*Canadian [housing] is increasingly being scooped up by investors, and incentives play a large role. That was the take in the latest report from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) at Statistics Canada (StatCan).*
*The agency’s latest numbers show that up to 85% of condo apartments in Ontario’s ten largest census metropolitan areas (CMAs) were investor-owned in 2022.*
*More surprisingly, the CHSP attributes this boom in part to large, single corporate investors fueled by government incentives. The share owned by investors may actually rise in coming years, as even more incentives are being rolled out by various levels of government.*
*[…] Those who assume investors target big cities are absolutely correct. Out of the ten largest CMAs, the highest concentration was in London, ON where 85.5% of condos are investor-owned.*
*The top three are rounded out with Windsor (64.4%) and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (60.7%). It’s worth noting all three of those markets are typically considered college cities.*
*[…] The dramatic ownership shift is amplified by the rise of large, single-party purchasers. Pooling investor capital, condo buildings are either purposely developed, bought at wholesale, or acquired in a distributed manner.*
*The group of units, sometimes a whole building, is then run as an impromptu purpose-built or distributed apartment complex. Government incentives drive this trend, according to the CHSP.*
*“This phenomenon emerged in part because of tax incentives that used to prevail in some Ontario cities, whereby buildings split into distinct condominium apartments could face lower municipal tax rates than rental buildings,” the CHSP explains in the report.*
*Adding, “As a result, developers of large apartment buildings would sometimes classify them differently for tax purposes, rather than treat them as a single rental property.”*
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Excerpts from [article](https://betterdwelling.com/ontarios-big-cities-saw-investors-buy-up-to-85-of-condos-fueled-by-gov-incentives/) re. StatCan [data release](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/241003/dq241003a-eng.htm):
*Canadian [housing] is increasingly being scooped up by investors, and incentives play a large role. That was the take in the latest report from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) at Statistics Canada (StatCan).*
*The agency’s latest numbers show that up to 85% of condo apartments in Ontario’s ten largest census metropolitan areas (CMAs) were investor-owned in 2022.*
*More surprisingly, the CHSP attributes this boom in part to large, single corporate investors fueled by government incentives. The share owned by investors may actually rise in coming years, as even more incentives are being rolled out by various levels of government.*
*[…] Those who assume investors target big cities are absolutely correct. Out of the ten largest CMAs, the highest concentration was in London, ON where 85.5% of condos are investor-owned.*
*The top three are rounded out with Windsor (64.4%) and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (60.7%). It’s worth noting all three of those markets are typically considered college cities.*
*[…] The dramatic ownership shift is amplified by the rise of large, single-party purchasers. Pooling investor capital, condo buildings are either purposely developed, bought at wholesale, or acquired in a distributed manner.*
*The group of units, sometimes a whole building, is then run as an impromptu purpose-built or distributed apartment complex. Government incentives drive this trend, according to the CHSP.*
*“This phenomenon emerged in part because of tax incentives that used to prevail in some Ontario cities, whereby buildings split into distinct condominium apartments could face lower municipal tax rates than rental buildings,” the CHSP explains in the report.*
*Adding, “As a result, developers of large apartment buildings would sometimes classify them differently for tax purposes, rather than treat them as a single rental property.”*