🏠 Foreign buyer deep freeze

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🎄 Good morning and happy holidays! We made it, everyone. It’s time to feast, open presents and spend time with loved ones. We can’t thank you enough for being part of SiteNews’ rapidly growing community since we kicked off just a few months ago. We're so grateful to be able to highlight Canada’s construction sector, and get to do so because of awesome readers like you.

Enjoy our last issue of 2022. We'll see you in the New Year friend ✌️

- Russell Hixson, editor

MARKETS

Inflation: Sometimes once you fix a leak, another opens up. While Canada’s rate of inflation eased to 6.8 per cent last month due to gas and furniture prices dropping, food costs and rent went up. Eggs, coffee, baked goods and edible fats all saw increases. Rent costs went up 5.2 per cent, the fastest pace seen since the 1990s.

THE BIG STORY

Ban hammer falls on foreign homebuyers

Canada is unleashing the two year ban on foreign real estate buyers starting next week. Officials are wanting to combat skyrocketing housing prices that are beating up bank accounts across the nation.

Need to know: The following policies will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023:

• Non-Canadians will be banned from buying residential property for two years.

• Residential property is defined as buildings with three homes or less, as well as parts of buildings like a semi-detached house or a condominium unit. The law does not prohibit the purchase of larger buildings with multiple units.

• The legislation has a $10,000 fine for any non-Canadian or anyone who knowingly assists a non-Canadian and is convicted of violating the act. If a court finds that a non-Canadian has done this, they may order the sale of the house.

Zooming out: According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) 3.5 million more homes need to be built by 2030 to reach affordability. Most of them need to be in B.C. and Ontario. The group says adding this supply would bring affordability back to 2003-2004 levels, when an average household would have spent close to 40 per cent of their disposable income to buy an average house in Ontario, and close to 45 per cent in B.C. In 2021, similar households had to devote close to 60 per cent of their incomes to housing.

Data points: But how much of B.C. and Ontario’s problem is foreign ownership? According to Statistics Canada data from 2020, the share of residential properties owned by non-residents in Ontario was 2.2 per cent and in British Columbia was 3.1 per cent. The rate was highest in Vancouver, at 4.2 per cent. In the Toronto metro area, the rate was 2.7 per cent in 2020. The city of Toronto’s rate was 3.8 per cent.

The takeaway: It remains to be seen how effective the ban will be, but no matter what, a massive amount of new housing is still needed to fully address the crisis.

NEED TO KNOW

The week's headlines

❄️ Winter storms have been smashing into Canadian cities, wreaking havoc on holiday travel. In B.C. passengers at YVR spent hours sitting on the tarmac only to have their flights canceled. Public transit routes were crippled and officials closed off major bridges due to accumulated ice. Thousands in Ontario faced a similar fate, with power outages, canceled flights and highways closed due to poor visibility. CAA in Ontario said they received 2,260 calls for service on Dec. 23 before the day was even through.

⚡️ Say goodbye to gas? Canada wants to mandate that one-fifth of all passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in 2026 run on electricity. The mandate is part of new regulations officials proposed this month. By 2030, the mandate would jump to 60 per cent of all sales and by 2035, every passenger vehicle sold in Canada will need to be electric.

⛽ Crews are expected to get the Keystone pipeline back up and running this week following a disastrous spill that leaked 14,000-barrels of oil near a Kansas waterway. TC Energy, operators of the pipeline, had planned for a Dec. 20 resumption, but is now looking at Dec. 28 or 29 sources told Bloomberg News. TC Energy had previously stated that cold weather had hampered clean-up operations.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Canada’s population is booming like never before. Statistics Canada found the population grew by 362,453 people between July and October, the fastest single-quarter growth since 1957. They attributed the growth to non-permanent residents, including refugees from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Immigration, which only includes those allowed to live in Canada permanently, grew by 122,145, the second-largest third-quarter growth since 1946. Canada has plans to bring in 500,000 newcomers per year starting in 2025.

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

Vancouver school embraces mass timber

Seismically safe: Work has wrapped on wək̓ʷan̓əs tə syaqʷəm, an elementary school in Vancouver. The new school was completely built with Canadian mass timber to withstand future seismic events. Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, the 34,000 square foot school was constructed with cross laminated timber (CLT) panels supplied by Structurlam and installed by Beam Craft. The construction manager on the project was Yellowridge Construction. Fast + Epp was the structural engineer. The school was originally named after B.C.’s first chief justice, but it was changed to wək̓ʷan̓əs tə syaqʷəm this month as part of reconciliation efforts.

PROJECT UPDATES

Multi-tower Mirish Village project rises in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.

Bruce Power project completes major milestone with moderator system.

Quintette Mine gets new life after $120M sale to Conuma.

Ken Soble passive house tower wins major award for being green.

Metrolinx begins major concourse work at Union Station

Coal mine project nixed in B.C. following environmental assessment.

WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT

LIST: 🧳 Pack your bags for all these 2023 construction events

READ: 📈 Can our infrastructure keep up with the population growth?

VIDEO: 🚔 Lethbridge battles spike in construction site theft

READ: 🚺 Female construction participation growing in U.S.

VIDEO: 🏗️ Turner offers smaller builders training for growth

READ: ❄️ Stuck in the snow? Here’s how to build a proper igloo

🙏🏻 Thanks for reading!

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