opposite: lack of new housing results in gentrification, i.e. high-income households moving into lower-income neighbourhoods and displacing lower-income households.
I mean, in the rentals market, it seems far more likely to me that large asset holders realized that it is almost impossible to participate in society if you exit from the housing market and thus that, if they acquired a significant portion of the housing stock, they could drain the last drops of blood from renters
You mean like OPEC? In that case you'd expect to see a surplus of housing (like the way OPEC keeps surplus capacity offline), with oligopolistic landlords charging rents that are higher than the market-clearing rent. In fact what we see is near-zero vacancy rates across the country. Watch any public hearing and it'll be immediately clear what's causing the housing shortage: neighbours who are opposed to new housing, combined with a brutally slow and difficult approval process. (There's a more subtle issue: local governments also tax new housing like it's a gold mine, and these costs are passed on to homebuyers and renters, both for new housing and existing housing.)
I always think of this tweet by Zak Vescera comparing Vancouver (1.2% vacancy rate) and Saskatoon (5.7% vacancy rate), pre-Covid:
Sure, here's an example of what it looks like in Vancouver. A tweet from January 7, 2022:
I have a condo unit turning over in Yaletown Feb 1. Posted it on Tuesday and have received well over 150 inquiries for it. For Feb 1. These people are desperate. It’s insane.A healthy rental vacancy rate is around 3% (apparently there's some difference in how vacancy rates are measured in Canada and the US, I don't know the details). In Metro Vancouver it's closer to zero. There simply isn't enough housing to go around. In Vancouver, CMHC estimates that housing costs have to rise about 2% in order to force 1% of people to leave.
The #housingshortage is real and it’s devastating. Gov’t failure at all three levels are unconscionable.
Housing is like a ladder, it's all connected. When we block new housing, the people who would have lived there don't vanish into thin air: they move down the housing ladder, competing with everyone else who's currently looking for a place to live. They're able to pay higher rents. What happens is you get a cascade of trickle-down evictions and tremendous pressure on people near the bottom of the ladder.
You get a similar phenomenon with people moving from more expensive neighbourhoods to cheaper ones, driving up prices and rents there. People often think of “gentrification” as “new buildings” - they’re expensive, and that’s what causes higher-income people to move into a lower-income neighbourhood, right?
In fact it’s almost exactly the opposite: lack of new housing results in gentrification, i.e. high-income households moving into lower-income neighbourhoods and displacing lower-income households.
I mean, in the rentals market, it seems far more likely to me that large asset holders realized that it is almost impossible to participate in society if you exit from the housing market and thus that, if they acquired a significant portion of the housing stock, they could drain the last drops of blood from renters
You mean like OPEC? In that case you'd expect to see a surplus of housing (like the way OPEC keeps surplus capacity offline), with oligopolistic landlords charging rents that are higher than the market-clearing rent. In fact what we see is near-zero vacancy rates across the country. Watch any public hearing and it'll be immediately clear what's causing the housing shortage: neighbours who are opposed to new housing, combined with a brutally slow and difficult approval process. (There's a more subtle issue: local governments also tax new housing like it's a gold mine, and these costs are passed on to homebuyers and renters, both for new housing and existing housing.)
I always think of this tweet by Zak Vescera comparing Vancouver (1.2% vacancy rate) and Saskatoon (5.7% vacancy rate), pre-Covid:
Apartment hunting in Vancouver: 20 people at the showing. There are no windows. Lease is 600 years. Price is your soul.posted by russilwvong at 12:20 AM on March 17 [6 favorites]
Apartment hunting in Saskatoon: Utilities you never knew existed are included in rent. Landlords call you drunk at night begging you to move in.
> That got me wondering what they look at when someone is buying an investment condo to rent out. Do they look at prevailing rents to make sure market rent will cover all the housing expenses?
---
>That whole metric about spending 30 per cent (give or take) of your take home income on housing has always flummoxed me.
The two comments are somewhat related, I'm in Australia where housing affordability in Sydney is a bit worse than Vancouver while Melbourne is a bit better. I've taken on 3 mortgages so far.
To count rental income on your mortgage application you need a statement from an REA evaluating what the property might rent for. The bank will risk-weight rental income the same way it risk-weights your other income sources. They also look at future earning potential. This is why a doctor can get a 100% loan to value ratio mortgage with lower interest rates than other professions can, because the banks know historically they pay their debts, their earning potential rises quickly, and they're almost never unemployed. If you're a white collar accounting worker, your salary gets risk-weighted because, well what if your jobs all get outsouced to India within 5 years? If you're a casual worker without guaranteed hours, or you own your own personal business or participate in the gig economy, your income gets risk-weighted even more severely.
REAs pick 30% of gross income as a yardstick - it's common sense that tenants in financial stress are more likely to end up not paying their rent. This is a case of competing priorities - the REA wants to advertise the property at a lower rent, to attract more applicants, so they can rent it to the richest applicant in the pool. This minimizes the work they need to do - only do one open-house inspection, and they don't get bothered by having to deal with a delinquent tenant. The landlord on the other hand would need to balance the risk-reward - they could ask for a higher rent, which reduces the number and quality of the applicant pool, and they bear the risk if the tenant ends up not paying.
Both are rather different situations, just because you can pay $2500 a month in rent doesn't mean you can pay $2500 in mortgage repayments. There's thousands of dollars of additional fees you would need to pay in addition to the mortgage - call it $2000 per year in insurance, $2000 per year in council rates, $2000 per year set aside for maintenance in case stuff like the water heater breaks, $500 per year in termite / pest inspections and control, $500 per year in fixed utility rates that you don't pay as a tenant. Instead of a $30,000 rent vs $30,000 mortgage, it's more like $30,000 mortgage + $7,000 in other costs, plus the risk that interest rates can vary wildly - people in Australia rolled off from 1.8% fixed rates to 6.5% variable within 3 years, doubling their monthly mortgage payment, while rental costs are fixed for the duration of the lease.
Then on top of that is the additional risk the counterparty is taking - for the landlord, if you don't pay the rent, they evict you, their total losses can be relatively small small - insurance covers some of it, and I think I ended up about $6,000 in the hole with the last tenant whole didn't pay their rent.
The losses the bank can take can be quite substantial because they're usually a confluence of bad things all at once: if the economy turns bad, mortgage stress gets worse as people lose their jobs, and it's not only your house getting repossessed and sold, but a significant percentage in the neighbourhood: this depresses the price the bank can get at auction, plus all the fees, delays, they could quickly end up losing some serious money. So banks tend to be a lot more conservative with their modelling of housing affordability than REAs.
I still managed to find cheap housing in Melbourne CBD back in 2008, I started out with a graduate job straight out of university earning A$56,000 per year. I got a brand new two bedroom unit for A$20,000 per year. I sublet it out and shared it with 2 other people, and I paid about A$6,000 a year since I took the smallest sleeping spot. That was 11% of my gross income, compared to 36% if I wanted the whole place to myself. Sure it was small and there wasn't any privacy but living right in the middle of Melbourne CBD, that was great.
posted by xdvesper at 1:15 AM on March 17
---
>That whole metric about spending 30 per cent (give or take) of your take home income on housing has always flummoxed me.
The two comments are somewhat related, I'm in Australia where housing affordability in Sydney is a bit worse than Vancouver while Melbourne is a bit better. I've taken on 3 mortgages so far.
To count rental income on your mortgage application you need a statement from an REA evaluating what the property might rent for. The bank will risk-weight rental income the same way it risk-weights your other income sources. They also look at future earning potential. This is why a doctor can get a 100% loan to value ratio mortgage with lower interest rates than other professions can, because the banks know historically they pay their debts, their earning potential rises quickly, and they're almost never unemployed. If you're a white collar accounting worker, your salary gets risk-weighted because, well what if your jobs all get outsouced to India within 5 years? If you're a casual worker without guaranteed hours, or you own your own personal business or participate in the gig economy, your income gets risk-weighted even more severely.
