Prices eased in other categories.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
The scary part about inflation in Canada is the red-hot rent inflation, which has shot up in nearly a straight line to 7.3% in September year-over-year, the highest rate since July 1983 when it was on the way down, according to Statistics Canada today. This rent inflation is a huge problem for Canadians.
The Bank of Canada has cited inflation in the housing sector as a major problem. Initially, the problem was in inflation in home prices, before overall consumer-price inflation had even begun to rage. Now the issue of spiking rents gets added to the pile:
The Bank of Canada, which has been citing housing inflation as one of the factors in its rate-hike decisions, has contributed to this inflation in the housing sector by repressing interest rates and massively engaging in money printing, until it had a change of mind when inflation began to rage.
The population spike was another big contributor to rent inflation, following the government’s decision to open the floodgates to immigration. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the people pouring into the country are chasing after housing – most of them initially rental housing. And when they push up demand at the lower portion of the rent scale, rents rise in response, and then those rent increases percolate up the ladder.
The population of Canada increased by 1.16 million people over the past four quarters, or by 2.1%, to 40.1 million in Q3, according to Statistics Canada. This was between two and five times the growth rate in prior years. In addition to whatever other issues this sudden surge in population poses, it turns the rental-housing market into an inflation hotbed. Note the spike in the population in the quarter:
The month-to-month CPI for rent spiked by 0.83% in September from October (annualized 10.4%!). This month-to-month measure is a notoriously volatile measure, as you can see in the chart, but after a while it adds up:
Homeownership CPI accelerated on a month-to-month basis to 0.61% in September (7.6% annualized), and has been in the same range around +0.6% since April.
Year-over-year, the CPI for homeownership or “owned accommodation” eased a tad to 6.3% in September from 6.4% in the prior month, which had been the highest since February.
The index includes, year-over-year:
- Mortgage interest cost: +30.6%;
- Homeowners’ replacement cost (the dropping home prices): -1.1%;
- Homeowners’ home and mortgage insurance: +8.2%
- Homeowners’ maintenance and repairs; +3.3%;
- Property taxes and other special charges: +3.6%;
- Other owned accommodation expenses: 0.1%.
Overall CPI was pushed down by month-to-month declines in durable goods, energy, food purchased at stores, purchase costs of passenger vehicles, and big month-to-month drops in the costs of healthcare services (-1.0%), travel accommodation (-2.45%), and transportation (-1.0%). Overall CPI is the red line in the chart below.
Among the items pushing up were rents, owned accommodation, and medicinal cannabis. The services CPI remained unchanged.
Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was essentially flat on a month-to-month basis, and decelerated to 3.2% year-over-year (green).
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the beer and iced-tea mug to find out how:
Would you like to be notified via email when WOLF STREET publishes a new article? Sign up here.
Baby Trudeau imported voters. Apparently some are arriving, freaking out and leaving. Most are hanging around trying to rent.
To hit Canada’s immigration numbers they had to take 25% from one country: India
I presume this is because people from lots of other countries are starting to pull out, so to hit the numbers they had to draw so many from one place.
This means demand will seize up and qualifications will be “do you have a pulse “. You can’t trust any of the degrees from India and many from Canada.
I think the main reason so many migrants are coming from India is just that India still has a young and growing population. You’re hardly going to get hoards of young migrants from the EU or Japan – they don’t even produce enough young people to replace their own populations. I think Indonesia and Nigeria are about the only other big growing populations, but they have language issues and less developed education systems.
From talking to Indian friends though, one issue that might come to a head soon for places like Canada, is that life can be quite good for an educated skilled worker in parts of India now. Apparently doctors are moving back there because they can have a better quality of life (including things like cheap nannies etc).
You might want to double check your numbers. India’s fertility rate has been falling for a long time. Now it’s barely above the United States. And that means it is not even at replacement level. But there are an awful lot of young people there now and it is an impoverished country. So it’s not surprising that a lot of people are leaving and coming to the first world if they can.
Canada ranks second best country in the world (USA news) for quality of life in 2023. Canadians like to complain; but most places are worse. It’s why Canada will never run out of immigrants wanting to become Canadian.
