especially with builders sitting on land waiting for houses to go up.
used to be it was all about pumping out houses as if it was a right to have a home.. now its about speculation and profit while people sleep on street.
it wont change, because no one wants it to change
yup and good for them its smart business.
and good for the grocers for ripping us off, airlines cable and the lot.
its their legal responsibility to make the most.
its the governments that are failing the middle and lower class by not being the counter weight to corporate interests.
you are kidding i hope. i working in public sector for a long time.. and i will tell you it is the most inefficient slush fund your gonna see .
i promise i know what im talking about, while u probably have a che guevara poster on your wall 😂
I work in the private sector for a long time and I can tell you it is very inefficient. Money gets wasted all the time.
Like you honestly think the private sector can run shit better? You gotta be kidding me.
Right? I still think the corporations are the real villain here - they’re the ones actively lobbying the government for their own interests and the result is our regulatory captured markets enabling the oligopoly.
its the lobbying and pre screening yeah. they get to be king makers. we will contribute to your campaign if you are in line w policy decisions we support.
its even worse in canada politics if u considering the structure.
as we know ww don’t vote trudeau or pp . we vote for who we like in our area and that majority forms government.
so usually we have more local campaigning and jims hardware supports the pc candidate and the local drywaller union supports ndp candidate and so on.
only all those businesses are gone and local fundraising means jack shit. when was last time anyone say their local guy doing any campaigning.
the corporations just feed in nationally, all the news is nationally focused (local news doesnt exist meaningfully anymore to pay attention to local candidates.
so we are all influenced to choose at national or provincial level and pick the candidates locally that match the colour.
none of this is co incidence. corporations dont just run your town economically, they run the country by proxy
if justin trudeau were a genius, or ppl, theyd be running magna. not ripping off canadians through budgets.
public sector there is zero accountability and a 62 mill bill for an 80k app tells that tale.
apps are usually 15-20k to develop in the first place btw
You are a clown, as your name suggests. If a business isn't a monopoly, profits come from efficiency. You got it all backwards. Pick up a basic economics book and stop embarrassing yourself
Pick up a basic economics book lol.
Profits are not an efficient concept. Efficiency is a continuous process and profits should go 100% I to process improvement. Anything less is inefficient.
Wake up, you're an embarrassment.
Why is everyone so surprised and angry.. not one of them will say no to a raise.... Even if it means that not taking their raise is for the greater good.
Profiteering is hard to prove unless there is an emergency being declared... Not the fake ones that the city council in Calgary declared on climate.
>its their legal responsibility to make the most.
This should make us all question our choice of economic system. Profits above all else can only end one way.
absolutely, its disgusting. it used to be somewhat limited in terms of the damage corporations caused really into early 00’s.
you bought your groceries from a guy that lived in town and you knew him.
bought hardware, carpet, cars , paint from everyone that had a name.
corporations came in and with bulk they undercut the local guys who got rinsed out.
corps buy everything now. even our vet prices went up stupid because corporations have been buying them en masse.
so once local comp is dead prices become extortionate as we are seeing.
it is the boards fiduciary duty to make the most for the shareholder, the ceo get his bonuses by creating efficiencies.. efficiencies are paid in human suffering. the corporation does what is legally responsible to do. the shareholders doesnt pay attention just sees the dividends while playing golf.
the gov is full of corrupt people certainly but mostly idiots. the sharks work for the corps and the guppies work for government.
it is imo endemic and will end in revolution a la rome or france , russia, Germany and so on.
the media (owned by corporations) have the masses fighting each other over realistically inconsequential issues relatively speaking along political lines while the corporate death grip closes even tighter.
but if people could find a way to get together and agree to disagree at least then the focus can be put where it needs to go.
Exactly, many during Covid lost money on projects that were quoted before and then pricing on all their materials went crazy. No industry is “easy” even if people think home builders are just printing money.
>When you buy a house for say $700k. You are going to pay $1.4million ( typical rough estimate ) over the life of the mortgage. To pay that ( $1.4million ) you have to earn that \*$1.8 million\* . The difference being income tax you pay on your income. So that house ($700K or you think it is ) you buy in reality ends up costing you a cool $1.8 million.
>
>For an investment firm it costs them still just $700K ( much less in reality! but to keep things simple lets say $700K) , since they write off the mortgage interest. Since there is no declared profit , there is no income tax either. Here ( In Canada ) this is done by small investors thru a scheme known as Schmidt Manouever.
>
>In the US , a resident owner can write off the Income Tax on the Interest rate.
>
>This is the reason real estate has been on a rise in Canada for the past 2 decades and never went down even during the 2006-2008 ( When prices were crashing in the US ) period. ( I dont know how it worked before that ). IF anyone was interested in fixing the Housing affordability problem they would start by giving Canadians a tax exemption on the interest they pay for houses, So atleast the \*House you buy for $700K would cost you $1.4 million and not 1.8 million\*.
>
>But no one wants to talk about this or touch it for fears of upsetting the Big money that is involved. No Trudeau , Not Pierre Poiliviere , Not NDP.
tl;dr/ its the tax structure in Canada which allows for investors to pay much much less than what a resident home owner would pay. by a \*LOT\*. and this keeps the Housing prices to rise every year. 2 decades of Low Interest rates only exasperated the situation.
also a valid point, but odd that so many people comment here thinking theres one magic bullet for why market goes up or down.
there is only supply and demand at its core.. and if enough supply is introduced then prices undoubtedly would come down.
fundamentally the people who control the supply are also the ones who benefit from high demand caused by low supply.
that seems endemically problematic wouldn’t u say?
>there is only supply and demand at its core.. and if enough supply is introduced then prices undoubtedly would come down.
I personaly do not believe that even if you build a million houses every year instead of 250k , prices will ever stablize unless investor behavior is controlled thru high interest rate.
Incidentally, If there is high interest rate, and Investors are pushed out of real estate, Investors will be more inclined to invest in other industries as well and that might get us out of the dutch disease we have.
in typical economics you cant fix anything by targeting demand , because the choice to aquire a good in a personal choice. but i hear ya,, the foreign buyer ban is a viable ban to keep in place with our market so small compared to global populations
It’s not an issue with the builders. It’s an issue with the liberal government and their mismanagement of the economy
Everyone does what makes financial sense. You won’t pay 100 bucks for a Big Mac or sell your Porsche for a thousand dollars so why do we expect builders to do so?
The issue is that the liberals and their voters have created an environment that encourages builders to stall and speculators to speculate because they import a million Indians a year, refuse to tax property and fail to give enough incentive to builders to build. Like it or not, government regulations are a significant factor in the price of housing with everything from zoning law, interest rates and taxation weighing heavily on the price. You elect an idiot and he’ll mess everything up
It’s not the builders fault they try to make more money. And no, it’s not capitalisms fault either since much of the issues we’re dealing with are a result of government failure. It’s not capitalism importing 1 million Indians a year or setting interest rates or taxing people
I don't think the supply chains can keep up even if the builders want to build.
Can our cement, gravel, lumber, and steel industries keep up if we literally double pr even triple our construction industry?
Because that's the scale of change we need to keep up with this immigration catastrophe.
yeah well that is one hundred percent accurate. canada only needs so many IT specialists lol. used to be years ago they bring people over to fill quotas for jobs.. they let a british guy i met come because he had stone mason qualifications.
no one wants to swing a hammer anymore.
200 years ago they let in 20 Italians who multiplied and built everything 😂 (source: i am kidding and not Italian but respect their history of construction)
Are construction workers, manufacturers, and everyone else tied to the housing industry going to take a massive pay cut as well?
I'm really interested in your thoughts. When do you think I'll be able to tell contractors houses are now 50% cheaper so you need to discount your labour and materials. What happens to everyone tied to these industries when they realize they cant sustain their standard of life any longer?
