“We’re going in the right direction, but we’ve got to do more.” That was how Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, summed up the state of Canadian housing at RESCON’s Housing Summit 6.0 on September 23.
Asked whether housing reform is working, Lee offered what he called a “qualified yes and a qualified no.” Good things have happened, he told the room. “It is sort of working.” But Canada builds roughly 250,000 homes a year, while CMHC estimates it needs between 400,000 and 470,000 to restore affordability and clear the backlog. “The numbers clearly show that we are not building enough,” Lee said.
Affordability has eased, buyers have not returned
Jason Mercer, chief market analyst at the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, said affordability has improved a good deal over two years. The income needed to buy a $1-million home in the Greater Toronto Area has dropped from well above $200,000 at the height of rate tightening to about $140,000 to $150,000. “Affordability is no longer the major obstacle it was during the peak of the interest-rate tightening cycle,” he said.
Sales have not followed. They sit in the 60,000 to 70,000 range a year, well under what demographics would support, because buyers are wary of inflation, growth and interest rates. Mercer suggested pent-up demand is building and could be released once confidence returns.
Daniel Foch of Valery Real Estate pointed to a split between markets. Cities that stay affordable keep drawing new residents, he said, and he named Calgary and Halifax as magnets for younger Canadians priced out of Toronto and Vancouver. Those two cities remain close to double-digit price-to-income ratios, while in many other markets prices stay within the traditional lending range of four to five times household income.
Queen’s Park makes its case
Ontario Housing Minister Rob Flack listed what the province has done: deferring development charges until occupancy, streamlining site-plan requirements, updating building code provisions and pushing wider planning reforms. He also pointed to the joint effort with Ottawa to temporarily remove HST on qualifying new homes.
Some observers doubted the rebate would stir real demand. Flack said the early numbers answer them. Data presented at the summit showed new single-family sales in the GTA tripled in July and August from a year earlier, and province-wide new home sales rose about 130% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. “We can prove that it’s working,” he said.
Voters are not convinced
David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data, brought survey results. Some 79% of Canadians believe the housing system is not working properly, and nearly three-quarters say too little is being built. Only about one in five are satisfied with how federal, provincial or municipal governments are handling housing. In Ontario, just 16% think the provincial government is heading the right way on affordability and availability.
Coletto said the findings point to housing staying a dominant political issue as municipalities and provinces head into elections over the next few years.
Sources
- Experts: Despite Small Steps Forward, Canadian Housing Crisis Is Far From Being Solved
- Home | RESCON