REAs pick 30% of gross income as a yardstick - it's common sense that tenants in financial stress are more likely to end up not paying their rent. This is a case of competing priorities - the REA wants to advertise the property at a lower rent, to attract more applicants, so they can rent it to the richest applicant in the pool. This minimizes the work they need to do - only do one open-house inspection, and they don't get bothered by having to deal with a delinquent tenant. The landlord on the other hand would need to balance the risk-reward - they could ask for a higher rent, which reduces the number and quality of the applicant pool, and they bear the risk if the tenant ends up not paying.
Both are rather different situations, just because you can pay $2500 a month in rent doesn't mean you can pay $2500 in mortgage repayments. There's thousands of dollars of additional fees you would need to pay in addition to the mortgage - call it $2000 per year in insurance, $2000 per year in council rates, $2000 per year set aside for maintenance in case stuff like the water heater breaks, $500 per year in termite / pest inspections and control, $500 per year in fixed utility rates that you don't pay as a tenant. Instead of a $30,000 rent vs $30,000 mortgage, it's more like $30,000 mortgage + $7,000 in other costs, plus the risk that interest rates can vary wildly - people in Australia rolled off from 1.8% fixed rates to 6.5% variable within 3 years, doubling their monthly mortgage payment, while rental costs are fixed for the duration of the lease.
Then on top of that is the additional risk the counterparty is taking - for the landlord, if you don't pay the rent, they evict you, their total losses can be relatively small small - insurance covers some of it, and I think I ended up about $6,000 in the hole with the last tenant whole didn't pay their rent.
The losses the bank can take can be quite substantial because they're usually a confluence of bad things all at once: if the economy turns bad, mortgage stress gets worse as people lose their jobs, and it's not only your house getting repossessed and sold, but a significant percentage in the neighbourhood: this depresses the price the bank can get at auction, plus all the fees, delays, they could quickly end up losing some serious money. So banks tend to be a lot more conservative with their modelling of housing affordability than REAs.
I still managed to find cheap housing in Melbourne CBD back in 2008, I started out with a graduate job straight out of university earning A$56,000 per year. I got a brand new two bedroom unit for A$20,000 per year. I sublet it out and shared it with 2 other people, and I paid about A$6,000 a year since I took the smallest sleeping spot. That was 11% of my gross income, compared to 36% if I wanted the whole place to myself. Sure it was small and there wasn't any privacy but living right in the middle of Melbourne CBD, that was great.
posted by xdvesper at 1:15 AM on March 17
russilwvong: Sure, here's an example of what it looks like in Vancouver. A tweet from January 7, 2022: I have a condo unit turning over in Yaletown Feb 1. Posted it on Tuesday and have received well over 150 inquiries for it. For Feb 1. These people are desperate. It’s insane.
FWIW, February and March of 2022 were the absolute peak of the market for condos, at least here in Toronto. Since then, average condo prices have come down by 10-15%.
Prices are still ridiculous since that peak was preceded by a doubling of prices in six years, but the frenzy of 2022 has faded a bit.
posted by clawsoon at 1:50 AM on March 17
FWIW, February and March of 2022 were the absolute peak of the market for condos, at least here in Toronto. Since then, average condo prices have come down by 10-15%.
Prices are still ridiculous since that peak was preceded by a doubling of prices in six years, but the frenzy of 2022 has faded a bit.
posted by clawsoon at 1:50 AM on March 17
In that case you'd expect to see a surplus of housing (like the way OPEC keeps surplus capacity offline), with oligopolistic landlords charging rents that are higher than the market-clearing rent.
That's happening in some American markets, with algorithmic pricing showing more large landlords that they can increase revenue by raising prices to the point that ~5% of their units are vacant. According to the article, it works best in already-expensive downtowns, so Toronto and Vancouver would be the places you'd expect to see it tried in Canada.
When we block new housing
On this image of current and future development in Toronto, you can see where the political power of single-family homes has drawn lines to contain development and force it into massive high-rises downtown. West of Spadina and east of Broadview are all the people who use every bit of political clout they've got to "preserve the character of their neighbourhood" and keep Toronto unaffordable and car-dependent.
Best (real!) quote along those lines: "This parking lot is the hub, it’s the heart of the community."
the people who would have lived there don't vanish into thin air: they move down the housing ladder, competing with everyone else who's currently looking for a place to live. They're able to pay higher rents. What happens is you get a cascade of trickle-down evictions and tremendous pressure on people near the bottom of the ladder.
The Globe and Mail had an article last month talking about a weak condo market in downtown Toronto lead[ing] to dip in rental rates, increased vacancy. The choicest quote was:
posted by clawsoon at 2:43 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
That's happening in some American markets, with algorithmic pricing showing more large landlords that they can increase revenue by raising prices to the point that ~5% of their units are vacant. According to the article, it works best in already-expensive downtowns, so Toronto and Vancouver would be the places you'd expect to see it tried in Canada.
When we block new housing
On this image of current and future development in Toronto, you can see where the political power of single-family homes has drawn lines to contain development and force it into massive high-rises downtown. West of Spadina and east of Broadview are all the people who use every bit of political clout they've got to "preserve the character of their neighbourhood" and keep Toronto unaffordable and car-dependent.
Best (real!) quote along those lines: "This parking lot is the hub, it’s the heart of the community."
the people who would have lived there don't vanish into thin air: they move down the housing ladder, competing with everyone else who's currently looking for a place to live. They're able to pay higher rents. What happens is you get a cascade of trickle-down evictions and tremendous pressure on people near the bottom of the ladder.
The Globe and Mail had an article last month talking about a weak condo market in downtown Toronto lead[ing] to dip in rental rates, increased vacancy. The choicest quote was:
“They are so used to just a single-occupant, triple-A qualified tenants who make $90,000-$100,000,” said Mr. Bahl of his investors, who he said are losing patience with his inability to even schedule showings. “It’s really a struggle finding somebody qualified at this point.”So at least in Toronto, at least for now, the supply of single people with perfect credit making $100K seems to have been soaked up, which may open up a tiny bit of light for the people with perfect credit who are only making $85K.
posted by clawsoon at 2:43 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
Yeah, the problem with the housing ladder, like with any ladder, is that movement downward, in the gentrification direction, is much easier and quicker than movement upward. The idea that building more high end housing will trickle down to help people at the low end of the market works about as quickly and efficiently as any other trickle down economics theory. The reasons are included in some of the above comments: landlords have much more elasticity on the supply side, and letting more units sit empty in a very tight housing market can sometimes actually benefit them, while people seeking housing have essentially no elasticity on the demand side.
A quicker option, historically, has been organized squats to create political pressure for non-market, affordable housing: How Veterans Took Over the Hotel Vancouver and Helped Solve a Housing Crisis
posted by eviemath at 10:01 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
A quicker option, historically, has been organized squats to create political pressure for non-market, affordable housing: How Veterans Took Over the Hotel Vancouver and Helped Solve a Housing Crisis
posted by eviemath at 10:01 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Other components of why a trickle down approach to affordable housing doesn’t work as well:
* Wealth inequality means some people/families buy second homes as housing prices become more affordable before other people/families are able to even rent one home.
* Location matters for folks in need of deeply affordable housing. People need to live within an hour commute of work, services, etc. - often much closer for low income folks who have to work multiple jobs to survive or cobble together multiple part time minimum wage jobs that they have to travel between (that is, commuting is not just a morning and evening thing for most minimum wage workers). For folks who can’t afford a reliable car, the geographic radius within an hour commute is much much smaller. Middle class folks who can at least afford a reliable car and insurance can rent something cheaper outside of town, but that vacancy may as well not exist for folks on the lower end of the income spectrum. And if new construction is concentrated in suburbs without effective public transportation options, you end up in the situation most of the cities in the fpp link data set were in 10-20 years ago, where vacancy rates in city centres and in the deeply affordable end of the market were around 1% (yeah, for those us who have been doing tenants’ rights work for a while, this is not at all a new problem or new crisis), even as vacancy rates at the mid to higher end of the market or in subdivisions not well-served by transit were 5% or more.
* People are seriously classist, and the same NIMBYism that folks love to decry when it comes to permitting and regulatory steps also provides both social (branding), political, and economic pressures to discourage landlords from renting to those below a given income threshold, or from offering units below a certain rent, in many neighborhoods; or will lead to harassment of new neighbours deemed undesirable. (There is a strong overlap with racism here, too, of course, and with the ways that historic policies like redlining are structurally reproduced despite no longer being official policy.)