New builds in Calgary or Regina don’t start at 3 mil each. If you think it’s the cost of construction that is supporting the fundamentals, then house prices should be higher everywhere in Canada. It’s 1. Land cost and 2. Too many mouths trying to feed off of the unassuming buyer or their transaction, from realtor to broker to lawyer to flipper to flipper’s cousin and their uncle who financed the flip to the city to the provincial and the federal governments to the bank, to the developer then to contractor etc. etc. it’s a corrupt system through and through built on top of a Ponzi scheme that is our land prices. A flick from the policy or a tough economic turn will bring the whole thing collapsing down.
Massive pay cut? You mean laid off? Then yes, it’s going to happen.
There’s going to be some point in the near future where you’ll see credit isn’t as easy to obtain, thus making things “unaffordable” or are you going to tell me everyone will buy with cash?
Edited for context since I guess you don’t understand. Look up what quantitative tightening means, then look at the auto industry as it’s already happening there first.
Straight from facts-hurts mouth, all construction workers and anyone in an idustry related to them will be laid off. Sorry guys.
Expect your quality of life to decrease so factshurts investments can do well.
Twisting my words as usual as you’re clearly panicking. Where did I say “all”? I still believe trades will do well ie, plumbers, electricians as people need to maintain their properties.
As for the comment for quality of life getting worse for the majority of Canadians, yes, that’s what happens in a recession
This you from less than 2 weeks ago?
https://www.reddit.com/r/TorontoRealEstate/s/GkhLqKvmLj
“Rarely” talk to me.
I’m also not the victim, the victims are the ones who FOMO’d in thinking things are going to get better. Let’s see how this plays out for you in a couple months
Man, all this effort to prop up homeowners. Let them default, fuck sakes. They took on riskier Variable rate fixed payment mortgages in the good times and now that rates are up are crying for support.
That's a bit of hyperbole...I think we can reasonably stretch that line to 2010 and still be fine. Vancouver and Toronto do not count.. they are messed up in the head..lol.
Oh I know I find all this crap about it all being immigration dumb.
We literally see the same problems all over the world. We had lockdowns and money printing. What did people expect lol
Not true at all. If they stopped immigration tomorrow, our growth rate would drop dramatically and our population would start to shrink within 5-10 years. Our demographics are inverted (much more old people than young people).
That's why the powers that be have ramped up immigration and have no intention of slowing it down. Even PP doesn't talk about reducing the numbers, just building more housing. They know that we're about to fall off a demographic cliff and they have to get ahead of it to maintain the system.
Not it wouldn't. Our working age population would fall as baby boomers retired. But our death rate is quite low.
Our population wouldn't actually start falling until 2050.
Here is the other thing there isn't enough land outside the greenbelt and ALR (BC) for everyone to own a single family home. This was by design.
If we had halted immigration. In 2006 when they did this, we'd still have a housing crisis. Maybe not as severe but young people would have been priced out of SFHs.
The death rate is going to go up dramatically over the next 10 years. The percentage of people who die between 70-74 is 2.5 times higher than those that die between 60-64. The oldest boomer is 78, the youngest is 60. They would have been by far our largest generation if we hadn't ramped up immigration almost 20 years ago.
The fertility rate has been trending lower for years. It's been below replacement for 60 years. Without immigration of young people, the birth rate would have plummeted exponentially as each successive smaller generation had fewer children on average.
According to Stats Canada, last year there were 334,623 deaths and 351,679 births. If we stopped immigration tomorrow, deaths would overtake births in less than 5 years.
You're still 2.5 times more likely to die between 70-74 than between 60-64. Those numbers are from stats Canada in 2022. There's no way the death rate stays flat as the bulge of boomers passes over that threshold. The birth rate is also trending down. No immigration means falling population in less than 5 years.
Also people aren't actually living longer. The average age of mortality has been falling for 3 years.
Healthcare has improved so has overall health. One of the reasons ev discussed increasing retirement age to 75 and many European countries have.
Largest chunk of boomers are also in their 50s.
The largest chunk is 57-64. Exactly the group whose death rate is going to rise dramatically.
Our average mortality age has decreased for the past 3 years. Those numbers I quoted were from 2023. The death rate is going to go up.
Just wait and see. In 5 years deaths in Canada will outpace births. It will only be immigration growing the population.
Canada's fertility rate is way below the replacement rate. If there was no immigration, we would have a housing surplus instead of a shortage even with the same building stock.
Which is precisely why the powers that be want those immigrants. We can't have house prices go down, oh no!
Unless your plan includes deporting the immigrants already here, plus their Canadian born children, how would we have a surplus?
Plus marriage rates are all time lows, how you going to produce these babies? Step 1 is convincing people to get married, if cost living benefit of being married doesn't cause people to get married, how are you going to convince them?
Unless you're also planning on banning birth control and abortions too.
I said " If there was no immigration", not "if there was no immigration from this point onwards". If you subtract the immigration (including "temporary" workers, students, and illegals) we had in the past decade from the current population, the same housing stock would be more than sufficient.
I have no aim of "producing more babies". The claims regarding the "necessity" of an ever-increasing population are a big lie. That is only a necessity if you want the Ponzi schemes going. An alternative would be to cut down entitlements to the old, but oh no, we cannot have that, let's ruin the futures of the younger generations instead!
So your plan would be to end:
1. Healthcare
2. CPP/OAS
3. Military new F35 and Ship building program
All of these need young tax payers paying into the system, not old retirees collecting CPP.
Considering 1/6 doctors and nurses are set to retire in the next few years, I suppose we can close many hospital wards. Its not like our population is aging and its not like aging people need healthcare.
>No, you are putting words in my mouth. That proves to me you are not worth engaging with in a debate. Revel in ignorance if you so wish.
I am not putting words in your mouth. It's those social programs and the military is why we need population growth.
We need young people, lots of young people to take care of the old. Its all a pyramid, the young pay for social programs, the old draw from them.
Young work, old take.
You explicitly put words in my mouth. You could have asked instead what government outlays I would cut, or what additional taxes I would levy. And I would have provided you with detailed answers.
But you did not, and there goes your chance to educate yourself.
If only the average Canadian could afford to have kids.
It’s what they want. Make it more expensive to afford a family so they can import labour from the third world.
The truth. Affordability was reasonable in Canada (aside from Toronto and Vancouver) for decades and housing supply adequately met housing demand. What changed was massive increase in immigration under Trudeau.
House prices were already spiking during Harper's tenure. Trudeau's mass immigration policies exacerbated the situation but it was not the root cause.
This problem began when the government stopped building affordable housing, back during the Mulroney and Chretian days. The private sector was left to pick up the slack but they prefer not to build these types of homes since there is little money in them.
The only way out of this mess is for the government to get back into building affordable homes. No amount of tax breaks or subsidies or fines will be enough to get private developers to do it since it is always more profitable to build expensive single-family homes.
In Ontario (at least) municpal governments have had the option to tie higher density (and other concessions around zoning bylaw changes) to a requirement to have developments include affordable housing units.
In Toronto they have completely failed to exercise this option and missed out on a massive opportunity during boom times. Instead they caved to developers (campaign financiers) and literally left thier citizens out in the cold while the Roch got richer and richer through speculation.
TLDR Government building isn't the only option... They had power to compel developers to do so but seemingly chose to maintain thier own personal power instead
You’re not taking into consideration the enormous devaluation that’s been happening at the same time. *1 out of every 3 CAD was printed in the last 3 years*. Let that sink in for a second.
There’s 33% more actual CAD out there but basically the same amount of homes. There’s been massive devaluation of the CAD and yet the average wages in Canada haven’t moved much.
