Press review of late September

In the last half of September, there was a lot of talk about the City of Montreal's new property roll, new housing data from the 2021 census, and housing issues in the context of the provincial election.

Montreal’s Assessment Roll

It is no surprise that as a result of the real estate overheating in Montreal, the property evaluation has expressed on average a 32.4% increase in properties on the Island of Montréal. In fact, the website dedicated to property assessment has even been out of service due to an overheating in terms of visits. For multi-unit buildings, the average increase is close to 35%. CORPIQ reacted by mentioning that this increase for plexes will also be reflected in rents since the TAL calculation grid allows property tax increases to be transferred to rents. According to the Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations, "municipal taxation should be reviewed in order to mitigate the 'property tax shock' on citizens," reads this article from Journal Métro.

Provincial Elections and Housing Issues

A significant portion of voters (52%) said that the issue of housing supply and affordability would influence their vote, according to a survey conducted by the firm Léger. In this article from The Gazette, the same phenomenon is evoked for the voters of Verdun where nearly 64% of residents are renters (compared to 38% for all of Quebec according to 2016 Statistics Canada data). On the Sherbrooke side, the Parti Québécois candidate promises nearly 2000 social housing units. It should be recalled that the PQ has also promised to abolish the AirBnb type of accommodation in Quebec, except for municipalities that reach a vacancy rate of more than 3%.

2021 Housing Census

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, Quebecers are finding it increasingly difficult to buy a home. As reported in this article from the Journal de Montréal, it states that the number of months it takes to accumulate savings to purchase a property is increasing as the value of the property increases. For example, according to the deputy chief economist at National Bank, the time it takes to accumulate savings for a down payment has increased from 40 months to 69 months. Among Canadians aged 25 to 29, the homeownership rate has fallen since 2011, from 44.1% to 36.5% in 2021. This is the age group with the largest decline, as reported in this article from Le Soleil. And more precisely, Quebec has the lowest home ownership rate across Canada, from 61.2% to 59.9%. In terms of the trend for Canada as a whole, there was a decline from 69% in 2011 to 65.5% in 2021.

Mentions of CORPIQ

CORPIQ participated in a public consultation which was set up by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal. It was an opportunity to submit a brief to propose a strategy to develop the rental stock, to finance projects, to unblock projects by modernizing legislation, and to protect the rental stock by creating an environment conducive to long-term ownership by rental landlords.

On a completely different note, there was also, a debate by the Montreal SPCA with representatives of each political party (except the CAQ, which was absent) regarding the prohibition on accepting animals that can be written into a lease. CORPIQ was contacted and expressed its opposition to the idea of amending the by-law that would put an end to this possibility of banning animals. "We cannot support a proposal that would impose the right of all tenants to have an animal in a dwelling," said CORPIQ's Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations. Not only would this be detrimental to landlords, but it could eventually lead to conflicts between tenants.