* Related to the above, one main way that slumlords make money at the low end of the housing market is by not spending anything on maintenance and upkeep. But a slum building in an overall more upscale neighborhood won’t last long before the neighbours use whatever their municipality’s version of a dangerous and unsightly premesis bylaw is to have the slum building condemned, or levied with enough fines or orders to perform maintenance that it’s more profitable for the landlord to sell the building. Thus removing affordable housing from the market. This means that the “ladder” or trickle down approach to supply of affordable housing tends to create the opposite of gentrification: so-called urban blight, where slum neighbourhoods of substandard or physically unsafe housing develop. Sure, slum housing is a little better than no housing. But that is not a “solution” that we should be aspiring to.
posted by eviemath at 10:27 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
* Wealth inequality means some people/families buy second homes as housing prices become more affordable before other people/families are able to even rent one home.
* Location matters for folks in need of deeply affordable housing. People need to live within an hour commute of work, services, etc. - often much closer for low income folks who have to work multiple jobs to survive or cobble together multiple part time minimum wage jobs that they have to travel between (that is, commuting is not just a morning and evening thing for most minimum wage workers). For folks who can’t afford a reliable car, the geographic radius within an hour commute is much much smaller. Middle class folks who can at least afford a reliable car and insurance can rent something cheaper outside of town, but that vacancy may as well not exist for folks on the lower end of the income spectrum. And if new construction is concentrated in suburbs without effective public transportation options, you end up in the situation most of the cities in the fpp link data set were in 10-20 years ago, where vacancy rates in city centres and in the deeply affordable end of the market were around 1% (yeah, for those us who have been doing tenants’ rights work for a while, this is not at all a new problem or new crisis), even as vacancy rates at the mid to higher end of the market or in subdivisions not well-served by transit were 5% or more.
* People are seriously classist, and the same NIMBYism that folks love to decry when it comes to permitting and regulatory steps also provides both social (branding), political, and economic pressures to discourage landlords from renting to those below a given income threshold, or from offering units below a certain rent, in many neighborhoods; or will lead to harassment of new neighbours deemed undesirable. (There is a strong overlap with racism here, too, of course, and with the ways that historic policies like redlining are structurally reproduced despite no longer being official policy.)
* Related to the above, one main way that slumlords make money at the low end of the housing market is by not spending anything on maintenance and upkeep. But a slum building in an overall more upscale neighborhood won’t last long before the neighbours use whatever their municipality’s version of a dangerous and unsightly premesis bylaw is to have the slum building condemned, or levied with enough fines or orders to perform maintenance that it’s more profitable for the landlord to sell the building. Thus removing affordable housing from the market. This means that the “ladder” or trickle down approach to supply of affordable housing tends to create the opposite of gentrification: so-called urban blight, where slum neighbourhoods of substandard or physically unsafe housing develop. Sure, slum housing is a little better than no housing. But that is not a “solution” that we should be aspiring to.
posted by eviemath at 10:27 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
I'm going to cite from the Bank of Canada's own publication that shows Chart 3-A: Strong population growth is supporting inflation in rental prices.. The National Bank of Canada has also said that Canada has triggered a population trap through immigration
The Bank of Canada's graph show direct correlation of home prices to population growth, but the only viable source of population growth is coming from immigration, because fertility rates are below replacement.
Honestly, the problems in housing were pretty much explained by a supply and demand model, but because people didn't like the solutions from a supply-demand model, everyone latched on to "It must be foreign speculators" and then gaslit anyone saying "It could actually be immigration." The Banks did come and say that shutting down the student visa programs would alleviate housing pressures, because the demand side would fall.
Fundamentally, the problem is pensions and investments are driving a perpetual growth economy, when economies should be viable without perpetually needing growth. Canada's domestic youth get hurt the most with a perpetual and unneeded use of immigrants just so that the boomers can persist their retirement scheme.
I think the only two cities that should still receive immigration permits at this point are Edmonton and Calgary. They removed restrictive zoning from the supply side, so their housing market could adapt and keep up with growth.
I usually vote NDP and will do it provincially, but the federal NDP is providing non-answers to the housing crisis. The PPC is a bunch of scammers, but Maxime Bernier was right that our immigration levels were nonsense. The Harper Conservatives and Trudeau Liberals caused this mess, in my opinion
posted by DetriusXii at 10:44 AM on March 17
The Bank of Canada's graph show direct correlation of home prices to population growth, but the only viable source of population growth is coming from immigration, because fertility rates are below replacement.
Honestly, the problems in housing were pretty much explained by a supply and demand model, but because people didn't like the solutions from a supply-demand model, everyone latched on to "It must be foreign speculators" and then gaslit anyone saying "It could actually be immigration." The Banks did come and say that shutting down the student visa programs would alleviate housing pressures, because the demand side would fall.
Fundamentally, the problem is pensions and investments are driving a perpetual growth economy, when economies should be viable without perpetually needing growth. Canada's domestic youth get hurt the most with a perpetual and unneeded use of immigrants just so that the boomers can persist their retirement scheme.
I think the only two cities that should still receive immigration permits at this point are Edmonton and Calgary. They removed restrictive zoning from the supply side, so their housing market could adapt and keep up with growth.
I usually vote NDP and will do it provincially, but the federal NDP is providing non-answers to the housing crisis. The PPC is a bunch of scammers, but Maxime Bernier was right that our immigration levels were nonsense. The Harper Conservatives and Trudeau Liberals caused this mess, in my opinion
posted by DetriusXii at 10:44 AM on March 17
There’s a huge difference between “immigration is causing our housing crisis” and “we didn’t build or maintain social housing for decades, so when we experienced an immigration bump we weren’t able to handle it, housing-wise”. The Bank of Canada data is factual. The interpretation of the data relies on a whole bunch of implicit assumptions and personal or political values. And there’s also that niggly detail that rents started going through the roof the year before the immigration spike….
To reiterate what I said above, as someone who has been doing tenants’ rights advocacy for 20 years, the crisis in affordable housing has been ongoing for quite a while now. Yes it got worse and started affecting more middle class people over the past two to three years, and so has become more visible to average folks who don’t generally pay attention to what’s affecting the most vulnerable groups in our society and economy. But that’s not where it started and the timeline is not that recent or condensed.
posted by eviemath at 12:53 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
To reiterate what I said above, as someone who has been doing tenants’ rights advocacy for 20 years, the crisis in affordable housing has been ongoing for quite a while now. Yes it got worse and started affecting more middle class people over the past two to three years, and so has become more visible to average folks who don’t generally pay attention to what’s affecting the most vulnerable groups in our society and economy. But that’s not where it started and the timeline is not that recent or condensed.
posted by eviemath at 12:53 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
There have been people and families made homeless due to unaffordable rents, not just mental health issues and addictions, for years. Just not as many as currently.
posted by eviemath at 1:28 PM on March 17
posted by eviemath at 1:28 PM on March 17
I have a vague impression that Canada's population growth rate has been higher in the past, but more of the population back then was involved in physically extracting the resources for housing and physically building housing.
Now it seems like a lot more of the population is involved in the housing industry, but not in physically building housing. Financing housing, insuring housing, selling housing, renovating housing, making TV shows about housing, but not physically building housing.
But I could be wrong.
posted by clawsoon at 1:33 PM on March 17
Now it seems like a lot more of the population is involved in the housing industry, but not in physically building housing. Financing housing, insuring housing, selling housing, renovating housing, making TV shows about housing, but not physically building housing.
But I could be wrong.
posted by clawsoon at 1:33 PM on March 17
To reiterate what I said above, as someone who has been doing tenants’ rights advocacy for 20 years, the crisis in affordable housing has been ongoing for quite a while now.
