If you plot Canadian housing supply vs Canadian city population growth, you get another perspective. Houses are incredibly expensive, because there aren't enough of them

Barrie, Ontario is in the middle of nowhere and houses cost $1M. Same with Kelowna, BC and Halifax, NS has doubled in price. That's not population growth, that's speculation.

The Toronto suburbs are already falling in price and Canada is only ~1 month into 4-5 rate hikes this year. And unlike the US: 1) most mortgages need to be renewed in a much higher interest rate environment and 2) a lot of Canada has recourse loans - they can come after your other assets if you sell you house for less than the loan value. No sending the keys to bank and walking away like in the US.

Toronto and Vancouver cores will correct, but rebound. Small towns and suburbs? It's going to be a bloodbath.

"Greater Kelowna is the fastest-growing urban area in the country, Statistics Canada reported Friday. The Central Okanagan's population rose 14% between 2016 and 2021, from 194,892 to 222,162, according to information gathered during last year's census."

In fact, all three of your examples are on the list of fastest growing locations - Halifax at 8th and Barrie at 13th https://canadamag.ca/fastest-growing-cities-in-canada/

"Fastest growing urban area in Canada" is like the "fastest sprinter at the senior center". Sure it's fast relative to other cities, but not in an absolute sense.

Kelowna grew 14% over 5 years? So 2.7% a year? Or 5,500 people per year?

Kelowna is a tiny town in the middle of BC. Jobs are scarce. Vast swaths of undeveloped land surround the town. Wages are pretty typical, yet a modest house is $1,000,000. Does that make any sense?

Your list has Kamloops. Have you been to Kamloops? It's an old saw mill town. Again, lots of room to build. Houses are $800,000 to $1,000,000.

You can buy a small house, within San Francisco city limits for $1.5M. This is where wages are 2x that of Canada. Mortgages are 30-year fixed and there is no room to build any more houses and it's surrounded by water on 3 sides.

So why would Kelowna cost just 33% less than San Francisco? I could see arguing downtown Toronto and Vancouver are "pricey" but not ridiculous, but Kelowna?

And your list has Edmonton! One of the fastest growing cities! But wait, it's actually one of the cheapest too. What's going on?

Like I said, bloodbath.

Kelowna is part of the Okanagan tourist area and on the lake. What happens to the analysis of home prices when you remove the houses within walking distance to the water?

It’s been a few years since I was there but last I was it had the very common tourist pattern of expensive vacation homes near the water for wealthy part time occupants and reasonable housing further away for permanent residents.

Frankly that area was better than many tourist areas where workers have to commute long distances to live in crap apartments or worse dormitories.

Check out home prices there. Yes, the lake side homes are $2M+ and very impressive, but homes smack in the middle of the city are still close to $1M and 2 bed condos in the $500-$600k range.

And of all the tourist spots in the Okanagan, Kelowna is not a top destination - it's the smaller cosy towns with the corner store and 2 acre lots on the hills overlooking the lakes. Those cost $2M+ and seem a bit more justifiable to me at least. It's like comparing Tahoe, CA to say Tracy, CA.

And I have a family member who owns a 2 bed condo in a small town further south and the price has gone from $300k to $500k. For a plain condo built in 90's in a town of 25,000 filled with people over 60 years old.

It's nuts.

Did Kelowna add 5500 new homes per year, every single year? Or even 550?

Presumably not every single one of those 5,500 would get their own separate home. Presumably people have babies, families move, etc.

Let’s say half that - 2,750 homes needed.

Last year Kelowna built 3,200 new homes alone.

https://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article_bb3f2eae-8ac...

Non-recourse loans only really exist in California. Most other states are recourse (and even California is on refis) - it's just that it's normally not worth the paperwork for a bank to bother going after you if you key them.

And once it becomes a trend, they all just collectively give up apparently.

No, no. It's the foreigners' fault. Hypocrisy and xenophobia will fix everything without having to create actually livable cities where people aren't slaves to cars.

You're living a very naive reality if you don't think foreign investors buying properties that sit vacant 11 months out of the year contributes to the housing problem.

don't worry we're happy to do both transit and xenophobia in canada (unless the next administration cancels the transit plans) (they will)

In many places, Canada also does celebrating diversity and living car-culture very well.

The US is less concentrated than Canada, which is probably part of it (more than half of Canadians live in a handful of large metros).

Reasonable houses in my small US town are available for ~$100,000 (there's also listings north of $400,000, it isn't just a lack of economic activity).

Probably have to look at the US on a regional basis to do a meaningful analysis.

Isn't that because Canada has much lower property taxes than the US? So you have the same effect that you see in California, where low taxes drive up prices.

I don't think spending $6,000 less in property taxes each would justify a $500,000 increase in price.

The math gets trickier when you consider monthly payments. At very low interest rates an extra 500k borrowed might only increase monthly payment by ~1500 which can be partially offset by $500-1000 less in property taxes per month depending on the municipality in Canada compared to US.