Worldwide Demographics

[Yuri]

Why Ottawa is finally growing fast? What’s happening?

Windsor surge is a very good sign for Detroit area.

[Crawford]

Wow. Windsor homes really go for 636 CAD now? Insanity.

That's 500k USD. Median home price in Metro Detroit is around half that. And Metro Detroit is more expensive than other Rust Belt metros.

I'd also wager the average Metro Detroit home is larger than in Windsor, meaning the difference in psf is even larger. And Metro Detroit has a shit-ton of high wage jobs.

Even in a really nice Metro Detroit suburb, with top-tier schools, kids going to the Ivy League and the like, parents are all mid-career professionals, 500k will get you something.

[Docere]

City of Toronto grew by just 2%, while the downtown grew by 16%.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/202...ata-shows.html

Downtown Toronto definition here:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...oronto-eng.pdf

[memph]

Major population growth in Toronto's "cottage country" by the way. Many of these townships had more housing units than residents in 2016, suggesting their summer weekend population is much higher than their permanent population. They had generally been experiencing little growth in their population from 2011-2016. However, many of them grew by 15%, 20%, 25%, sometimes even more, from 2016-2021.

This could be a reason for lower population growth in Toronto. People who had a primary residence in Toronto and secondary residence in cottage country, switched their cottage country homes to their primary residence, but held on to their city home, which became a secondary residence with "no permanent residents" as counted by the census.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That's wild.

Some parts of southern Ontario have seen over 100% increases in pricing since the pandemic.

I think the trends coming out of Ontario are indicative of several things -

1. shifting population growth in the early 2010's from Alberta to Ontario and BC, accelerating growth rates

2. the return of the southern ontario economy from the dumpster following the great recession - the manufacturing focus of the area really struggled in the 2009-2015 period

3. the pushing of people out of the GTA by high housing costs and a lack of low-rise housing options. This is an unpopular opinion on boards like this, but the GTA has basically stopped building low-rise housing forms and people are moving way out into the province to find those forms. COVID and the increased availability of WFH has only accelerated this, though that has only a 1-year impact on the data.

4. COVID killing a lot of population that would normally be measured in major centres - people like students attending university, young professionals moving back in with their parents to save on rent, etc. Toronto's population, especially in the downtown, likely fell off a cliff in 2020 through late 2021 as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if this is well over 100,000 people. I even know a lot of older professionals who have moved out to their vacation homes and have been living there pretty much since the start of the pandemic. With employment not keeping people in the city, people fled the city in huge numbers right in time for the census. This likely also accounts for a lot of the rapid population growth in traditionally vacation focused areas like Muskoka, Haliburton, and Collingwood.

I've even been on many work zooms with people having palm trees out their window, working from Florida. This likely won't impact their primary residence location on the census, but impacts the on the ground feel.


The real question is now many people will return to the city for the next census, and how much the trends of remote work from smaller communities holds.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

3. the pushing of people out of the GTA by high housing costs and a lack of low-rise housing options. This is an unpopular opinion on boards like this, but the GTA has basically stopped building low-rise housing forms and people are moving way out into the province to find those forms. COVID and the increased availability of WFH has only accelerated this, though that has only a 1-year impact on the data.

IMO an issue with the GTA and housing production is that the GTA builds a crapload of housing, but there's a housing mismatch, because the consumer preferences are pretty standard North American, while the planning framework is more progressive/transit oriented (a good thing; but probably inefficient if we care about affordability).

Look at SFH costs vs. multifamily costs. SFH prices are insane, multifamily costs are generally reasonable, especially for renting. The typical GTA household probably doesn't have different housing preferences than the typical U.S. household, but the housing availability is radically different.

Anecdotal but we have distant family in Etobicoke where the widower lives in a standard 1960's ranch and refuses to downsize into multifamily. His ranch would be 200-300k in most of the metropolitan U.S. His is maybe $1.5 million or so? It's a very white, old-school area near the lake with a lot of teardowns now. He could probably buy a lavish penthouse in one of those new Humber Bay towers, but would rather stay in his modest ranch.

[Innsertnamehere]

Canadians do have different housing preferences than Americans, and generally are a lot more multi-family friendly, especially in the "shoulder" periods of life in their 20's and retirement years. But it's not that different, most still want to spend the majority of their life in detached housing.

