Vancouver is in the same boat as Toronto. The Globe and Mail recently reported that the number of newly completed, unsold condominium suites in the city is expected to increase to 3,493 by the end of this year, which would be a 60% increase compared to the end of last year and one of the highest levels of unsold inventory in recent times.

The profound change, as we know, is that individual investors have largely left the market. Also in the article is some commentary from Ryan Berlin, who is head economist of Rennie Intelligence. According to Rennie's data, investors made up about 50% of their buyers from 2020 to 2023. In 2024, this number dropped to around 25%. And so far this year, the number is ~7%.

At the same time, the math is not mathing for developers:

Real estate appraiser David Eger, vice-president of Western Canada for Altus Group Ltd., gave the example of an older Vancouver apartment block within the Broadway Plan that is currently on the market for $12.2-million. To achieve a profit margin of 10 per cent of total costs to redevelop the site, the developer would have to pay drastically less, around $3-million for the property. That’s based on a rent of $5.50 per square foot, or $3,300 a month for a 600 square-foot unit.

In some ways, all of this is what housing critics wanted: "Too many speculative investors are buying new homes and outbidding actual end users." But now they're not. So where are all the end users? Aren't we in a housing crisis? This is the paradox of our current market. But I think the lesson is that a housing crisis does not necessarily equal a housing shortage in all segments of the market.

Another way to think about it is that the inventory that is now accumulating has lost product-market fit. The market used to be a lot of investors, but now it's not. So either the market needs to change again or the product needs to adapt to what the market wants today. And I suspect that, even in today's market, there would be strong demand for more affordable family-oriented housing.

The challenge is that our industry and our cost structures are not currently set up to deliver this kind of product. In software, it's relatively easy to pivot in search of product-market fit. But it's not so easy in real estate. Using the above example from appraiser David Eger, you'd need a negative land value (i.e. a subsidy) in order to be able to feasibly deliver more affordable family housing. That is, larger homes at a lower per square foot rent.

But I think this is how all city builders should be thinking right now. We should be viewing this point in the cycle as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to ask ourselves: what does the housing market want and how could we actually deliver it? Then it's time to get creative and figure out how to pivot our collective product. There are, of course, lots of levers we can pull.

Cover photo by Nate Foong on Unsplash

Traffic congestion and a lack of affordable housing are two clearly defined problems facing most, if not all, major cities. We know they exist. We call them crises. And yet, we can't seem to implement effective solutions, even though we know what they are. Why is that? In her new book, On The Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy, Jerusalem Demsas makes the argument that it is a failure of local democracy. There is a disconnect between what we say we want to happen and what we are actually doing. This resonates with me. In my mind, it's looking upstream at what is bottlenecking us from making the decisions that will produce better outcomes for our cities. So after reading this conversation with her about the new book, I decided to buy a copy.

As always, I'll let you know what I think.

Here's an interesting, though not shocking, chart from a recent Globe and Mail article talking about "Canada's dysfunctional housing market." What is noteworthy is that Toronto is dead last when it comes to the number of new 3+ bedroom homes built between 2016 and 2011.

Peterborough, for example, is a census metropolitan area with somewhere around 130,000 people. And yet, based on this data, it is building more family-sized homes than Toronto.

Why this is not surprising is that the vast majority of new homes now built in Toronto are high-density and built out of reinforced concrete. This means that they are relatively expensive on a per square foot basis.

In fact, you could argue that mid-rise housing -- the exact high-density type that is supposed to be most attractive to families -- is the most expensive to build. What this means is that if you're building a 3+ bedroom home in this way, it's not going to be affordable to most.

It also means that people are going to go shopping elsewhere: Ottawa, York, Simcoe, Durham, and so on. The expected market outcome is decentralization. But in my mind, this raises an important question: Is this what people really want?

This is a great debate. And many will argue that grade-related suburban housing is exactly what people want. What we are seeing is a result of raw consumer preference.

However, the costs are so skewed in favor of low-rise housing, that I think it's hard to say with absolute certainty the degree in which this is true. What if higher-density 3+ bedroom homes were the cheaper option? My bet is that we would see a lot more centralization.

The development charge rate for a 2+ bedroom apartment in the City of Toronto is currently $80,690 per unit (effective June 6, 2024). As development charges work, this is supposed to pay for the growth-related impacts of adding a 2+ bedroom apartment in the city.

However, the above chart suggests that there are also impacts to not building that 2 or 3 bedroom apartment in an already developed area next to existing infrastructure. It means the home goes somewhere else (further away) or doesn't get built at all.

Both of these outcomes also have costs.