February 16, 2024 – Ontario’s housing policies again last month failed to spur the housing starts necessary bring balance to the market, according to data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation released Thursday.
The Ontario government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force found the province, beginning January 2022, needed to start construction on an average of 12,500 housing starts every month in order to bring price balance to the housing market by 2031.
CHMC reported only 5,581 Ontario housing starts in January, one of the worst results since the Task Force’s report.
To keep on track toward balance, 312,500 housing starts were needed between January 2022 and last month. Only 129,082 units were actually started, widening the housing supply gap.
Housing supply gap widens
Month after month of low housing starts has further widened Ontario’s housing supply gap, adding upward pressure on prices and pushing the monthly starts needed in future months even higher.
From an original need to start 12,500 units per month, past shortcomings have pushed the monthly starts to 13,642 a month if market balance is to be reached by 2031.
British Columbia policy mix shows closing gap still possible
While BMO chief economist Doug Porter has recently argued it is now too late to spur enough housing starts to meet demand, CMHC data on British Columbia’s housing starts suggests reaching goals may still be possible.
The BC NDP has taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to the housing problem and in many months the BC construction industry has started over 5,000 housing units, despite having one third of Ontario’s population.
A BC-sized housing construction effort brought to Ontario would be achieving the monthly milestones on way to market balance by 2031.
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