Have you considered the impact of former residents moving out because of (a difficult thing to know or quantify) the influx of migrants? That could effectively be displacing the overall effect of rising housing costs to outlying areas that you're not looking at.
Also, have you considered that mass migration to these areas might make them less desirable places for native Canadians to live (what we, in the US, used to call 'white flight' when blacks began moving into white neighborhoods)?
Both of these factors might have a negative impact on shelter costs which would make the strong correlation you've already established even more profound.
It would be interesting to push deeper into those topics - assuming I could find good data.
Amusingly, the city of Ottawa had its own version of "white flight" back in the 60s and 70s, even though its downtown core didn't really deteriorate. My theory was that "flight" was just something all the best people did back then. :)
My question is this data directed at Canada as a whole? Or if you target it to Toronto or Vancouver (where the population has had an immigration surge) does your conclusion change?
This data uses just migration to Statistics Canada's 16 large metro areas (some of which aren't really that large). So we're ignoring rural areas.
I could have narrowed it down further to just Toronto and Montreal, but the sample size would have been far too small to be useful. As far as I can see, this is the best data we're going to get.
David, I caution you again not to put much faith in simple correlations between complex phenomena. You recognize that the correlation does not prove causality but even just assuming that the correlation is 'real' can be a fallacy. There are no shortcuts to developing a proper hypothesis.
Is it feasible to consider the impact of investors in real estate prices? I've read in a few different places that investors make up as much as 20-40% of real estate purchases, depending on location, and housing type. I suspect that this has a higher impact on rising prices than immigration would. Thanks for your great work.
Have you considered the impact of former residents moving out because of (a difficult thing to know or quantify) the influx of migrants? That could effectively be displacing the overall effect of rising housing costs to outlying areas that you're not looking at.
Also, have you considered that mass migration to these areas might make them less desirable places for native Canadians to live (what we, in the US, used to call 'white flight' when blacks began moving into white neighborhoods)?
Both of these factors might have a negative impact on shelter costs which would make the strong correlation you've already established even more profound.
It would be interesting to push deeper into those topics - assuming I could find good data.
Amusingly, the city of Ottawa had its own version of "white flight" back in the 60s and 70s, even though its downtown core didn't really deteriorate. My theory was that "flight" was just something all the best people did back then. :)
My question is this data directed at Canada as a whole? Or if you target it to Toronto or Vancouver (where the population has had an immigration surge) does your conclusion change?
This data uses just migration to Statistics Canada's 16 large metro areas (some of which aren't really that large). So we're ignoring rural areas.
I could have narrowed it down further to just Toronto and Montreal, but the sample size would have been far too small to be useful. As far as I can see, this is the best data we're going to get.
David, I caution you again not to put much faith in simple correlations between complex phenomena. You recognize that the correlation does not prove causality but even just assuming that the correlation is 'real' can be a fallacy. There are no shortcuts to developing a proper hypothesis.
From your data can you determine how many times out of ten this assumption would be true?
Is it feasible to consider the impact of investors in real estate prices? I've read in a few different places that investors make up as much as 20-40% of real estate purchases, depending on location, and housing type. I suspect that this has a higher impact on rising prices than immigration would. Thanks for your great work.
Interesting idea. Although a quick look at the complexity of the data tells me that it might be a while before I get to this one.