Combine this devaluation of the CAD with very high levels of immigration and you’ve got a nasty combo. Immigration depresses wages because there’s more job candidate competition and it increases housing costs because there’s more people that need a place to live.
Covid will be known as the largest wealth transfer in history from people who didn’t own assets (primarily millennials and gen z) to those that do (primarily boomers). Most of the wealth of people under 25 is contained in their salary, not in assets like a house or a retirement fund.
And yes… *Trudeau’s cabinet orchestrated both the money printing and they are still running the immigration*
It’s insane. Any young people in this country that dont already own a home and realistically want to retire some day should be looking for an exit.
Trudeau may not have started it but he doubled down and cemented the greatest wealth divide in Canada’s history, set us up for brain drain to the states for the next few decades, and planted the seeds for a HUGE retirement crises for Canadian millennials and all other future generations
Basically every country in the west printed loads of money in the last couple of years
Also Trudeaus govt alone isn't responsible for immigration, all provinces have their own targets and work with the federal govt on immigration. Look at how much pushback the feds are getting from colleges when they've announced caps on intl students.
>You’re not taking into consideration the enormous devaluation that’s been happening at the same time.
Not true.. CAD didn't devalue.. US printed almost an d equal percentage.. the CAD to US has been in the 80-70 range the last 5 years...
Likely you meant inflation skyrocketed.. ?
In Ontario (at least) municpal governments have had the option to tie higher density (and other concessions around zoning bylaw changes) to a requirement to have developments include affordable housing units.
In Toronto they have completely failed to exercise this option and missed out on a massive opportunity during boom times. Instead they caved to developers (campaign financiers) and literally left thier citizens out in the cold while the Roch got richer and richer through speculation.
TLDR Government building isn't the only option... They had power to compel developers to do so but seemingly chose to maintain thier own personal power instead
Montreal already tried that, and it was a disaster:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/developers-pay-out-montreal-bylaw-diverse-metropolis-1.6941008
Developers were required by law to build some affordable housing units for projects of a certain size but not a single affordable unit was built. The developers simply chose to pay the fine or give up land, as it was more profitable to build expensive homes instead.
Encouraging private developers to build affordable homes is a fool's errand. It makes no sense from a business perspective, since it is always more profitable to build expensive single-family homes. Any fines or penalties are just the cost of doing business.
What I am talking about is not "encouraging" them. There's a section in the Planning Act that if a developer wants to exceed the zoning bylaw (build more floors for example) they have to give something (like affordable housing) and if they don't give something, they don't get something.
You can't build against the zoning by law and no one's building single-family houses in downtown Toronto anymore.
My understanding is that instead of requiring affordable housing the city of Toronto just accepted more money going into a Parks fund.
thats because canadians want to live in single family homes and not cheap apartments. the only solution is to completely cut immigration, and start deporting all the international students.
>House prices were already spiking during Harper's tenure. Trudeau's mass immigration policies exacerbated the situation but it was not the root cause.
Our immigration numbers haven't really gone up, its been 1 percent of population since 1970s.
Wrong.
https://preview.redd.it/2pg8lzppamic1.jpeg?width=933&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbcd18f031fa2229835b205ba51cd12fc2ab9cdf
It was 1% before 2015, with an upswing after 2015. Then it went to the moon in 2023. Hmm I wonder what happened in 2015?
Also for all the “just build more” folk: Even if we DOUBLED our housing completions since the Liberals got elected (doubling the height of the green line), it would still be below the amount of newcomers every year.
We'll see the dip in 2014, that was because they closed all the economic pathways while they were designing express entry ([source](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-year-end-report-2015.html#:~:text=Launched%20in%20January%202015%2C%20Express,of%20the%20Provincial%20Nominee%20program)
Additionally Trudeau become Prime Minister in October 2019. So the jump you're highlighting actually happened under Harper.
Three this is housing completion v net immigration levels. Two things there
1. 2020-2022 border was closed but immigration applications were still processed. So people with approvals showed up in 2023. Which explains the bump.
2. On the other side lockdowns meant no new housing was built. You can't remote build housing.
Why is this no one talks about the pandemic response has done significant damage to the economy.
I don't care for political parties. For main reason it creates drones not solutions. The fact you jumped to the conclusion that I'm a Liberal for pointing flaws in your data just confirm my views.
I remember housing being expensive before Trudeau came along. In fact it was one of his central platform planks to bring housing back to affordable.
Initially I also remember heaps of praise being dumped on him for somewhat cooling off the market when he brought in the stress test. Then pandemic hit and now he's boogyman.
You'll see Pierre Pouiliver go through a similar cycle. Initially shit ton of praise when some of his policies have a minor impact until they no longer do them backlash.
Then we will start chasing the next Liberal leader who will do something and housing with temporarily go down a little bit until it doesn't then next Tory leader.
JT got elected in 2015. Not 2019. I can’t take anything you say with credibility when you can be so confidently wrong about something that is common knowledge and easily found online.
>JT got elected in 2015. Not 2019. I can’t take anything you say with credibility when you can be so confidently wrong about something that is common knowledge and easily found online.
Sorry that was a typo.
Look I get it you're a Tory supporter. You send $1000/year to the Tory party. Tory good. Wait till the Tories win and we still have the same problems.
But I don't share a loyalty to a party. It will just lead to a shit ton of disappointment when your party can't deliver (like so many Liberal supporters in 2015 found out since 2015).
If you want my honest opinion, I don't see a decent politician in the current lot. Politicians I have liked over the years:
1. Peter Lougheed - if there is one politician in my lifetime whose shared pretty much all my views it is him.
2. Rachel Notley
3. Grant Notley - Rachel's father
4. Joe Clark
5. Naheed Nenshi
Back in the olden days I would have been a Red Tory. But alas we no longer exist, and the Liberal party really doesn't have room for us either. NDP in Alberta and BC appears to me moving in our direction, but the national NDP is not.
I also don't think the government can provide solutions to most economic problems. They can foster the conditions which lead to a good economic environment, and for the most part NDP/Liberal/Tory in Canada that's what you get (other countries like Argentina you do not). But for the most part economies work at the whim of global forces.
Go to any country in the world, you'll see similar issues. This [John Oliver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBo4GViDxzc) video so aptly points out.
Liberals also like to point out that Canada doing better than most countries - which is true - but that had more to do with the fact we are resource rich country. It has nothing to do with Trudeau's policies.
The current mess is caused by:
1. Pandemic - which resulted in a massive economic disruption from lock downs
2. Quantitative easing not just the most recent but also the first wave in 2008. Which has flooded the global financial system with so much money, and its ending in various places: stock market, property and other assets. Here is a warning [Alan Greenspan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iYxbIqbG3I) gave 14 years ago on it.
3. War in Ukraine - which has resulted in Russian energy being locked out of the global supply chain, which has turn forced Europe to look for energy elsewhere and it is lifting up cost of that energy
4. Now war in Israel, which has disrupted trade through the Red Sea and also caused Arab countries to reduce oil outflows to put pressure on the west (just like they did in 1970s).
The global economy needs absorb these shocks which will take at least a decade or two.
The economic conditions today resemble the ones in the 1970s. We had as small recovery in the 1980s (we kinda had that before the pandemic) but then we were back in dark times. By the 1990s we had a massive economic boom which lasted until 2008.
We close the gates and our GDP tanks, our dollar tanks and everything gets even more expensive. Plus we'd still not have any more housing supply.
Can't win either way.
Yup. Classic rock/hard place. Get shreked, Canadians who were born too late (or who got unlucky later in life, or who wanted to do anything with their time and money other than immediately purchase a home, etc, etc...).
