04/20/2023
Although construction increased during the pandemic, Canada’s housing supply shortage worsened in 2022, with inventories of unsold new homes falling to historic lows across the country.
In Canada’s six largest cities, the number of unabsorbed new units, which includes freehold houses and condominium units, declined by as much as 69% between the five years before the pandemic and 2022.
According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)’s latest Housing Supply Report, rising interest rates increasingly affected the actions of both homebuyers and developers in 2022, leading to a varied degree of growth in residential construction.
In Toronto, housing starts rose 7.7% annually to 45,109, their highest level since 2012. The jump was primarily due to elevated condo apartment construction, a result of two years of strong presales. Meanwhile, inventory of completed and unsold homes ended the year at 530 units, the second-lowest level on record.
With inventory at a historic low in the new home market, demand will transfer to the resale and rental markets, CMHC warned. The shift puts upward pressure on prices, further eroding affordability in Canada’s largest markets.
According to CMHC, Canada needs to increase the regular rate of housing construction by 3.5M units by 2030 in order to address growing affordability challenges.