Building homes Millennials need and want
July 09, 2018
Are you the parent of a Millennial son or daughter who is living with you? Or are you a Millennial living with your parents or with roommates? In the next decade, you are likely to be part of a significant shift in our region as a large wave of Millennials start looking for housing options of their own. We will all need to work together to make sure those choices are available, at prices they can afford.
About 730,000 Millennials in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) may be planning to move on from living in their parents’ homes and from sharing with roommates in the next 10 years, potentially creating about 500,000 new households, according to a new report from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University, sponsored by the Ontario Real Estate Association. The report defines Millennials as those born between 1981 and 2001.
Ground-oriented housing
The Millennials leading these new households will likely be looking for much the same things in housing as previous generations did as they reached their peak income-earning and child-rearing years, according to the report. That means they will want to own their own homes and they will want those homes to be close to the ground – singles, semis and townhouses.
This much-needed stock of ground-related housing is unlikely to come from downsizing Baby Boomers, the report points out, given that they may not be ready to move into apartments until mid-2040 to 2050. So, we will need to build new housing and
we should be focusing on ground-related housing.
Currently, provincial policy requires intensification in key areas, which often translates into building tall condos. But according to the report, these may not be the first choice for most Millennials looking to buy a new home. At the municipal level, on the other hand, many areas are still zoned mostly for traditional detached single-family homes, which means it’s more challenging to build more affordable ground-related housing such as townhouses. This is just one example of how different levels of government are not speaking to each other, resulting in a shortfall in the housing supply our region needs.
Undesirable consequences
If current construction trends continue, there will be more apartments than ground-related housing built in the GTHA in the next decade, leading to a deficit of about 70,000 units of the ground-related housing that Millennials need, according to the report. (This is before we even consider the demand for housing created by the 115,000 new residents coming to live every year in the GTA alone.) That could lead to a number of undesirable consequences for all residents, including rising home prices, more traffic congestion and longer commutes, and even the loss of young professionals to other provinces.
I believe we can do better if we all work together. As the municipal elections approach, we are encouraging voters to talk to their candidates about ways we can bring to market the healthy supply of housing new-home buyers, including new Millennial households, can afford.