When I was working in housing and with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in the late 90s, it was an issue. The GTA in particular has not been creating housing at a rate to keep up with demand for quite a while. This 2019 report from the Toronto Board of Trade + WoodGreen looked at the situation in the 2016-2018 gap between wages and housing and it was opening up a lot then.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:57 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
When I was working in housing and with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in the late 90s, it was an issue. The GTA in particular has not been creating housing at a rate to keep up with demand for quite a while. This 2019 report from the Toronto Board of Trade + WoodGreen looked at the situation in the 2016-2018 gap between wages and housing and it was opening up a lot then.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:57 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
The idea that building more high end housing will trickle down to help people at the low end of the market works about as quickly and efficiently as any other trickle down economics theory.
Housing scarcity trickles down very fast.
My take is that we need "all of the above": we should build as much market and non-market housing as we can. Every time a new building opens with 100 or 200 apartments, whether it's market or non-market, that's 100 or 200 fewer renters competing with everyone else. New housing frees up older housing.
Non-market housing runs into exactly the same problem as market housing: people want to build it, and we don't let them. Last year there was a public hearing in the city of Vancouver because the province was willing to fund 650 non-market apartments, but the city still had to say yes. Initial comments were running 27 opposed, 3 in support. Some comments from opponents:
Some more examples of non-market housing having an extremely hard time making it through the red tape:
posted by russilwvong at 2:38 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
Housing scarcity trickles down very fast.
My take is that we need "all of the above": we should build as much market and non-market housing as we can. Every time a new building opens with 100 or 200 apartments, whether it's market or non-market, that's 100 or 200 fewer renters competing with everyone else. New housing frees up older housing.
Non-market housing runs into exactly the same problem as market housing: people want to build it, and we don't let them. Last year there was a public hearing in the city of Vancouver because the province was willing to fund 650 non-market apartments, but the city still had to say yes. Initial comments were running 27 opposed, 3 in support. Some comments from opponents:
- I'm concerned my view of False Creek will be blocked, and feel that the space could be better used as a park.
- The initial plan to build 8 storey buildings was what drove us to buy at 930 Cambie Street. This updated plan is jeopardizing the value of our condo and obliterating the views of False Creek we currently enjoy. This change of plan is unacceptable.
- An excessively large development could lead to overcrowding, increased traffic congestion, limited parking spaces, and decreased privacy for residents. Such negative impacts would compromise the character and charm of our community, potentially diminishing property values and causing distress to current homeowners.
- This project will obviously damage Yaletown and increase the criminal burden of our communities!
- Social housing needs to be balanced with market housing to integrate all members of society, to ensure integration, diversity and safety. Having 2 large high rises concentrated in one small area risks creating an area that is no longer safe for tourists on the False Creek walkway, children and families in Cooper's Park.
Some more examples of non-market housing having an extremely hard time making it through the red tape:
- Developer gives up on building 22 units of social housing in the Downtown East Side
- Many social-housing announcements and approvals in Vancouver, not so much getting built - story by Frances Bula
- Hamilton councillors have rejected a plan to build 67 new affordable homes on city-owned land currently being used as a surface parking lot
posted by russilwvong at 2:38 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
Honestly, the problems in housing were pretty much explained by a supply and demand model, but because people didn't like the solutions from a supply-demand model, everyone latched on to "It must be foreign speculators" and then gaslit anyone saying "It could actually be immigration." The Banks did come and say that shutting down the student visa programs would alleviate housing pressures, because the demand side would fall.
Mike Moffatt and Alex Usher have been talking about this for quite a while. Ontario colleges flooded the system.
I'd describe it like this:
(1) Housing is a ladder, it's all connected. When we don't have enough housing at one rung of the ladder, people don't disappear - they move down the ladder and we get trickle-down evictions.
(2) In the GTA and Metro Vancouver, there's a lot of opposition to new housing: you need to go through slow and painful per-site approval for each and every multifamily project.
(3) When Covid hit, there was a sudden surge in people working from home and needing more space.
(4) In addition, there's been a post-Covid surge in temporary residents, especially international students and especially at Ontario colleges.
We need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up, and we need to increase supply as much as we can.
The international students themselves aren't to blame. They're basically being exploited, paying very high tuition fees for education which in many cases is of dubious quality.
Municipalities are created by provincial legislation, and BC is intervening directly to push for more housing supply by requiring municipalities to legalize more housing (e.g. multiplexes and transit-oriented development). Ontario isn't, and has also been throwing gasoline on the fire (as Alex Usher puts it) by boosting international student numbers.
After the most recent cabinet shuffle in the summer, the federal government has been stepping into the vacuum left by Ontario's inaction: Sean Fraser has been using Housing Accelerator funding to convince municipalities (including in Ontario) to make similar reforms as in BC, and Marc Miller imposed a new federal cap on international students in January, cutting Ontario's numbers by 50%. Regardless of who's to blame, we need to fix the problem.
posted by russilwvong at 2:53 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Mike Moffatt and Alex Usher have been talking about this for quite a while. Ontario colleges flooded the system.
I'd describe it like this:
(1) Housing is a ladder, it's all connected. When we don't have enough housing at one rung of the ladder, people don't disappear - they move down the ladder and we get trickle-down evictions.
(2) In the GTA and Metro Vancouver, there's a lot of opposition to new housing: you need to go through slow and painful per-site approval for each and every multifamily project.
(3) When Covid hit, there was a sudden surge in people working from home and needing more space.
(4) In addition, there's been a post-Covid surge in temporary residents, especially international students and especially at Ontario colleges.
We need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up, and we need to increase supply as much as we can.
The international students themselves aren't to blame. They're basically being exploited, paying very high tuition fees for education which in many cases is of dubious quality.
Municipalities are created by provincial legislation, and BC is intervening directly to push for more housing supply by requiring municipalities to legalize more housing (e.g. multiplexes and transit-oriented development). Ontario isn't, and has also been throwing gasoline on the fire (as Alex Usher puts it) by boosting international student numbers.
After the most recent cabinet shuffle in the summer, the federal government has been stepping into the vacuum left by Ontario's inaction: Sean Fraser has been using Housing Accelerator funding to convince municipalities (including in Ontario) to make similar reforms as in BC, and Marc Miller imposed a new federal cap on international students in January, cutting Ontario's numbers by 50%. Regardless of who's to blame, we need to fix the problem.
posted by russilwvong at 2:53 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I’m just saying:
1. Not all housing construction is created equal.
2. The supply and demand forces do not work with the same speed or impact in both directions.
We need to understand the problem in order to fix it as quickly as possible(*), in a manner that won’t create more problems in the future. And that requires more nuance than “it’s just basic supply and demand”. It’s not. There are a whole lot of other political and social dynamics that impact the situation, in addition to the economic picture being more complex and nuanced.
The Canadian government has created dormitory style housing like would also be suitable for university students extremely rapidly at certain points in the past. Why are many Canadians and Canadian politicians reaching for xenophobia instead of that solution? What future impacts will that emphasis or choice have? What other contributing factors are we ignoring, that will continue to be problems, by focusing just on the one simple story?
(* And timing is one of the issues here. In cities, in order to build a new condo or apartment tower, whatever is presently on the site needs to first be demolished. In Halifax, this has meant evictions of entire city blocks of row housing, then the lots sitting empty for a couple years before being built on. Or sitting empty until the developer could sell at the price they wanted. And there was the city block right in the middle of the peninsula that got converted to a car dealership parking lot. But pandemic labor and supply shortages stretched the delay out even longer even for the cases where new construction did go in. Where do all the people who used to live on that block move to in the mean time? When the LEMR site talks about destruction of affordable housing, they aren’t just talking about rents being raised or renovictions to shift affordable units to a more expensive sector of the market. They are, in part, talking about the literal tearing down of places that people used to live in.)
posted by eviemath at 4:47 PM on March 17
1. Not all housing construction is created equal.
2. The supply and demand forces do not work with the same speed or impact in both directions.
We need to understand the problem in order to fix it as quickly as possible(*), in a manner that won’t create more problems in the future. And that requires more nuance than “it’s just basic supply and demand”. It’s not. There are a whole lot of other political and social dynamics that impact the situation, in addition to the economic picture being more complex and nuanced.
The Canadian government has created dormitory style housing like would also be suitable for university students extremely rapidly at certain points in the past. Why are many Canadians and Canadian politicians reaching for xenophobia instead of that solution? What future impacts will that emphasis or choice have? What other contributing factors are we ignoring, that will continue to be problems, by focusing just on the one simple story?
