Investor-owned homes reached record levels in Ontario this year

Ontario's housing market has long been a cash cow for savvy investors, and a new report indicates that investor-owned homes have become a driving force for the province's real estate industry, soaring to record levels in 2021.

Earlier this year, a report from Teranet uncovered just how much of the market was being propped up by investors with multiple properties, finding that approximately one-quarter of all homes purchased in the province in 2021 were scooped up by buyers who already own residential property.

That's a record for investor-owned homes in the province, exceeding even first-time homebuyers, a demographic that only represented one-fifth of buyer activity this year.

Investors are the single largest purchaser of homes in all of Ontario now, much less just Toronto. The speculators are already here and existing policy is doing nothing to combat that.

— jasserole (@jasserole) November 25, 2021

And that's just province-wide. Investor activity is, unsurprisingly, even more pronounced in Toronto, with almost one-third of 2021 purchases going to homebuyers who own at least one other property.

To put that into perspective, for those living in a condo or house, there's a good statistical chance that one out of your (likely) two next-door neighbours' homes is investor-owned.

Even with dampening measures like Ontario's Non-Resident Speculation Tax, these figures have risen dramatically in the last decade, investor purchases climbing almost 10 per cent since 2011.

There's been a staggering 50 per cent increase in multiple property owners in the province during that time.

Future steps are being discussed to curb runaway housing investment on the federal level, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exploring new measures to cut down on investors and make homes more affordable for end-users.

Proposed measures include the ending of blind bids, expansion of vacant home taxes, and most importantly, a proposed two-year ban on foreign homebuyers.

Many experts, especially those with ties to the building industry, insist that affordability is rooted in demand outpacing supply. They argue that more new housing rather than limits on homebuyers is the only path to bringing down housing prices.