A Factual Take on Infill and Affordability
Our thanks to Better Infill for this excellent deep dive into infill affordability. We share their content below for your reference.
A Deeper Look at Infill and Affordability
In this article, Better Infill explores the fraught relationship between infill housing, densification, and affordability. Spoiler alert: the intuitive sense that increasing the number of infill units automatically improves housing affordability is not how the infill market works. You can read the article in twelve to fifteen minutes or skip among the subtitles to read sections.
Highlights:
After Edmonton’s new zoning system de-regulated infill in 2024, Edmonton became “Canada’s Hottest Housing Market,” with housing prices rising to record levels.
The price surge comes despite slowing population growth: Edmonton’s population growth rate fell by two-thirds from its peak in 2023 and has returned to historically normal levels.
Edmonton’s City Plan calls for 600,000 more people to move into the mature neighbourhoods inside the Henday. If the city increases demand for land by 600,000 people without significantly increasing supply, prices will jump.
Investors are flooding into Edmonton from out of province and offshore to cash in on the easy action, outbidding locals for properties and amassing portfolios. The profitability can be astonishing, potentially recreating the upward spiral of speculation and price increases seen in other cities.
Edmonton’s new zoning system is making housing affordability generally worse, not better.
1. What does the evidence show?
It’s a common claim that building more infill will reduce problems with housing affordability. This is like claiming that putting more food in grocery stores will reduce problems with urban hunger. It just isn’t that simple. In both cases people in need are left on the outside looking in.
Walk around your neighbourhood and count the number of infill homes that are cheaper than the old homes they replaced. You won’t find many. It’s not just skinny homes that are more expensive; condos and row houses generally cost more than the apartments and homes they replaced. In a bitter irony, this more expensive infill usually requires the demolition of less expensive homes and apartments. Research by Steve Pomeroy of McMaster University reveals that for every new housing unit built, several existing affordable ones are lost.[i]
It’s a common claim that Edmonton has a housing affordability crisis, similar to claims about Vancouver and Toronto. But the average price of a home (detached houses, town homes, and condos) in Edmonton in July 2025 ($420,900) was just over one-third the price in Greater Vancouver ($1,165,000) and well under one-half the price in Greater Toronto ($981,000),[ii] while the median income in Edmonton was higher.[iii]
Edmonton may have a housing affordability crisis, but it affects a far smaller slice of the market than elsewhere: the working poor; some immigrants and refugees; a portion of the Indigenous population; and the hard to house. The housing needs of these people, desperate as they are, must be met primarily through publicly supported housing, which Edmonton’s new approach to infill does little to address.
Unfortunately, Edmonton’s housing affordability is eroding. Effective January 1, 2024, council’s new zoning bylaw made it far easier for investors to demolish and build in mature neighbourhoods. Investors flocked in from out of province and offshore to cash in on Edmonton’s de-regulated market, often outbidding locals for properties.[iv] Real Estate Magazine called Edmonton “Canada’s Hottest Market.”[v] The Canadian Real Estate Association reported that in the first year of Edmonton’s new zoning bylaw the price of single detached homes rose 7.2% to record levels; and the average prices of apartment units and townhouses rose 6.5%,[vi] among the highest jumps in Canada.
City councillors defended the price jumps by pointing to Edmonton’s rapid population growth. But Edmonton’s population growth rate peaked in 2023 at 4.7%, declined in 2024, and is expected to fall further in 2025, to the historically normal rate of 1.5%.[vii] With the new zoning bylaw, housing prices rose to record levels even as population growth rates slowed.
2. What was going on?
The cost of land. In Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods, it’s not unusual for three-quarters of the price of a home to be attributed to the value of the land. Families seldom think of it this way, but when they pay $700,000 for a nice older home, they’re likely paying about $500,000 for the land and only $200,000 for the house.
In cities like Vancouver the supply of land is strictly limited by ocean and mountains, so the value of land has spiked and housing prices have soared. Even in large condo developments, the tiny amount of land allocated for an individual unit in Vancouver can account for most of the unit’s price.
In Edmonton, relatively inexpensive land is readily available all around the city, so the city has grown outwards. This poses dilemmas: do we help keep housing prices affordable by spreading onto farmland, or do we protect farmland by increasing density and sacrificing affordability? Does the city government pay the costs of more roads and services in new suburbs, putting pressure on taxes, or does it force residents to pay more for housing? How much growth is too much? Will Edmonton be a better city with two million residents? Who benefits and who loses? In every case, there are trade-offs to debate.
A slow and steady pace of infill would allow Edmonton to renew its housing stock and increase density without fuelling inflation, as was happening under previous plans. But the 2020 City Plan combines de-regulated infill with extremely aggressive densification, calling for 600,000 more residents to move into the neighbourhoods inside the Henday.[viii] This is equivalent to adding three-quarters of the population of Winnipeg onto land that is already almost completely occupied.
The City Plan fails to confront this effect and instead commits to “maintain and enhance Edmonton’s relative affordability advantage.”[ix] This contradiction cuts to the core of the City Plan.