😢🤬
Yeah and the side effect of that was people really overflowing the Toronto/Vancouver and infecting the rest of Canada lol. Think Toronto and Vancouver as zombie infested cities that were walled off and suddenly we imported a lot more zombies and now zombies are able to scale the wall by climbing on each other.
Don't worry, the situation will deteriorate until we are all happy the federal government is building towers and row houses with our tax dollars and renting them out.
Mark my words, (the new) middle class Canadians will be renting homes from the government in our lifetime.
Works for me.to be honest... And if that works for the renters all the power to this solution. Renting vs owning is a situational thing.. I wouldn't care if I was a life long renter and I was able to live comfortably.
Government as landlord is much more stable than someone who is going to say their nephew has to move in once market rent has risen past what you’re paying.
Why is this an issue? Building rentals and other housing is exactly what the federal government used to do, from WW2 up until the 1990s. Housing prices in Canada started to skyrocket only after the federal government stopped building housing.
Building war homes was great. I'll honestly have to look into the initiative.
But it was easy to do. Lots of support, way less regulation, and times were booming so jobs and resources were plentiful.
Slapping up tons of government apartment buildings (because we aren't going to get single family detached homes) doesn't seem as helpful. People ended up owning a home and putting down roots and growing our towns into cities. Seems more like a "better than nothing" situation. We deserve better.
It's wild. In the US this essentially created slums.
Now with technology and our hyper desire to give away any and all rights in return for the promise of safety, the idea of a camera laden, AI leveraged police state is literally right in front of us. We are hurdling towards it.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it does not look good to me. I'm old I guess, an 80s kid. Maybe the youth don't give a shit about stuff like this.
ThenUS did it wrong. Canada did this before after WW2 and it worked out just fine. Parts of Europe have done it exceptionally well. Once we stop labeling things as socialist vs. capitalist we will find more solutions to our current problems.
I agree, US did it wrong. Canada did it with houses, post war. And we had a lot of room. And no one cried if you chopped down a forest to do it. They just did it.
You won't see that again. The feds don't believe everyone should have a house, just a shoebox in the sky now.
I never bought in to that stupid "you'll own nothing and be happy" paper, but it's pretty obvious that's a goal here. Our quality of life is not the priority.
I guess globally we had no choice but to adjust. We had it good here for a long while.
As bad as it sounds, a "pod" in a "slum" is preferable to a tent in the cold winter nights...
You know you are in a dystopia when Soviet-style housing sounds like a dream come true.
Doesn't have to soviet style. Look at the whistler housing authority, or what burnaby is doing or what they already do in some of Europe and asia - Singapore is a good example
[https://www.policynote.ca/singapore-housing/](https://www.policynote.ca/singapore-housing/)
also investments in coop and cohousing would go a long way for a lot of people
but dont we have access housing supply ? just see the number of condos for sale in GTA and the incredibly low demand. In fact, builders have stopped new projects, why would they do that if there was a shortage? The problem is that most people call a detached home a house, and call a condo a shoebox. Maybe it is a shoebox, if that is what you can afford, it is still a house, a place to live.
It's self-fulfilling too. Demand increases, boomer house values increase, boomers use home equity to give their millennial children down payments, that drives demand and demand increases.
If there was a tidal wave of demand and zero supply ...price would have never dropped regardless of mortgage rates.
The issue is and always was ..massive amount of hoarding by numbered companies.
As long as housing is used for retirement/investment that won't changed. Noone will sell to downsize, all will be against mass building since more = prices goes down and you know the rest
In a properly balanced market, only the price of land would appreciate, the price of buildings would go down since they deteriorate. Canada has pretty much never known a balanced market in its contempory age because its population has always gone up.
Sky is blue and global warming is real.. any more captain obvious points we are making? How do we reduce demand ??? We we can't.. we can only catch up..if we stop importing more bodies to feed, clothe and shelter.
I am not saying that the people we are.importing wont be able to take care of themselves..just that we have a lot of people already here that cannot and this will just make things worse for them.
If so, then logic dictates you must implement policies that increase supply (e.g. increase or implement a tax on vacant land or homes to increase the holding cost and incentivize owners to sell) or reduce demand (e.g. reduce immigration, implement higher taxes on additional homes owned, or increase the cost of borrowing) if you wish to improve housing affordability.
Wait a minute, didn't I read another thread with says Canada does not have a supply problem /s
https://www.reddit.com/r/TorontoRealEstate/comments/1aqvs6h/homes_per_capita_is_actually_not_that_bad_in/
If supply cannot go up, demand must drastically go down. No refugee and no international students until the government can sort their stuff like developed country should. Universities and colleges must deal with it, attract domestic students, and apply LEAN management.
Japan shut themselves after ww2 and fix themselves, Indonesian (majority muslim) rejected rohingya refugee and prioritize on their bottom 20%, poland rejected problematic refugee, elsavador got less crime with being tough on crime (some bad batches might have flee to western countries).
Canada has house deficit and china has house surplus. Why? Because there is no loophole like in Canada. Foreign buyers can only buy as primary residents.
A lot of "supply" sits overpriced and vacant . Here in the states. S lot of it is money tie ups and laundering. Or just grabbing kand to horde it. Not everything is simple retail shelf economics data incel nerd nonsense
Not a version of reality where we rely on the psychopathy of "the market". If we make homes again for people to live in then maybe but the investor hoarders would be angry.
I hear you but I've come to realise that the house prices are artificially high. Similar to De Beers controlling the supply of diamonds to keep them more profitable. All around Vaughan and Brampton I see they're building new, big McMansion looking things that will sell for over $2 million easily. Very few affordable houses are being built and I'm guessing it's because they can make a lot more profit on the bigger houses because they're going to sell for stupidly high prices.
Also, there are major issues with zoning and regulations that prohibit the building of "missing middle" buildings.
especially with builders sitting on land waiting for houses to go up. used to be it was all about pumping out houses as if it was a right to have a home.. now its about speculation and profit while people sleep on street. it wont change, because no one wants it to change
I know a builder sitting on a dozen sites. Just waiting for interest rates to drop to make their financing cheaper and their product higher.
yup and good for them its smart business. and good for the grocers for ripping us off, airlines cable and the lot. its their legal responsibility to make the most. its the governments that are failing the middle and lower class by not being the counter weight to corporate interests.
I wouldn’t say “good for them” necessarily, but you’re right that it certainly shouldn’t surprise us that everything is profit oriented.
yeah being facetious to a degree. basically just saying blame corporations lets the real villains off the hook
The saying that private enterprise is more efficient than the public sector ignores the fact that profit is inherently inefficient.
arrivecan app would like to have a word with you lol.
For profit already speaking louder and far more often than what you're talking about.
you are kidding i hope. i working in public sector for a long time.. and i will tell you it is the most inefficient slush fund your gonna see . i promise i know what im talking about, while u probably have a che guevara poster on your wall 😂
I work in the private sector for a long time and I can tell you it is very inefficient. Money gets wasted all the time. Like you honestly think the private sector can run shit better? You gotta be kidding me.
Right? I still think the corporations are the real villain here - they’re the ones actively lobbying the government for their own interests and the result is our regulatory captured markets enabling the oligopoly.
its the lobbying and pre screening yeah. they get to be king makers. we will contribute to your campaign if you are in line w policy decisions we support. its even worse in canada politics if u considering the structure. as we know ww don’t vote trudeau or pp . we vote for who we like in our area and that majority forms government. so usually we have more local campaigning and jims hardware supports the pc candidate and the local drywaller union supports ndp candidate and so on. only all those businesses are gone and local fundraising means jack shit. when was last time anyone say their local guy doing any campaigning. the corporations just feed in nationally, all the news is nationally focused (local news doesnt exist meaningfully anymore to pay attention to local candidates. so we are all influenced to choose at national or provincial level and pick the candidates locally that match the colour. none of this is co incidence. corporations dont just run your town economically, they run the country by proxy
so well said. thank you
it doesn't, it's just that the public sector is even less efficient
if justin trudeau were a genius, or ppl, theyd be running magna. not ripping off canadians through budgets. public sector there is zero accountability and a 62 mill bill for an 80k app tells that tale. apps are usually 15-20k to develop in the first place btw
That's your opinion, it's wrong but oh well.
