Report forecasts 1.1 million population rise in Lower Mainland by 2041, requiring...

[SpongeG]

Report forecasts 1.1 million population rise in Lower Mainland by 2041, requiring 500,000 new housing units

by Charlie Smith on January 22nd, 2019

The federal government plans to accept 340,000 immigrants in 2020.

This increase in arrivals from the 300,000 target of 2017 is expected to be felt in the Metro Vancouver housing market, according to a new report.

Andrew Ramlo and Ryan Berlin of the Rennie Intelligence Team forecast that by 2041, the region will have 4.03 million residents—up from 2.93 million in 2017.

“In growing by 38%, the Lower Mainland is projected to add an average of 45,000 net new residents each year (on a net basis), with the annual growth rate averaging 1.3% between 2017 and 2041,” they wrote in the rennie outlook. “As a point of comparison to this latter metric, the Lower Mainland grew by an average of 1.8% per year over the past decade and a half.”

They predicted that this 1.1-million increase in population would require 498,204 new dwelling units by 2041.

That works out to more than 20,000 net new units per year.

Of those units, they estimated that 292,351 would be ground-oriented and another 205,853 would be apartments.

...

https://www.straight.com/news/119129...ing-500000-new

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Report forecasts 1.1 million population rise in Lower Mainland by 2041, requiring 500,000 new housing units

by Charlie Smith on January 22nd, 2019

The federal government plans to accept 340,000 immigrants in 2020.

This increase in arrivals from the 300,000 target of 2017 is expected to be felt in the Metro Vancouver housing market, according to a new report.

Andrew Ramlo and Ryan Berlin of the Rennie Intelligence Team forecast that by 2041, the region will have 4.03 million residents—up from 2.93 million in 2017.

“In growing by 38%, the Lower Mainland is projected to add an average of 45,000 net new residents each year (on a net basis), with the annual growth rate averaging 1.3% between 2017 and 2041,” they wrote in the rennie outlook. “As a point of comparison to this latter metric, the Lower Mainland grew by an average of 1.8% per year over the past decade and a half.”

They predicted that this 1.1-million increase in population would require 498,204 new dwelling units by 2041.

That works out to more than 20,000 net new units per year.

Of those units, they estimated that 292,351 would be ground-oriented and another 205,853 would be apartments.

...

https://www.straight.com/news/119129...ing-500000-new

Is the federal government attempting to bouy the RE market with immigration targets?

Just a rhetorical question.

[csbvan]

There are (as of November) 44,000 units under construction in the Vancouver area. Seems like builders are more than keeping pace.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Report forecasts 1.1 million population rise in Lower Mainland by 2041, requiring 500,000 new housing units
“In growing by 38%, the Lower Mainland is projected to add an average of 45,000 net new residents each year (on a net basis), with the annual growth rate averaging 1.3% between 2017 and 2041,” they wrote in the rennie outlook. “As a point of comparison to this latter metric, the Lower Mainland grew by an average of 1.8% per year over the past decade and a half.”

I hate the clickbait numbers in the headline. The above quote is what's important.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I hate the clickbait numbers in the headline. The above quote is what's important.

That and the fact it is from Rennie!

[VarBreStr18]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Report forecasts 1.1 million population rise in Lower Mainland by 2041, requiring 500,000 new housing units

by Charlie Smith on January 22nd, 2019

The federal government plans to accept 340,000 immigrants in 2020.

This increase in arrivals from the 300,000 target of 2017 is expected to be felt in the Metro Vancouver housing market, according to a new report.

Andrew Ramlo and Ryan Berlin of the Rennie Intelligence Team forecast that by 2041, the region will have 4.03 million residents—up from 2.93 million in 2017.

“In growing by 38%, the Lower Mainland is projected to add an average of 45,000 net new residents each year (on a net basis), with the annual growth rate averaging 1.3% between 2017 and 2041,” they wrote in the rennie outlook. “As a point of comparison to this latter metric, the Lower Mainland grew by an average of 1.8% per year over the past decade and a half.”

They predicted that this 1.1-million increase in population would require 498,204 new dwelling units by 2041.

That works out to more than 20,000 net new units per year.

Of those units, they estimated that 292,351 would be ground-oriented and another 205,853 would be apartments.

...

https://www.straight.com/news/119129...ing-500000-new

At first look I thought 340000 is an outrageous number. But then in my grossly simplified calculation, Canada population of 36000000 divide by 2 is 18 million couples. Assuming birth rate of 1.5, 18 million couples produce 27 million offsprings which is not even enough to replace 18 million couples.. Hence Canada needs immigration to replenish itself. I only hope that this 340000 are people with skills and wherewithal s to afford the lower mainland and not just refugees.

