How immigration and an aging population will affect Canada’s housing market

What’s going to happen to home prices in Canada?

No one can predict the future, of course, but Randall Bartlett, senior director of Canadian economics at Desjardins Economics Studies, has been looking at one small part of what we do know — immigration, our aging population and its effect on the housing market.

If you subscribe to the view that the Bank of Canada is done or close to done raising interest rates, and may even start cutting rates by the end of the year, then it’s conceivable that housing prices will soon start rising again.

But Bartlett says Canada faces a challenge that’s not related to interest rates: It needs to ramp up immigration because of its aging population. Otherwise, Canadians will need to pay more for health care and other services. But that also means the country needs to build housing faster than it’s currently doing to accommodate immigration.

We talked about the plausibility of that goal, how fast houses are currently being built and more. As always, the interview is edited for clarity and brevity.

Follow us at ACOM Capital

Submit the Loan Scenario

Follow us on social media

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn