A recent survey from the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) indicates increasing concern about housing affordability and the cost of living. Things are getting worse and Ontarians want to see bolder action from government.

Housing affordability of top concern

Since OREA started the polling, this is the first time over half of respondents (51 per cent) ranked housing affordability as their top concern for the province to address, which is a 16 per cent jump since June 2021.

The Housing Affordability in Ontario: Perceptions, Impacts, And Solutions (Wave 4) survey also found that Ontarians are going through financial struggles: the majority of respondents (52 per cent) cover their monthly expenses, but they’re unable to save for the future.

As well, 17 per cent cannot cover their regular expenses without incurring debt or cutting back on other spending. This is 29 per cent for prospective homeowners, which makes it even tougher to save for a downpayment and other homeownership expenses.

“These issues cannot be solved without governments taking bold action”

“For most of Canadian history, it was a given that every generation had a better shot at homeownership than the last. Homeownership fostered vibrant and stable communities and was foundational to a great quality of life,” OREA CEO, Tim Hudak, notes.

“But today, that dream is slipping from too many young families in Ontario as they are frozen out of the housing market due to a historic lack of housing supply driving up prices. These issues cannot be solved without governments taking bold action.”

Several factors impacting affordability

Though 80 per cent of respondents feel the Ontario government can take steps to improve housing affordability, 15 per cent feel they’ve done a good job so far and 55 per cent believe the government’s decisions over the past three years have created more difficulty for people to buy a home.

The main things impacting affordability were identified as the availability or cost of land (47 per cent), cost of borrowing for builders, foreign investors and increased Canadian immigration (42% each) and skilled trade workers shortage (34 per cent).

“It’s clear that homeownership is top of mind for many Ontarians. Pro-growth, pro-housing solutions must continue to be championed if we want to get more shovels in the ground and bring more supply to market,” says Hudak. “This is the only way Ontario can meet the goal of building 1.5 million new homes in the next decade and improve affordability for our province’s would-be homeowners and families.”

Being proactive: Ontario realtors present recommendations to MPPs

The provincial government has made progress, including permitting secondary units as-of-right province-wide and introducing the Building Faster Fund to incentivize municipalities to meet or surpass their annual housing targets.

Yet, more action is needed to increase supply and improve housing affordability. OREA points out that Ontario realtors are presenting innovative pro-homeownership ideas for consideration, many of which address top concerns of Ontarians.

Last month, more than 150 realtors held 86 meetings with their local MPP at Queen’s Park during OREA’s Realtor Advocacy Day to support these recommendations:

• helping mitigate availability and cost of land by ending exclusionary zoning (72 per cent support or can accept)
• helping lower the cost of borrowing for builders with provincial loan guarantees for affordable housing projects and purpose-built rentals (83 per cent support or can accept)
• addressing the shortage of skilled trade workers by increasing support and funding for colleges, trade schools and apprenticeships (86 per cent support or can accept)

View the survey details here.