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An interesting story in the two most important Canadian cities in my life, Toronto and Montréal, tell is about density. Toronto is in a gas-fueled affordability
by loufe 5y ago
An interesting story in the two most important Canadian cities in my life, Toronto and Montréal, tell is about density. Toronto is in a gas-fueled affordability crisis, real estate prices have left the solar system. Montréal is starting to heat up but by most metrics is still considered affordable. While there are several externalities (language barrier au Québec, higher paying jobs in Toronto), one of the biggest reasons I've seen cited is the extreme amount of rental apartments available in Montréal. A mass exodus 1980s-2000s with the FLQ crisis, parmis d'autres, freed up tons of buildings from the 60s and 70s which still have not been saturated 'til this day.
The huge selection of functional, old apartment buildings has a price-depressing effect on local real estate. Why would I buy a house for 700k ($3000 mortgage, etc) when I can get a 5 1/2 (3 bdrm) for $1200 a month within biking distance of downtown. Now, while this helps explain the current situation, the lord knows that nobody in their right mind would consider investing in non-luxury apartment/condo towers when they have so many other lodgings suppressing home values. But that's kind of what needs to happen in TO as well, IMO.
- zz865 5y agoMontreal used to have more people than Toronto, now Toronto has more. That shows Toronto is better at building new housing? https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20384/montreal/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20384/montreal/population
- loudandskittish 5y agoNo, it shows that a lot of people left Montreal when the major financial and media institutions moved their HQs to Toronto after Bill 101 was passed in 1977.
- zz865 5y agoIt certainly helps to make housing more affordable.
- smnrchrds 5y ago> mass exodus 1980s-2000s with the FLQ crisis You have your timeline wrong. The October Crisis was in 1970. FLQ was active 1963–1971. They were long gone by the 80s, let alone 90s and 2000s.
- loufe 5y agoYou're right! I should've checked that before posting, thank you.
- throw0101a 5y agoThe reason why Toronto (and SW Ontario) has seen an increase of housing prices, especially since 2015, is immigration: > The estimated number of families in the province grew considerably. Between 2010 and 2015, Ontario’s estimated number of families grew by less than 23,000 per year. In 2017, the province added over 50,000 families; in 2018 it added almost 70,000 in a single year. > Despite this population growth, housing starts hadn’t increased all that much after 2016, staying well below the levels of the 1970s and 1980s: > A closer view. Between the four years from the start of 2016 to the end of 2019, Ontario added almost 230,000 people to its population each year, over twice as many as in the four period that proceeded it. Despite this doubling, the number of housing units was only 9% greater in that 2016–19 period than in the four years that proceeded it: * https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com/ontarians-on-the-move-2021-edition-73709568d58b https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com/ontarians-on-the-move-2021-e...