(* And timing is one of the issues here. In cities, in order to build a new condo or apartment tower, whatever is presently on the site needs to first be demolished. In Halifax, this has meant evictions of entire city blocks of row housing, then the lots sitting empty for a couple years before being built on. Or sitting empty until the developer could sell at the price they wanted. And there was the city block right in the middle of the peninsula that got converted to a car dealership parking lot. But pandemic labor and supply shortages stretched the delay out even longer even for the cases where new construction did go in. Where do all the people who used to live on that block move to in the mean time? When the LEMR site talks about destruction of affordable housing, they aren’t just talking about rents being raised or renovictions to shift affordable units to a more expensive sector of the market. They are, in part, talking about the literal tearing down of places that people used to live in.)
posted by eviemath at 4:47 PM on March 17
@clawsoon: I've been toying with the idea that the Canadian immigration system has largely been rewarding immigrants who come from university educated, rich cultural backgrounds that can afford to pay the immigration security deposits when they arrive into Canada. And we've been filtering immigrants from poorer backgrounds. So when they arrive into Canada and don't find the corporate/administrative job that they were expecting, they end up working in retail or being a delivery driver, since they don't have the personality type to work in construction. Canadian immigration may like the well-educated immigrants because they may be viewed as more likely to comply with Canadian laws and the Canadian social system.
This may be a stereotype, but how many people do you know in the construction industry that speak more than one language and are over-educated for the job they're doing? Construction workers in every country may come from a more low-class variety, where they wouldn't have the wealth to post immigration deposits to enter Canada. There's more male bravado in that industry compared to other industries and there's a bit more prevalence of drug use (by about 1 percent compared to other industries). So the construction workers may have had a criminal record, (say from being caught using drugs or getting into a drunken bar fight), which may make their chances of entering Canada harder.
CIBC published an article that Canadian immigrants tend to be avoiding the construction industry. What I can't understand is why construction labor isn't having their wages skyrocket if we're under such a shortage of that type of labor?
posted by DetriusXii at 5:32 PM on March 17
This may be a stereotype, but how many people do you know in the construction industry that speak more than one language and are over-educated for the job they're doing? Construction workers in every country may come from a more low-class variety, where they wouldn't have the wealth to post immigration deposits to enter Canada. There's more male bravado in that industry compared to other industries and there's a bit more prevalence of drug use (by about 1 percent compared to other industries). So the construction workers may have had a criminal record, (say from being caught using drugs or getting into a drunken bar fight), which may make their chances of entering Canada harder.
CIBC published an article that Canadian immigrants tend to be avoiding the construction industry. What I can't understand is why construction labor isn't having their wages skyrocket if we're under such a shortage of that type of labor?
posted by DetriusXii at 5:32 PM on March 17
What I can't understand is why construction labor isn't having their wages skyrocket if we're under such a shortage of that type of labor?
Demand for construction labor is constrained by the approval bottleneck. In BC, municipal governments charge high development fees and allow only a limited trickle of housing (similar to OPEC). See the MacPhail Report. If it were easier to get more projects approved, we'd need more labor and wages would go up.
In Metro Vancouver, my guess is that we'd also see some changes in where housing is built. Right now there's high-rises going up out in Langley, because it's so difficult to get approval in the city of Vancouver. (It's like pushing down on a balloon: demand gets pushed further out.)
posted by russilwvong at 6:03 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Demand for construction labor is constrained by the approval bottleneck. In BC, municipal governments charge high development fees and allow only a limited trickle of housing (similar to OPEC). See the MacPhail Report. If it were easier to get more projects approved, we'd need more labor and wages would go up.
In Metro Vancouver, my guess is that we'd also see some changes in where housing is built. Right now there's high-rises going up out in Langley, because it's so difficult to get approval in the city of Vancouver. (It's like pushing down on a balloon: demand gets pushed further out.)
posted by russilwvong at 6:03 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
In my part of Canada there is absolutely a shortage of workers in construction fields. One of the ways this manifests is having trouble finding people for smaller jobs, since steady employment on a large job, with benefits, is more preferable to many folks than cobbling together many small jobs and having to do a lot of client interfacing and management on top of your regular trades work. (From the perspective of my regular, steady, long-term employment, I find that entirely understandable, even as I’m frustrated that I can’t find someone to fix the flashing around a leaky window.)
posted by eviemath at 5:13 AM on March 18
posted by eviemath at 5:13 AM on March 18
Cap on international students is here. But can it fix the housing crisis?[global]
Canada doubling cost-of-living requirement for international students [ctv]
International students now must show that they have $20k/ year, used to be $10k, in order to be granted a student visa.
posted by porpoise at 6:39 PM on March 18
Canada doubling cost-of-living requirement for international students [ctv]
International students now must show that they have $20k/ year, used to be $10k, in order to be granted a student visa.
posted by porpoise at 6:39 PM on March 18
how many people do you know in the construction industry that speak more than one language and are over-educated for the job they're doing?
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make. I work with plenty of tradespeople who speak more than one language. There are seven guys on my crew, English is a second langyage of four. One of the guys speaks English, Italian, French, Dagbani, and a smattering of Portuguese. My GF is Irish. Being bilingual in English and French is common.
There are quite a few who one could describe as over educated. I understand the implications of the term but don't really agree it is possble. If some guy with a masters in philosophy thinks being an electrician is the best use of their skillset I can't really argue, they are obviously smarter than me.
posted by Mitheral at 10:29 PM on March 18
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make. I work with plenty of tradespeople who speak more than one language. There are seven guys on my crew, English is a second langyage of four. One of the guys speaks English, Italian, French, Dagbani, and a smattering of Portuguese. My GF is Irish. Being bilingual in English and French is common.
There are quite a few who one could describe as over educated. I understand the implications of the term but don't really agree it is possble. If some guy with a masters in philosophy thinks being an electrician is the best use of their skillset I can't really argue, they are obviously smarter than me.
posted by Mitheral at 10:29 PM on March 18
Also lots of construction workers rove from city to city as jobs dry up - if your city has a lack of basic construction workers, that's yet another sign than you haven't built enough housing. What's your hotel occupation rates?
Why are many Canadians and Canadian politicians reaching for xenophobia instead of that solution?
Because if they constrain housing, then the housing they own is worth more? How is that a difficult question? In California, housing is rising at a rate higher than the median state yearly income. I wouldn't be surprised if the major cities in Canada are similar.
Also, if your low-income housing is disappearing, that's a sign that your zoning regulations are bad, because developers actually build far more stuff adjacent to high-end property, if all other things are equal. Because they already have a set of high-income customers and the risk is far lower.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on March 19
Why are many Canadians and Canadian politicians reaching for xenophobia instead of that solution?
Because if they constrain housing, then the housing they own is worth more? How is that a difficult question? In California, housing is rising at a rate higher than the median state yearly income. I wouldn't be surprised if the major cities in Canada are similar.
Also, if your low-income housing is disappearing, that's a sign that your zoning regulations are bad, because developers actually build far more stuff adjacent to high-end property, if all other things are equal. Because they already have a set of high-income customers and the risk is far lower.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on March 19
I want to also point out that the xenophobia critique is tiring and it gaslights economists who mentioned that yes, immigration flow rates were likely contributing to the increases in home prices from the housing demand side. Population is a flow, like water and traffic. If I have a leaky pipe that causes basement flooding, the first thing I'm going to do is to shut down the main water supply valve, and then fix the leaky pipe. I will not try to fix the leaky pipe while the main water supply is still open.
So even if zoning allowed for high rises everywhere and the single family home was abolished as every single family home was converted to high rise rental/condo apartment towers, it would still take a considerable amount of time to get there, because construction take time. Building high rises takes time. The federal government somehow has to convince the provinces + municipalities that it's in their best interest to build more supply, because the federal government doesn't have direct powers over them. I think municipal councilors would eventually stall housing supply as NIMBY people protest at city halls. The federal government controls the borders, so the immigration powers are something simple and immediate that they can play around with. They did that with the student immigration visa changes. And the provinces + municipalities can't interfere with the immigration changes as controlling immigration isn't a power that that provinces have.
