Canada Construction Failing Again Despite Severe Housing Shortage Amid High Rates

[Economy 52,844]

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/real-estate/2024/07/29/cooling-condo-market-will-make-housing-affordability-worse-minto-ceo-says/

 

Despite a 25 year housing boom, one of the most expensive real estate in the world and chronically low vacancy rates, and massive government incentives to boost construction... housing starts are instead plummeting

 

Labor shortages continue, construction inflation remains high, and now the higher interest rates have hurt financing for construction especially in the condo market.

 

Meanwhile home builders still complaim of high developmeny fees, slow approval times and red tape

 

After population growth of nearly 4% last year at over 1.3M people, slowing construction is bound to make housing shortage even worse in the coming years

[Diamond Blood 4,552]

This is slightly irrelevant but how did you get your own tag 

[Just A Holy Fool 2,656]

Not an easy problem to solve. Decades of inaction have led to this. 

[Economy 52,844]

1 hour ago, Just A Holy Fool said:

Not an easy problem to solve. Decades of inaction have led to this. 

Tbh.

 

Between the red tape in approvals, the cultural normalization of housing as an investment rather than a place to live (and wanting values to keep soaring), little public investment in affordable housing, and Nimbys always getting in the way of densification... its a problem coming in from all sides

[monstertoronto 11,743]

Did you decide to buy a condo or a townhouse in the end? I remember you had a separate thread for this and curious if you had made a decision. Condos prices have been declining a lot lately so you might be able to get an even better deal now. 

[Economy 52,844]

Just now, monstertoronto said:

Did you decide to buy a condo or a townhouse in the end? I remember you had a separate thread for this and curious if you had made a decision. Condos prices have been declining a lot lately so you might be able to get an even better deal now. 

Its unfortunate i cant buy immediately. Prices may go up by the time I can

 

And so basically our decision was...

 

if we can afford a townhouse we would rather cuz its what we prefer even if we have to stretch budget...

 

However it also depends on prices at the time too abd what were able to find cuz its very borderline on edge of what we can afford. If we can not find something within our means well just have to do condo. Theres always a possibility of upgrading further down the line

[monstertoronto 11,743]

2 hours ago, Economy said:

Its unfortunate i cant buy immediately. Prices may go up by the time I can

 

And so basically our decision was...

 

if we can afford a townhouse we would rather cuz its what we prefer even if we have to stretch budget...

 

However it also depends on prices at the time too abd what were able to find cuz its very borderline on edge of what we can afford. If we can not find something within our means well just have to do condo. Theres always a possibility of upgrading further down the line

Makes sense. And keep an eye on pricing trends as they may be working in your favour. Lots of recent articles about an oversupply of condos so it’s a buyers market. Might be the same for townhouses. 

[monstertoronto 11,743]

4 hours ago, Economy said:

Its unfortunate i cant buy immediately. Prices may go up by the time I can

 

And so basically our decision was...

 

if we can afford a townhouse we would rather cuz its what we prefer even if we have to stretch budget...

 

However it also depends on prices at the time too abd what were able to find cuz its very borderline on edge of what we can afford. If we can not find something within our means we’ll just have to do condo. Theres always a possibility of upgrading further down the line

 I just saw this on Reddit: 

[Economy 52,844]

23 minutes ago, monstertoronto said:

 I just saw this on Reddit: 

Haha thats gotta be some extreme situation. A very desperate seller or some major mould issue presented itself

 

I know for the most part a decent and relatively new townhouse is closer to 700K

 

I wont risk an old fixer upper cuz #1 i suck with fix jobs and #2 my asthma cant risk older houses that may have developed mould or air quality problems

 

For the same reason im only doing a condo no older than 15 to 20 years as older condos are more likely to have air quality issues

[Economy 52,844]

4 hours ago, monstertoronto said:

Makes sense. And keep an eye on pricing trends as they may be working in your favour. Lots of recent articles about an oversupply of condos so it’s a buyers market. Might be the same for townhouses. 

My worry is we dont get the $100K cash gift till next July (cuz its locked in a GIC) and that falling rates will make prices rise by then

 

If we buy before, we have to do it woth a 200k downpayment instead of 300k so theres that