Peter Norman

Don’t expect a lot of new condominium highrise tower cranes to swing over the Greater Toronto Area in the next couple of years as the pipeline of projects dries up in the housing economy. That’s the word from Peter Norman, Altus Group’s vice-president, chief economist and the keynote speaker at the Light-Frame Wood Solutions Conference and trade show recently in Woodbridge, Ontario. While a “gradual” increase of single family housing starts is forecast in the next two years partly because of thawing interest rates, the highrise condo market is expected to be “sharply lower and will not recover in 2025,” he said. Norman called his speech Controlling the Boil because “there is a lot of stress in the outlook” resulting from the urgent need for housing at a time when the economy is “unsteady.” …It is not all dark and gloomy, however.