City losing people to the regions
The city has been losing people since the pandemic began, as people began fleeing to the regions.
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Kate
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Joey 13:47 on 2022-01-13 Permalink
A .05% decline and La Presse says the city is emptying out. I wonder how much of that is international students.
Joey 14:13 on 2022-01-13 Permalink
Sorry, that should read 0.5%, not .05%…
GC 15:12 on 2022-01-13 Permalink
Is there any reason to think it will continue after the Pandemic is over? Maybe, if remote work continues to be more of a thing. I’m not sure there’s any reason to panic, though. I’m curious how it compares to other sizeable cities in Canada/USA. They compare it to other cities in Quebec, in the article, but there’s a whole world out there…
Kate 18:48 on 2022-01-13 Permalink
News today also talks about Toronto losing people. I’ve seen stories about how people are leaving London for smaller towns.
The irony is that big-city people can ruin small-town life for people who were already living there. I saw something recently about how rents in Sherbrooke have become unaffordable, for example.
Kevin 09:54 on 2022-01-14 Permalink
It is the largest decline in 20 years. 2.6% according to Stats Qc, although they appear to be including deaths to get that figure.
Joey 11:01 on 2022-01-14 Permalink
@Kevin don’t all time-series statistics need to be interpreted with extreme caution because of COVID? In the past 20 years only 2020 and 2021 are serious outliers.
Anyway, La Presee yesterday said Montreal is emptying out, that’s why today it reports home prices are up 10% year over year, because everyone is fleeing.
Kate 13:08 on 2022-01-14 Permalink
Joey, what’s the logic? Fewer people, less demand, why would home prices rise?
Joey 14:09 on 2022-01-14 Permalink
@Kate – that’s the point of my sarcasm, no? The city “se vide” says La Presse but the price of homes continues to skyrocket. Either the city is not actually emptying or prices are increasing despite falling demand.
BTW the difference between the number I quoted and the one Kevin cited, I think, is the difference between greater Montreal area (mine) and Montreal Island. It seems as if the net decline in Montreal Island population is offset by a net increase in non-Montreal-Island but still greater Montreal population. Anyhow, the data is for the year ending July 1, 2021, meaning the trend may have already abated with the return of international students in the fall (“Avec la reprise de l’immigration internationale observée l’été dernier, le phénomène devrait s’estomper dans les données qui seront publiées l’an prochain. « Dans quelle mesure, il faudra voir, mais à mon avis, c’est le changement auquel il faut s’attendre pour l’année prochaine », estime la démographe.”)
Kevin 14:44 on 2022-01-14 Permalink
Housing prices rise because of the mismatch in supply and demand.
It has been decades since Canada built enough family sized homes to match the population increases. Instead cities have built tremendous numbers of small condos.
So even though more homes went on the market in Montreal the past 2-3 years, there weren’t enough of the places that families wanted, hence bidding wars and, as the demos show, an exodus of families.
And that is without even getting into the places that have been taken off the market and changed into Airbnb’s.