Most Canadian cities unrestrained by housing supply have about 50-60% of dwelling units being detached units. the Toronto CMA in 2016 had less than 40% be detached. Detailed housing stock data isn't out for 2021 yet, but total housing stock increased from 2.135 million to 2.394 million and only a small percentage of that was detached, so we are likely looking at detached housing being in the 35% range now vs. the underlying demand of like ~50%.

And the reality of most of the existing stock being owned by older people who purchased when supply was actually meeting demand too, means those trying to enter the market today are effectively blocked out as detached stock probably represents less than 10% of what is actually affordable for people entering the market.

Getting a detached home as a young person within an hour of downtown Toronto at this point is a luxury reserved only for the most wealthy.

[MolsonExport]

Average home price in London-St. Thomas (SW Ontario) surpasses $700K in December: LSTAR

https://globalnews.ca/news/8495563/a...december-2021/

The average sale price for a home in the London and St. Thomas real estate market surpassed $700,000 for the first time ever in December, capping a second year of COVID-19 pandemic sales that local realtors described as a record one for condos and apartments.

In its final monthly assessment of 2021, the London and St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR) said the average price of a home in the region hit $707,219 in December, a roughly 27 per cent increase compared to December 2020, and a 63 per cent jump from 2019.

crazy shit. I moved here in 2005, and the average price was $200K for London-St. Thomas. It did not move very much for the next 10 years (I sold my first house, bought at 255K, for 282K, which is a next to nothing appreciation over the time that I owned the house (2006-2013, whereupon I up-sized). The past 4 years have been fucking insane.

[mrnyc]

looks like the world will be over 8B living souls by next year:

world population 2022:
7,953,952,577

According to the UN, about two-thirds of the predicted growth in population between 2020 and 2050 will take place in Africa.

Table of UN projections:

Year Total population
2021 7,874,965,732
2022 7,953,952,577
2023 8,031,800,338
2024 8,108,605,255

[Steely Dan]

canadian home prices always throw me for a loop when i watch one of those HGTV shows from toronto, and it'll be some 28-year old couple expecting their first child and looking to buy their first home and then they say some absurd shit like "our budget is around $1.2M".

WTF?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

canadian home prices always throw me for a loop when i watch one of those HGTV shows from toronto, and it'll be some 28-year old couple expecting their first child and looking to buy their first home and then they say some absurd shit like "our budget is around $1.2M".

WTF?

Isn't that how all of those shows go? Canadian or not? Always some freelance photographer married to a gluten-free tofu cookie baker with a $3 million budget.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

canadian home prices always throw me for a loop when i watch one of those HGTV shows from toronto, and it'll be some 28-year old couple expecting their first child and looking to buy their first home and then they say some absurd shit like "our budget is around $1.2M".

WTF?

And their jobs will be something like "teacher and part-time receptionist in medical office". And the homes will be tiny bungalows. And they'll have a 300k renovation budget following home purchase.

I assume, as in most high-cost markets, boomer parents are passing their gains down. But if your parents are in Sarnia or Sudbury, and you move to Toronto, you might be screwed.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Isn't that how all of those shows go? Canadian or not? Always some freelance photographer married to a gluten-free tofu cookie baker with a $3 million budget.

yeah i guess so.

i probably tune into it a bit more when it's a toronto show because i'll always say something to my wife like "holy crap, that shithole of a rundown little cottage is $1M, and then they're going to put another $300K into it. jesus christ, that dump would be less than half that here".

also, i'm probably dating myself a bit. a lot of HGTV these days is pretty damn americanized, but back in the early days a shit-ton of the programming came out of canada, primarily toronto.

[mrnyc]

according to my spouse's recent family visit in dayton, hgtv is all the rage again. i thought maybe it was with aspirational niece and nephew zoomer relatives, but she said all the oldens had it on too or were talking about it. maybe fixer upping and flipping is a pandemic thing? i dk.

[Innsertnamehere]

I mean you have to remember that $1 million is CAD - so it's really the same as $700k USD.

Still not cheap though, but when you consider Toronto is a huge city with huge growth pressures, it sort of makes sense. It's a lot more affordable than New York or San Fransisco.