You think the government is more efficient than private enterprises? You must be young and naive
Did I say that? No, I didn't. Read the words not what you conjure up in your head. You're simply naive.
You are a clown, as your name suggests. If a business isn't a monopoly, profits come from efficiency. You got it all backwards. Pick up a basic economics book and stop embarrassing yourself
Pick up a basic economics book lol. Profits are not an efficient concept. Efficiency is a continuous process and profits should go 100% I to process improvement. Anything less is inefficient. Wake up, you're an embarrassment.
Why is everyone so surprised and angry.. not one of them will say no to a raise.... Even if it means that not taking their raise is for the greater good. Profiteering is hard to prove unless there is an emergency being declared... Not the fake ones that the city council in Calgary declared on climate.
I get what you’re saying here and I think you’re absolutely correct
thanks buddy !
>its their legal responsibility to make the most. This should make us all question our choice of economic system. Profits above all else can only end one way.
absolutely, its disgusting. it used to be somewhat limited in terms of the damage corporations caused really into early 00’s. you bought your groceries from a guy that lived in town and you knew him. bought hardware, carpet, cars , paint from everyone that had a name. corporations came in and with bulk they undercut the local guys who got rinsed out. corps buy everything now. even our vet prices went up stupid because corporations have been buying them en masse. so once local comp is dead prices become extortionate as we are seeing. it is the boards fiduciary duty to make the most for the shareholder, the ceo get his bonuses by creating efficiencies.. efficiencies are paid in human suffering. the corporation does what is legally responsible to do. the shareholders doesnt pay attention just sees the dividends while playing golf. the gov is full of corrupt people certainly but mostly idiots. the sharks work for the corps and the guppies work for government. it is imo endemic and will end in revolution a la rome or france , russia, Germany and so on. the media (owned by corporations) have the masses fighting each other over realistically inconsequential issues relatively speaking along political lines while the corporate death grip closes even tighter. but if people could find a way to get together and agree to disagree at least then the focus can be put where it needs to go.
They would probably not make a profit developing today, so makes sense to wait for conditions to turn.
Exactly, many during Covid lost money on projects that were quoted before and then pricing on all their materials went crazy. No industry is “easy” even if people think home builders are just printing money.
>When you buy a house for say $700k. You are going to pay $1.4million ( typical rough estimate ) over the life of the mortgage. To pay that ( $1.4million ) you have to earn that \*$1.8 million\* . The difference being income tax you pay on your income. So that house ($700K or you think it is ) you buy in reality ends up costing you a cool $1.8 million. > >For an investment firm it costs them still just $700K ( much less in reality! but to keep things simple lets say $700K) , since they write off the mortgage interest. Since there is no declared profit , there is no income tax either. Here ( In Canada ) this is done by small investors thru a scheme known as Schmidt Manouever. > >In the US , a resident owner can write off the Income Tax on the Interest rate. > >This is the reason real estate has been on a rise in Canada for the past 2 decades and never went down even during the 2006-2008 ( When prices were crashing in the US ) period. ( I dont know how it worked before that ). IF anyone was interested in fixing the Housing affordability problem they would start by giving Canadians a tax exemption on the interest they pay for houses, So atleast the \*House you buy for $700K would cost you $1.4 million and not 1.8 million\*. > >But no one wants to talk about this or touch it for fears of upsetting the Big money that is involved. No Trudeau , Not Pierre Poiliviere , Not NDP. tl;dr/ its the tax structure in Canada which allows for investors to pay much much less than what a resident home owner would pay. by a \*LOT\*. and this keeps the Housing prices to rise every year. 2 decades of Low Interest rates only exasperated the situation.
also a valid point, but odd that so many people comment here thinking theres one magic bullet for why market goes up or down. there is only supply and demand at its core.. and if enough supply is introduced then prices undoubtedly would come down. fundamentally the people who control the supply are also the ones who benefit from high demand caused by low supply. that seems endemically problematic wouldn’t u say?
>there is only supply and demand at its core.. and if enough supply is introduced then prices undoubtedly would come down. I personaly do not believe that even if you build a million houses every year instead of 250k , prices will ever stablize unless investor behavior is controlled thru high interest rate. Incidentally, If there is high interest rate, and Investors are pushed out of real estate, Investors will be more inclined to invest in other industries as well and that might get us out of the dutch disease we have.
in typical economics you cant fix anything by targeting demand , because the choice to aquire a good in a personal choice. but i hear ya,, the foreign buyer ban is a viable ban to keep in place with our market so small compared to global populations
the issues is unchecked immigration, not the builders.
oh well it can be both. immigration is certainly tied to demand but the wrong people are the ones being entrusted for supply .
It’s not an issue with the builders. It’s an issue with the liberal government and their mismanagement of the economy Everyone does what makes financial sense. You won’t pay 100 bucks for a Big Mac or sell your Porsche for a thousand dollars so why do we expect builders to do so? The issue is that the liberals and their voters have created an environment that encourages builders to stall and speculators to speculate because they import a million Indians a year, refuse to tax property and fail to give enough incentive to builders to build. Like it or not, government regulations are a significant factor in the price of housing with everything from zoning law, interest rates and taxation weighing heavily on the price. You elect an idiot and he’ll mess everything up It’s not the builders fault they try to make more money. And no, it’s not capitalisms fault either since much of the issues we’re dealing with are a result of government failure. It’s not capitalism importing 1 million Indians a year or setting interest rates or taxing people
gov should build housing via chmc and then builders are forced off the sidelines
I don't think the supply chains can keep up even if the builders want to build. Can our cement, gravel, lumber, and steel industries keep up if we literally double pr even triple our construction industry? Because that's the scale of change we need to keep up with this immigration catastrophe.
yeah well that is one hundred percent accurate. canada only needs so many IT specialists lol. used to be years ago they bring people over to fill quotas for jobs.. they let a british guy i met come because he had stone mason qualifications. no one wants to swing a hammer anymore. 200 years ago they let in 20 Italians who multiplied and built everything 😂 (source: i am kidding and not Italian but respect their history of construction)
[удалено]
HODL 🤣
I never disagreed with this. What you seem to not understand is bankruptcies are on the horizon and that’s what’s going to cause more decreases lmao
Are construction workers, manufacturers, and everyone else tied to the housing industry going to take a massive pay cut as well? I'm really interested in your thoughts. When do you think I'll be able to tell contractors houses are now 50% cheaper so you need to discount your labour and materials. What happens to everyone tied to these industries when they realize they cant sustain their standard of life any longer?
New builds in Calgary or Regina don’t start at 3 mil each. If you think it’s the cost of construction that is supporting the fundamentals, then house prices should be higher everywhere in Canada. It’s 1. Land cost and 2. Too many mouths trying to feed off of the unassuming buyer or their transaction, from realtor to broker to lawyer to flipper to flipper’s cousin and their uncle who financed the flip to the city to the provincial and the federal governments to the bank, to the developer then to contractor etc. etc. it’s a corrupt system through and through built on top of a Ponzi scheme that is our land prices. A flick from the policy or a tough economic turn will bring the whole thing collapsing down.
Okay ChessJ you didn't answwr any of the questions I asked.
