The country’s housing stock will need to grow to more than 22 million units by 2030 to restore affordability for everyone in Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) calculates in a new report.
This estimate means that approximately 3.5 million additional homes are expected to be built in Canada over the next eight years.
The federal agency notes that two-thirds of the housing shortages are in Ontario and British Columbia, two markets that have faced significant declines in affordability in recent years.
Around 2003 and 2004, an average household should have devoted almost 40% of its disposable income to the purchase of an average house in Ontario and almost 45% in British Columbia. In 2021, this amount was close to 60% of disposable income.
Additional housing supply would also be needed in Quebec, as affordability in the province has declined in recent years, the report said.
For housing to become affordable again for everyone in Canada, developers would have to be more productive and fully exploit their land to build more housing on it, CMHC said. For their part, governments should increase the speed and efficiency of regulatory systems, the agency continued.
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