Local media ran an article recently (in the St Catharines Standard print edition, June 23, 2021) describing a proposal to construct a new condo tower in downtown St Catharines, the city directly across Lake Ontario from Toronto. St Catharines had a population in 2016 of just over 133,000 people, or about 4.9% the size of Toronto. This condo project, if… Read more »
In this website’s second post, which I made back in July 2019, I explained how the rental supply should always be broken down into purpose-built and non-purpose-built rentals. Purpose-built rentals are dwelling units intended to be used as rentals and are usually found in multi-unit apartment buildings and townhouse complexes. Non-purpose-built rentals are dwelling units intended to be owned but… Read more »
Regular readers will recall that in September I wrote a post about taxing vacant homes in St Catharines in which I discussed a number of reasons why it wasn’t a good idea and wasn’t practical. I wrote that post in response to a local newspaper article which reported on suggestions made by a local councillor. This past Sunday (November 10th)… Read more »
RBC’s economics department recently (September 25, 2019) released a report written by Robert Hogue, a senior economist with the bank, entitled Big City Rental Blues: A Look At Canada’s Rental Housing Deficit. You can download a PDF copy of the RBC report via the following links. http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/canadian-housing-forecast.html http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/canadian-housing/housing_rental_sep2019.pdf Discussions about rental housing are music to my ears, so I downloaded… Read more »
In my two previous posts on the topic of non-purpose-built or unofficial rentals I showed that in the ten largest cities in southern Ontario the number of non-purpose-built rentals can be quite large, often thousands of dwellings, and I discussed the different types of non-purpose-built rentals and why it’s important they are included in market surveys. In my first post,… Read more »
Several months back I was having lunch with a friend in the industry and we were talking about the small number of rentals constructed in Toronto every year despite huge demand for new, condo-equivalent rentals in the city. We agreed that we didn’t really expect anything to change, since developers prefer to build and sell condos, while the few developers… Read more »
Any market survey intended to be used as a guide for setting rents should compare total monthly renting costs versus total monthly home ownership costs. After all, if it costs more per month to rent than to own, why would households rent a house or apartment if they can own a condo or house for less? Answering this question properly… Read more »
In my first post in this series I examined the size of the non-purpose-built or unofficial rental supply in Ontario’s ten largest cities. In this post I discuss the three main types of non-purpose-built rentals, comment on their importance, and explain why knowing all of this is important. The non-purpose-built rental supply can be separated into the following three categories:… Read more »
In my first post on this website I explained how the housing market breaks down, identifying the categories of housing into which it can be separated. Readers should go back and read that post. In it I described the difference between purpose-built and non-purpose-built rentals, what I tend to refer casually as “official” and “unofficial” rentals—or de jure and de… Read more »
Before digging deeply into rental housing, I want to make sure readers understand how the housing supply breaks down. First, the Census (conducted by Statistics Canada every five years) counts the total number of “occupied private dwellings”, which are all dwellings of any kind being occupied by households. In the Census, one dwelling is occupied by one household, and dwellings… Read more »