I like to grouse about our educational system up here in the Great White, but our public schools, colleges and universities continue to rate near the top on world rankings. It’s still case, for example, the graduates from Canada’s engineering schools are generally preferred to grads from most other jurisdictions: they still teach basic arithmetic up here.
Anyone desperate enough to come to Canada they’ll take. From what I’ve read most Ukrainians are staying in the Ukraine instead of coming to Canada. It’s possible if things get even worse in Canada no one will come here and things are getting even worse.
“The Bank of Canada has cited inflation in the housing sector as a major problem.”
The firefighter is also the arsonist.
I bet on higher inflation for longer!
Reason: 5.25% interest rate – 3.75% inflation rate of us = 1.5% real interest rate.
I unfortunately don’t expect the government to be accurate to within 1.5% with numbers Engineered to judge their own performance.
The western first world is gonna suffer more.
Overshoot. Humanity has exceeded the Earth’s resources. Until population decreases significantly, inflation spikes are a given.
If lot of people buy multiple properties then yes there will be shortages…..
By corollary, if lots of people sell multiple properties there will be a house for everyone. Good job you guys, we deserve a Nobel.
I’ve seen locals in Stouffville, Ontario and Markham, Ontario buy entire apartment buildings and entire townhouse complexes. I watched them being built and they used about 1/3 less lumber building them. Yet they passed as up to code or specs.
I don´t think that. If you exceed Earth resources, then you don´t have resources. What I see is that we have resources but they are not used for this purposes. I mean, you can build another buildings but you don´t let people to participate in this.
I am software developer but honestly, I think it would be easier to work 2 – 3 years as builder and build your own house then to take mortgage and had to be slave for 30 years. It´s not so hard, in my opinion to construct single family house also I don´t see so much problems in construction simple houses – maybe skyscrapers but not houses. Similar with advancement in energy, technology, nuclear energy. There is no resource limitations, it´s just that you decided not to upgrade and not to develop this.
Instead you invest money into financing, speculation, “education” and other virtual assets. So yes, we have beautiful pictures on Instagram but our cities are falling down. It´s incompetency not lack of resources.
I’ve watched Holmes on Homes, I don’t think you would do any worse than the typical homebuilder.
Look no further then con-job to see how much they waste. ‘There no resources’ what a joke. As much as possible resource destruction over fear garbage. More money destruction then the country has seen in its history. March 2020 till 2022 years of bs mandates. ‘Resources’ for face masks, face mask signs, face mask employee enforcement, face mask tv propaganda, face mask contracts, face mask warehousing, face mask .gov supplies, marketing of face masks etc etc etc demons of unimaginable waste
Standard builder now has limited understanding of English, it’s just do it faster and get onto the next so as much as possible goes to the layers of worthless ’bosses’ above and if there is surplus money it gets sent to home country.
And between anxious idiotic rush and basic construction sequence thrown out the window, they are building them with double the labor and materials, half the quality, all the while stuck in some oblivious and or anxious state. Then the state at the other end holding the gate closed thru over regulation, even the people with licenses in trades are wary of new construction based on this very over regulation scheme. But look and see huge allocation on ‘public’ projects while leveraging the foreign slave wage invaders to do the work. Now .gov short tracking their own developments with foreign workforce identical to corporate builders ‘welcome to oz’
If boomers could organize coordinate and sequence properly we would not be here, but besides honesty they turn to corruption, illegal labor, over regulation, and corporate socialism for 90% of the economy. Stop the waste! There’s more timber in North American alone then we could ever use. We could build, heat and drive our cars with it.
They been saying that and reality is the opposite just look at weight of veichles on the road (especially EVs, 10k pound hummers that pull a trailer 100 miles) more resources then ever in body and in consumption, cafe calcs were put together by corrupt clowns on crack. Looking at 7000# pound pickup (rams, f150, Silverado) to haul 200 pound bodies everywhere. The hilux 4600# would undermine them all, lighter functionality longevity and consumption. ‘They’re’ going in the opposite direction with resources and your claim still a hard sell. Look and see
C. K. Cunningham,
I beg to differ with you. Any and all shortages taking place are man made (by the WEF and their appointed minions) and not due to over population.
To study as an international student in Canada, you have to show proof of at least $10,000 in a bank account. Same goes for permanent residency.
This is inflationary.
Quebec just upped the limit to squeeze the scam.
