The Canadian Housing Crisis Explained

around the world Canada is known for a number of different things Putin saying the word a general politeness pronouncing the word boot totally normally but more recently some less endearing things have been added to that list debt and unaffordable housing you see in places like Vancouver British Columbia it's not uncommon to see homes like this three-bedroom 1949 Bungalow going for 5. 5 million dollars albeit that's in Canadian it's only 4. 1 million in American dollars but as property prices have risen in the country incomes have not kept pace leaving Canadian households to become some of the most indebted in the world as home buyers have made up the difference between their incomes and house prices using debt now interest rates are on the rise home prices are down 12 from their Peak and people are starting to wonder if Canada's housing market is in a soon to pop bubble so as your resident Canadian Finance YouTuber I wanted to make this video to help answer the question how bad is it really and to be clear it's impossible to predict where things will go from here and to try and time a crash and I'll try to explain the important variables that will influence the outcome one way or another without making a grand statement about how now is the time to short Canadian housing but many Canadian households are currently experiencing significant financial strain and while there are some unique advantages Canada has when compared to the US and the real estate space there are also some pretty depressing unique features to Canadian real estate that makes the area harder to manage than an asbestos-laden popcorn ceiling so let's talk about real estate in Canada buckle up it's going to be a ride on today's plain bagel during the 2008 financial crisis the US housing market was pummeled Rising interest rates combined with unsustainable lending practices caused mortgage delinquencies to Surge and home prices to lose a fifth of their value contributing to one of the worst economic ruts in U.

S history just north of the Border however things were a lot less dramatic despite Canada's heavy economic ties to the US home prices in the country fell just 9. 2 percent from their peak in 2008 to their trough in 2009 and while it took nearly a decade for U. S properties to return to their previous High Canadian properties recovered all of their lost ground within two years many attributed this resilience to Canada's sound mortgage lending practices and robust banking industry whereas America is fragmented and Loosely regulated Finance sector had allowed the proliferation of risky loans speculation and leverage upon leverage in the real estate space Canada's mortgage lending activity was much more conservative with the market being dominated by large well capitalized and diversified players were carefully watched in their Investment Banking and mortgage lending activities by Regulators the tenacity of Canadian housing has however proven to be a double-edged sword because while America cause real estate slump did have the silver lining of making properties more affordable for a period of time Canadian properties never experienced a similar correction even after accounting for the recent slump from their pandemic high in 2022 Canadian home prices have doubled in the last decade compared to hourly wages which have increased a meager 24 percent roughly over that same time period now it's estimated that homeowners require a minimum income of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars to afford the average property price of 750 000 the median family income sits at roughly 121 thousand dollars or thirty three percent below this amount but that's at the aggregate level things are craziest when you dive into Toronto Ontario and Vancouver British Columbia two of the top three most populous cities in Canada with roughly a quarter of the population between them average prices in these two cities have reached 1.

1 and 1. 2 million dollars Toronto and Vancouver respectively that's roughly nine times the average economic family's total income for both cities or double that in some markets if you were hoping for a detached home making the traditional concept of home ownership for young Canadians a bit of a pipe dream in some areas now for anyone outside Canada this might all sound a little shocking to you because if you look at a map of our beautiful country you notice that the one thing we aren't missing is literal space Canada is the second largest country in the world and ranks just 38th in terms of population size How could a country with so much of this key ingredient struggle to house its population well well there are many rural townships across the country where you'll find more affordable housing Canada's population is heavily concentrated around its cities with roughly three quarters of the population living in large Urban centers and the density in these areas is only going up between 2016 and 2021 Canada had double the population growth of every other G7 country at 5. 2 percent thanks primarily to immigration vast majority of which was to the country's larger cities and in fact Canada saw its population surge 2.

7 last year alone welcoming over 1 million people for the first time in its history but while population growth obviously plays an important role when it comes to real estate immigration has played an important role in supporting the economy and Canada's aging population not to mention there are many cities in the U. S with a higher population density than Toronto that don't struggle with Sky High property prices so what's causing in Canada's Market to stand out in terms of affordability well simply put one of the key differentiators here is a lack of Supply Canada has the lowest housing supply per capita out of the G7 Nations at 424 units per 1000 people with the federal housing agency estimating that Canada would need 5. 8 million new homes to restore affordability by 2030.

