People often speculate on reasons why the real estate has ballooned so heavily in the last couple years in Toronto, and across Canada. Everything from foreign buyers to decreased land availability has been blamed, and Statistics Canada sheds further light on why the housing market is on high alert.

The newest 2016 census shows that Toronto alone has over 99,000 unoccupied homes in the city. These statistics results reflect that a lack of occupancy is a top housing issue in the city and is growing at the same rate as the rising price of real estate. Across Canada, the number of unoccupied homes as grown and is highest in Toronto, followed by Montreal. Vancouver is trailing in third, potentially in part due to the new foreign buyer bylaws that have come into effect.

By comparing the number of total private dwellings and the total private dwellings occupied in each city as collected in the census, it is easy to see there is an unusual difference between occupied homes and total dwellings available. In the last 10 years, the amount of unoccupied dwellings have also grown 10.5 per cent in Toronto, and the problem continues to worsen. It appears that the highest rate of non-occupancy is in the Concord area of Vaughan, which was at 35 per cent. Downtown Toronto also had more homes that weren’t being occupied, especially in the fashion district at King St. W, with 21 per cent not regularly occupied.

In this circumstance, blaming foreign buyers isn’t a viable reason because local Canadians are most often the residents to fill out the statistics report. Other factors could be AirBnB or short-term rentals to explain the unoccupied rentals, but it is becoming more clear that speculation is a big part of the reason. Homeowners are hanging onto their homes while the red hot real estate market is at its highest, and people are waiting until the city hits its peak price. These people are often known as ‘flippers’ and are unnecessarily preventing families in desperate need of housing from getting a much-needed house.

Having statistics available to highlight housing issues can provide answers to convoluted real estate issues that are often kept under wraps by stakeholders. By crunching numbers, it is easy to see why unoccupied homes are negatively contributing to the real estate bubble in the city. House flippers and speculators need to sell or rent unoccupied homes to people who need them, and housing must be made more affordable. Hopefully the government takes the necessary steps to crack down on unoccupied homes, and the real estate market can balance as a result.