Apparently Quebec will “fall behind” because all the fake students buying fake degrees won’t come any more.
Canada is just one big scam machine, a grift at the national level. Headed by a drama teacher, who was asked if he’d like to dress up as PM by *someone* in the shadows.
What actually is this place?
Years ago (late 1970’s) when I was in manufacturing, we hired an electrical engineer for my group who came out of Canada (Toronto). Back then, there were no computers to check things out so the hiring guys took his word on his education. After a while in the shop, it became apparent he couldn’t wire a light switch, and reading an electrical diagram to wire a piece of machinery was not going to happen. We fired him.
We called the U of Toronto and they had no record of him getting a degree. This stuff must have been going on for a long time in Canada.
Yeah but in India the actual uni gives you the degree and you have no real knowledge. Also many foreign students are buying citizenship and the uni has no incentive to kick them off the course if they do no work as they are reliant on the income.
They should ban all but a handful of foreign students per uni for exceptionally talented people. It should not be a funding fallback.
If universities can’t cope with that (as they used to), then they should close.
Suitcases full of cash also work for the foreign students coming to Vancouver.
Canada is probably going to implode, probably this winter.
They can’t raise rates, loads of people are up to their eyes in debt and very financially illiterate.
Really weird place. Very expensive. Everything looks old and shabby. Wages are low, taxes are high, the state does nothing except collect taxes. People seem very cross.
Capital controls at some point I reckon.
Surely another hundred million immigrants will help.
I’ve just walked past over 100 people queuing round the block outside of a Service de Quebec.
Everything is overflowing.
Not when most of them are coming from the third world. They also eventually try to bring their half dead parents or relatives to Canada once they’re here to destroy what’s left of the healthcare system.
The 5 Big Canadian banks are protected; no implosion. Actually, a global recession is due; maybe you can blame that.
There has not been a major bank failure in Canada since 1923.
And how many times have you had an insane housing bubble since 1923 that is massively reliant on continued unprecedented immigration?
Let me tell you: zero.
It’s a huge mess.
Globe and Mail
> The mortgage guidelines Ms. Freeland referenced in her announcement were introduced by the FCAC in July. They set expectations for how banks should provide support for existing residential mortgage borrowers who are facing “severe” financial challenges.
> The guidelines also outline processes for helping these borrowers adjust to higher costs by lengthening their amortization periods – the amounts of time they have to pay down their loans.
> But three major Canadian banks disclosed that about 20 per cent of their residential mortgage borrowers are seeing their loan balances grow, because their monthly payments no longer cover all the interest they owe.
> “Our objective is to protect Canadians by ensuring their financial institutions treat them fairly and provide them with the tailored mortgage relief they need.”
Is price discovery legal in Canada?
Also for those not familiar, Canada has 5 major banks!
A good friend of mine in Toronto is going through a divorce right now. They’re having to sell the beautiful SFH with a pool they bought ten years ago.
My friend is in total shock at the state of rentals in Toronto. He can’t find anything he’d actually want to live in for less than $3500-4000. And of course his now-ex will have to find an apartment as well. He doesn’t know what to do, and may end up having to move back to Montreal and hope his employer is cool with letting him work remotely.
As far as I can tell, their current mortgage is in the $2500-3000 range. With separate rentals, their combined housing costs could triple overnight.
I asked if at least one of them could stay in the house. He said that he has to liquidate the house to pay for the divorce settlement, to pay off his ex who never held a job making much money at all (no kids to take care of either). So he got to subsidize his ex during their marriage, and then again AFTER their marriage.
This housing crisis is having real-life impact on people’s lives. It’s saddening.
If I were in Canada and faced with that situation, I’d look at moving to Quebec City — much more affordable and a beautiful place besides. I’m sure the pay isn’t quite as good either but the big cities of Canada have just gotten insanely expensive. Don’t know how people put up with it. It’s bad enough here in the USA but there it is worse.
When I lived in Canada, I went to Quebec City first.
Yes, a beautiful place with a European flair, BUT the job opportunities are limited.
That’s why I moved to Montreal. There were many more opportunities there, but as Georgist mentions, the salaries are low and the taxes are very high.
If inflation continues to rise, I don’t believe BOC will turn a blind eye. This would lead to even more terrible inflation.
