ANALYSIS: You can’t make housing more affordable without making it cheaper

About 75% of Canadian home sales are existing homes, so lowering resale prices is essential for affordability. Federal officials emphasize increasing supply and cutting costs for new builds, but true affordability requires prices of existing homes to drop. Without this, housing remains unaffordable, especially in markets like Toronto. Policies must balance improving affordability with the political challenge of reducing homeowners' gains from past price surges.