There's massive change going on with the types of housing that builders will be building over the next decade. As investors, we need to be aware of these trends and adapt our strategies to match the realities of the market.
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Hey, for this week, we really wanted to talk to you about an ongoing trend that we're seeing - it is becoming more and more clear that it can impact us all as investors.
I'm actually working from home right now today. A little bit of a gloomy day outside, so I kind of wanted to buckle down at our home to get some stuff done. That's where I concentrate sometimes a little bit better depending on what type of stuff I'm going to get done.
So, here's the trend that we see people are now willing to move into smaller and smaller places and there are smaller and smaller units becoming available for people. More of them being developed by builders because of the affordability issues. As prices have gone up, people are foregoing the typical detached home that maybe was their goal before they were looking. Now they're more comfortable with a smaller home, smaller yard, smaller square footage speaks. And here's what I mean…
A couple of months ago, I don't have that exact source anymore, but I pulled up some numbers. I came across numbers about ongoing developments in Oakville currently, so this was 2016 with 2016 numbers, at that time 17 percent of the overall housing stock was made up of high-rises or parts of high-rise living. And at that time, 65 percent of the housing available was semi-detached or detached. However, the plans moving forward from 2016 to 2041 call for only 27 percent of new development to be detached or semi-detached homes.
So, from 65 percent currently to the new construction is going to be 27 percent. That is a monstrous drop, and the high-rise units are going from 17 percent all the way up to 51. Towns are seeing about the same. They're going to increase slightly, but the biggest difference where it's going to be made up of is these high-rise units. I couldn't find what they were defining in these particular numbers as what High-Rise units were, whether condo towers or mid-rise buildings or stacked townhomes, that type of stuff. So, I don't know the exact details, but this is really an ongoing trend. It's happening everywhere. So, investors need to be conscious of this because of affordability, people are becoming more and more comfortable moving into smaller units, or having smaller yards, or that type of thing. So, it may impact the investment decisions we're willing to make in the future. Maybe now, maybe in the future, depending on where this trend goes. So, this is the type of stuff that we're watching. But you can see it already with developers, even the condo market, they're changing their product availability because of these types of trends and because of what's happened with affordability for detached or semi-detached homes. It's really changing the housing stock. So, this is the type of stuff that we're watching big changes, and it's definitely not happening just in Oakville.
We've already seen it happening, Toronto is ahead of the game because these types of trends typically happened there first and then spread out to the outlying communities. So, it’s happening in communities all over the Gold Horseshoe area. And it's going to be something for us to watch. So, we'll keep an eye on it, and we'll let you know what else we come up with. Until next time, your life your terms.