[misher]

Originally Posted by VarBreStr18

At first look I thought 340000 is an outrageous number. But then in my grossly simplified calculation, Canada population of 36000000 divide by 2 is 18 million couples. Assuming birth rate of 1.5, 18 million couples produce 27 million offsprings which is not even enough to replace 18 million couples.. Hence Canada needs immigration to replenish itself. I only hope that this 340000 are people with skills and wherewithal s to afford the lower mainland and not just refugees.

Agreed! Due to strain on our social system we should honestly not be letting seniors in unless they are experts in their fields or pay a fee.

We should also only be letting in hard workers.

I think America is crazy not to have a program where illegal immigrants earn citizenship through 1 year working on wall work camps.

We should definitely have a similar program where healthy strong workers can come and work a year at a severely reduced wage to earn citizenship from army, infrastructure projects, tree planting, etc. During the programs they would also receive English, Canadian law, and cultural lessons. We should be stealing every nations best workers! And honestly citizenship you earn is much more precious.

[Galaxy]

It be sort of nice to taken in all the Daca people from the states as they all speak English and they have university degrees so they all would make great additions to the country. Also, it would remove a entire group of people the Trump admin would attack. The Daca people in the US are also primarily you and have lived in North America for the majority of there lives. I agree though more immigrants is a good thing. Canada does have a really solid system so we really don’t have anything to be concerned about.

[djmk]

Originally Posted by misher

We should definitely have a similar program where healthy strong workers can come and work a year at a severely reduced wage to earn citizenship from army, infrastructure projects, tree planting, etc. During the programs they would also receive English, Canadian law, and cultural lessons. We should be stealing every nations best workers! And honestly citizenship you earn is much more precious.

it's not possible with the temporary foreign workers (although they can come back multiple times for years)

all the other programs have avenues to get PR

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by VarBreStr18

At first look I thought 340000 is an outrageous number. But then in my grossly simplified calculation, Canada population of 36000000 divide by 2 is 18 million couples. Assuming birth rate of 1.5, 18 million couples produce 27 million offsprings which is not even enough to replace 18 million couples.. Hence Canada needs immigration to replenish itself. I only hope that this 340000 are people with skills and wherewithal s to afford the lower mainland and not just refugees.

Refugees and Immigrants are different categories and numbers.

I know a number of immigrants, one of them is a doctor and can't get work without redoing her schooling here. Also, know an engineer from Syria who immigrated here over a decade ago and he couldn't work here without schooling so he was travelling back and forth to Saudi Arabia to work but he decided he wanted to get his citizenship here and needed to spend more time here and find any kind of job to do so. He was thinking of investing in a restaurant at one point.

So I imagine a lot of the immigrants coming will be in the same boat, skilled but unemployable in their field. having to work in a minimum wage job or change their career entirely.

I have noticed over the past few years there are a lot of older people who appear to be immigrants in their 40s or 50s working in retail and fast food places.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by misher

Agreed! Due to strain on our social system we should honestly not be letting seniors in unless they are experts in their fields or pay a fee.

We should also only be letting in hard workers.

I think America is crazy not to have a program where illegal immigrants earn citizenship through 1 year working on wall work camps.

We should definitely have a similar program where healthy strong workers can come and work a year at a severely reduced wage to earn citizenship from army, infrastructure projects, tree planting, etc. During the programs they would also receive English, Canadian law, and cultural lessons. We should be stealing every nations best workers! And honestly citizenship you earn is much more precious.

But then you will have a problem with Canadians saying these immigrants are stealing their kid's jobs. People complain that their University kids can't find a summer job already.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Is the federal government attempting to bouy the RE market with immigration targets?

Just a rhetorical question.

Between this and the push to get millennials into housing that they were just talking about, its easy to see they are working away at propping up house prices before an election.

[Tetsuo]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Is the federal government attempting to bouy the RE market with immigration targets?

Just a rhetorical question.

They are attempting to buoy the entire Canadian debt fueled economy and social ponzi scheme.

More people = more debt in the private sector
More people = more paying into socialized ponzi pyramids.

Nothing against immigrants or our social system

But that's how it is.

A lot faster to import working age, than wait for births to happen and kids reach adulthood in quite a long time.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by misher

Agreed! Due to strain on our social system we should honestly not be letting seniors in unless they are experts in their fields or pay a fee.

We should also only be letting in hard workers.

I think America is crazy not to have a program where illegal immigrants earn citizenship through 1 year working on wall work camps.