I don’t think there will be a soft landing. Apparently the bank wants a recession.
Housing has gone up five fold and you don’t believe the BoC will turn a blind eye?
I think they will!
However if the Fed raise they have to.
Yes, prices went up a lot, but that was during QE. For the past year, we have seen a decline in transactions and prices, as banks are struggling with inflation. bok understands very well that inflation comes from the real estate market. If this market continues to grow the bank will have no choice but to raise rates.
Look, I think right now central banks are much more concerned about inflation than they are about the housing market.
If inflation gets out of control then they will have to react much more firmly. And that could certainly lead to a deep recession. No one wants a long and sweeping recession
And yet they drag out the pain. The only way this gets fixed is if people go bankrupt and choke up the assets they overpaid for with debt.
From what I see the Bank of Canada is putting the housing market first instead of inflation partly to prevent any fallout in the banking sector. Now they’re coercing OSFI to relent on bringing mortgage amortizations back down to 25 years.
Well the banking regulator, federal agency, OSFI just turned out its report it promised last January in regards to mortgage lending practices. And…. what a load of disappointment and irresponsibility.
First – good news – lenders would be able reference the CRA (canada revenue) to be able to verify income. Could help reduce fraud and money laundering. That’s it for good news.
The rest – the disappointment and irresponsibility. Mandatory LTI and DTI (loan to income and debt to income) ratios – shot down. Why would we want anything to prevent risk and bubbles in the market? Stating, it doesn’t want to reduce lender risk – the lenders don’t insure alot of their loans – how about CMHC risk? The OSFI said it is willing to adjust MQR (minimum qualifying rate) and – wait for it – longer amortization terms.
The report basically screams of, “we want to sustain unsustainable price levels”. I’m pretty sure I’ve said it, but I’ll say it again – without a housing crash – housing affordability will not be returning to Canada.
Irresponsibility is what bankers pay for: watch or read interviews of Stephanie Gibaud, a whistleblower.
Arguably Canadian banks pass along the risk in many mortgage loans to higher risk households. Anything under a 20% downpayment requires mortgage insurance. With 3 main insurers not being banks and one (CMHC) being tax payer backed – banks side step risk. The OSFI’s stance is trying to support price levels and looks to be the possibility of slackening lending terms.
As for the population growth – currently, the retention rate of immigrants is quite low (40 to 45%); I believe average is around 60 to 70%. I highly suspect the cost of living is a major factor why retention is low. Migrant workers are currently quite high, along with foreign students. The central bank and federal government definitely don’t want wage growth taking off too much – increasing labor supply being its solution.
One last fact – currently, unemployment insurance claim refusals/denials are at the highest levels since 1993. These individuals denied are NOT reflected in the unemployed statistics. We can be sure the federal government is raiding the EI surplus (as past governments have). However, the rosy picture of an economy with near full employment- not looking how things really are.
It’s harder for a parent with professional degrees and children to be condemned working in general labor jobs for minimum wage, while the typical Canadian employee gets a permanent job with benefits for double or triple the wages.
It’s like the job market Dubai. The professional high earners and the construction workers.
Speaking of Dubai, educated people who had six-figure contracts in the Middle East were working in warehouses and factories in Canada trying to get a job in their field.
But if you’re 18-20, working for $16/hr seems like a lot of money and paying $800 a month to share a room in a slum house doesn’t seem that bad. It’s when one is a professionally educated parent with children paying market rents for an apartment (C$2,500 for a one-bedroom in the GTA), that many newcomers feel the heat, or should I say winter cold on the streets?
It’s nothing like Dubai. In Dubai you have no income tax, in Canada as a high earner you pay 50%.
It doesn’t sound like Gen Z is talking about high earners — they’re going to be paying nowhere near 50% income tax.
I have yet to see Wolf’s quote, “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the people pouring into the country are chasing after housing ” or anything remotely resembling it, appear anywhere in Canadian media. Very refreshing to see such obvious facts stated plainly.
Rents are only half the story, availability is way below 1% in this city, post on Facebook, you will receive hundreds of replies, many pleading to rent your unit.
In addition to permanent residents, roughly seven hundred thousand student visas were issued this year, third highest in the world. Canadian universities are addicted to/ dependent on the high fees foreign students pay, but do too little to nothing to provide accommodation.
