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🏡 The future of single-family homes

Affordable housing is the long term goal. That means a world where rent costs less than 30% of your income and home prices don’t require a ‘gift from family’ to buy.

Homeowners who spent decades building equity by paying off their mortgage are wondering how this will impact them. Will the price of their primary residence (possibly their retirement asset) fall?

For young people who are studying or just starting their careers, this likely isn’t a big deal, but it probably matters to their parents or family.

We’re starting to see encouragement from cities to transition single-family homes into multi-unit buildings. Big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and more have allowed 2, 3, or 4 units to be built where just 1 home stands today.

Think about soon-to-be retirees who own a house, yet might want to downsize or shift their home into an asset that can help them retire. Turning our sprawl into this kind of urban density is one solution.

Here’s the problem: the transition from a single-family home to a multiplex is both incredibly complex and very expensive. Not to mention, it creates more inexperienced landlords, which may lead to tenants being taken advantage of.

The federal government just announced a new policy to make financing for this switch more accessible. The measure makes mortgage refinancing rules more flexible by allowing homeowners to borrow up to 90% of their home’s value.

This could make it easier for homeowners to secure capital to fund this transition, at the cost of a brand new mortgage.

The cost isn’t the only issue here. Turning a home built for one family into multiple units is a complicated process that varies from city to city. A group based in Calgary, called mddl, run a community to support homeowners considering this transition. They also host “mddl school” sessions (great name) to help homeowners find trusted experts and learn how to make it happen.

As cities explore creative ways to reverse urban sprawl, lots of families are thinking this approach through. It won’t work for everyone — our commentary is meant to provide background on the new policy from the feds.

It’s estimated that the cost to achieve enough affordability through mass housing supply by 2030 will be more than $1 trillion. While greater government investment is necessary, the problem is too large for the public sector to solve on its own.

City builders are beginning to imagine walkable communities with dense housing options geared at diverse income ranges. New policies like this one are meant to make more efficient use of our scarce urban land.

Our research has shown us that young people support this kind of 15-minute city, as we wrote about last month. Redefining the future of single-family home communities is just one step on the way there.

👏 Good news in housing

Average rent is down in Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver

The latest rental market report from Urbanation and Rentals.ca showed that 1-bedroom rents are trending down in big cities across Canada.

• Calgary: Down 1% vs Aug 2024, down 2% vs Sep 2023

• Toronto: Down 1% vs Aug 2024, down 8% vs Sep 2023

• Vancouver: Down 2% vs Aug 2024, down 11% vs Sep 2023

Other markets saw less notable changes over the same periods. Keep reading…

14 new properties for federal land bank

The Federal Government added these underutilized federal properties into the land bank, bringing the total of properties up to 70. The government plans to use the land bank to create new housing and densify the lots in a way that maximizes impact on affordability. Keep reading…

Feds pledge $78 million to help veterans dealing with homelessness

The Veterans Homelessness Program will assist vets and ex-Mounties with rental subsidies, damage deposits, and owed rent payments. Additional services, like counselling and substance abuse treatment, will be available through the program as well. Keep reading…

🗂 Resources for new renters

Whether it’s your first time living on your own or you’ve been renting for years, this is the time of year that lots of young people are getting settled in new places, which can involve dealing with a new landlord.

Is your landlord illegally entering your unit, trying to change your agreement without your consent, or unreasonably preventing you from having overnight guests?

If so, and you can’t quite figure out how to word a message to your landlord, check out the list of template letters from BC’s Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre to help you out.

There’s even a template roommate agreement.

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