“Great that you finally understand this,” says man to Stephen, the person who has explained this in detail multiple times at government conferences since 2017, at the request of the government.

Mans explained it so often he’s now ignoring the gov requests.

House demand will continue to increase due to a demographic household formation bulge (baby boomer echo) that is entering the family/home buying phase plus there is increased immigration. There is already pent up demand in the marketplace and it is growing. Demand side regulation isn’t going to reduce demand enough to affect prices.

So prices will continue to increase unless we increase supply and/or we reduce construction cost inflation. So increasing focus on how to increase supply or reduce construction costs inflation is your best path on keeping prices in check. It’s a waste of energy to focus on investors, foreign buyers, or reducing demand.

Cities seem to get it as they are trying hard to increase home ownership for the missing middle, increase the rental supply and increase affordable housing supply. Federal government doesn’t seem to get it as they focused on regulating foreign buyers which had the unintended effect of reducing some pre-sales which in turn reduces the feasibility of new condo housing supply. Australia was smarter about it and allowed foreign buyers to buy pre-sales to help spur development but limited purchases of existing housing stock.

Feds have also done very little on affordable or rental housing. Increased rental housing supply isn’t financially viable without assistance and while CMHC rental programs are facilitating increased rental supply, it isn’t enough to meet the increasing demand. If you want to address our housing dynamics this is where you can make a difference.

The next step is to understand that it is impossible to regulate real estate to the point that real estate prices are going to suddenly be affordable again.

Keep in mind not that many houses are actually sold, and most of the new inventory is sold to a limited number of investors.

A professional couple hits $200k, but with Canada’s narrowing opportunities, it means the median can never buy a house. Even in small towns in newfoundland, it would be stretch for a median household. Hence, most of those homes are being bought by investors.