3. A small and painful exception.
While the new infill bylaws help fuel a broad rise in land and housing costs, they can simultaneously knock down value for individual properties. Widespread anecdotal evidence from homeowners and real estate agents suggests properties adjacent to infill projects such as eight-plexes often lose value. Families are reluctant to buy a home when an extra-tall, extra-long residential box with multiple entrances, porch lights, exhaust fans, and garbage bins looms barely a meter off the property line.
4. The cost of new construction.
Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods, which the City Plan brands as “redeveloping areas,” are packed with homes built fifty to one hundred years ago. Most are well maintained and many are renovated and modernized. There is economic magic in these homes: their construction was fully paid for decades ago, so apart from costs of operation, maintenance, and taxes, they provide their services for free. That is something to cherish.
When one of these fully-paid-for homes goes on the market, the buyer benefits by paying far less than if it were an equivalent brand-new home. This is a boon for affordability.
Infill policy that is too aggressive explodes this advantage. The already-paid-for building is demolished and the full cost of new construction must be covered in the new price. At roughly $350 per square foot for new construction, a once affordable older home usually becomes a costlier new one, whether detached house, rowhouse, condo, or apartment. Neighbourhoods gentrify and the city risks becoming more stratified by income.
5. The cost of financing.
In addition to the cost of the land and building, most home-buyers must pay the cost of a mortgage. When the price of a home goes up, the cost of a mortgage goes up even more, so a moderate increase in housing prices can cause a large increase in mortgage payments, even when interest rates remain the same.
For example, a family with an $80,000 down payment on a $400,000 home will pay $154,000 in interest over 25 years on a five percent mortgage. If the home price rises to $500,000, they will pay $221,000 in interest; a 25% rise in home price means a 44% rise in interest costs, even when interest rates remain unchanged. This can put home ownership out of reach for lower income families (though it’s a boon for lenders and banks). For renters, the added cost of higher financing gets added to rents.
6. The financialization of housing.
Since the early 2000s, housing in most of Canada has become less about being a home and more about being an investment. The market for detached homes, apartments, and condos shifted emphasis from people who want to live in them, to people and corporations who want to profit from them. As John Pasalis wrote in The Great Sell Off, “our homes became someone else’s business.” [x]
Once investors realized housing could be a low-risk, low-effort way to make money, an upward spiral began. New investors bid up the price of land and housing, which created nice returns for existing investors and encouraged more investors to buy, driving prices up further, creating even more profits, in turn attracting more investors. The spiral was fuelled by low interest rates, misguided public policies, and a simplistic faith that governments should stay on the sidelines and let market forces solve the country’s housing problems.
The effects were dramatic. For example, the benchmark price for all types of housing in Greater Vancouver in January 2010 was $546,200; by January 2025 it was $1,173,000. The benchmark price for a detached home in Vancouver was just over $2,000,000.[xi] In Edmonton it was $480,000.[xii]
Once an upward spiral takes hold, all homeowners get caught up as their property value soars, separating society into two classes—those who own property and those who don’t. A host of problems follow, from social division to reduced productivity. Home ownership becomes an impossible dream for many.
Until 2024, Edmonton avoided this dynamic. Despite a strong economy and growing population, housing costs stayed stable for years. There was a good balance of supply and demand. The zoning system respected mature neighbourhoods; encouraged a steady rise in infill and densification; and satisfied the needs of builders. In January 2023, the Canadian Homebuilders Association ranked Edmonton “the best of 21 Canadian cities for the easiest rules for building new homes.”[xiii] Edmonton had found a sweet spot other cities had long ago lost.
No longer. Three factors converged to fuel an investor frenzy in Edmonton infill. The first was low land costs. The second was a program introduced by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in 2022, called MLI Select. MLI Select provided mortgage insurance for up to 95% of the value of a mortgage on a mortgage of up to fifty years. It was intended to spur more housing in high-cost cities like Vancouver and Toronto by shifting risk to a public agency. To qualify, projects needed to meet certain criteria and have at least five units.
The third factor was Edmonton’s new zoning bylaw which, as of January 2024, automatically allowed up to eight units on a 50-foot-wide lot, virtually unknown elsewhere in the country.
Investors immediately realized they could buy land in Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods for a fraction of the cost in other cities, automatically get approval for eight units, and qualify for a fifty-year mortgage 95% insured by CMHC.
The profitability was mouth-watering. An investor putting up $400,000 could, in not much more than a year, collect that amount back plus $100,000 more, a 25% return on investment. For investors who had collateral and didn’t need to put up their own money, the returns could be far higher.
In addition, the investor ended up owning an 8-unit rental property with a low-interest fifty-year mortgage and an appraised value above two million dollars. The property would generate gross rental revenue well over $200,000 annually, enough to cover mortgage and operating costs and provide substantial income. As rents rose over time while the mortgage costs remained fixed, the profits would climb and climb.
