This ONE Street Tells Us All We Need to Know!

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]Okay, so in this video I am out on the road and I'm on one specific road in Niagara Falls to show you what the problem with the Canadian housing market is. This one road can summarize the whole Canadian housing market and what's wrong with it and new construction, whatnot. So right now I'm standing in front of just some random development.

[00:00:21]Now here's the problem. This place has been sitting here since last year, maybe the year before. They did move some dirt around. There's no services and but nothing's been happening here. There's Yeah, there's nothing. If you look over here behind me, there's shrubs and weeds and stuff growing on the hills. Like, this is how long it's been vacant. I thought with the HST rebate, they would probably launch this neighborhood, but they haven't launched it yet. But, uh, anyway, this is again one of the issues here. We're getting all these projects that, you know, the developers start but then they can't continue because prices dropped and their proformas don't work out or they don't make sense and the price per square foot. They just can't build because it didn't make sense because they paid so much for these lots and this land and I don't know how much these guys paid. But again, to develop it, it costs a lot of money. And moving on to the next issue with the housing market with the Canadian housing market is the neighborhood right beside this one that is not again this has been years here that there's two lots I think for sale at least two lots for sale in there and they're $400,000 each and this is in the middle of nowhere. It's the outskirts of Niagara Falls, but it's the middle of nowhere.

[00:01:32]And you got $400,000 for each lot, which someone probably paid similar to that.

[00:01:38]But it doesn't make sense to build a house on it. Now, there was probably a small builder, a small corporation or whatever that bought it, but they can't build a house. And by the time they they sell that lot and say someone was to buy it and they pay the HST on it and the development charges, which I hope would be paid, but maybe they have, maybe they haven't. I think they have been in there, but you're at like $450,000 for a lot before you even put a foundation on it. So again, the land is too expensive. It should be $150,000 for a lot in there at this point in time, even with inflation. Now, before I leave this location, one more thing about this neighborhood here. There was some arguing, debating, differences of opinions on this. the Ontario Municipal Board stepped in and said, "No, you can go ahead and develop the 500 homes and town homes, whatever is going in here, but there's a company behind a chemical company, and they said, "No, you're within our boundaries. We need to satisfy. We need to do tests. We need to do surveys and whatnot to make sure that it's safe to build here because if there's ever an accident at our factory, you know, the chemicals might blow over here." and we have protocols and there's things in place that we need to satisfy within the city and regional dimensions of government. Well, the municipal board came and says, "No, no, no. We don't care about that. Uh, you can go ahead and do it." And it was the company behind that said, "We need you to go through the process of making sure this is safe cuz you're within our ark." They call it an ark. And the province said, "No, no, no. Go ahead and build. We don't care what you guys say. We need to build houses." But that was year, two years ago. Nothing's happened here. Why has nothing happened? I thought they're in business to build houses, but obviously not cuz it just doesn't make sense. Okay, next up on the list, we have a few sites here. I would like to say these have been here for years, but it's probably more like decades. These are probably land bankers, speculators for sure, trying to flip lands that it's never worked out. And this is not just recent purchases. This is crazy. But, uh, let me show you here. It's a busy street and there's no sidewalk over there. I'm going to zoom in. All right, here's the first one. There is a public notice sign over there, a public meeting, but see how faded that sign is.

[00:03:56]Look, it's it's old.

[00:03:59]And yeah, it hasn't been dealt with.

[00:04:01]It's so old. It's all faded off. There's another one up here. We're going to walk up to it. Same thing. Faded sign. Busy road, right? This has been decades like this, but nothing's happened. All right, here's the next one. All faded. There's a real estate company's name on it there, but whatever. It is so faded. It has been there, I don't know, that's probably eight years, that sign at least. No trespassing. All faded out.

[00:04:29]That used to be orange, that no trespassing. It's all like white now.

[00:04:32]And the last one is over here. This one looks a lot newer.

[00:04:38]It's maybe some town houses there. I think they're going to build notice.

[00:04:42]Niagara Falls notice. So hopefully that happens. But again, look at the product they're building, right? Towns. This is not what people in Nagra want. They want detached, affordable, detached, not just towns. And yeah, so that's the last one.

[00:04:56]It only looks like a pocket full. Just a small, you know, six town houses or something they're looking to build there. All right. Next up, we have all these homes here. It's what, four of them. And there's more as you go along down the street, but they're all sitting empty. and have been for years because somebody again speculating land banking, they think they're going to develop these things sooner or later or the the value of this land is going to be worth millions because someone's going to build some overpriced condos or town houses. And this is where it was headed up until 2022, but not anymore. And I'll show you just how long and just how abandoned these houses are because they have been deenergized. Electricity has been completely disconnected. If you look there, there is no electricity. No meters on them. There's another one right across the street here. We can zoom in better on that. Yeah, hydrometer is gone. They are waiting for the payday, these people. Again, a big issue with the Canadian housing market. Homes have been bought, but nothing have been done for years. And even when they do build on them, Minecraft looking stacked towns that you probably wouldn't want to buy. Good for investors, rent them out.

