Home Ownership: Is the Dream Over? – with Special Guest - OREA CEO – Tim Hudak

He is the CEO of our Ontario Real Estate Association, Canada’s largest provincial real estate industry association representing 103,000 REALTORS®. 

With a passion and voice for championing the dream of home ownership, he came to OREA following a distinguished 21 year career in politics, including five years as Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. 

Under his leadership, the Association has attracted some of the most influential people to speak at their conferences, has had historic wins in advocacy, including the passage of the Trust in Real Estate Services Act (TRESA) in 2020, and has demonstrated strong thought leadership throughout the real estate industry. 

As part of his work at OREA, he was named one of the most powerful people in North American residential real estate by Swanepoel Power 200 for the last five years. 

And in 2021, he was also named to the Government of Ontario’s new Housing Affordability Taskforce, which will explore measures to address housing affordability and job creation.

All Canadians are certainly feeling the impacts of this in some way, and so the question remains:

5:48 *Is the Dream of Home Ownership over in Canada?... or how long do we really feel this moment is going to last?

8:22 *with the influx in immigration which we saw as more than double that number year over year over the past 2yrs, do we feel the 1.5M is enough over the next 7yrs… what is our position as an industry here in Ontario?

11:07 *as far as I see my bills at home, I am paying the municipality for water and waste water services… and in this report one of our major action items includes allowing water and wastewater services to be provided through municipal services corporations… can we clarify the difference, and explain further how this particular action will help with affordability?

 14:36 *when it comes to land usage changes, one that jumps out at me is the area around hwy 7 and hwy 400. We’ve know it to be industrial as long as I can remember, but now not only do we see major highrises which has completely changed the visual landscape of the area, we also see townhomes being built in areas that I’d never seen as “residential”… is this what we mean by “implementing land use changes to end exclusionary zoning”… is that all in an effort to plain out provide more land closer to major centres to build on?

17:16 *another specific recommended action includes “Modernizing zoning to support commercial-to-residential conversions and greater density along transit corridors”… do we feel there is enough attention being paid specifically to infrastructure?

18:35 *do we need to keep building up, or should we be more focused on building out

19:43 *how big a factor is municipal NIMBYism in all of this?

 22:08 *is the “red tape” summed up, pretty much zoning and infrastructure issues?

25:48 *there’s a need for more skilled workers, more tradespeople, is immigration the answer, or is incentivizing people who already reside here, and furthermore our youth to get into those types of jobs… and is the lack of labour a main cause of our housing crisis?

 27:17 *simply put - if we had less red tape when it comes to construction, do we think we could have more people working these jobs… is one slowing down the other?

28:44 *what is your take on the influx of immigration?

34:27 *there are of course a lot more moving parts to the housing crisis, what final thoughts do you have on the topic of housing affordability and what’s a big action step takeaway for everyone tuned in today?

35:57 *why did we have to make the ORWP mandatory, and do we feel if it was optional that we would have had a different outlook from our membership about the program?

41:01 *TRESA is now up and running, anything you want to share about it today…current state?