By Pete Evans, CBC News | Link to Article
Fears that Canada is building far more condominiums than it needs are overblown because of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are moving here in increasing numbers, one of Canada’s biggest banks says.
By Pete Evans, CBC News | Link to Article
Fears that Canada is building far more condominiums than it needs are overblown because of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are moving here in increasing numbers, one of Canada’s biggest banks says.
“Ask any real estate developer in any of Canada’s major cities about the risk of overbuilding, and the first line of defence would be immigration and its critical role in supporting demand,” CIBC economist Benjamin Tal said in a report Wednesday. “It turns out that at least for now, this claim is more valid than widely believed.”
Immigrants already represent about 70 per cent of Canada’s population growth at the moment — and half of those who come to Canada are in the prime homebuying age range of between 20 and 45.
But even that large figure underestimates a fairly significant chunk of people who need housing, the bank says.
Tal, along with the report’s co-author, Nick Exarhos, note that those official immigration figures don’t include other “non-permanent residents,” such as students, temporary workers and humanitarian refugees.
Last year, there were 22,000 more non-permanent residents than there were the year before, driving the total to 774,000 in 2013, almost twice the number that came to Canada as recently as 2005.