Looking at the numbers for housing sales makes one’s digestive system feel a bit like being on a ride at the fair that goes up, and up and… ever so slowly… up a bit more.
Has the real estate ride we have been on hit the highest point of the trajectory just before freefall, or is it just a tricky little bump? Is it time to start screaming yet?
A year ago, a ‘sold’ banner would be placed across the ‘house for sale’ sign the moment it went up. Now, we see ‘for sale’ signs up for considerably longer. Still, houses are selling, although maybe not for as much as they did at the height of panic buying, when people were more afraid of being shut out of the housing market than they were of defaulting on their mortgage.
For many of us, it is not the house sales that are doing a number on our stomach contents, it is rents.
As with house sales, they are hitting all-time highs and scaring the living daylights out of us – even those of us who are fortunate enough to have a fair bit of wiggle room between our present accommodations and a pile of cardboard boxes behind a dumpster.
We can shift a few more items from our ‘must have’ list to the “maybe someday” one, or look for a second job. We can advertise for a roommate or two, turn the shed into a cute little Airbnb, or even look at the benefits of moving back in with family members.
What scares us – or should be scaring us – is the impact of out-of-control rents on our community. We may be a long way from becoming hollowed-out – a place with rich people and poor people, but not much in between – but we are edging toward it.
When decent jobs are going unfilled, and employed people are living in shelters or, heaven forbid, camping in parks due to a shortage of housing, our laws of supply and demand are seriously misfiring.
Most of us are aware of businesses that have had to close their doors or cut hours due to staff shortages. Not all those businesses are in the low-paying service sector.
To understand what can happen so easily, we need look no further than Alberta at the height of the oil boom. A number of people from this area headed west, attracted by entry level jobs that paid double the minimum wage. Many returned home when they discovered the best they could get in terms of a place to live was a bunk in a tent trailer.
This area has a lot to offer in terms of lifestyle – ample recreation opportunities, clean air and water, and magnificent scenery. We have excellent shopping, good schools and many cultural events. We have career opportunities that are second to none.
What we do not have are places for people to live, unless they are looking for a large and expensive house. In today’s market, someone paying off student loans, or who has just arrived in this country, is unlikely to have resources to do that.
Lack of affordable housing means this area is missing out on health-care professionals, skilled tradespeople, teachers, tech specialists and – yes – the people who kept this community going during COVID: the grocery store employees, fast food workers, truck drivers and delivery people.
That said, there is an immediate problem that needs attention – homelessness. Consider the old line about alligators and swamps: when you are up to your proverbial in the former, it is hard to remember your objective is to drain the latter. While the debate continues about defining ‘affordable’ and how to encourage developers to construct a mix of housing, we need to get people out of encampments and into something with central heat and a roof.
It is the middle of a Canadian winter, and local communities have people living in parks and cars. For their sake, it is indeed time to start screaming.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter working for Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com.