2. 5 times what the country is on track to complete and while building more homes seems like a simple solution here there are some meaningful roadblocks to that objective for one there's a lack of skilled labor in the space with Canada experiencing a record high of 80 000 vacancies in construction part of the reason immigration is actually viewed by many as being part of the solution not the problem bureaucracy and red tape have also made building real estate in Canada a particularly cumbersome Affair one expert estimates it takes 8 to 10 years to go from acquiring an undeveloped piece of land to building the prop property in Toronto and Zoning restrictions imposed by municipalities across the country have made the densification of land incredibly difficult in Toronto for example the majority of land only allows for single family developments with mid to high rise buildings only typically being permitted in limited locations despite it being the most populated city in the country of Canada this is actually why that house from the beginning was listed for so much it had the Zoning for a larger property demonstrating just how rare that is for some of these cities now Canada's government has tried a few things to solve housing affordability such as a recently announced tax sheltered savings account for first-time home buyers a ban on foreign buyers and a vacancy tax introduced at the federal provincial and Municipal level in some cases more attention has also been brought to the zoning restrictions of major Canadian cities but we've yet to see meaningful progress on the supply side of things in fact Ontario's Premier Doug Ford recently found himself in hot water for planning to open the protected Greenbelt Iran Toronto for development only to reverse those plans on allegations of corruption so yeah building more homes has been easier said than done and this imbalance of supply of homes with actual demand for property has only been exacerbated by The Rock Bottom interest rates of the last 15 years or so and the resulting inflow of investment Capital into the space following the 2008 financial crisis many central banks for developed countries including Canada dropped their policy rates to near zero but try and bolster lending activity this caused mortgages the loans for buying properties to become Dirt Cheap while making fixed income Investments which now paid investors a lower yield a lot less attractive as a result many investors took their money and put it into real estate given that it could be bought with cheap debt rent it out for extra income and had a track record for actually appreciating over time now this factor is obviously not unique to Canada we've seen similar asset price inflation in the US thanks to its low interest rates but given how long it's been since Canada has experienced a real estate correction prices were already starting off with a relatively High base and with Canada's particularly resilient reputation investors flooded in in 2020 it was estimated that one-fifth of all homes in British Columbia Ontario New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were investor owned with this percentage being as high as 42 percent in some subdivisions of Vancouver with higher student populations it is worth highlighting that this investor demand has primarily been domestic so far well non-resident ownership is as high as 14. 9 percent in the student-centric subdivisions of Vancouver across the province of British Columbia the rate is much lower at seven percent of Condominium Apartments and 2.

5 percent of houses and while units not occupied by their visual residence it's at roughly seven percent for both Toronto and Vancouver some of which may be vacant this figure can also include certain types of student housing or other forms of housing which by definition are not occupied by usual residents but they're being mixed figures and debate on how many properties in Canada are truly left vacant by investors and the like so while foreign investors have had an influence on pocket regions of Canada instead it's truly the combination of all these variables the policies encouraging high demand and speculation without a subsequent follow-up in Supply and as Canadians have tried to keep pace something else has crept up to pretty concerning levels as prices have outpaced savings buyers have borrowed the difference contributing to record levels of debt in the country Canadian households had a record dollar 85 of debt for every dollar of disposable income in the third quarter of 2022. with 75 percent of this debt being tied to mortgages this is the highest level of household debt among the G7 Nations and makes Canadians some of the most indebted people in the world with household debt to GDP being higher now in Canada than it was in the U. S leading up to the financial crisis now with the Bank of Canada recently hiking its Central Bank policy rate from 0.