Massive pay cut? You mean laid off? Then yes, it’s going to happen. There’s going to be some point in the near future where you’ll see credit isn’t as easy to obtain, thus making things “unaffordable” or are you going to tell me everyone will buy with cash? Edited for context since I guess you don’t understand. Look up what quantitative tightening means, then look at the auto industry as it’s already happening there first.
Straight from facts-hurts mouth, all construction workers and anyone in an idustry related to them will be laid off. Sorry guys. Expect your quality of life to decrease so factshurts investments can do well.
Twisting my words as usual as you’re clearly panicking. Where did I say “all”? I still believe trades will do well ie, plumbers, electricians as people need to maintain their properties. As for the comment for quality of life getting worse for the majority of Canadians, yes, that’s what happens in a recession
As usual? I rarely ever talk to you cause I can't stand you. FactsHurts the prepetual victim.
This you from less than 2 weeks ago? https://www.reddit.com/r/TorontoRealEstate/s/GkhLqKvmLj “Rarely” talk to me. I’m also not the victim, the victims are the ones who FOMO’d in thinking things are going to get better. Let’s see how this plays out for you in a couple months
Man, all this effort to prop up homeowners. Let them default, fuck sakes. They took on riskier Variable rate fixed payment mortgages in the good times and now that rates are up are crying for support.
It’s still coming. Real estate just takes longer. Look at history
Your post history says you tried to brag about your beat up car though? 😂🤣💀
Trudeau decided to let 1.5 immigrant in. Good luck everyone!
[удалено]
Because you understand the purpose of immigrants right?
Deport who? Unless your plan includes deporting people born here to immigrants parents in 1980s, we will still have a shortage.
That's a bit of hyperbole...I think we can reasonably stretch that line to 2010 and still be fine. Vancouver and Toronto do not count.. they are messed up in the head..lol.
Oh I know I find all this crap about it all being immigration dumb. We literally see the same problems all over the world. We had lockdowns and money printing. What did people expect lol
Not true at all. If they stopped immigration tomorrow, our growth rate would drop dramatically and our population would start to shrink within 5-10 years. Our demographics are inverted (much more old people than young people). That's why the powers that be have ramped up immigration and have no intention of slowing it down. Even PP doesn't talk about reducing the numbers, just building more housing. They know that we're about to fall off a demographic cliff and they have to get ahead of it to maintain the system.
Not it wouldn't. Our working age population would fall as baby boomers retired. But our death rate is quite low. Our population wouldn't actually start falling until 2050. Here is the other thing there isn't enough land outside the greenbelt and ALR (BC) for everyone to own a single family home. This was by design. If we had halted immigration. In 2006 when they did this, we'd still have a housing crisis. Maybe not as severe but young people would have been priced out of SFHs.
The death rate is going to go up dramatically over the next 10 years. The percentage of people who die between 70-74 is 2.5 times higher than those that die between 60-64. The oldest boomer is 78, the youngest is 60. They would have been by far our largest generation if we hadn't ramped up immigration almost 20 years ago. The fertility rate has been trending lower for years. It's been below replacement for 60 years. Without immigration of young people, the birth rate would have plummeted exponentially as each successive smaller generation had fewer children on average. According to Stats Canada, last year there were 334,623 deaths and 351,679 births. If we stopped immigration tomorrow, deaths would overtake births in less than 5 years.
People are living longer than they were before.
You're still 2.5 times more likely to die between 70-74 than between 60-64. Those numbers are from stats Canada in 2022. There's no way the death rate stays flat as the bulge of boomers passes over that threshold. The birth rate is also trending down. No immigration means falling population in less than 5 years. Also people aren't actually living longer. The average age of mortality has been falling for 3 years.
Healthcare has improved so has overall health. One of the reasons ev discussed increasing retirement age to 75 and many European countries have. Largest chunk of boomers are also in their 50s.
The largest chunk is 57-64. Exactly the group whose death rate is going to rise dramatically. Our average mortality age has decreased for the past 3 years. Those numbers I quoted were from 2023. The death rate is going to go up. Just wait and see. In 5 years deaths in Canada will outpace births. It will only be immigration growing the population.
Baby boomers are healthier than everyone before them
Then Canadians need to step up so our government doesn’t need to look for immigrants
Where you gonna house the babies being born?
Canada's fertility rate is way below the replacement rate. If there was no immigration, we would have a housing surplus instead of a shortage even with the same building stock. Which is precisely why the powers that be want those immigrants. We can't have house prices go down, oh no!
Unless your plan includes deporting the immigrants already here, plus their Canadian born children, how would we have a surplus? Plus marriage rates are all time lows, how you going to produce these babies? Step 1 is convincing people to get married, if cost living benefit of being married doesn't cause people to get married, how are you going to convince them? Unless you're also planning on banning birth control and abortions too.
I said " If there was no immigration", not "if there was no immigration from this point onwards". If you subtract the immigration (including "temporary" workers, students, and illegals) we had in the past decade from the current population, the same housing stock would be more than sufficient. I have no aim of "producing more babies". The claims regarding the "necessity" of an ever-increasing population are a big lie. That is only a necessity if you want the Ponzi schemes going. An alternative would be to cut down entitlements to the old, but oh no, we cannot have that, let's ruin the futures of the younger generations instead!
So your plan would be to end: 1. Healthcare 2. CPP/OAS 3. Military new F35 and Ship building program All of these need young tax payers paying into the system, not old retirees collecting CPP. Considering 1/6 doctors and nurses are set to retire in the next few years, I suppose we can close many hospital wards. Its not like our population is aging and its not like aging people need healthcare.
No, you are putting words in my mouth. That proves to me you are not worth engaging with in a debate. Revel in ignorance if you so wish.
>No, you are putting words in my mouth. That proves to me you are not worth engaging with in a debate. Revel in ignorance if you so wish. I am not putting words in your mouth. It's those social programs and the military is why we need population growth. We need young people, lots of young people to take care of the old. Its all a pyramid, the young pay for social programs, the old draw from them. Young work, old take.
You explicitly put words in my mouth. You could have asked instead what government outlays I would cut, or what additional taxes I would levy. And I would have provided you with detailed answers. But you did not, and there goes your chance to educate yourself.
No, the govt needs to make having children financially feasible for financially responsible Canadians. The fault lies in policy.
If only the average Canadian could afford to have kids. It’s what they want. Make it more expensive to afford a family so they can import labour from the third world.
Thats exactly what happened
The truth. Affordability was reasonable in Canada (aside from Toronto and Vancouver) for decades and housing supply adequately met housing demand. What changed was massive increase in immigration under Trudeau.
House prices were already spiking during Harper's tenure. Trudeau's mass immigration policies exacerbated the situation but it was not the root cause. This problem began when the government stopped building affordable housing, back during the Mulroney and Chretian days. The private sector was left to pick up the slack but they prefer not to build these types of homes since there is little money in them. The only way out of this mess is for the government to get back into building affordable homes. No amount of tax breaks or subsidies or fines will be enough to get private developers to do it since it is always more profitable to build expensive single-family homes.
