“I was really shocked,” said Faran Latafat, president of single-family home development at Toronto-based Core Development, which has historically focused on building apartments.

Like any other business, although interested in profitability, when Latafat announced the company’s plans, she was convinced that Core was effectively providing public services to meet demand by building more affordable rental housing where people wanted to live.

“For every single-family rental house listed, two rental units will be provided, thus doubling the rental supply,” she wrote in an email after we talked on the phone.

Those who follow the real estate market say it is difficult to unravel all the reasons for the level of anger shown this week.But in many media reports after the announcement, this anger was unmistakable—and In the reader comments at the bottom These reports.

Profiteering?

For anyone who understands the driving factors of real estate games, The Globe and Mail column It was almost absurd to call Core a “profit-monger” on Thursday. Whether you call it “trafficking” or something that sounds better, making a profit is an indispensable core to building housing in Canada.

Making profits is why builders build the houses where most of us now live. According to BMO economist Robert Kavcic, this is also the reason why large real estate investment trusts buy or build most Canadian rental apartments — and have been so for many years.

The difference this time is that Core’s new proposal involves the purchase of ground-level single-family homes, and now people are crazy about owning these homes.

With the advancement of densification, the possession of old-fashioned houses with gardens has become the object of desire, and its attractiveness will only increase due to the lack of such properties. In some respects, this is a kind of psychological fixation that is not familiar in places like Hong Kong, New York, or many large European cities.

“From a psychological point of view, this is a wave of young families opposing something-partly because of these policies-we don’t have enough supplies,” Kavcic said.

Similar to the big move of a company hoarding land Exploded nearly ten years ago; For those who think family farms are sacred and inviolable, the shift from private ownership to land lease shocks them.

As the population of Canadian cities grows, People find it difficult to face change This has already happened elsewhere in the world.

“It’s not that families can’t afford housing here,” Kavcic said. “It’s just that the houses they can afford don’t look like their parents or grandparents.”

Several experts, including Carl Gomez, chief economist of the US real estate company CoStar Group in Toronto, said that what Core does is not new, even in Canada.Company likes Park bridge It has begun to purchase land in recreational areas such as Wasaga Beach in Ontario and lease it to residents.

Gomez said that in the United States, where housing prices are low and funds are high, the practice of buying and renting single-family homes is common.In the UK, this tradition can be traced back more than a century ago, when universities like Oxford and Cambridge Earn income as a landlord in cities across the country.

Gomez said that Core plans to buy and build houses in medium-sized cities in Ontario, such as London and Guelph, because the prices of single-family homes in large centers such as Toronto are too high. Even if they are divided into multiple profitable units, the profit return is not enough to compete with the high prices of owning traditional houses.

From house to apartment

Nonetheless, this has not stopped some developers from trying to buy single-family houses, replace them with multi-family houses, and then sell them as apartments in ideal metropolitan communities.

Helen Wojtowitsch has lived in Toronto’s Bloor West Village for 53 years. Next door is a small house. She said that the developer wanted to transform it into an apartment.

She said she didn’t think there was room for multi-family houses in that plot-neighbors had posted posters and collected signatures In order to prevent developmentTo say that it threatens the character of the community.

However, urban development experts insist that what Core Development is doing is Exactly what Canada’s crowded cities need.

Covered by a large number of single-family houses built when the average working class can afford it, Amazing price increase In recent years, it means that these communities are being transformed into elite areas, and it is impossible for ordinary people to want to buy an entire house.

Ben Rabidoux, a long-time private real estate analyst, sympathizes with those who worry about the impact of large companies entering the industry on single-family homes and price competition. They not only earn rent, but also the speculative nature of earning property values. increase.

But he also understands the plight of renters, who may actually benefit from business owners rather than small landlords.

“What you end up with is a lot of moms and popular investors, because the cash flow of single-family houses is not good, they hope [price] Appreciation,” said Rabidoux, who runs North Cove Advisors. “When prices rise sharply, they are more likely to sell, which will disrupt renters. “

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