Today’s a big day. Last day of school!
For my kids — and for Jackie — that means summer vacation. For me? It means morning daddy duty is officially on pause for the next eight glorious weeks.
No more making three different breakfasts. No more last-minute ponytails. No more scrambling to find shoes, books, jackets… or dealing with the Kiss & Ride lineup.
Looks like it’s officially summer vacation for me too.
But while the mornings just got easier, the housing conversation hasn’t.
Last week, I shared how homes in Canada quietly shifted from places to live… to places to grow capital.
This week, let’s go a step further.
Because that shift wasn’t just about people changing how they think. It was about the system itself changing how it works.
And most of that change started with good intentions.
In the early 1990s, the federal government stepped back from building affordable housing. But they still wanted to support homeownership.
So they took a different approach: Make it easier — and cheaper — for Canadians to borrow.
That’s where the real shift began.
CMHC, the national housing agency, started playing a bigger role in helping lenders approve mortgages. They made it possible for banks to lend more freely, with less risk.
Instead of holding loans on their books, banks could bundle and sell them.
That process — known in finance as “securitization” — gave lenders more room to issue even more mortgages.
The result? More people could qualify. Mortgage rates kept dropping.
Sounds like a win, right?
It was — until it wasn’t.
Because the easier it is to borrow, the more people you get trying to buy. And when more people compete for the same homes, prices go up.
At first, it made homeownership feel more accessible. But over time, it created a new problem:
The system started to favour investors. People who already owned real estate. People who could tap into their home equity to buy more.
Homeownership became a wealth strategy. Refinancing became normal. And homes stopped being “places to live” and started becoming “ways to build equity.”
That’s where a report called The Great Sell-Off comes in. It’s one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of how housing affordability unraveled in Canada — and why we need to look deeper than just supply and demand.
It’s not just that investors entered the market. It’s that the system invited them in.
Low interest rates. Easy access to credit. A mortgage system designed to keep the machine moving.
Today, nearly 1 in 3 homes in Canada are bought by investors.
Not always big corporations. Often just everyday people who realized — consciously or not — that the system rewards ownership more than labour.
This isn’t about pointing fingers. A lot of these policies were created to help people. To stimulate the economy. To keep housing moving.
But we need to admit the side effects.
The easier we made it to borrow, the harder we made it to catch up — if you weren’t already in.
That’s how we ended up here.
Prices outpacing wages. Wealth gaps widening. First-time buyers competing with multi-property owners.
So where does that leave us?
It’s not enough to just “build more homes.” We need to ask: who are we building them for?
Because if we’re not careful, we’ll keep feeding the same outcome.
P.S. If this resonates — or if you’ve been thinking about your own next move in real estate — let’s talk. Sometimes the best opportunities come from understanding how the system actually works.
P.P.S. If you already own real estate, understand this: You’re holding one of the most system-supported assets in the country. Make sure you treat it like the privilege — and opportunity — that it is.
Until next week,
Vince.
