Baby, we got a bubble!?

[Northern Light]

Northern, I think population growth might not be playing as major a part as it seems. We've had consistently strong population growth since WW2 (and before of course), but never this kind of dramatic price growth. To be sure, population growth is contributing to rising prices.

Certainly both are contributing; degree is very challenging to assign.

One clear issue over time is that household size is shrinking. That means the same number of people require greater numbers of homes than was previously the case.

That not only impacts on any additional population we bring in, but on the existing 38 million already.

Note, a simple drop of 0.1 people per household requires an increase in housing supply (if the population remains static) of 4%!

Lets translate that into units. At 12.4 Million existing households; a 4% increase requires an additional 496,000 housing units!

That is the exact change in household size from 2001 to 2006.

It appeared to level out a bit thereafter in 2011 but it dropped again in 2016 to 2.4; just found that here:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=PR&Code2=01&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Families, households and marital status&TABID=1&type=0

This year's data will be interesting to see.

Suffice to say, based on the above, had population remained roughly constant, we would have required close to 1M to new housing units in the last 20 years.

Population growth over than same period was ~7M (22.5%); so if you assume 2.4 people per household; we would have required 2.9M housing unit completions for that growth in order to keep pace.

That puts the total requirement at about 4,000,000 units. That would have required a pace of 200,000 units per year for the last 20 years. (50,000 per quarter)

This is every quarter of completions since 2001:

.

I haven't done the math yet, but that certainly looks shy to me.

But I would argue that loose fiscal and monetary policy over the last 10 years has been a much bigger culprit.

Again, certainly a contributor, no doubt about it.

Very tough to weigh the exact contribution relative to other causes.

 

[Undead]

That's very interesting and thank you for taking the time to elaborate. Do we have stats for housing starts in Toronto by quarter going back 10-15 years?

 

[Northern Light]

That's very interesting and thank you for taking the time to elaborate. Do we have stats for housing starts in Toronto by quarter going back 10-15 years?

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, housing starts, under construction and completions, all areas, quarterly

This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (13 items: Canada; Newfoundland and Labrador; Prince Edward Island; Atlantic provinces ...), Housing estimates (3 items: Housing starts; Housing under construction; Housing completions...

www150.statcan.gc.ca

You can go to the link above, from whence this image came and reset the date parameters.

It has Housing Starts going back to 1948.

 

[3Dementia]

12 u/c city projects are 200m or taller... or 3 dozen in the 150m to 300m+ range (with another 3 dozen u/c in the 100m to 150m range).

Since many of those builds are not as far along as Prestige, Teahouse or The Well, in the future we'll see a rather remarkable 'construction skyline' awash in cranes.

Add in some starts via the 115 towers @ 150m to 300m+ that are in the proposal pipeline (and another 224 towers in the 100m to 150m range)... whew.

 

[Amare]

^Absolutely crazy numbers, and despite it all we still have a housing shortage in this city!

It really goes to show that other municipalities surrouding Toronto really need to pick up the slack, we cant absorb all the crazy demand (*cough Oakville, Burlington).

 

[daptive]

^Absolutely crazy numbers, and despite it all we still have a housing shortage in this city!

It really goes to show that other municipalities surrouding Toronto really need to pick up the slack, we cant absorb all the crazy demand (*cough Oakville, Burlington).

It more so shows that Toronto housing and zoning policies are not working.

These 150+, 300+m tall towers is not the silver bullet solution to housing shortage. The true problem are neighbourhoods zoned for single family homes that should be up zoned to support multi-family buildings.

It’s crazy that we have supertalls a few blocks away from single family homes.

 

[tstormers]

It more so shows that Toronto housing and zoning policies are not working.

These 150+, 300+m tall towers is not the silver bullet solution to housing shortage. The true problem are neighbourhoods zoned for single family homes that should be up zoned to support multi-family buildings.

It’s crazy that we have supertalls a few blocks away from single family homes.

I would definitely say this statement is true for Mississauga's Downtown. One of the things I think we need in the GTA is more of the mid-rise buildout that most European cities have. 3-12 stories along the major routes in the lesser built up zones.

 

[Undead]

We lack supply, yes, but let's also address the crazy, over the top speculative demand fuelled by low interest rates.

 

[Amare]

It more so shows that Toronto housing and zoning policies are not working.