The first world countries, without immigration, are population sinks. They are not population sources. Noticing that with fertility rates below replacement (Canada is at 1.4 births per woman), declining even more, and cloning being illegal; then the only source of persistent population growth has to come from immigration. So if we're trying to fix home prices, then why should one of the federal government's powers not be exercised?
posted by DetriusXii at 9:19 AM on March 19
So even if zoning allowed for high rises everywhere and the single family home was abolished as every single family home was converted to high rise rental/condo apartment towers, it would still take a considerable amount of time to get there, because construction take time. Building high rises takes time. The federal government somehow has to convince the provinces + municipalities that it's in their best interest to build more supply, because the federal government doesn't have direct powers over them. I think municipal councilors would eventually stall housing supply as NIMBY people protest at city halls. The federal government controls the borders, so the immigration powers are something simple and immediate that they can play around with. They did that with the student immigration visa changes. And the provinces + municipalities can't interfere with the immigration changes as controlling immigration isn't a power that that provinces have.
The first world countries, without immigration, are population sinks. They are not population sources. Noticing that with fertility rates below replacement (Canada is at 1.4 births per woman), declining even more, and cloning being illegal; then the only source of persistent population growth has to come from immigration. So if we're trying to fix home prices, then why should one of the federal government's powers not be exercised?
posted by DetriusXii at 9:19 AM on March 19
the xenophobia critique is tiring
So glad for you that neither yourself nor anyone you know has experienced harassment or similar negative impacts from the specific ways that politicians and commentators have been talking about immigration and its connection to housing. Guess what else is tiring? Being a target of xenophobia.
As I mentioned above, there are non-xenophobic ways to do that. Unfortunately that’s not what many Canadian politicians and political commentators have focused on. See also my comments above for multiple suggestions on what to do instead of limiting immigration, and perhaps engage with them rather than simply reiterating your earlier point?
posted by eviemath at 11:17 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
So glad for you that neither yourself nor anyone you know has experienced harassment or similar negative impacts from the specific ways that politicians and commentators have been talking about immigration and its connection to housing. Guess what else is tiring? Being a target of xenophobia.
As I mentioned above, there are non-xenophobic ways to do that. Unfortunately that’s not what many Canadian politicians and political commentators have focused on. See also my comments above for multiple suggestions on what to do instead of limiting immigration, and perhaps engage with them rather than simply reiterating your earlier point?
posted by eviemath at 11:17 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
As Marc Miller and many other people have emphasized, international students themselves are not to blame. In many cases they're basically being exploited, paying high tuition fees for education of dubious quality, so that provinces like Ontario can get away with underfunding their post-secondary education system.
It's a good thing that young people want to come to Canada to study and work. But for colleges and universities to hire third-party agents whose primary incentive is to recruit as many students as possible and collect their commission, with no regard for educational quality or housing availability, is to run a system with terrible incentives. (It reminds me of mortgage brokers in the US prior to the 2008 crash.)
It's not "xenophobia" to say that we need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up, instead of forcing newcomers and students to live in overcrowded and substandard housing.
Mike Moffatt, November 2023:
RBC: New 2024-2026 federal immigration targets flat amid policy tweaks, November 2023. “The pause in targeted immigration levels is appropriate given housing challenges and eroding public support for higher levels of immigration.”
David Green: No, immigration is not some magic pill for saving the economy, December 2022.
Mike Veall: Amid Canada’s housing crisis, immigration needs to be slower, more focused, August 2023.
Frances Woolley: Stop seeing immigration as a get-rich-quick scheme for Canada’s economy, September 2023.
Green, Veall, and Woolley are all former presidents of the Canadian Economics Association.
posted by russilwvong at 1:48 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
It's a good thing that young people want to come to Canada to study and work. But for colleges and universities to hire third-party agents whose primary incentive is to recruit as many students as possible and collect their commission, with no regard for educational quality or housing availability, is to run a system with terrible incentives. (It reminds me of mortgage brokers in the US prior to the 2008 crash.)
It's not "xenophobia" to say that we need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up, instead of forcing newcomers and students to live in overcrowded and substandard housing.
Mike Moffatt, November 2023:
The biggest immediate problem we have is that our housing stock is growing by 250K a year... enough to house 500-600K people.TD: Balancing Canada’s Pop in Population, July 2023.
But our population is growing by 1M or more.
This cannot be sustained.
The bulk of that population growth is coming through non-permanent resident routes: international students and temporary foreign workers.
Step one is to substantially reduce the number of visas for both international students and TFWs, *coupled* with a coordinated plan to building student housing and workforce housing, allowing Canada to steadily bring those numbers back up over time.
RBC: New 2024-2026 federal immigration targets flat amid policy tweaks, November 2023. “The pause in targeted immigration levels is appropriate given housing challenges and eroding public support for higher levels of immigration.”
David Green: No, immigration is not some magic pill for saving the economy, December 2022.
Mike Veall: Amid Canada’s housing crisis, immigration needs to be slower, more focused, August 2023.
Frances Woolley: Stop seeing immigration as a get-rich-quick scheme for Canada’s economy, September 2023.
Green, Veall, and Woolley are all former presidents of the Canadian Economics Association.
posted by russilwvong at 1:48 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
And economists also have unexamined assumptions and biases, not least that many come from upper middle class backgrounds. Also not engaging with the other suggestions I offered, nor my critique of the messaging.
“We need to crack down on exploitative third party recruiters and diploma mills that provide a questionable quality education” is a very different message, goal, and idea than “ we need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up”, even though both have the same immediate policy effects. The latter promotes/enables xenophobic sentiment, especially given that most politicians, like a couple commenters in this thread, haven’t couched it as “until these colleges/universities are able to build enough (non-slum) housing to support the students they recruit. Do you not see the difference in that emphasis, in where it places the responsibility, and in how it promotes better policy in the long term (ensure that colleges or universities are equipped to provide adequate services for all students, vs. focus on immigration caps or quotas)?
posted by eviemath at 4:00 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
“We need to crack down on exploitative third party recruiters and diploma mills that provide a questionable quality education” is a very different message, goal, and idea than “ we need to reduce population growth to a level where we can build enough housing to keep up”, even though both have the same immediate policy effects. The latter promotes/enables xenophobic sentiment, especially given that most politicians, like a couple commenters in this thread, haven’t couched it as “until these colleges/universities are able to build enough (non-slum) housing to support the students they recruit. Do you not see the difference in that emphasis, in where it places the responsibility, and in how it promotes better policy in the long term (ensure that colleges or universities are equipped to provide adequate services for all students, vs. focus on immigration caps or quotas)?
posted by eviemath at 4:00 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Like, “we won’t grant visas to international students who you don’t have the facilities to house” does, in at least the short term, decrease the number of international students. But it has a very different political and sociocultural impact, not least because it ties the restriction to the institution, not the students. Which of course economists aren’t commenting on in their professional capacity, because that’s outside of their professional or academic area, but we don’t have to limit ourselves to only applying one single disciplinary analysis to complex issues. I swear, armchair economists are as bad as stereotypical engineers.
posted by eviemath at 4:14 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 4:14 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
The weird thing about the immigration hypothesis is that a record number of people came to Canada in 2022 and 2023, but housing prices dropped starting in March 2022 and haven't gone back up again. Here in Toronto, housing went down by about 10% from March 2022 to March 2023, and have been flat since then.
Something more than just immigration was driving the frenzy of February-March 2022.
posted by clawsoon at 11:49 AM on March 20
Something more than just immigration was driving the frenzy of February-March 2022.
posted by clawsoon at 11:49 AM on March 20
The rapid rise in interest rates has cooled the ownership market, but the rental market is extremely tight. Vacancies are low and asking rents are up. CMHC Rental Market Report for October 2023.
posted by russilwvong at 12:48 PM on March 20
posted by russilwvong at 12:48 PM on March 20
@clawsoon: Do you happen to have the citation where prices dropped across all of Canada? My guess is that interest rates started rising to curb inflation; people began to be priced out of their Toronto homes as they couldn't afford the mortgage payments on renewal. The price of a condo townhome is cheaper than the price of a freehold townhome, because the condo fees are baked into the present value of the home. Home prices shouldn't be separated from rent prices, as they both reflect the cost of shelter. Calgary, Saskatoon, and the Maritime provinces began to see spikes in their home prices as they became the desirable destinations for people giving up on Toronto and Vancouver. Plus, we're seeing homelessness rise and the lower income classes get priced out of anything affordable.
posted by DetriusXii at 12:49 PM on March 20
posted by DetriusXii at 12:49 PM on March 20
@clawsoon: Do you happen to have the citation where prices dropped across all of Canada?