Lastly, developers have been concentrating on condos and “luxury apartments” for the last 30 years, very little affordable rental has been built.
All together, a complete catastrophe for lower income renters, yet govt refuses to acknowledge the problem, in fact has stated that Canada needs more immigrants to build the housing they will need to live in. Bet they don’t put that in the “Immigrate To Canada!” brochure.
The housing crisis in Canada, especially in low income housing, is primarily due to the neoliberal decision that the government should stop building housing and leave it to the market. News flash — the market will NEVER build sufficient low income housing. We have 40 years of misguided policy that proved it. It will take at least a decade to fix this, but even then only after the government starts building low income housing again.
Affordable housing projects were stopped by the conservative Harper government. It was actually Trudeaus father who pushed for large affordable housing projects back when he was PM.
Canada, New Zealand, Australia, used to be high on my list. I removed them all. Their complete disregard for human rights has been atrocious on their image.
Canada, the land of indentured servitude. Come Philippinos, South Koreans, Ukrainians and East Indians we need you to fill our over priced dilapitated houses. Hey you guys in China, need to launder cash? No problem, dump it on shit box 2 mill + Vancouver houses and airbnb them. Housing bubble, what housing bubble? Don’t worry taxpayers that you’re the largest group of subprime mortgage holders in the world. Oh, Canada!
Bingo. Ya hit those nails right on the head.
I have talked to many Central and South American professionals both in Canada and wanting to move there, including on student visas. The ones there often hate the climate across the board, and they are often in shock over the cost of living. It speaks more to the state of their home countries that they stay, and I can’t see how they can remit much, but they are not impoverished to start. Socially they can find Spanish-speaking communities in the big cities but they go to whatever school takes them.
Going to spike in the US too. What are people going to do? Buy a house? lol!
Canada needs immigrants to fill the holes left by aging. But why so urgent right now, with a housing crisis for locals already in place?
Selling homes to new arrivals who pool their money to buy their new digs to house 10-12 is one of the reasons for the housing market not to dip as low as it should.
As I’ve said for at least a decade, Canada’s living standards are moving towards 3rd world. It’s best days are behind it for a long, long time. Thank god, I sold out, got an affordable rental and can head to Cuba to live for $400USD a month all in to escape the winter.
God bless my child with a law degree just starting out.
Nobody will have kids at this housing cost level.
They need to collapse housing to have a sustainable population growth.
I’m seeing a lot less Chinese children being born and of the other races of people as Milliken Mills is almost just south of where I live the birthrate there is close to zero.
“Canada needs immigrants to fill the holes left by aging”.
So many things wrong with this statement. Isn’t reducing the population a good thing for the environment? What’s the problem with Canadians filling their own holes? But let’s just say, two to five times MORE the growth rate, it is not filling holes.
“Selling homes to new arrivals who pool their money to buy…”
Immigrants are not buying houses at arrival. It never happened, it is not happening now, it will never happen. At the very least they will need a couple of years before start doing that. Also, pool their money to buy their house? I know some South American Indian tribes in the middle of the Amazon do live in communes, maybe in some parts of Africa the same happens, but I don’t see that conduct as some generalized behavior.
A better explanation is given in the article, to know, the pressure in low rent housing percolates through the system. And even that is arguable. First, in some capacity yes but to what extend it affects higher rent houses? Low income people simply cannot afford higher rents, it is not that they don’t want to live in better places. They just get crowed out of the rental market. Second, the pressure from rental prices to buying prices is not immediate, it takes a bit of time for the price information to travel.
I am not arguing against that explanation, it does have an effect. I am doubtful about the extend. How much of the house inflation can be explained by this.
“Canada’s living standards are moving towards 3rd world”. You have seen nothing (you’ll see though when you arrive to Cuba), this is only the tip (no jokes). And not only in Canada by the way, USA and Europe too. It is downhill from now on for these places, with the due breathers intermingle now and then of course.
And to this I say… GOOD, very good indeed! Actions have consequences. When the consequences catch up with the action, it is only fair to feel good, right?
When you see stupid people suffering the consequences of their actions, I feel pity and sad. I am in this group just in case, I am as stupid as they come with my whole batch of idiotic decisions.
