this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
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Rent/housing prices have generally been coming down ever since the fed changed its approach to immigration and capped things / international politics took a shit on immigration in general. Presales are tanking very publicly. All sales activity is significantly down, with large gluts of supply on the market. Supply has a role to play, sure, but the cut in demand has pretty explicitly changed the direction of the housing market for the past few years now. Claiming its primarily 'supply', is basically denying the data that says otherwise.
Its still supply as in surplus brings prices down. Whether that is less people coming or more being built, it translates to surplus units.
In BC the law change to disallow second residence airbnb put a lot of homes on the market at once. This also stunted the never ending increases.
Supply and demand are connected, sure, that I wouldn't contest. But we've had over-supply for an extended time now, resulting from cratering demand. Even the BC law change you reference, is something that cuts demand for 'income'/'investment' properties, which's why they got dumped onto the market in some areas. The change removed that 'demand' category from the market, stunting prices. But suppliers/developers kept on building at the high-cost of ownership rates.
On the market, there's been like 5000+ homes just sorta sittin there, with about 400 sold per month in Vancouver, with that imbalance growing for years. There's a ton of supply, but there's no demand at the prices they're being listed at. So on the supply/demand mix, especially seeing as its been a 'buyers' market for years now, it's demand that's missing / absent. Even if it's missing/absent, as a result of there being few locals who can afford the prices things are listed at -- that things are 'available', there's plenty of supply.
I mean, in some ways the core issue facing govts is that they need to have homes at a far lower price point, so that there's more local demand for it.... while also maintaining existing housing prices, so that current home owners don't all go bankrupt. They essentially need to freeze the housing prices, to allow local wages to catch up for a decade or so.
You are saying the only way to lower the price is to build more housing than is needed. Which is an insane way to plan how to effectively house everyone
Not the only way, but having enough units for people, instead if people dividing their living room with a sheet to make a rentable space (like Vancouver). The problems we have is no surplus, actually a high negative, that needs to get closer to zero.