[00:06:14]Actually, probably not good for investors because of the price they paid. But if they were priced right, they would be good. So, yeah, Stack Towns is seems to be the thing to do.

[00:06:22]There's more over here behind me. Yeah, there's a whole bunch more. And this is what they're doing. Buying up those old houses and building stacked towns when it makes sense. But it doesn't even make sense right now. So that's why these other places are sitting vacant. Now we're at kind of the center of the non-development development sites in on this road. Not even in Niagara, it's just on this road. And this one here behind me has been sitting like this for a while. They have sewer concrete, whatever they're called, uh sewers back there that have never been installed.

[00:06:56]They've been here for a while, these ones. And right across the street here, I'm going to turn the camera around. We have another big corner lot here.

[00:07:02]probably two acres or so, three acres.

[00:07:06]Uh, it was sitting here for a while. It finally did sell, so that's good. There are some new town houses over back there. You see those towns? So, this is what you're getting. Town houses. No detach. It's been a while since I've seen detached. And across the street, this is really interesting. This one across the street, they are actually building. And that was a condo development that was set to be built, but because the market changed, they switched it to purpose-built rentals.

[00:07:36]And on the sign over there, I did post this on my ex a while back, but you can see on the sign here, let me just zoom in. It says rental community coming soon. That used to say condos coming soon or register now or something. So that is purpose-built rentals. They took advantage of their government incentives to change pivot from their overpriced condos and now they're building purpose-built rentals which you will see a ton of purpose-built rentals. But yeah, there's a lot of development sites on this part of Mloud Road. This is Mloud Road. This is the road I'm on right here. But uh not a lot happening in the form of enduser homes. This one here is the only new thing I'm actually seeing being constructed. The rest are just sitting here taking up space, taking up MLS space probably. And here's another sign of a promised development, non-development.

[00:08:32]So old you can barely make out the picture. I can't even see what it is. I can't see the name, but uh looks like there's some homes on it. And would you look at that? The sun finally came out.

[00:08:41]So here we have the motherload of development opportunities, but the government and this company Marineland cannot figure out what to do with these poor beluga whales that are suffering supposedly in there according to some reports. There is news articles out there. I don't want to make these claims, but they are making these claims. And there is literally hundreds of acres and hectares here, but they have no plan. They don't know what's going to happen to this. The owner has died. The husband, the son, his son has even died. And nothing is happening with this land. There's been talks. Maybe we'll make it into another theme park, says Doug Ford.

[00:09:23]There is literally a opportunity here.

[00:09:25]These people have had this land for 50 plus years. They've had this land for a long time, and there's a lot of land here. Might have to get rid of some buried animals in the back, but this is a great opportunity. But nothing is happening. The bigger the project, the longer it takes and the more bureaucracy they have. They're not even at the point of discussing what can be done here.

[00:09:48]They still have to get rid of what's happened in the past. And it's a shame this one. I don't like talking about it too much. I used to come here as a kid and watch the whales jump and all this, but now we're at the point where they can't even save these whales or get them somewhere suitable because of the bureaucracy in Ontario. And anyway, this one's a shame, but I'd like to see this turned into housing at one point. Let me know in the comments what do you think.

[00:10:13]I think this would be a great location.

[00:10:16]And uh but again, there's too much greed involved in this kind of stuff and everybody just wants to get rich off of this. And last on my list is the old boat house location in Chipua.

[00:10:28]Technically, we have changed roads, but physically it is the same road. Mloud Road turns into Portage Road. This place here, it's a hole in the ground with some rebar and some concrete in it. It has been sitting here for like a decade.

[00:10:43]Many residents think that it was a water problem in the basement cuz the river's right there. But I've also heard they went bankrupt. I think they went bankrupt and it is now just a hole in the ground and the restaurant that used to be there is no longer. It's still there but it's not open which is a shame because that was a good hangout for a lot of people. This was actually called Riverwalk. Supposed to be a nice condo building. Again, this place is pushing a decade. Look at the plywood. Look at how old it is. Look at this old I-beam here.

[00:11:13]This was precoid. There is no excuses besides money that this wasn't developed.

[00:11:20]And how long will this sit here? Another 10 years? Who knows? But what a shame.

[00:11:25]It is right beside the parkway. The river's right there. And what an eyesore on this community. So anyway, that's it for this video. That is what's wrong with the Canadian housing market and the Canadian housing in general in one street alone. In a suburban place like Niagara, there's many places like this.

[00:11:46]Bigger cities have bigger problems, bigger development sites. But this is the problem. Too many people or too many developers or land bankers got involved with no real plan with speculative pricing. No plan to actually develop. Of course, we do see some develop, but too many of them just wanted to make money, reszone, put a sign on the property, and sell it for double. And it didn't happen. And there was no real plan, which is terrible. Like, have a plan or just get out of here. you shouldn't be allowed to build. Niagara Falls is actually talking about your building permit expiring after one year if you don't break ground, which I think is a great idea, which will weed out a lot of the speculators, flippers, development flippers, and all the rest of it.

[00:12:28]Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments and if you have any sites like these in your local neighborhoods or communities. And until next video, I'll see you then.