These 150+, 300+m tall towers is not the silver bullet solution to housing shortage. The true problem are neighbourhoods zoned for single family homes that should be up zoned to support multi-family buildings.

It’s crazy that we have supertalls a few blocks away from single family homes.

We need a diverse range of builds across the city (single family detached, semi-detached houses, stacked townhouses, townhouses, mid-rise, and high rises like this build). Upzoning neighborhoods (which i firmly believe should always be dependent on the characteristic of a neighborhood) is really not the complete answer IMO, nor is building only 200-300+ metre skyscrapers.

Growth needs to be spread across the GTAH, and there are municipalities which have gotten away with significantly limiting density even though it's more than warranted in those areas.

Toronto's planning policies are antiquated there's no doubt about it, but the province has been missing in action to provide an adequate solution to the issues at hand. At it currently stands, they are more willing to do whatever it takes to side with developers no matter how erroneous a proposal may be. Not to say that this development is that, because it's not. It's exactly what a site like this calls for.

 

[Northern Light]

Bank regulator proposes tougher mortgage rules as ultralow rates fuel overheated housing market

OSFI’s proposed changes to the mortgage stress test for uninsured mortgages would effectively raise the minimum qualifying rate to 5.25 per cent

www.theglobeandmail.com

From the article above (a proposal has been made by OFSI to change and tighten mortgage lending rules).

Current rules require banks to qualify borrowers at a rate two percentage points higher than the market rate or the Bank of Canada’s conventional five-year rate of 4.79 per cent, whichever is higher.

But under the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) proposal, the mortgage stress test will not rely on the central bank’s five-year rate. Instead, the regulator proposed to set the minimum qualifying rate at 5.25 per cent or two percentage points higher than the market rate, whichever is higher

 

[Pinski]

12 u/c city projects are 200m or taller... or 3 dozen in the 150m to 300m+ range (with another 3 dozen u/c in the 100m to 150m range).

Since many of those builds are not as far along as Prestige, Teahouse or The Well, in the future we'll see a rather remarkable 'construction skyline' awash in cranes.

Add in some starts via the 115 towers @ 150m to 300m+ that are in the proposal pipeline (and another 224 towers in the 100m to 150m range)... whew.

Incredible! I can only think of 10 UC over 200m, maybe I’m missing some

 

[Bjays92]

It more so shows that Toronto housing and zoning policies are not working.

These 150+, 300+m tall towers is not the silver bullet solution to housing shortage. The true problem are neighbourhoods zoned for single family homes that should be up zoned to support multi-family buildings.

It’s crazy that we have supertalls a few blocks away from single family homes.

In MCC there will be single family homes literally across the street from near supertalls.

 

[3Dementia]

^ I did include CIBC Square Phase 2 which some might argue is in site prep/shoring as opposed to u/c. The CTBUH says a building is u/c when foundation/piling work begins (bearing in mind that CTBUH criteria has triggered an argument or two or... ;-)

 

[condovo]

^Absolutely crazy numbers, and despite it all we still have a housing shortage in this city!

It really goes to show that other municipalities surrouding Toronto really need to pick up the slack, we cant absorb all the crazy demand (*cough Oakville, Burlington).

On that note, I've got a friend who's looking actively for a condo and there's virtually nothing available that's worthwhile in his price range (+/- $550K) and neighbourhoods of choice (west end). Wherever something decent does come up, there's an insane bidding war and the price is driven into the stratosphere.

Despite the tsunami of construction over the past quarter century, there still isn't enough product.

 

[Amare]

On that note, I've got a friend who's looking actively for a condo and there's virtually nothing available that's worthwhile in his price range (+/- $550K) and neighbourhoods of choice (west end). Wherever something decent does come up, there's an insane bidding war and the price is driven into the stratosphere.

Despite the tsunami of construction over the past quarter century, there still isn't enough product.

One thing this pandemic has showed us is that people are clearly willing to move out from the city, into other areas. Neighboring cities have had a challenge absorbing the growth because there is nowhere near enough supply to accommodate the influx. Years of underdevelopment is finally coming to light in those areas.

There needs to be a greater emphasis in pushing for higher densities in the cities that surround Toronto, and ultimately tie that in with reliable and frequent rapid transit. That would help ease the burden on Toronto as a whole.

But until we see governments get serious about the issues at play, I guess we can keep enjoying buildings like this do the heavy lifting in our core while cities like Oakville and Burlington see midrises go up in their downtown cores and surrounding GO stations.