Canada's population estimates: Record-high population growth in 2022

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

Lio is on the money here.

***

So, as Lio (whose into the real estate market as an investor) knows; there ar multiple factors at play in pricing of housing, as with any good or service.

That said the majority can broadly be explained at the high level by 'supply' and 'demand'. I literally don't have the time to detail how those play out in every respect; but I will try to hit the highlights.

1) Demand is rising, both due to immigration (inclusive of foreign students and TFWs); as well as shrinking household size (fewer people in each home) and financialization of real estate which includes factors such as people buying condos, though sometimes SFH and keeping them off the rental market as a passive holding, as well as flipping through assignment sales, various other measures that serve to constrain supply and inflate price.

In respect of demand growth your grasp of the scale of that growth and its impact is under-sized.

Example one, household size. Average household size in Canada is falling 0.1 every 4 years or so. What's the impact? Watch.
15.3M households divided by average family size. Requirement 9M housing units (rental and ownership) + vacancies/second homes/vacation rentals and cottages.
Drop household size to 0.1 and you need 9,562,000 house units ++
Think about that, you have demand growth over 140,000 units per year based on shrinking household size alone.

Now lets talk population growth. You seem to think growth is 1.5% a year......tis not so. Canada added over 1M to its population last year, that's over 2.7% growth. Roughly, 450,000 'immigrants', + TFWs + Foreign Students + Refugees Asylum seekers + Natural growth. Those 1,050,000 people all need places to live. Lets divide their numbers by a larger than typical Canadian household size (though not universally true as foreign students and many TFWs are singles), conservatively, you need 525,000 additional housing units for just one year.

Adding that to our household demand flow, and you need well over 650,000 housing units just to maintain equilibrium
When you look at the current trend in housing starts in Canada, you see ~ 250,000 per year.

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/profe...on-data-tables

In other words, nation-wide, we are building fewer units that new demand each and every year. We have no practical way to even hold balance in the market, because the industry simply can't turn out units much faster than it is.
I know people in the industry and there are worker, equipment and supply shortages. Developers have pipelines, and projects are already delayed not for lack of buyers, but the resources to build.

***

Meanwhile, we run into another problem.....the influx of labour restrains wage growth. But the high demand for housing drives up the price.

Thus reducing relative affordability.

If median wage growth were keeping up with housing, we wouldn't have a crisis, but its not. Why is the local Tim Horton's going to pay its cashier $23 per hour when they can import a TFW who will work for $15?
That is exploitive to the TFW by the way or the foreign student we're mooching for 25k for a community college diploma they'll likely never get any use out of..while working the night shift at Tim's through their entire studying years.
Lose-lose. Developers and investors are doing well; but to the detriment of the economy as a whole. We're over-weight real estate and under weight innovation, manufacturing and other value-add.

So why did house prices fall significantly in the year we added the most people ever to Canada population and also saw a 5% rise in weekly wages, the highest in a generation, if immigration is the driving force for house prices increase and wage deflation.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by Nite

So why did house prices fall significantly in the year we added the most people ever to Canada population and also saw a 5% rise in weekly wages, the highest in a generation, if immigration is the driving force for house prices increase and wage deflation.

Lio went over this already, we more than tripled interest rates.

That said, you need to examine the market more closely, as 'average selling price' of a 'typical' home as calculated MLS on a nation-wide number does not necessarily accurately reflect the market as experienced by most people.

Go here:

https://wowa.ca/reports/canada-housing-market

On the sidebar, click 'New Housing' price index which would tend to more reflective of what a typical entry-level buyer would be seeing.

There's virtually no price decline at all.

Its also worth noting on the home side that there is less inventory on the market, and I expect many sales are driven by necessity with variable mortgages climbing quickly creating a need to get out.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

Lio went over this already, we more than tripled interest rates.

That said, you need to examine the market more closely, as 'average selling price' of a 'typical' home as calculated MLS on a nation-wide number does not necessarily accurately reflect the market as experienced by most people.

Go here:

https://wowa.ca/reports/canada-housing-market

On the sidebar, click 'New Housing' price index which would tend to more reflective of what a typical entry-level buyer would be seeing.