We should definitely have a similar program where healthy strong workers can come and work a year at a severely reduced wage to earn citizenship from army, infrastructure projects, tree planting, etc. During the programs they would also receive English, Canadian law, and cultural lessons. We should be stealing every nations best workers! And honestly citizenship you earn is much more precious.

Allowing seniors to enter is useful to help assimilation efforts and to keep people from sending money outside the country to help their extended family.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by csbvan

There are (as of November) 44,000 units under construction in the Vancouver area. Seems like builders are more than keeping pace.

Assuming that people can afford the units coming onto the market, that's great.
Unfortunately more than half of those units are priced out of the "domestic" market.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by csbvan

There are (as of November) 44,000 units under construction in the Vancouver area. Seems like builders are more than keeping pace.

I would disagree with this.

500,000 new units to 2040 means 23,800 units per year.

44,000 units under construction today means there are roughly 14,000 units being delivered a year since average construction timline is about 3 years per project (2 years for smaller low rise, 4 years for larger more complicated projects).

Given this I would say there is no way we are keeping pace and it is ONE of the reasons we have affordability issues in this city.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I would disagree with this.

500,000 new units to 2040 means 23,800 units per year.

44,000 units under construction today means there are roughly 14,000 units being delivered a year since average construction timline is about 3 years per project (2 years for smaller low rise, 4 years for larger more complicated projects).

Given this I would say there is no way we are keeping pace and it is ONE of the reasons we have affordability issues in this city.

But the current pace of growth in the region is around 30,000 new residents per year (about 1.3%). The average number of residents per unit, as of the last census, is around 2.4. It should also be noted that the statistics do not include conversions or secondary suites (I am not sure whether laneway houses are included...)

Housing starts have also been high in recent years: 21k in 2015, 28k in 2016, 26k in 2017. There are estimated to be 24k housing starts in both 2018 and 2019. According to the CMHC data, completions for 2018 were a staggering 25,000. That is almost one unit COMPLETED per new resident (edit: here is the CMHC link for housing completions: https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-p...Name=Vancouver).

Also, I don't believe the 3 year number is accurate. The data I see (from 2016) shows downtown construction takes 35.8 months, but the average for the CMA, for all types of new home construction, is only 16.5 months.
http://www.bcrea.bc.ca/docs/economic...s.pdf?sfvrsn=2

[LeftCoaster]

As someone who works in the industry 16 months is not achievable. Maybe for a single family home, but those are a far smaller allocation of our housing mix and will continue to decline in importance.

Average is definitely ~3 years, and as we build more complicated masterplanned mega projects like Brentwood, Oakridge etc... those numbers get even longer.

Your numbers kind of prove the point. A 'staggering' completion of 25,000 is just barely above what's needed to keep our head above water. And this is in the middle of what is considered a huge construction boom. We have been underbuilding for years and prices reflect that.

Also average pop growth for the lower mainland, which this article is discussing, is more like 45,000 per annum.

[csbvan]

I'm sorry, but the article that I posted on average time for construction is a report by the BCREA, using CMHC Starts and Completion data. The overall average is 16.5 months for all housing types across the region, and 20.6 for apartments. It may be an inconvenient truth, but the numbers are not whimsically pulled from the air. You can also flip through the completions data that I linked to. Every year has more than 15,000 completions, with recent years being in the 20,000s.

Also, 25,000 completed units for a regional population growth of around 30,000 per year is staggering. The 45,000 per annum is an average based on a projection for 2041. Housing completions in 2018 should be judged against current population growth, not the anticipated population growth for 2035.

Looking at the numbers, those for starts and completions compiled by CMHC, and growth and household composition statistics based on the 2016 census, it is difficult for me to believe that there is not a surplus of units being constructed/coming on to the market. The data speaks for itself.

[LeftCoaster]

When in recent memory have you seen a condo completed in 20.6 months?

General rule of thumb is one month down one month up for excav. Lobby and podium floors are around a month each then 2 weeks per floor forming.

So on a standard 30 storey condo with 4 levels of U/G parking and a 3 floor podium:

- 8 months excav/parking forming
- 3 months ground and podium
- 12 months tower

So 23 months in and you've only topped out, you haven't even finished the units. Envelope and finishing usually last another 10-12 months.

Let's take Ultra in Surrey as an example. Easy greenfield site with plenty of laydown and no difficult site conditions. Broke ground late Nov 2015, today they still do not have their occupancy, so it will be well over 3 years to occupancy for a very standard metro Vancouver tower.

So given that 36 months is a pretty standard time for a mid sized condo, with larger condos like Brentwood taking 48+, smaller condos would need to be finished in 10-16 months to have an average of 20 month construction time. That just does not happen, not even woodframe.