What do cheesy Jean-Claude Van Damme movies and Canada’s rental housing crisis have in common? Apparently, more than you’d think! In this episode of The Missing Middle, Sabrina Maddeaux and Mike Moffatt hop in their imaginary time machine to explore how a long-forgotten 1970s tax trick—MURBs—might make a comeback to boost rental housing today. Will this retro loophole help fix our sky-high rents, or just mess with the condo market even more? Grab your popcorn and find out how investors, multiplexes, and a bit of tax magic could change the housing game all over again.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:51 Investing in housing: a time travel scenario
03:46 Why building apartments wasn’t a great investment
04:47 History of creating rental stock
06:07 Understanding the MERB
08:32 MURB tax deferrals
10:24 How MURB impacts condo construction
11:53 MURB now vs 1970s
13:19 The historical context of MERB and its implications
Research/links:
Time Cop trailer
The Quiet Death of the Investor Condo? MURBs May Change the Game
Hosts:
Sabrina Maddeaux https://x.com/SabrinaMaddeaux
Mike Moffatt https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt https://bsky.app/profile/mikepmoffatt.bsky.social
Producer: Meredith Martin
https://twitter.com/meredithmartin
@meredithmartin.bsky.social
Editor: Sean Foreman
@seanegertonforeman
@seanforeman.bsky.social
This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation https://neptis.org/
Brought to you by the Missing Middle Initiative https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/
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.
