In recent years, Canadians have increasingly seen financial firms — such as private equity firms and real estate investment trusts (REITs) — buying up apartment buildings. The largest 25 financial landlords in Canada hold nearly 20 per cent of the country’s private, purpose-built rental stock.
At the same time, Canada’s housing affordability crisis has exploded. A 2022 report found that in 93 per cent of Canadian neighbourhoods, a full-time minimum wage worker cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment.
Many observers have connected this financialization of housing to rising unaffordability. But until recently, a lack of data has made it challenging to prove it.
Our recent study, based on building-level rent and ownership data in the Greater Toronto Area, is the first to decisively show that financial firms charge higher rents and raise them more quickly than other landlords. We also found that financial firms raise rents most aggressively in lower-income areas with more racialized residents.
https://ibb.co/5hQpR4bf
Is there something wrong with the statistics, I’d be curious how dramatically increasing immigration into an existing housing shortage wouldn’t lead to further shortages.
Do you mind elaborating how that would be possible without dramatically increasing the speed of construction beforehand by increasing infrastructure, reducing red tape, lowering development taxes, and increasing zoning density?
Nope. This is just an attempt to muddy the waters and redirect the conversation to something else. The article is about market concentration in housing.