I'm with TrickyRicky. There's more going on here than the simple numbers show, because demographics and ideas about condos are changing. Before they were seen as simply a "stepping stone" for young people who couldn't yet afford houses. After 3 years in a condo downtown, you "grew up," bought a house in the burbs, and started reproducing. But now there are other factors coming into play, such as:
- Traffic is continuing to worsen in the GTA, and the idea of commuting two hours each way to work, just so you can own a patch of dead grass in the outer burbs, isn't as automatically appealing to everyone as it used to be.
- Gas prices are continuing to go up, making the suburban multi-car household where you basically need one car per each adult in the household relatively more expensive than downtown condo living, where you can more easily survive with only one car for the family, or perhaps none.
- New condos are simply much nicer than the ones they built a decade or two ago, with stainless steel, granite, and all that stuff people like. You don't necessarily have to live in a bland concrete box with laminate cupboards anymore if you don't want to (though lots of those are still around).
- Pollsters keep telling us that "the environment" is high on many Canadians priority lists now. Sure most of it is just talk and no action, but definitely there is more of a "cool" factor to living in more sustainable non-suburban areas now, where you have the option of cycling to get around, or taking transit, than there was a decade or so ago. This might influence the lifestyle decisions of some younger people coming into the market.
- There are also rumours of a growing trend of empty-nesters returning to the city, and to condo life, after their kids (finally) move out. After decades of home maintenance, an all-inclusive monthly condo fee suddenly doesn't look so bad. And someone else shovels the snow. Whether this trend is real or imagined, I don't know.
I'm interested to see how of these different factors will play out over the next few years, and how a peak in the condo market will interact with a peak in the general housing market, which I believe is also due (and is already well underway in the US).
My uneducated guess: there will be some correction, and some tougher times ahead, but it won't be a devastating crash. Lots of people want condos, lots of people who might prefer a house simply can't afford one. I can't see either of those core factors changing anytime soon.
