In Canada’s largest housing market, the number of unsold condominiums keeps rising.

Butler said there’s been “severe overbuilding” in the Toronto condo market for a number of years, specifically when it comes to smaller units.

“The tiniest of tiny condos,” Butler said. “It’s weird that in a country like Canada where there’s been a consistent housing crisis for the last 10 years that if you build a very bad product, people won’t take it, it’s as simple as that.”

Butler said many of the unsold condos on the market today are ones designed for investors or real estate speculators and are not practical for most families.

“They are roughly the size of large hotel room, only meant to be rented out, and there’s been simply a massive overbuilding of non-family units,” he said, noting that many of the condos for sale in Toronto currently are 500-square-feet or less.

  • acargitz
    6·
    2 days ago

    “Build baby build” with sensibility ofc.

    Exactly. This is an example of what “build baby build” without sensibility looks like.

    • Subscript5676English
      1·
      2 days ago

      Honestly, I’m not sure why you quoted Carney now, for 2 reasons:

      1. These condos were built before we even had the election.
      2. I’ve heard some claims that, thanks to zoning laws (arguably bad), prevention of urban sprawl (good), parking requirements (bad but for a non-construction related reason), and NIMBYs (ugly), condos have become one of the only types of building that construction companies would even consider building to be able to make a profit. Not sure how much of that is true or whether they are said by people who actually know what they’re talking about (they all claim to know enough, but it’s hard to verify such things, even if they work in the field), but I can see how some of these reasons that are outside of the control of construction companies can make this happen. All that’s to say is, it may not be fair for us to try and criticize construction companies for their attempts at actually building something for the past 10+ years.

      Sorry, but I think I read your original comment and thought it was unnecessarily snarky, and thought I’d make a comment about it.

      • acargitz
        8·
        2 days ago

        The trend I’m pushing back against is uncritical yimby-ism, that doesn’t account for the financialization of housing.

        I don’t know why you’re bringing federal politics into this. But since you went there, let’s go.

        Carney popularized the slogan for a supposedly easy solution to a problem that has festered under decades of neoliberal housing policy under the LPC and the CPC. I don’t have confidence in a Liberal government to go against this deeply ingrained policy. Specifically, I don’t think they have any interest in going against the richer half of the electorate that has invested in real estate. In their attempt to placate the propertied classes’ need for housing values to keep rising, they will screw this up, which I’m afraid will further inflame the resentment of young men driving them towards the open arms of the far right.

        • Subscript5676English
          3·
          2 days ago

          If that’s the case, then I actually don’t disagree with what you’re getting at.

          And I was thinking that you started the mention of federal politics by quoting “Build Baby Build”, and that’s why I mentioned it.

          And I don’t disagree with your take, and wouldn’t even dissuade your doubts that the LPC wouldn’t be effective at addressing the problem either, and exactly due to their policies of the past, and how it’s abundantly clear that there’s no political appetite from all the major parties to even point to the elephant in the room. I also agree that we are absolutely at risk of a hard rightward shift should this government fail to address our poly-crisis to a point where enough people would feel like they’ve gotten to a more decent place in life.

          What I don’t think, however, is that people actually think that we should just build whatever. If anything, right now, I think most people don’t even have a good idea of what sort of houses are even needed, given Canada’s long history of just building SFH and condos, with nothing in between.

          I do hope that whatever Carney’s planning with the Build Canada Homes initiative, that it would be based on informed plannings based on learnings we can bring in from around the world and not just Canada. Not holding my breath for it, but that would definitely put my mind at ease. There is, ofc, a lot more to expect out of this: how do you prevent opportunistic investors, individual and corporate, from buying out these units and essentially scalp the housing market; can we make sure that the most vulnerable amongst us can put a roof over their heads through this initiative, and not just helping those who are close to home ownership get over that barrier and we just end up with the same situation with a larger crowd of homeowners; how much resources are we actually talking about that would be required for this initiative, where are we sourcing them, and how will this affect our environment; zoning law changes; missing middle? Again, not holding my breath, cause there’s, so far, quite little proof to who have they talked to, and there’s very little message at the moment about all this. So I guess we will find out.