New Homes And Condos Still Not Keeping Pace With Demand, Despite Job Growth

We read and hear a lot in the media explaining the rising prices of new homes and condominiums in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. You can quote a variety of sources that claim different “reasons,” but they all come down to demand outstripping supply. A report published by The Fraser Institute in Vancouver on October 8, 2020 (https://bit.ly/3dCIUno) supports that stand. In the study, it is pointed out that about half of the new jobs created in Canada between 2015 and 2019 were in the Vancouver and Toronto metropolitan areas, amounting to 44.2 per cent of the nation’s jobs created. The number of new housing starts, on the other hand, lagged far behind. In fact, housing supply has remained relatively flat since 2002, at about 57,000 per year.

This, of course, pressured prices toward the upswing, even though they were already expensive. From 2010 to 2019, housing prices in Toronto went up by 111 per cent. The upshot is that we need more new homes and condominiums, not only to keep prices at bay, but also to take advantage of the economic growth opportunities the new home industry brings.