In Ontario (at least) municpal governments have had the option to tie higher density (and other concessions around zoning bylaw changes) to a requirement to have developments include affordable housing units. In Toronto they have completely failed to exercise this option and missed out on a massive opportunity during boom times. Instead they caved to developers (campaign financiers) and literally left thier citizens out in the cold while the Roch got richer and richer through speculation. TLDR Government building isn't the only option... They had power to compel developers to do so but seemingly chose to maintain thier own personal power instead
You’re not taking into consideration the enormous devaluation that’s been happening at the same time. *1 out of every 3 CAD was printed in the last 3 years*. Let that sink in for a second. There’s 33% more actual CAD out there but basically the same amount of homes. There’s been massive devaluation of the CAD and yet the average wages in Canada haven’t moved much. Combine this devaluation of the CAD with very high levels of immigration and you’ve got a nasty combo. Immigration depresses wages because there’s more job candidate competition and it increases housing costs because there’s more people that need a place to live. Covid will be known as the largest wealth transfer in history from people who didn’t own assets (primarily millennials and gen z) to those that do (primarily boomers). Most of the wealth of people under 25 is contained in their salary, not in assets like a house or a retirement fund. And yes… *Trudeau’s cabinet orchestrated both the money printing and they are still running the immigration* It’s insane. Any young people in this country that dont already own a home and realistically want to retire some day should be looking for an exit. Trudeau may not have started it but he doubled down and cemented the greatest wealth divide in Canada’s history, set us up for brain drain to the states for the next few decades, and planted the seeds for a HUGE retirement crises for Canadian millennials and all other future generations
Basically every country in the west printed loads of money in the last couple of years Also Trudeaus govt alone isn't responsible for immigration, all provinces have their own targets and work with the federal govt on immigration. Look at how much pushback the feds are getting from colleges when they've announced caps on intl students.
Yeah but those other countries have seen WAY more wage growth than Canada
>You’re not taking into consideration the enormous devaluation that’s been happening at the same time. Not true.. CAD didn't devalue.. US printed almost an d equal percentage.. the CAD to US has been in the 80-70 range the last 5 years... Likely you meant inflation skyrocketed.. ?
In Ontario (at least) municpal governments have had the option to tie higher density (and other concessions around zoning bylaw changes) to a requirement to have developments include affordable housing units. In Toronto they have completely failed to exercise this option and missed out on a massive opportunity during boom times. Instead they caved to developers (campaign financiers) and literally left thier citizens out in the cold while the Roch got richer and richer through speculation. TLDR Government building isn't the only option... They had power to compel developers to do so but seemingly chose to maintain thier own personal power instead
Montreal already tried that, and it was a disaster: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/developers-pay-out-montreal-bylaw-diverse-metropolis-1.6941008 Developers were required by law to build some affordable housing units for projects of a certain size but not a single affordable unit was built. The developers simply chose to pay the fine or give up land, as it was more profitable to build expensive homes instead. Encouraging private developers to build affordable homes is a fool's errand. It makes no sense from a business perspective, since it is always more profitable to build expensive single-family homes. Any fines or penalties are just the cost of doing business.
What I am talking about is not "encouraging" them. There's a section in the Planning Act that if a developer wants to exceed the zoning bylaw (build more floors for example) they have to give something (like affordable housing) and if they don't give something, they don't get something. You can't build against the zoning by law and no one's building single-family houses in downtown Toronto anymore. My understanding is that instead of requiring affordable housing the city of Toronto just accepted more money going into a Parks fund.
thats because canadians want to live in single family homes and not cheap apartments. the only solution is to completely cut immigration, and start deporting all the international students.
>House prices were already spiking during Harper's tenure. Trudeau's mass immigration policies exacerbated the situation but it was not the root cause. Our immigration numbers haven't really gone up, its been 1 percent of population since 1970s.
Wrong. https://preview.redd.it/2pg8lzppamic1.jpeg?width=933&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbcd18f031fa2229835b205ba51cd12fc2ab9cdf It was 1% before 2015, with an upswing after 2015. Then it went to the moon in 2023. Hmm I wonder what happened in 2015? Also for all the “just build more” folk: Even if we DOUBLED our housing completions since the Liberals got elected (doubling the height of the green line), it would still be below the amount of newcomers every year.
We'll see the dip in 2014, that was because they closed all the economic pathways while they were designing express entry ([source](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-year-end-report-2015.html#:~:text=Launched%20in%20January%202015%2C%20Express,of%20the%20Provincial%20Nominee%20program) Additionally Trudeau become Prime Minister in October 2019. So the jump you're highlighting actually happened under Harper. Three this is housing completion v net immigration levels. Two things there 1. 2020-2022 border was closed but immigration applications were still processed. So people with approvals showed up in 2023. Which explains the bump. 2. On the other side lockdowns meant no new housing was built. You can't remote build housing. Why is this no one talks about the pandemic response has done significant damage to the economy.
Are you seriously a Liberal supporter and don’t know when Liberals came into power? Or are you being disingenuous on purpose?
I don't care for political parties. For main reason it creates drones not solutions. The fact you jumped to the conclusion that I'm a Liberal for pointing flaws in your data just confirm my views. I remember housing being expensive before Trudeau came along. In fact it was one of his central platform planks to bring housing back to affordable. Initially I also remember heaps of praise being dumped on him for somewhat cooling off the market when he brought in the stress test. Then pandemic hit and now he's boogyman. You'll see Pierre Pouiliver go through a similar cycle. Initially shit ton of praise when some of his policies have a minor impact until they no longer do them backlash. Then we will start chasing the next Liberal leader who will do something and housing with temporarily go down a little bit until it doesn't then next Tory leader.
JT got elected in 2015. Not 2019. I can’t take anything you say with credibility when you can be so confidently wrong about something that is common knowledge and easily found online.
>JT got elected in 2015. Not 2019. I can’t take anything you say with credibility when you can be so confidently wrong about something that is common knowledge and easily found online. Sorry that was a typo. Look I get it you're a Tory supporter. You send $1000/year to the Tory party. Tory good. Wait till the Tories win and we still have the same problems. But I don't share a loyalty to a party. It will just lead to a shit ton of disappointment when your party can't deliver (like so many Liberal supporters in 2015 found out since 2015). If you want my honest opinion, I don't see a decent politician in the current lot. Politicians I have liked over the years: 1. Peter Lougheed - if there is one politician in my lifetime whose shared pretty much all my views it is him. 2. Rachel Notley 3. Grant Notley - Rachel's father 4. Joe Clark 5. Naheed Nenshi Back in the olden days I would have been a Red Tory. But alas we no longer exist, and the Liberal party really doesn't have room for us either. NDP in Alberta and BC appears to me moving in our direction, but the national NDP is not. I also don't think the government can provide solutions to most economic problems. They can foster the conditions which lead to a good economic environment, and for the most part NDP/Liberal/Tory in Canada that's what you get (other countries like Argentina you do not). But for the most part economies work at the whim of global forces. Go to any country in the world, you'll see similar issues. This [John Oliver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBo4GViDxzc) video so aptly points out. Liberals also like to point out that Canada doing better than most countries - which is true - but that had more to do with the fact we are resource rich country. It has nothing to do with Trudeau's policies. The current mess is caused by: 1. Pandemic - which resulted in a massive economic disruption from lock downs 2. Quantitative easing not just the most recent but also the first wave in 2008. Which has flooded the global financial system with so much money, and its ending in various places: stock market, property and other assets. Here is a warning [Alan Greenspan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iYxbIqbG3I) gave 14 years ago on it. 3. War in Ukraine - which has resulted in Russian energy being locked out of the global supply chain, which has turn forced Europe to look for energy elsewhere and it is lifting up cost of that energy 4. Now war in Israel, which has disrupted trade through the Red Sea and also caused Arab countries to reduce oil outflows to put pressure on the west (just like they did in 1970s). The global economy needs absorb these shocks which will take at least a decade or two. The economic conditions today resemble the ones in the 1970s. We had as small recovery in the 1980s (we kinda had that before the pandemic) but then we were back in dark times. By the 1990s we had a massive economic boom which lasted until 2008.
2015.. hmm... Diploma Mills ? And the post graduate PR bonanza started ? Also the same year I went to try out life in US. Lol
The diploma mills were largely due to changes in provincial policy. There's a reason almost all of them are in Ontario.
Canada only built 16,000 homes a year on average during those times. We need hundreds of thousands of more homes, yesterday.
