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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 BCBUSINESS 27 BCBUSINESS.CA But the couple chose to rent instead. First it was a downtown apartment, later a duplex in Kits Point, where they were thrilled with the supportive community and convenient neighbourhood they found for themselves and their toddler. They were willing to pay a hefty amount, if necessary, rather than sinking all of their time and financial resources into the hand-to-hand combat needed to buy something in the Vancouver market, particularly when they knew they could comfortably afford to rent. "In Regina, we weren't worried about taking a loss. And, in Regina, if you're not too fussy, there's a house for you right now. But in Vancouver, if there's a 10-percent drop and we had to move, that would be a big loss. And we don't have spare time to commit five to 10 hours a week for six months to look," he says. Buchanan is not what people might think of as a typical renter in Canada in the 21st century. And, until a few years ago, he wasn't. Not that long ago, renting was seen as a world dominated by younger people, new arrivals, workers who need to move around for jobs, seniors on pensions and, well, poor people of all ages. But, over the last few years, more and more people like Buchanan are showing up in the rental world as the price of owning a home in Canada rises like a spaceship trying to achieve escape velocity. And while prices have cooled somewhat recently, things aren't any more affordable than they were due to the substantial increase in interest rates. Buchanan appreciates the fact that, at least, he had options in the rental world. "It's working fine for me, but it's very obvi- ously a terrible situation for the vast major- ity of people," he says. The proportion of people renting is tick- ing up after decades of decline, as home ownership has become either completely out of reach or, in Buchanan's case, so finan- cially illogical that even paying a small for- tune in rent makes more sense. Multiplied by tens of thousands, that dynamic is con- tributing to what was already a bad situa- tion in Rent World: freezing-level vacancy rates, waves of renovictions by landlords who want to pry long-term rent-controlled tenants out in favour of higher-income rent- ers, and a general sense of insecurity. It has also hobbled one part of the housing motor that was still working. For decades, what had made the rental market function with something approaching normalcy was the steady movement of renters with reason- able incomes into home ownership. That freed up rentals on a steady basis. "In the '90s, there was very easy access to home ownership. About 800,000 renters left the market [in that period], creating so many vacancies," says Steve Pomeroy, an Ottawa-based consultant who has long been analyzing the Canadian housing market. "Now you have a whole bunch of wannabe homeowners becoming renters." The trend is altering the political land- scape. Younger people who feel like they're shut out of any sense of housing stability are frustrated and even angry. That's driven some to support anti-development politi- cians. Others, like Buchanan, swing more to the YIMBY, build-as-much-as-you-can side. It's made Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre suddenly popular with younger people as he rants about the lack of housing affordability. It's also altering the dynamics of a Cana- dian housing universe that has been pre- occupied for decades with homeowners: federal and provincial policies have focused almost exclusively for the last 30 years on how to get as many people as possible into the ownership market. An unintended consequence of that focus was the near elimination of new apartment buildings purpose-built to be rentals forever. After the federal govern- ment cancelled certain tax benefits for apartment investors and builders that had been in place during the '60s and '70s and, at the same time, individual provinces intro- duced legislation to create the conditions for condo ownership, the idea of building for renters almost disappeared. Apartment developers started to realize that building and selling condos was a lot easier and came with a quicker financial reward. Now, it's become apparent that many people who might have been buyers in CITY & METRO: RENTAL STARTS 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 ■ REST OF CMA RENTAL ■ CITY RENTAL R E A L E STAT E