How Canada Fell Behind the World on Housing Affordability

The Missing Middle with Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux

This week on The Missing Middle Podcast, Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux bust some myths and take a hard look at Canada’s place in the global housing landscape. Drawing on new OECD data, they reveal why Canada’s housing affordability crisis is among the worst in the developed world—with home prices having risen more than twice as fast as incomes since 1999. They compare Canada’s record to other OECD countries (spoiler: it’s not flattering) and highlight where affordability has been successfully maintained (hint: not here). Sabrina offers a theory on why both Canada and Australia are failing so badly at keeping homes affordable, and together, she and Mike make the case for dropping the excuse that this is just a “global trend.”

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:30 Game:React to the Boomer Comment

02:40 Young people don’t want responsibility?

03:59 Global trend or Canadian crisis?

05:12 Missing Middle study on the global housing landscape

07:35 Home prices vs incomes

09:33 It’s worse in Canada, it’s us, we’re the problem

12:30 Which countries are better at affordability?

15:00 Possible reasons Canada and Australia are struggling with affordability?

Housing report card:

https://jhelmer.quarto.pub/rescon-state-of-the-sector-quarterly-reports/12-report-card-brantford.html

Derek Thompson Sunstack - Chart 10

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-25-most-interesting-ideas-ive?utm_source=www.profgmarkets.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nvidia-to-invest-5-billion-in-intel

Canada vs. the World: The Worst Record on Housing Affordability Since 2004

https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/canada-vs-the-world-the-worst-record

OECD Affordable Housing Database:

https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecd-affordable-housing-database.html

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.