However when you see conceited condescending people get their comeuppance, the joy. When justice is restored, it gives a good warm feeling difficult to describe.
Interestingly, no one has spoken about the obvious need for Canada to bypass the problem in Japan in particular – too many old people on pension and not enough young people to work and contribute to those pensions. The native birth rate is way below replacement, thus the demographic problem needs to be fixed – now!
what demographic problem? not enough working age to pay the ponzi pogey scheme? cure may be worse than the disease!
Do any Canadians on the site have an opinion as to whether the rent/food/cost of living inflation is going to have major political ramifications and if so what those might be?
I have the impression that rates are going higher throughout the western world, and we are rapidly going to hit a debt crisis that the central banks are going to have a very hard time controlling.
This will likely spill out big time into the political arena with talks of housing rationing, punitive tax policies, etc. that are hard to predict in terms of magnitude and timeline (at least I am having a hard time predicting them).
Any Canadians have thoughts on this?
I’m Canadian. There’s risk in the housing bubble price levels. In the last annual Federal budget there was a “Canada mortgage conduct” making recommendations to mortgage lenders and basically asking them to gentle and accommodating to over leveraged and stressed out owners – now we have extended amortizations (negative equity) – 40, 50, 70 years. The government is throwing money (debt) at housing. The OFSI basically isn’t about to deflate the bubble – if anything, try to support it. Watch what the CMHC does next. It’s too politically unpopular to have Canada’s real estate market collapse or stagnate under its own weight – the current government is willing to spend, slacken lending regs, and try to keep the bubble inflated. People will be house poor handcuffed to their residence; short sighted and foolish. Is affordability just a state of mind?
Hey Bond, I was just thinking this when I reviewed my below comment and saw yours. In short, yes, yes, and triple yes. How could it not be a factor?
My wife and I were in town yesterday. Hit a large grocery store and soon left as the advertised sales did not seem to exist. Went to another store and still got hosed, but just not as bad. We both gave thanks we were not shopping for a family. But those families not being able to afford the grocery shop, they are getting madder by the day.
Last week talking to a lady I know who also went through the 80s of crazy inflation and high high interest rates. We both agreed never say never. Why wouldn’t there be higher interest rates to retain interest in a currency? There has to be. If the US rate goes higher ours has to go higher still. We like to peg the Cdn dollar at 75 cents US for our export industries, so we will always have to mix and match rates. In other words, dysfunction follows dysfunction.
I’m kind of thinking a lot of people are now paying the price of assuming the past 30 years of easy money and high end living is/was normal. (All western countries). Of course it now hits the innocents just walking into the shit fan through no fault of their own. $40K weddings, jet travel to warm locations every winter, eating out and buying takeout instead of cooking at home, all these things are unrealistic worldwide for normal working people. And then to expect an affordable fine home as a natural right of citizenship is also unrealistic. New car on payments? Campers, boats, quads? Crazy, imho. So who will get elected next time? Probably the party that convinces the most people it will and can continue, until even bigger problems force more drastic measures.
We got this in the mid 70s, from a Prime Minister who said he would never do it. I worked for a small company and just got laid off. :-) Interesting read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Inflation_Act
The current Liberal government which first took office in 2015 is likely on its last legs. The Conservatives look likely to win the next election which must take place by the Fall of 2025.
But my experience with the Liberals and Conservatives is that it’s pretty much Tweedledum and Tweedledummer where economic policy is concerned, so …
I’m a young voter who has little to zero chance of owning property unless I live in a sketchy location in SK.
10 years ago, my savings would qualify for a downpayment. Today, that can’t even pay for the land transfer tax.
It doesn’t help that many Liberal politicians, from Adam Vaughan to Sean Fraser, absolutely do not want to cause market forces and interest rates to bring down the bubble prices.
So they “open the floodgates” so to speak from people living in India and Philippines, while closing the borders at Roxham Rd to prevent Middle Easteners, African-Americans and Haitians from seeking asylum, because the Canadians are as subtle as that.
Interest rates don’t have much of an effect on the Chinese. It just means the higher rates go the less homes the Chinese can leverage. The Chinese will pay anything for a house no price is too high. Home prices rose last month where I live in Markham and rose last month in Vancouver. Unless the Chinese stranglehold on housing is broken in Canada home prices won’t fall much and if interest rates ever fall home prices will make new highs.