There's virtually no price decline at all.

Its also worth noting on the home side that there is less inventory on the market, and I expect many sales are driven by necessity with variable mortgages climbing quickly creating a need to get out.

so you are saying that interest rates are by far the largest determinant on housing prices, and a 2% increase in population growth is pretty much insignificant compared to interest rates on determining housing price.

I am glad you agree with me then.
Immigration really doesn't affect housing price much at all because it's a minuscule increase in demand when compared to other factors like interest rates.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by Nite

so you are saying that interest rates are by far the largest determinant on housing prices, and a 2% increase in population growth is pretty much insignificant compared to interest rates on determining housing price.

That's not what I said, and you know it. Misrepresenting what others say is not a good look.

I am glad you agree with me then.

I don't, at all. Because I know what I'm talking about.

Immigration really doesn't affect housing price much at all because it's a minuscule increase in demand when compared to other factors like interest rates.

This is so ridiculous a statement its beyond words.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

That's not what I said, and you know it. Misrepresenting what others say is not a good look.



I don't, at all. Because I know what I'm talking about.



This is so ridiculous a statement its beyond words.

you said interest going up is during a year of record immigration (2.7% growth of the population probably never to be match again) is why house prices fell over 10%?
wouldn't that mean interest rate play a much bigger part in setting prices that immigration.

you are trying to argue that prices fell last year because interest rates were increased but that interest rates don't really determine house prices ????.
To me looking at the same information it's clear that interests rate determine if house prices will increase or decrease more more than does immigration.

the same thing happened in 2020 in reversed, record low immigration numbers coupled with interest rate falling = rapid rise in house prices.
in these 2 cases, record low immigration level occurred with rapid house prices increases and record high immigration level occurred with falling house prices.

[MonkeyRonin]

The only universe in which immigration doesn't contribute to demand for housing is one in which immigrants don't need to be housed. Which isn't going to happen so long as humans are involved, as most of us do in fact value having shelter (though who knows, with the way things are going, the expectation may eventually be that they just live in tents or something). And demand for housing, particularly when it exceeds the ability to provide supply, causes prices to go up. This is basic logic.

[New Brisavoine]

In London (England) they usually stuff the immigrants in already inhabited houses. So it's not rare to see a house inhabited by 8 immigrants (Romanians, Poles, Spaniards, etc), with 2 people sharing each bedroom. I've always wondered how long it could be sustained, but it lasted for nearly 20 years, then collapsed with Covid (London lost 300,000 people), but then last year again the UK registered the highest net migration ever (+500,000), so who knows.

It beggars belief why tentative migrants are ready to live in such degraded conditions, especially when they come from countries that have acceptable standards of living like Romania or Spain. There's something a bit irrational about migration. For a lot of people, it's the quest of a dream more than anything else.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by Nite

Quebec has no problem finding enough francophones to immigrate, they could easily open up the immigration levels to 100,000 francophone only immigrants a year.
The issue is more about trying to maintain there ethnocultural state which is not just about language.

The problem with that is that even though a majority of the immigrants to Quebec are from France, the fact is that Ontario is practically beating Quebec in raw numbers. Toronto can't just be the only cosmopolitan city in Canada alone.

There was a time when Montreal used to have the largest Jewish population in all of Canada, and I believe it had the largest Italian population, as well, if I'm not mistaken amongst Canadian cities, but the largest are now in the GTA.

Lastly, about the ethnocentric state, very few people are 100% of anything!!! There are Quebeckers that are half French Canadian, half Irish (Patrick Roy a good example). Others are French/Italian, French/Polish, French/Ukrainian, and now French/Arab, and French/Latino.

It's pretty ridiculous that you're going to stay this 100% French person in Quebec when genetically, some Quebeckers have some First Nations blood flowing through their veins, and in Montreal, someday in the near future, the city will be less than 50% white, meaning that you'll see a greater variety of Black, Latino, Arab, First Nations, Asian, Indian, and multiracial people strewn throughout the entire city of Montreal, almost mirroring the demographics of Toronto.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The only universe in which immigration doesn't contribute to demand for housing is one in which immigrants don't need to be housed. Which isn't going to happen so long as humans are involved, as most of us do in fact value having shelter (though who knows, with the way things are going, the expectation may eventually be that they just live in tents or something). And demand for housing, particularly when it exceeds the ability to provide supply, causes prices to go up. This is basic logic.