25 to 5 to combat inflation we have seen a cooling down in the space recently with home prices and debt levels in the country both pulling back but in the near term these same rate hikes have actually exacerbated the affordability problem after all the rate you pay on a mortgage is a determining factor in the size of your monthly payment with the Bank of Canada hiking its policy rates so drastically we've seen mortgage payments Skyrocket across the country mortgage payments as a percentage of income have reached 59. 3 percent in the second quarter of 2023. up from 43 percent just two years ago this not only discourages new demand for Real Estate perhaps an intended outcome but it also hurts those already in the market if you took out a 500 000 25-year mortgage at the typical one percent variable rate available to you on January 2022 your mortgage payment at the now 6 rate would be jumping from roughly one thousand eight hundred and ninety dollars a month to three thousand two hundred and twenty two dollars a month within the span of nine months and this isn't just a hypothetical possibility news outlets have already started sharing stories about Canadians who were convinced they were making a fortune building investment for their future and now face the possibility of financial ruin as a result of their skyrocketing monthly payments now you might be thinking sure that sucks for variable rate borrowers but exactly how many home buyers opted for a variable rate well in the last few years the majority actually you see when rates are at the Rock Bottom levels during the pandemic variable rates on mortgages were actually offered at a substantial discount to fixed rate mortgages with banks wanting to pass along the interest rate risk of these loans and since home buyers had spent a decade in a low interest rate environment many assumed low rates would continue which has led to one-third of mortgages in Canada to be variable rate but wait there's more in Canada fixed rate mortgages aren't really fixed rate either rates are only locked in for a period of typically five years or less after which the mortgage rate resets based on the market rate of the time that means that over the next five years virtually every Canadian with a mortgage will see a financial impact from these higher rates and while that's scary enough there's one final Quirk about Canadian mortgages that really highlights how devastating this can be for Canadian households with the exceptions of Saskatchewan and Alberta mortgages in Canada are recourse loans this means that if you don't pay off your mortgage in full lenders can go after your personal assets to make up the difference even if you relinquish your house if prices continue to fall Canadians who can't afford their High interest payments may not be able to recover the amount from selling their house to pay off their mortgage which won't decline in Step meaning they'll still be making payments on that difference even after losing all the equity from their prior payments but if the prospect of your property falling in value below what you actually owe on your mortgage wasn't bad enough it gets worse because some Canadians are actually seeing the balance of their mortgage increase three quarters of variable rate mortgages in Canada are fixed payment mortgages meaning that the borrower makes the same dollar payment each month regardless of what interest rates actually are fluctuating rates still impact the policy but they simply change how much of the payment goes towards the principal versus the interest expense if rates go down the mortgage will actually be paid off faster but if they go up a larger portion of the payment will simply be going towards that interest expense instead of paying down the principal and when they go up as drastically as they did in 2022 they can reach what's called their trigger rate where the fixed payment is entirely taken up by interest and home buyers are no longer paying down their mortgage balance and when rates go past this point borrowers can either increase their payments pay off a chunk of their principal or if none of those options are available apply the interest back to the principal something called a negative amortization mortgage and while this might sound like an impossible possible nightmare scenario where unfortunately already seen it happen the Jordan estimated back in May that over three quarters of variable rate fixed payment mortgages had surpassed their trigger rate a figure that's surely higher now given the subsequent rate hikes we've seen and more recently three of Canada's big six Canadian Banks disclosed that 20 percent of their mortgage portfolios consisted of negative amortization loans so yeah that's how crazy things have gotten in Canada but it does all beg the question why haven't things crashed yet with everything we've covered so far you would expect that delinquencies in Canada would be skyrocketing right about now yeah as of recording the most recent delinquency rate for mortgages is near a record low at 0.

15 percent there are some possible explanations as to why this is the case with one of them being that given the pyre Stakes many Canadians are trying to tough out the turbulence in hopes that things will moderate you see during the pandemic Canadians actually built up sizable cash savings with checkable and at notice deposits Rising 40 between 2019 and 2022. this has given Canadians a bit of a buffer to make these higher mortgage payments there's also the fact that when it comes to fixed rate mortgages and even some of those variable rate ones those payments obviously might delay a delinquency by not changing immediately even if in some cases it's actually extending the overall cost of the property to the buyer meanwhile new listings are so far down from a couple years ago suggesting that those able to are waiting to sell even if demand Falls an InStep decline in Supply could keep prices elevated it all goes to show why it's so difficult to predict where prices will go in the short term on the one hand higher rates could go higher still and for some widespread deleveraging with demand for properties especially from the investor group following listing surging prices for Real Estate declining and they're likely being a severe Financial impact on the country given that 21 of national wealth and 1.