Great article and stats. A few things to consider, though. Many new immigrants have strong generational links; family bringing in other family members etc. They then pool their efforts to get ahead, and prosper. For those that don’t have family sponsorships and guarantees, they have to meet employable skills criteria such as medical, engineering, trades, etc. in order to be admitted to Canada in the first place. These people are not on the dole, ever….they get ahead and work hard.
Rental rates are brutal in large cities for sure. Beyond supply and demand, a big consideration for landlords are respective Provincial renter/landlord legislation. I am a landlord, but because I offer such a great price I can pick and choose who I rent to. I have a local family that supplies me with younger family members trying to get ahead so we meet them half way. We don’t even ask for a damage deposit because their family speaks for them. If we get enough rent to cover taxes and insurance and maint costs, I am happy enough. It means we have no tax bills, obviously, but we also have reaped the benefit of increased property values by building the rental in the first place and that is enough for us. One day my kids will get it all, anyway. I built the place myself so there was little outlay. Meanwhile, ‘the kids’ renting are building/saving equity for their own housing purchase. But that is us. If you are a landlord using the paid rent as income, then you have to charge more. And if you get a bad tenant, good luck getting rid of them. It can take years. What they have done with pro tenant legislation has led to investors who would have once rented out homes have now gone the Air B&B route. And motels/hotels have been purchased by our BC Govt the last ten years to provide housing for the homeless. Crazy. Shuttered restaurants have been repurposed to soup kitchens and drop in centres. Yes, I know of several examples of this in a nearby small city which was once my home town.
We are thinking of buying another property but are on the fence about it because of the hassles of maybe getting a bad tenant. Right now I could call on ‘friends’ who would help me move them along, but we are getting older and don’t welcome any more stress in our lives. One option we are discussing is just tearing the purchased house down as it is right next door. Then, one more rental comes off the market. My son rented out his house to an older couple who seemed great. At first. Then the hoarding started. He finally just put the place up for sale and they moved out taking their 4 houses worth of furniture and crap with them.
Being a landlord sucks, to be honest. I totally understand why rental corporations seem mercenary and heartless. It’s called survival.
> We are thinking of buying another property but are on the fence about it because of the hassles of maybe getting a bad tenant. Right now I could call on ‘friends’ who would help me move them along
Classy.
“Being a landlord sucks, to be honest.”
When I was buying my home some years ago, my realtor asked me if I wanted to look at a duplex, so I could rent the other side for extra income.
“No way” I said, after hearing all the horror stories from landlords I had rented from. One told me of a tenant who set his back yard on fire and nearly burned the place down.
I’ve owned hundred of homes across Canada and Edmonton, Alberta was the worst city in the country for property managers. We had a property manger named Rainbow property management and the guy lied on all the statements about the amount of vacant units about one third were apparently vacant so I flew out there and the entire place was rented with no vacancies. Rainbow also stole our entire reserve fund when Revenue Canada kicked them out for embezzling funds and the condo board opted not to sue them.
We let out a condo in Calgary….current rent is $1700. A similar unit in the same building just came on the market….asking rent? $2000. Ouch! Our tenant is very lucky; their lease is up next March…. the tenant is a single lady with a kid, no complaints there. Crappy basement suites across the street are now going for more! (And they don’t have underground parking or a picnic area!) But….the rent is almost certainly going up by at least $100 a month when the lease is up, which all things considered, is still a good deal for them. As a landlord; it’s wiser and less stressful having a happy tenant.
Wolf’s comment on Canada’s population spike as a major contributor to rent inflation is timely and extremely valuable, given that the majority of Canadian politicians and economists turn a blind eye to the big problem posed by uncontrolled immigration. And this spike doesn’t even include the potential two million temporary residents who overstayed their visa and are staying in the country illegally. Truly scary. This article should be shown on major news outlets in Canada.
Tangental question: how do most Canadians heat their homes?
We might be in for an expensive winter if geopolitical tensions and uncertainty cause oil to go back up.
I believe the largest percentage use Natural gas, followed by Propane, Electricity, Wood, and Heating Oil.
All of which our current prime minister wants to ban and tax to death with his carbon tax. It’s going to be a cold winter.
They’re not making anymore muskeg.