I don't know if prices dropped all across Canada, but average Canadian prices dropped. It's possible that was driven by price movements in larger markets.
Canada as a whole
Toronto in particular
1 bedroom plus den units in my building
Randomly Googling another Canadian city right now, Halifax, shows the same peak in the spring of 2022 and 10% drop a year later, but prices have almost bounced back up to their spring 2022 peak a couple of times.
posted by clawsoon at 1:49 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
I don't know if prices dropped all across Canada, but average Canadian prices dropped. It's possible that was driven by price movements in larger markets.
Canada as a whole
Toronto in particular
1 bedroom plus den units in my building
Randomly Googling another Canadian city right now, Halifax, shows the same peak in the spring of 2022 and 10% drop a year later, but prices have almost bounced back up to their spring 2022 peak a couple of times.
posted by clawsoon at 1:49 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
I will add that:
- prices are still ridiculous
- the insanity really started taking off between fall 2016 and spring 2017
posted by clawsoon at 1:53 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
- prices are still ridiculous
- the insanity really started taking off between fall 2016 and spring 2017
posted by clawsoon at 1:53 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
International students aren't buying houses (or apartments/condos). But it is possible that some other immigrants are, given the skilled worker requirements, I suppose. Overall, though, I would expect (though data to validate or refute this would always be helpful) that immigration isn't having much of a direct immediate impact on real estate markets. There are other significant timing issues that call into question the way some politicians have been using immigration as the sole explanation or scapegoat for the current affordable housing crisis, of course, so it's good to get people thinking about their timing more carefully.
posted by eviemath at 4:48 PM on March 20
posted by eviemath at 4:48 PM on March 20
There are other significant timing issues that call into question the way some politicians have been using immigration as the sole explanation or scapegoat for the current affordable housing crisis
Another major contributing factor on the demand side: when Covid hit there was a sudden massive surge in remote work. People want more space.
It's not the students themselves, but individual investors are buying houses to rent to students. Mike Moffatt:
Another major contributing factor on the demand side: when Covid hit there was a sudden massive surge in remote work. People want more space.
- "Research published by the Bank of England suggests that shifts in people’s wants — such as the desire for a home office, or a house rather than a flat — explained half of the growth in British house prices during the pandemic."
- "In many countries, including Australia, the average household size has shrunk, suggesting that people are less willing to house-share."
- "In an interesting new paper, John Mondragon and Johannes Wieland argue that 'the shift to remote work explains over one half of the 23.8 percent national house price increase [in the US] over this period.'"
It's not the students themselves, but individual investors are buying houses to rent to students. Mike Moffatt:
What we're seeing across the province [Ontario] is investors (typically Mom & Pops) buy up single-family homes and turn them into student housing. With students often living a dozen-or-more to a house.posted by russilwvong at 11:29 PM on March 20
Not contesting that data for what it is showing; and so would not be surprised if it had an impact on some portion of the affordable rental market via wealthier people buying/renting up more space (many of the lower income folks I know either didn’t have the luxury of working from home, or were simply out of work during the relevant portion of the pandemic, and the ones who were working or studying from home couldn’t have afforded more space even before the steep increases in rents), but it seems not super relevant given the data in the fpp show that rents have been rising fastest and vacancies are lowest for studios and 1-bedrooms in the affordable housing market.
posted by eviemath at 2:37 PM on March 21
posted by eviemath at 2:37 PM on March 21
it seems not super relevant given the data in the fpp show that rents have been rising fastest and vacancies are lowest for studios and 1-bedrooms in the affordable housing market.
Again, housing is a ladder, it's all connected. People who are displaced from further up the ladder don't disappear, they end up moving down the ladder and bidding up rents there.
From the Jacob Anbinder paper, describing what happens as people are displaced:
Again, housing is a ladder, it's all connected. People who are displaced from further up the ladder don't disappear, they end up moving down the ladder and bidding up rents there.
From the Jacob Anbinder paper, describing what happens as people are displaced:
By the late twentieth century, neighborhood anti-growthers had mastered both the ideological and legal aspects of the supply side of the growth equation. Controlling the demand side, however, proved another matter entirely. This discrepancy became especially apparent as the number of young urban professionals participating in a “return to the city,” which had started as a trickle in the late fifties and sixties, grew into a flood during the eighties.posted by russilwvong at 2:48 PM on March 22
In New York and other coastal capitals of the ascendant white-collar economy, there was a palpable sense of competition among residents old and new for an ever more restricted supply of homes. A banker or lawyer who could no longer afford a landmarked rowhouse on the Upper West Side, for example, might instead buy a Park Slope brownstone containing several units and convert the building to a single-family home. Across New York City, thousands of apartments were eliminated through this process. Park Slope renters, in turn, might skip across the park to Prospect Heights, where they would displace poorer residents to Crown Heights or Bedford-Stuyvesant. The unfortunate tenants who already lived in those neighborhoods were then left with no choice but to crowd in still-cheaper parts of the city, like East New York or Brownsville, or, perhaps, to leave for a different part of the country altogether.
A studio apartment isn’t going to change into a 3-bedroom apartment no matter how many times you say ‘ladder’.
posted by eviemath at 4:31 AM on March 23
posted by eviemath at 4:31 AM on March 23
From the “An Overview of Canada’s Affordable Rental Stock” link in the fpp,
The steepest challenges are faced by single individuals in Toronto and Vancouver, followed by Halifax. In these cities, individuals with median incomes can only afford a very small percentage of studio or 1-bedroom units.posted by eviemath at 4:36 AM on March 23
Is your claim / argument that people who worked from home during then pandemic rented out entire separate studio and one-bedroom apartments as personal offices, and are continuing to do so, thereby driving the demand and the price up and displacing former residents of affordable units of this smaller size? That is not consistent with the data I’ve seen.
(But if it were, it would be yet another point where there is a political component - having “housing and cake should both follow the rule of everyone gets one before anyone gets seconds” as an ethic that we make policy around, for example - not just an economic component.)
posted by eviemath at 4:46 AM on March 23
(But if it were, it would be yet another point where there is a political component - having “housing and cake should both follow the rule of everyone gets one before anyone gets seconds” as an ethic that we make policy around, for example - not just an economic component.)
posted by eviemath at 4:46 AM on March 23
A bit of anecdotal evidence that I haven't made sense of yet: I've been looking at rental listings in the new condo building that's going up next door, and I noticed that a bunch of the units had the same real estate agents, and then I noticed that all of the real estate agents were from the same company.
They advertise their services thusly:
They advertise their services thusly:
By leveraging our knowledge and insight of current market conditions and projections against inventory control, we are able to achieve premium pricing for the projects we manage, and in turn maximize your return on investment.posted by clawsoon at 5:18 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]
Our Harlowe rental and assignment program provides a strategic edge for developers and purchasers.
Harlowe Real Estate Brokerage has amassed over $1 Billion worth of assignments and leases of condominiums in the Greater Toronto Area.
A bit of anecdotal evidence that I haven't made sense of yet: I've been looking at rental listings in the new condo building that's going up next door, and I noticed that a bunch of the units had the same real estate agents, and then I noticed that all of the real estate agents were from the same company.If it is a rental building, odds are the owner hired one company to deal with all the units
If it is a non-rental building, you might be seeing listings for all the units that weren't pre-sold, before construction -- the developer just contracted with a single firm
It is not a special plot against you or anyone, it is just ordinary stuff that real estate developers and landowners are gonna do
They advertise their services thusly:Well, of course they do, wouldn't you? If I were in the business of advertising my real estate brokerage, yeah, I am gonna brag about my prowess in assessing the local market and driving higher prices despite market conditions.
