Home Affordability and the Ontario Election

Evaluating Housing Affordability in the Ontario Election

With the provincial election fast approaching on June 7th 2018, we asked GTA residents to select the two most-important issues of the Ontario election campaign – one in four (25%) selected housing affordability in their top-two, behind healthcare (39%), government spending/balancing the budget (27%), and taxes (27%).

By subgroup, women, Millennials and 416 residents are most likely to indicate housing affordability as their top-two most important election issue.

When it comes time to go to the polls, most Ontarians claim healthcare (88%), taxes (83%) and energy costs (82%) will be the issues from party’s platforms that will influence their vote choice. However, housing affordability and transportation/traffic are still highly influential with seven in ten who claim it will influence who they check on their ballot box (68% and 67%, respectively).

To address housing affordability issues in the GTA, nearly six in ten (56%) residents believe that government policies should focus equally on increasing the supply of housing, as well as reducing the demand of housing. This is most likely to be communicated from 905 residents (59% vs. 52% 416). Few think the focus should be on curbing demand.

Land Transfer Taxes

Overall, when evaluating provincial and municipal land transfer taxes, GTA residents are more supportive towards reducing both taxes than they are of repealing both taxes.

• 77% support reducing the provincial land transfer tax vs. 68% repealing the provincial land transfer tax
• 76% support reducing the Toronto municipal land transfer tax vs. 69% repealing the Toronto municipal land transfer tax

Among those not considering listing their home for sale in the next year, two in ten say a reduction in the LTT they paid on their next home would make them more likely (5% much/16% somewhat) to list their property for sale.

Reflecting specifically on the Toronto municipal land transfer tax, 416 residents remain statistically tied on whether the City independently should be allowed to set the land transfer tax, without provincial approval, or if the municipal tax should be tied with the provincial tax increasing and decreasing in sync (52% vs. 48%, respectively).