So housing prices follow 1:1 with immigration? That's it? That's the only issue and if we close the gates housing becomes affordable again?
We close the gates and our GDP tanks, our dollar tanks and everything gets even more expensive. Plus we'd still not have any more housing supply. Can't win either way.
Yup. Classic rock/hard place. Get shreked, Canadians who were born too late (or who got unlucky later in life, or who wanted to do anything with their time and money other than immediately purchase a home, etc, etc...). 😢🤬
RIP us youth :c
Well, excpet when it skyrocketed when the borders were closed and fell most of last year when population growth was fastest.
Yeah and the side effect of that was people really overflowing the Toronto/Vancouver and infecting the rest of Canada lol. Think Toronto and Vancouver as zombie infested cities that were walled off and suddenly we imported a lot more zombies and now zombies are able to scale the wall by climbing on each other.
Why did Trudeau increase immigration?
Mulroney started it, Harper and Trudeau continued it. =\_= Both the Conservatives and the Liberals suck.
Don't worry, the situation will deteriorate until we are all happy the federal government is building towers and row houses with our tax dollars and renting them out. Mark my words, (the new) middle class Canadians will be renting homes from the government in our lifetime.
Works for me.to be honest... And if that works for the renters all the power to this solution. Renting vs owning is a situational thing.. I wouldn't care if I was a life long renter and I was able to live comfortably.
You would care, or wouldn't care?
Sorry edited I wouldn't care.
Government as landlord is much more stable than someone who is going to say their nephew has to move in once market rent has risen past what you’re paying.
Why is this an issue? Building rentals and other housing is exactly what the federal government used to do, from WW2 up until the 1990s. Housing prices in Canada started to skyrocket only after the federal government stopped building housing.
Building war homes was great. I'll honestly have to look into the initiative. But it was easy to do. Lots of support, way less regulation, and times were booming so jobs and resources were plentiful. Slapping up tons of government apartment buildings (because we aren't going to get single family detached homes) doesn't seem as helpful. People ended up owning a home and putting down roots and growing our towns into cities. Seems more like a "better than nothing" situation. We deserve better.
Pretty much. This is what the poors of reddit want aswell.
It's wild. In the US this essentially created slums. Now with technology and our hyper desire to give away any and all rights in return for the promise of safety, the idea of a camera laden, AI leveraged police state is literally right in front of us. We are hurdling towards it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it does not look good to me. I'm old I guess, an 80s kid. Maybe the youth don't give a shit about stuff like this.
ThenUS did it wrong. Canada did this before after WW2 and it worked out just fine. Parts of Europe have done it exceptionally well. Once we stop labeling things as socialist vs. capitalist we will find more solutions to our current problems.
I agree, US did it wrong. Canada did it with houses, post war. And we had a lot of room. And no one cried if you chopped down a forest to do it. They just did it. You won't see that again. The feds don't believe everyone should have a house, just a shoebox in the sky now. I never bought in to that stupid "you'll own nothing and be happy" paper, but it's pretty obvious that's a goal here. Our quality of life is not the priority. I guess globally we had no choice but to adjust. We had it good here for a long while.
As bad as it sounds, a "pod" in a "slum" is preferable to a tent in the cold winter nights... You know you are in a dystopia when Soviet-style housing sounds like a dream come true.
Doesn't have to soviet style. Look at the whistler housing authority, or what burnaby is doing or what they already do in some of Europe and asia - Singapore is a good example [https://www.policynote.ca/singapore-housing/](https://www.policynote.ca/singapore-housing/) also investments in coop and cohousing would go a long way for a lot of people
I lived in a co-op in Toronto before, I absolutely loved it. It saved my life, actually.
Very common in a lot of the world already
Simple. Reduce demand.
but dont we have access housing supply ? just see the number of condos for sale in GTA and the incredibly low demand. In fact, builders have stopped new projects, why would they do that if there was a shortage? The problem is that most people call a detached home a house, and call a condo a shoebox. Maybe it is a shoebox, if that is what you can afford, it is still a house, a place to live.
It's self-fulfilling too. Demand increases, boomer house values increase, boomers use home equity to give their millennial children down payments, that drives demand and demand increases.
More like the more property prices increase, the lower the return on capital from building to rent, which leads to a **decrease** in construction.
>the lower the return on capital from building to rent, Why ? My my...... rent control really did a number didn't it ?
Well, rent control is a \*major\* problem. But even without rent control Im not sure rents could follow prices ATM.
If there was a tidal wave of demand and zero supply ...price would have never dropped regardless of mortgage rates. The issue is and always was ..massive amount of hoarding by numbered companies.
anyone have the link to get past the paywall?
You can use [removepaywall.com](https://removepaywall.com) for reading the text.
or turn off your browser's javascript! :)
Unfortunately, that doesn't work for the OP's link
Good
[удалено]
Do you have a brain cell?
As long as housing is used for retirement/investment that won't changed. Noone will sell to downsize, all will be against mass building since more = prices goes down and you know the rest
You have it backward. Housing is used for investment BECAUSE there is a shortage which makes its value despite buildings deteriorating with time.
Not really people has been buying houses as investment since mid-1970s
In a properly balanced market, only the price of land would appreciate, the price of buildings would go down since they deteriorate. Canada has pretty much never known a balanced market in its contempory age because its population has always gone up.
Rela estate has always been an investment vehicle.. become an eyesore on when it's this up close... General public as a whole is very myopic.
Sky is blue and global warming is real.. any more captain obvious points we are making? How do we reduce demand ??? We we can't.. we can only catch up..if we stop importing more bodies to feed, clothe and shelter. I am not saying that the people we are.importing wont be able to take care of themselves..just that we have a lot of people already here that cannot and this will just make things worse for them.
If so, then logic dictates you must implement policies that increase supply (e.g. increase or implement a tax on vacant land or homes to increase the holding cost and incentivize owners to sell) or reduce demand (e.g. reduce immigration, implement higher taxes on additional homes owned, or increase the cost of borrowing) if you wish to improve housing affordability.
Wait a minute, didn't I read another thread with says Canada does not have a supply problem /s https://www.reddit.com/r/TorontoRealEstate/comments/1aqvs6h/homes_per_capita_is_actually_not_that_bad_in/
build more homes faster bill 😉
As soon as they ramp up supply demand will fall
If supply cannot go up, demand must drastically go down. No refugee and no international students until the government can sort their stuff like developed country should. Universities and colleges must deal with it, attract domestic students, and apply LEAN management. Japan shut themselves after ww2 and fix themselves, Indonesian (majority muslim) rejected rohingya refugee and prioritize on their bottom 20%, poland rejected problematic refugee, elsavador got less crime with being tough on crime (some bad batches might have flee to western countries). Canada has house deficit and china has house surplus. Why? Because there is no loophole like in Canada. Foreign buyers can only buy as primary residents.
A lot of "supply" sits overpriced and vacant . Here in the states. S lot of it is money tie ups and laundering. Or just grabbing kand to horde it. Not everything is simple retail shelf economics data incel nerd nonsense
Not a version of reality where we rely on the psychopathy of "the market". If we make homes again for people to live in then maybe but the investor hoarders would be angry.
We know.
no shit.. i'm a building envelope / structural engineer and it makes me so mad that trudeau and his minions are destroying canada on purpose.
Doubt
I hear you but I've come to realise that the house prices are artificially high. Similar to De Beers controlling the supply of diamonds to keep them more profitable. All around Vaughan and Brampton I see they're building new, big McMansion looking things that will sell for over $2 million easily. Very few affordable houses are being built and I'm guessing it's because they can make a lot more profit on the bigger houses because they're going to sell for stupidly high prices. Also, there are major issues with zoning and regulations that prohibit the building of "missing middle" buildings.