Last week I discussed the notion of home ownership as an investment, something which has been a good choice for many Canadians over the past decade or so, although it’s been a questionable choice for many Americans, putting aside the run-up in housing prices in the US during the pandemic. This week I provide links to two additional articles on… Read more »
Just before Christmas I came across an interesting article which does a good high-level job of pointing out some of the contradictions in housing policy with regard to ownership versus renting and how that relationship results in less affordable/’affordable’ housing than society requires. The article dates from 2016 and focuses on the US, but it’s worth a look. Here’s the… Read more »
The following paragraphs are from a Toronto Star newspaper article (dated December 4th, 2021) on GTA house prices and affordability. It’s a good summary of how we got where we are. Kean Birch, as associate professor at York University, said because housing as an investment has historically paid off, those who can afford it are signing up for huge debt… Read more »
Late last year I wrote a post (dated September 21, 2020) which used Census data to answer the question, “What are renters renting in Niagara?” I found that the bulk of Niagara’s renter households are most likely to rent detached houses and units in multi-unit buildings with less than five floors, followed by multi-unit buildings with more than five floors…. Read more »
Data shows that 1B and 2B rental units are by far the most plentiful unit types, together making up over 80% of all purpose-built rental units in southern Ontario’s 59 largest cities and towns. This means they contribute the bulk of rent revenues. However, 1B and 2B rents are often quite different, and the different quantities of each unit type… Read more »
The National Bank of Canada last month released a document which they call their ‘Housing Affordability Monitor’ which tracks historical affordability of ownership housing—condo and non-condo—in ten of Canada’s largest cities. You can download the document in PDF format from the link below. https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/en/rates-and-analysis/economic-analysis/housing-affordability.pdf Everyone knows that housing prices keep going up and up and up and keep getting less… Read more »
To start, let’s state the obvious: the easiest way to ensure your new rental building leases quickly and starts generating revenues as soon as possible is to ask rents which are affordable or ‘attainable’. But few, if any, developers have the luxury of asking rents that the bulk of renters can afford. The reality is that every developer, given development… Read more »
The St Catharines Standard, my local newspaper, recently published an article (on August 16) reporting on a recent city council debate and vote about one councillor’s suggestion to apply a special tax on “vacant homes” in the city to encourage landlords to rent them out instead of letting them sit vacant, and to use the tax proceeds to support the… Read more »