Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government has pledged to build 500,000 new homes a year. But how exactly does the government plan to get it done?
One of the more modern strategies is modular and prefabricated homes – factory-built units assembled on-site in a matter of days instead of months. Once more common in rural Canada, prefab homes are now finding favour in urban areas like Saskatoon.
Under a new initiative called Build Canada Homes (BCH), the government plans to offer $25 billion in financing to prefab developers in order to build homes “faster, smarter, more affordably, and more sustainably.”
Carney is also reviving the Multiple Unit Rental Building (MURB) tax allowance from the 1970s. It helped create over 190,000 rental units back then, and could once again boost construction and the conversion of existing buildings into affordable rentals.
The timing is right – purpose-built rental starts have quadrupled in the past decade as provincial programs respond to rising demand.
Smaller housing types like laneway houses and garden suites are gaining traction too. Calgary, for example, has waived permit fees for secondary suites until the end of 2026, helping bring more affordable rental units to neighbourhoods dominated by single-family homes.
With these combined efforts, rental housing is poised to become a core pillar of Canadian real estate.
More rental market headlines
How Mark Carney plans to tackle Canada's housing crisis – PayProp blog
Canada needs more homes. Prefabricated houses could fill the void – CBC
Top 3 reasons you should invest in garden suites – PayProp blog
