Today’s young homebuyers will drive housing for years to come

The recent federal election officially opens the political season in Ontario, with the provincial election scheduled for June 2, 2022 and the municipal elections on Oct. 24, 2022.

With Ontario’s population growing as we continue to be a destination for international students, business investment and talented entrepreneurs, it is no surprise that housing emerged as a top-five issue for voters during the campaign. Each federal party focused on the need to build more housing across Canada as the only real answer to making housing more affordable.

The need for more housing across Ontario was the focus of a new report from Mike Moffatt, senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute and assistant professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at Ivey Business School, Western University. Moffatt has been leading a series of data-driven housing commentaries called – Ontarians on the Move.

Baby Needs a New Home

Baby Needs a New Home takes his data-crunching skills and makes this definitive conclusion: If Ontario wants to meet expected population growth and family-formations in the coming decade, one million new homes will need to be built in the next 10 years.

But, along with that statement and all the data to support it, Moffatt identified that young families with children are leaving urban areas like Toronto and Peel to find family-friendly housing in places such as Woodstock and Thorold. He provides the data to show what is happening in the market-housing world in Ontario. The report concludes that this will be a driving factor in the housing market for the decade to come.
This report also projects the local housing demand across Ontario’s 49 Census Data Areas, making it a must-read for every municipality as they consider the housing needs of the next generation of #homebelievers in their communities.

Just before the 2018 Ontario election, OHBA launched the #homebeliever campaign. It was designed to be a non-partisan and values-based campaign to bring people, voters, candidates, political parties and leaders together to acknowledge that the dream of homeownership is slipping out of reach. It solicited pledges of support for more housing choice and supply across Ontario to help all of us achieve the great Canadian dream of homeownership.

#homebelievers

Today at Queen’s Park, there are more than 70 Members of Provincial Parliament who are #homebelievers. There has been a tremendous amount of positive work done by the Ontario government, including its signature housing bill, the More Homes, More Choice Act. The results are beginning to show, with 2020 having the most housing starts in the past 10 years, and 2021 expected to have the most starts in the last 20 years.

Baby Needs a New Home makes it clear that family formations are driving the housing demands in our communities. To make housing available, attainable and sustainable, we need champions in government, industry and communities to help these #hombeliever families achieve the great Canadian dream of homeownership.