Recent data show Toronto’s housing market is heading down the same dangerous road Vancouver’s was on. While analysts agree the situation is improving in Vancouver, Toronto faces rapidly worsening affordability.
Increasing the housing supply is the panacea, but it is a longer-term solution. Additional taxation, however unpopular it may be, can constrain a skyrocketing market relatively quickly, as Vancouver’s experience shows.
The latest figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) show that the average home selling price is up 27.7 percent since February 2016, while new listings have shrunk 12.5 percent.
The foreign buyer tax is an approximation of the right thing to do.
, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia
