I live in a small-mid sized city in Ontario. The biggest issue with our lack of housing is a hugely corrupt local government that has introduced a TON of extra fines and red tape to the building process. Plus there's a tremendous amount of "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" with the local building companies (of which there are functionally two). This all means that it's prohibitively difficult and expensive for any new developers to enter the scene and the best margins exist in the $500k+ range for new houses. It's a nightmare.