Speaking to my own "condo moment," I knew for sure I was gonna get tossed out of my long-time rental when a comparable condo across the street was marketed for $2.7MM
I lived in a dogshit apartment on a six-lane avenue. Not a real desirable area. But when they tore down a tile distributor to build the kinda condo building that has $2.7MM apartments, I figured I was fucked.
I was right. They tossed me out two years later. At least I got two years of grace, I guess.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 1:58 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]
Is your claim / argument that people who worked from home during then pandemic rented out entire separate studio and one-bedroom apartments as personal offices, and are continuing to do so, thereby driving the demand and the price up and displacing former residents of affordable units of this smaller size?
No. People have been absorbing secondary suites which they previously rented out into their main living space, reducing the supply of single-person rentals. People who were previously living with roommates have been moving out on their own so they can have more space, increasing demand for single-person rentals. Families who were previously living in apartments have been moving to houses so they can have more space, and whoever was living there before would need to find somewhere else to live (which may require squeezing into an apartment and displacing someone else). If you don't like the term "ladder," it's like a cascade of displacements.
“housing and cake should both follow the rule of everyone gets one before anyone gets seconds”
Interesting, but I think housing is more like clothing than like slices of cake, there's tremendous variety in what people need and what's a good fit for them. I talked to a family with kids (from Germany) who were happily living in an apartment before Covid, but when Covid hit and everyone was at home - parents working from home, kids attending classes over Zoom - found that they needed more space. They ended up buying an old house.
This is perfectly reasonable: their space no longer fit them, so they moved to a space which was a better fit. From a big-picture point of view, the problem is that a lot of people were in the same situation, and so there was a huge wave of similar moves. Total demand for residential space has increased. We no longer have enough - we've got a terrible shortage, causing a lot of suffering. So we need to build more.
We've got high demand colliding with a kind of 1970s anti-growth machine (similar to what Anbinder describes), a set of institutions that are aimed at slowing down growth. A short video from a Bronx community board meeting.
posted by russilwvong at 4:00 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
No. People have been absorbing secondary suites which they previously rented out into their main living space, reducing the supply of single-person rentals. People who were previously living with roommates have been moving out on their own so they can have more space, increasing demand for single-person rentals. Families who were previously living in apartments have been moving to houses so they can have more space, and whoever was living there before would need to find somewhere else to live (which may require squeezing into an apartment and displacing someone else). If you don't like the term "ladder," it's like a cascade of displacements.
“housing and cake should both follow the rule of everyone gets one before anyone gets seconds”
Interesting, but I think housing is more like clothing than like slices of cake, there's tremendous variety in what people need and what's a good fit for them. I talked to a family with kids (from Germany) who were happily living in an apartment before Covid, but when Covid hit and everyone was at home - parents working from home, kids attending classes over Zoom - found that they needed more space. They ended up buying an old house.
This is perfectly reasonable: their space no longer fit them, so they moved to a space which was a better fit. From a big-picture point of view, the problem is that a lot of people were in the same situation, and so there was a huge wave of similar moves. Total demand for residential space has increased. We no longer have enough - we've got a terrible shortage, causing a lot of suffering. So we need to build more.
We've got high demand colliding with a kind of 1970s anti-growth machine (similar to what Anbinder describes), a set of institutions that are aimed at slowing down growth. A short video from a Bronx community board meeting.
posted by russilwvong at 4:00 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
If you don't like the term "ladder," it's like a cascade of displacements.
My issue was that your explanation didn’t explain the specifics of which type of units were experiencing the tightest market and highest percent raises in rents. Still doesn’t for most of those details you mentioned; a couple of them sound relevant but it would still be useful to see data on effect sizes. For example, in most Canadian cities, most studio and one bedroom units are in larger apartment buildings, not auxiliary suites in private homes. People with greater means moving from multi-bedroom shared units to one bedroom or studio units on their own doesn’t depend on whether those units are in apartment buildings or auxiliary units, but given the amount that rents have gone up in the studio and one bedroom market in particular, that posits that a significant number of renters (enough to impact market prices through increased demand) were living with roommates previously by choice not by economic necessity, and the pandemic caused a major shift in their priorities or values around their living situation. The pandemic was a pretty major event, so it’s conceivable to me that it could have had such a major impact on so many people’s behaviour and values/preferences; but that’s still such a major claim that it still needs data to verify it.
housing is more like clothing than like slices of cake
I certainly agree that people’s housing needs vary quite a bit. That’s orthogonal to thinking that everyone should be housed; or clothed, in the analogy.
It is also part of my personal value system that everyone should be adequately clothed - in particular, for Canadian winters - before some people have a different outfit for every day of the month. And yes, “adequately clothed” should allow room for personal style, fit, and comfort, in my opinion. Not the classist attitude that dictates that the cuts should be less flattering, and fabrics less comfortable and durable, for the low end market - especially given that this is yet another area where discrimination is invisible from above: wealthier people don’t know that lower end brands don’t fit as well, are made more poorly, and fit less comfortably (or they know but find it convenient to their prejudices to ignore the implications), so they tend to judge lower income people as being less stylish or cultured, or less professional, or just cheap, based on a factor (access to more expensive clothing) that they have no control over.
posted by eviemath at 5:33 PM on March 24
My issue was that your explanation didn’t explain the specifics of which type of units were experiencing the tightest market and highest percent raises in rents. Still doesn’t for most of those details you mentioned; a couple of them sound relevant but it would still be useful to see data on effect sizes. For example, in most Canadian cities, most studio and one bedroom units are in larger apartment buildings, not auxiliary suites in private homes. People with greater means moving from multi-bedroom shared units to one bedroom or studio units on their own doesn’t depend on whether those units are in apartment buildings or auxiliary units, but given the amount that rents have gone up in the studio and one bedroom market in particular, that posits that a significant number of renters (enough to impact market prices through increased demand) were living with roommates previously by choice not by economic necessity, and the pandemic caused a major shift in their priorities or values around their living situation. The pandemic was a pretty major event, so it’s conceivable to me that it could have had such a major impact on so many people’s behaviour and values/preferences; but that’s still such a major claim that it still needs data to verify it.
housing is more like clothing than like slices of cake
I certainly agree that people’s housing needs vary quite a bit. That’s orthogonal to thinking that everyone should be housed; or clothed, in the analogy.
It is also part of my personal value system that everyone should be adequately clothed - in particular, for Canadian winters - before some people have a different outfit for every day of the month. And yes, “adequately clothed” should allow room for personal style, fit, and comfort, in my opinion. Not the classist attitude that dictates that the cuts should be less flattering, and fabrics less comfortable and durable, for the low end market - especially given that this is yet another area where discrimination is invisible from above: wealthier people don’t know that lower end brands don’t fit as well, are made more poorly, and fit less comfortably (or they know but find it convenient to their prejudices to ignore the implications), so they tend to judge lower income people as being less stylish or cultured, or less professional, or just cheap, based on a factor (access to more expensive clothing) that they have no control over.
posted by eviemath at 5:33 PM on March 24
People with greater means moving from multi-bedroom shared units to one bedroom or studio units on their own doesn’t depend on whether those units are in apartment buildings or auxiliary units, but given the amount that rents have gone up in the studio and one bedroom market in particular, that posits that a significant number of renters (enough to impact market prices through increased demand) were living with roommates previously by choice not by economic necessity, and the pandemic caused a major shift in their priorities or values around their living situation.
If I understand correctly, you're saying that this is plausible, but you'd like to see data or evidence before accepting it.
There's been a number of studies of the impact of Covid on housing markets. The Economist:
posted by russilwvong at 2:05 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
If I understand correctly, you're saying that this is plausible, but you'd like to see data or evidence before accepting it.
There's been a number of studies of the impact of Covid on housing markets. The Economist:
In many countries, including Australia, the average household size has shrunk, suggesting that people are less willing to house-share.Agarwal, Bishop, and Day discuss the month-by-month changes in average household size during Covid, first rising, then falling significantly. See Graph 2.
posted by russilwvong at 2:05 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
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