To understand the greed that is disrupting Edmonton’s neighbourhoods, search YouTube, Facebook, or Google with terms such as “Own a Piece of Edmonton’s Real Estate Market” or “Edmonton 8-Plex Cash Flow Deals.”
Some investors have quickly assembled sizable portfolios of properties. One investor group, operating mostly under the name EverFor, acquired more than fifty properties in a handful of neighbourhoods by June 2025. In January 2025, EverFor’s website said it was a “subsidiary corporation (sic) of Jian Rong Estates Co. Ltd in China.” This information has since been removed.
The investor-driven dynamic that caused so much damage to housing markets in other Canadian cities was taking hold in Edmonton. In their drive for quick profits, infill investors were building to meet the criteria of the zoning bylaw and CMHC funding more than to meet the needs of end users.
7. Unintended consequences and the way ahead.
Municipal governments, like the cities they govern, are enormously complicated, and decisions can have repercussions that are not anticipated. Mostly, city governments bring about change through many small steps rather than one huge one. That way, unintended consequences don’t cause major problems and course corrections are easily made.
Edmonton’s City Plan and subsequent zoning bylaw, district plans, and district policy have been an attempt at one big change, wiping out the previous zoning system, rescinding all neighbourhood plans, and putting in place entirely unproven approaches. It’s a massive experiment that Edmonton’s citizens did not sign up for, because the details were not public at the last election. The result is a set of unintended consequences and a public backlash.
Neighbourhoods that were carefully planned when they were built, and then evolved organically for a lifetime, were suddenly subject to random developments at any location, without right of input or appeal. Trees that grew with these neighbourhoods and provided cooling, shade, and beauty, were clear cut for the convenience of developers. New developments required good homes be demolished and undercut demand for potential developments on long-vacant and often unsightly properties. In a city known for too much low-quality design,[xiv] people watched a surge of even lower-quality buildings lacking architectural or engineering supervision.
One of the justifications for this was the claim it would improve housing affordability, but it appears to be making affordability worse. Housing costs are rising faster than in most other markets in Canada, for reasons city hall should have anticipated. Others saw this coming and made warnings public, including Better Infill.[xv] If the City Plan remains in place and 600,000 more people are channelled into neighbourhoods inside the Henday, housing affordability will almost certainly get much worse.
The quickest fix is for city council to cut the number of units allowed on a lot to four, which is below the threshold of the CMHC’s MLI Select program, and then to re-open the City Plan and urgently re-think the zoning bylaw, district plans, and district policy.
The next time you hear someone claim Edmonton’s approach to infill housing is making affordability better, tell them to look deeper and think harder.
[i] Kerry Gold, Globe and Mail, June 20, 2025. “The federal government takes a lesson from B.C.’s Rental Protection Fund in fight for affordable housing.”
[ii] Canadian Real Estate Association National Price Map, July, 2025. crea.ca/housing-market-stats/canadian-housing-market-stats/national-price-map/
[iii] Wikipedia. List of cities in Canada by median household income, 2023.
[iv] Joel Schlessinger, Edmonton Journal, May 1, 2025. “Edmonton's real estate a national growth leader.
Edmonton’s resale market forecast to see among the most price growth by year’s end in Canada.”
[v] Mario Toneguzzi, Real Estate Magazine, April 10, 2025. “Edmonton is Canada’s ‘hottest’ market right now.”
[vi] Realtors Association of Edmonton. “Edmonton Median Price—second quarter 2025.” creastats.crea.ca/mls/edmo-median-price
[vii] Felicia Multheardy, City of Edmonton Chief Corporate Economist. Economics Society of Northern Alberta online presentation, May 17, 2025: youtube.com/watch?v=8x2wP6IVO4A
[viii] Edmonton City Plan, v 1.0, Charter Bylaw 20,000.
[ix] Edmonton City Plan, v 1.0, Charter Bylaw 20,000, pg. 48.
[x] See movesmartly.com/thegreatselloff
[xi] Greater Vancouver Realtors MLS HPI Home Price Comparison. gvrealtors.ca/market-watch/MLS-HPI-home-price-comparison.hpi.greater_vancouver.all.all.2024-1-1.html
[xii] CREA Home Price Index: crea.ca/housing-market-stats/mls-home-price-index/hpi-tool/
[xiii] Lauren Boothby. “Edmonton ranked top Canadian city for easiest housing construction rules by industry group.” Edmonton Journal, January 11, 2023.
[xiv] For example, see CBC News, “The mayoral feud that saw Edmonton compared to ‘a clapboard outhouse,” cbc.ca/archives/the-mayoral-feud-that-saw-edmonton-compared-to-a-clapboard-outhouse-1.5524781; or Colby Cash, Maclean’s, July 11, 2013, “Edmonton’s Own Worst Enemy.” macleans.ca/uncategorized/edmontons-own-worst-enemy-3/
[xv] Better Infill, Edmonton Journal, October 14, 2023. “Zoning Bylaw Brings Unintended Consequences.”