Immigrations contributes about 1.5% to demand a year, not much in relation to other factors like interest rates which is by far what determines if house prices will rise or fall.

The fact that we mostly get the same percentage relative to the canadian population for decades now but prices fall or rise by different amount every year should alone illustrate that immigrations does not determine housing prices because.

For example, if Canada has a more or less constant population growth rate of lets say 1% but house prices can change from 10% increase in year 1 to 15% increase in year 2 and a fall of 10% in year 3, all while population growth remains unchanged at 1% means there are much more stronger factors that a constant 1% population gain determining prices.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

The problem with that is that even though a majority of the immigrants to Quebec are from France, the fact is that Ontario is practically beating Quebec in raw numbers. Toronto can't just be the only cosmopolitan city in Canada alone.

There was a time when Montreal used to have the largest Jewish population in all of Canada, and I believe it had the largest Italian population, as well, if I'm not mistaken amongst Canadian cities, but the largest are now in the GTA.

Lastly, about the ethnocentric state, very few people are 100% of anything!!! There are Quebeckers that are half French Canadian, half Irish (Patrick Roy a good example). Others are French/Italian, French/Polish, French/Ukrainian, and now French/Arab, and French/Latino.

It's pretty ridiculous that you're going to stay this 100% French person in Quebec when genetically, some Quebeckers have some First Nations blood flowing through their veins, and in Montreal, someday in the near future, the city will be less than 50% white, meaning that you'll see a greater variety of Black, Latino, Arab, First Nations, Asian, Indian, and multiracial people strewn throughout the entire city of Montreal, almost mirroring the demographics of Toronto.

Have you been to Canada? because all major cities, with the exception of Quebec City, are cosmopolitan

[GreaterMontréal]

The problem with that is that even though a majority of the immigrants to Quebec are from France, the fact is that Ontario is practically beating Quebec in raw numbers. Toronto can't just be the only cosmopolitan city in Canada alone

Quebec has about 75% of France immigrants in Canada.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by Nite

Have you been to Canada? because all major cities, with the exception of Quebec City, are cosmopolitan

What I meant to say is that Toronto is the most cosmopolitan city in all of Canada! Montreal is cosmopolitan, but less so than Toronto, and there was a time when Montreal could've easily claimed that title from it's inception in the 17th century to the 1976 language laws which forced a lot of banks HQed in Montreal to Toronto.

Plus Montreal and Toronto are the only two cities that are rated Alpha according to GaWC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global..._Network#Alpha). The GaWC doesn't rank diversity, but strictly economy, and whichever city has the strongest economy usually has the most people, and eventually the most diverse city.

Other major cities, like Edmonton, Winnipeg, and even Hamilton don't have as much diversity as Toronto or Montreal does, and FYI, yes, I've been to Toronto a few times, as well as St Catherines, Niagara Falls, and Hamilton, and plan on going to Montreal in the near future either as a tourist, and if I'm lucky, for work!

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

Quebec has about 75% of France immigrants in Canada.

Nowadays, those French immigrants may not even be 100% French, buut from the dependencies of Guadaloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion, and Tahiti (technically French citizens, but they're different ethnicities, nonetheless), as well as immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, other European immigrants from Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal and Francophone Africa, so even with France being the highest source of Quebec immigrants, you'll still have the mixed ethnicities that are going to come to Quebec.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Nite

Immigrations contributes about 1.5% to demand a year, not much in relation to other factors like interest rates which is by far what determines if house prices will rise or fall.

The fact that we mostly get the same percentage relative to the canadian population for decades now but prices fall or rise by different amount every year should alone illustrate that immigrations does not determine housing prices because.

