Ontario Construction News staff writer
Improving housing affordability could deliver a boost to local economies, not just help families, according to a new study from Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business.
The report, Build and Benefit: How Homebuilding Incentives Can Pay Off for Cities, Homeowners and Local Economies, reframes housing policy as a strategy for sustainable economic growth. It finds that public investments in homebuilding, including streamlined approval processes and reduced input costs, can quickly translate into more affordable housing and wider economic benefits.
“Affordability is not just a social issue, it’s really an economic one, too,” said Dr. Erkan Yönder, associate professor of real estate and finance at Concordia. “High housing costs affect the entire economy, everything from family finances to business productivity and municipal budgets. With the growing pressures in the Canadian economy, it is important to do everything we can.”
The study identifies the scale of the challenge in Canada’s major cities. To make a meaningful dent in affordability, Canada needs to more than double 2024’s annual rate of housing construction to 3.5 to 4.1 per cent of existing supply. That would require Toronto to complete 96,000 additional units each year, Montreal 77,000, Vancouver 44,000, and Calgary 24,000.
Using a new Mortgage Pressure Index, the study shows that cutting approval delays by 20 per cent could improve housing affordability by 17 per cent. Increased affordability could, in turn, boost local business activity and municipal revenues as households gain greater disposable income.
Research also suggests that improvements in major cities could ripple outward, lowering median home prices in surrounding regions by 5–15 per cent.
“Streamlining approval frameworks and reducing input costs can be an accessible, quickly implemented first step toward meaningful housing improvements,” the study says.
Dr. Yönder, who also directs the Jonathan Wener Centre for Real Estate at the John Molson School of Business, has presented his research internationally at universities including MIT, Yale, UCLA, and Cornell. His work in sustainable real estate finance has earned multiple academic awards and grants from organizations such as the European Public Real Estate Association and the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment.
The full study is available here.