The way houses are mortgaged and financed in Canada is also different, in how we renew mortgages every 5 years typically instead of taking out full term 25 or 30 year mortgages, and Canadians use variable interest rate mortgages in far higher numbers than Americans, making the borrowed money a lot cheaper.

Real Estate in Chicago is going to be cheaper than in Toronto though, yea.


My understanding is a big reason a lot of HGTV production shifted to the US is *because* of the cost difference being unrelatable for American audiences.

I admit I've been watching a bit of it myself lately, and the American shows will do a gut job kitchen reno and quote a cost of $25k... the same Canadian kitchen reno is quoting $75k..

Incomes in Toronto for people buying houses are generally pretty decent though, and a lot of the people are going off the deep end with mortgage debt to get there taking their absolute max approval as their budget.

Southern Ontario until the pandemic was generally very affordable, with decent newer, 2,000+sf, 2 car garage homes available for $350k USD or so in places like London.. but once COVID hit, Toronto's incomes fled the city with WFH and sent these markets haywire.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I mean you have to remember that $1 million is CAD - so it's really the same as $700k USD.

Still not cheap though, but when you consider Toronto is a huge city with huge growth pressures, it sort of makes sense. It's a lot more affordable than New York or San Fransisco.

How do you figure? It's pretty easy to find a 500k SFH in a decent suburb with good schools in the tri-state area. Even a 400k SFH, still a respectable suburb and schools, isn't out of the question. Is there a non-crap area within 25 miles of downtown Toronto that has decent SFH for under a million?

Bay Area, yeah, doesn't have close-in affordable areas that aren't undesirable.

Also, salaries in the Bay Area and NYC area are much higher than in Toronto.

The big advantage in Canada is low property taxes. Property taxes in some U.S. metros are insane.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I mean you have to remember that $1 million is CAD - so it's really the same as $700k USD.

Still not cheap though, but when you consider Toronto is a huge city with huge growth pressures, it sort of makes sense. It's a lot more affordable than New York or San Fransisco.

Exchange rates are irrelevant when the typical Toronto resident will be a Canadian getting paid a Canadian wage. Salaries are in New York and San Francisco are higher in both absolute terms and higher relative to real estate costs, so housing burdens for locals are lower. To add to that, I find New York at least has a lot more missing middle options - there are a whole range of family-sized apartments available inbetween the extremes of shoebox condo or SFH that aren't really present in Toronto's market.

I mean, if you're coming from some other country and looking to park your cash in real estate then Toronto will be cheaper, but that's not really relevant to the typical resident of any of these cities.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Anecdotal but we have distant family in Etobicoke where the widower lives in a standard 1960's ranch and refuses to downsize into multifamily. His ranch would be 200-300k in most of the metropolitan U.S. His is maybe $1.5 million or so? It's a very white, old-school area near the lake with a lot of teardowns now. He could probably buy a lavish penthouse in one of those new Humber Bay towers, but would rather stay in his modest ranch.

$1.5 million doesn't buy you much condo these days either. Average cost of all condo types is now $740,000, and that number is heavily skewed down by shitty 1br/studio investor boxes. A million-and-a-half would probably get you a fairly nice 2br or a small 3br.

[Docere]

An uptick in population in the Maritimes. Halifax had the fastest-growing downtown in Canada.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...on-highlights/

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by Crawford

How do you figure? It's pretty easy to find a 500k SFH in a decent suburb with good schools in the tri-state area. Even a 400k SFH, still a respectable suburb and schools, isn't out of the question. Is there a non-crap area within 25 miles of downtown Toronto that has decent SFH for under a million?

Bay Area, yeah, doesn't have close-in affordable areas that aren't undesirable.

Also, salaries in the Bay Area and NYC area are much higher than in Toronto.

The big advantage in Canada is low property taxes. Property taxes in some U.S. metros are insane.

NJ actually has fair housing prices for its proximity to NYC. For what you can get sq-ft and also quality/proxy to job centers, the prices are not bad... but .... BUT... they get you on the property taxes.

So you might like... wow... 500k house... not bad! Looks nice, its big, great quality, great area... but wait! 14k/yr in property taxes.

Look up Washington NJ. The houses are very nice. Good prices IMO... but the property taxes are horrific. I mean horrific!