For example, if Canada has a more or less constant population growth rate of lets say 1% but house prices can change from 10% increase in year 1 to 15% increase in year 2 and a fall of 10% in year 3, all while population growth remains unchanged at 1% means there are much more stronger factors that a constant 1% population gain determining prices.

There aren't 35 million Canadians looking to buy a house in any given year, how did you make up this 1.5% figure from thin air?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

There aren't 35 million Canadians looking to buy a house in any given year, how did you make up this 1.5% figure from thin air?

Nite is just totally clueless about supply and demand.

If there are 101 people in the desert who are about to die of thirst and 100 individual portions of water available for sale, water isn't just going to be "1% pricier (101 demand/100 supply) than under normal circumstances". What is actually going to happen is that everyone will bid the price of water into the stratosphere, until the least rich of the 101 bidders hits the very max they can bid, and is thus outed as the one who'll die of thirst. (It's also the one factor that will determine the actual price of water in this situation: the wealth of the poorest of the 101.)

Housing is slightly less vital, but not THAT less vital, so it's a similar situation: none of the people fighting for less supply than there is demand are likely to settle for living in the streets unless they have absolutely exhausted their capacity to pay for a roof over their head.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Nite

so you are saying that interest rates are by far the largest determinant on housing prices, and a 2% increase in population growth is pretty much insignificant compared to interest rates on determining housing price.

"Housing prices" a.k.a. "the cost of housing" a.k.a. rents... isn't something that is much impacted by interest rates, actually. It's pretty much only the crazy high immigration that is driving them to their current insanely high levels. We import way more people every year than we can build housing, so, Supply And Demand 101.

Same with "the cost of a mortgage", a.k.a. "the cost of housing". Interest rates don't determine that at all; what actually determines "the cost of housing" is the combination of interest rates + property prices, and that combo is currently pricier than ever and still climbing. Again, strictly thanks to immigration. In other words: there's more demand than there's supply. Why? Because we choose to import a lot of demand (to keep the Ponzi Scheme going).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

Nowadays, those French immigrants may not even be 100% French, buut from the dependencies of Guadaloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion, and Tahiti (technically French citizens, but they're different ethnicities, nonetheless), as well as immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, other European immigrants from Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal and Francophone Africa, so even with France being the highest source of Quebec immigrants, you'll still have the mixed ethnicities that are going to come to Quebec.

Relatively few "French" immigrants here are minorities from these non-European areas of France (overseas départements, dependencies and territories that belong to it). They are very very predominantly from European France and of European origin.

There are however lots of francophone immigrants from countries like Haïti Lebanon Congo Algeria Morocco Senegal etc. But these people are not French nationals.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by lio45

Nite is just totally clueless about supply and demand.

If there are 101 people in the desert who are about to die of thirst and 100 individual portions of water available for sale, water isn't just going to be "1% pricier (101 demand/100 supply) than under normal circumstances". What is actually going to happen is that everyone will bid the price of water into the stratosphere, until the least rich of the 101 bidders hits the very max they can bid, and is thus outed as the one who'll die of thirst. (It's also the one factor that will determine the actual price of water in this situation: the wealth of the poorest of the 101.)

Housing is slightly less vital, but not THAT less vital, so it's a similar situation: none of the people fighting for less supply than there is demand are likely to settle for living in the streets unless they have absolutely exhausted their capacity to pay for a roof over their head.

Canadian Real Estate Price Growth Vs Interest Rates

https://betterdwelling.com/bank-of-c...ate-froth-bmo/

You see this chart.
you notice when interest rates go up housing prices stay stable or decrease and when rate fall house prices shoot up.
the number of immigrates coming to Canada for the most parts remained pretty stable from 1 to 1.5% up until 2020-2021 when it fell to its lowest level ever.
Looking at the chart again we see house prices shooting up to their highest level in that same time frame when interest rate also fell to near 0.

it looks like interest rate play the biggest factor in determining house prices to me.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Relatively few "French" immigrants here are minorities from these non-European areas of France (overseas départements, dependencies and territories that belong to it). They are very very predominantly from European France and of European origin.

