REITs, Rent & Rage: Canada’s Housing Tug-of-War

​​In this episode of The Missing Middle, Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux unpack the controversy around REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and their role in Canada’s housing crisis. Are REITs really blocking affordable housing, or is the real issue deeper than greedy landlords? Mike and Sabrina break down how REITs work, why they’ve become political scapegoats, and what actually needs to change to build more truly affordable homes. If you’ve ever wondered who should be our landlords — mom-and-pops, corporations, or governments — this is the conversation you need to hear.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:55 Who should our landlords be?

03:44 Real Estate Investment Trusts 

04:45 Mutual fund trust

05:45 Canada has an undeveloped REIT system

06:53 REIT push back on affordable housing

09:12 Who is to blame for affordable housing not getting built?

10:30 All of the other things that make it expensive to build

12:09 Should the government build more affordable housing?

12:37 Someone has to pay so who should it be? 

16:11 What do we mean by affordable units?

Research/links:

Ford government scrapped Toronto affordable housing requirements after pushback from three REITs, documents show

Reddit thread

Everyone Wants Rentals, but No One Wants Landlords

REIT data

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.