A new house for sale in the Magdalen Islands for $795,000 is causing a huge reaction on social media. Some Madelinots fear that housing on the archipelago will become increasingly difficult for those who do not earn a high salary.
“Not all houses sell for $800,000, but there is definitely an increase in value [des propriétés vendues aux Îles-de-la-Madeleine]says André St-Onge, mobilization agent for the network of social development partners in the islands.
Prioritizing year-round living on the islands is important to Mr. St-Onge, who has been in the homebuilding business for thirty years.
“What we need are residents. There are people who come all year round and want to contribute to the islands, but these people are held back by the availability of apartments or houses.”
“The islands are not impermeable to the rest of the world. We live in a consumer society, people want better homes. They have the opportunity to sell their more expensive house and buy another one. That’s what happens,” he adds.
Not enough living space
The mayor of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Jonathan Lapierre, recognizes that there is a shortage of housing and houses to rent all year round. He recalls that before 2016 there was a population decline on the islands, which meant that “the value of houses has increased very little and the pressure on the number of apartments available was more or less there”.
Today, however, more residents settle in the archipelago than people leave it. However, the number of available apartments is not greater, which puts pressure on the real estate market, emphasizes the mayor.
reconstruction of the housing stock
In order to avoid a price explosion, it is therefore essential to increase the supply of residential and rental apartments for all income brackets, emphasizes André St-Onge. “We need to rebuild the housing stock with a diversity that we didn’t have,” he said.
He suggests, for example, building cooperatives, multi-generation houses, pairing of foreign workers in single dwellings and the expansion of social housing.
In 2022, the municipality of Les Îles announced nine new projects to boost rental housing construction. If they materialize, 101 new homes would be built by December 31, 2023.
However, the Madelinots are not used to turning to the rental market.
“In the islands, the model from the beginning of time has been that you buy a house. We don’t rent houses and we don’t build apartments for rent. So it’s 250 years of history that we’re trying to reverse,” explains Mayor Lapierre.
On February 8, the municipality also issued regulations to prohibit the conversion of a single-family home into tourist accommodation on its entire territory, unless it is a primary residence. The goal: to limit the purchase of houses in order to create accommodation for short-term rentals.