There are however lots of francophone immigrants from countries like Haïti Lebanon Congo Algeria Morocco Senegal etc. But these people are not French nationals.

Thanks for the info, Acajack! Even though Quebec doe deserve the right to see which immigrants can come to the province, especially since Quebec, and maybe a few other major provinces have an immigration minister, which is unheard of in the States for each state to be in charge of their immigration, it's still pretty shortsighted to predominately rely on just European French immigrants to bolster Quebec's population.

Like I said, I have nothing against Quebec maintaining it's language, it's customs, and it's culture, as all of those makes Quebec Quebec, but you have to look as Montreal as a multilingual and cosmopolitan city with many different ethnicities other than French and French Canadian.

It's interesting that while Ontario will beat Quebec in raw numbers when it comes to immigrants, when it comes to concetrations for Latin American Canadians (2.0%;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_..._to_the_Census), Arabs (3.3%; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_C...s#Demographics), and Haitians (1.8%; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitia...s#Demographics), Quebec leads in being the most concentrated over Ontario and the other provinces. Other ethnicities which have higher concentrations are Dominicans, Peruvians, Colombians, Guatemalans, Cambodians, Laotians, Lebanese, Greeks, & Armenians.

You stated that the majority of French immigrants are Europeans, and I stated that I had no real problem with that but if Quebec is going to rely on just Euro French over immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, & the Arab World, either it's just for the preservation of the French language (which I don't buy the excuse, personally), or it can be xenophobia.

Either way, this is one reason why Ontario is miles away much more diverse because Ontario looks towards bringing many immigrants from all over the world while Quebec is trying to be a francophone threshold where only French and francophones can thrive while allophones are practically on the outside looking in, and it wouldn't surprise me if AB & BC surpass QC later on in this century and Calgary & Edmonton surpass Montreal when it comes to city population since it seems like anglophone Canada seeks to bringing in much more immigrants from all over the globe than francophone Canada.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

Thanks for the info, Acajack! Even though Quebec doe deserve the right to see which immigrants can come to the province, especially since Quebec, and maybe a few other major provinces have an immigration minister, which is unheard of in the States for each state to be in charge of their immigration, it's still pretty shortsighted to predominately rely on just European French immigrants to bolster Quebec's population.

Like I said, I have nothing against Quebec maintaining it's language, it's customs, and it's culture, as all of those makes Quebec Quebec, but you have to look as Montreal as a multilingual and cosmopolitan city with many different ethnicities other than French and French Canadian.

It's interesting that while Ontario will beat Quebec in raw numbers when it comes to immigrants, when it comes to concetrations for Latin American Canadians (2.0%;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_..._to_the_Census), Arabs (3.3%; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_C...s#Demographics), and Haitians (1.8%; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitia...s#Demographics), Quebec leads in being the most concentrated over Ontario and the other provinces. Other ethnicities which have higher concentrations are Dominicans, Peruvians, Colombians, Guatemalans, Cambodians, Laotians, Lebanese, Greeks, & Armenians.

You stated that the majority of French immigrants are Europeans, and I stated that I had no real problem with that but if Quebec is going to rely on just Euro French over immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, & the Arab World, either it's just for the preservation of the French language (which I don't buy the excuse, personally), or it can be xenophobia.

Either way, this is one reason why Ontario is miles away much more diverse because Ontario looks towards bringing many immigrants from all over the world while Quebec is trying to be a francophone threshold where only French and francophones can thrive while allophones are practically on the outside looking in, and it wouldn't surprise me if AB & BC surpass QC later on in this century and Calgary & Edmonton surpass Montreal when it comes to city population since it seems like anglophone Canada seeks to bringing in much more immigrants from all over the globe than francophone Canada.

Quebec doesn't just rely on European French immigrants. Far from it.

Also, AB + BC together already have more population than Quebec. But while anything is possible, it seems unlikely that either are going to pass Quebec in the foreseeable future. Calgary and Edmonton pass Montreal city proper population? Maybe? They're already bigger than Vancouver. They are far far behind Montreal in terms of metro population. Vancouver's suburb of Surrey may pass Vancouver in population in the near future.