My name is Danielle Demerino and I am a Toronto real estate agent.  This year, there’s been a lot of chatter among realtors in my office around the effects of immigration on the housing supply. The truth is, we haven’t really even felt the true impact of it yet. That will come in the future.

Immigration and the Impacts on Real Estate

Immigration has been a hot topic lately, as the sentiment is that we’re bringing more immigrants than we can house, and that does seem to be true. Let’s break down the numbers a little bit. In 2023, the government proposed that 450,000 immigrants come into Canada. Of that, about 150,000 of them will settle in the GTA.

In 2024-2025, they’re proposing about 500,000 people will come into Canada. The thing about housing and immigration is even when people from countries that have money settle here, they tend to rent for the first two, three, or four years, etc. It’s something like 40 percent of people by year five plan to buy something.

Then they settle in the national average of 70 percent ownership by year 10. It’s most likely that they buy something by the 10th year they’re here. Realistically, we are not seeing the devastating effects of bringing this many immigrants in and not having enough housing for them yet. We’re probably going to start seeing that in like five to seven years.

Unless the government starts building enough purpose-built housing or gives enough grants for builders to start building at a rapid pace, we’re going to see an even bigger shortage of housing in the future, which means we’re going to see prices start to rise even quicker than you’re used to.

You want to be part of the group of people that own something and the next few years are going to be vital time for you to do that. So don’t miss out on it because there are people from around the world that understand how this works and they’re going to beat you to it.

Honestly.