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Earlier this month, TREB sent a letter to OREA, saying it has “serious trepidations” about the message and its focus on Toronto and wants OREA to stick to its mandate to promote the province’s housing market as a whole.

“It is naive to suggest the dream of home-ownership is dead or dying. It’s alive and well in every Canadian city and beyond. To state otherwise is misleading to the consumer,” TREB president Tim Syrianos wrote in a letter obtained by The Canadian Press to OREA President David Reid.

OREA and TREB have said little about their skirmish, but released a joint statement saying the letter is “not reflective of the long standing and positive relationship” between the organizations, and that they hope to resolve the discussions “amicably and internally.”

When asked about why OREA was continuing to focus on the Toronto market, Hudak said: “I think there is going to be universal support across Ontario, when I talk to our local 38 realtor boards, to tell you why everywhere I go they say inventory is a major issue.”

“There are not enough starter homes in the marketplace and baby boomers are a very healthy generation that are holding onto family homes longer,” he continued. “The big lesson on this today is we need to increase housing supply particularly around starter homes and the missing middle.”

The missing middle refers to affordable so-called mid-rise homes such as townhouses, triplexes and duplexes that experts have identified as often lacking in the GTA.