A worker at the site of a residential building under construction in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Canada's population is swelling, more than a million newcomers arrived last year, bringing attention once again to a shortage of housing stock and prompting some buyers to make aggressive bids. Photographer: Graham Hughes/Bloomberg
| CBC News LoadedAs interest rates stay high, less housing is being built now than at the height of pandemic lockdowns, according to a new report. Experts say it's hard to see when the gap between housing demand and supply will close, and that could keep housing unaffordable for a long time.A worker at the site of a residential building under construction in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
Compared to April 2020, when lockdowns shut down part of the development industry, investment in new single-family homes is down 21 per cent, the report says. New apartment construction is down two per cent from that time and row house development is down eight per cent."If you have to take out a loan to engage in a type of economic activity, higher interest rates matter," Macdonald wrote.
The rate is now five per cent, and bank officials say they're prepared to raise it further if necessary. He says Canada is nowhere near on track to meet that goal, and that means most Canadians, particularly those in major cities, will continue to struggle to afford housing.In the CCPA report, Macdonald says interest rates will only continue deterring private development.
A task force urged the Ford government to impose increased density on single-family neighbourhoods in cities around Ontario as a means of boosting the housing supply to make homes more affordable.
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