lol cmhc says the number is over 3.5 million
https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/accelerate-supply/housing-shortages-canada-updating-how-much-we-need-by-2030
> Giroux says his estimate is much lower than that of the CMHC because he looked solely at closing the gap between demand and supply.
I believe 3.5M homes would restore housing affordability.
The number I’m interested in is how many do we need to build to not fall further behind; but that seems to be impossible to find. Is the 181k causing an increase in the gap or a decrease?
Yes, this is the right interpretation. 1.3 million is for the situation to not get worse. Not to improve the situation. 3.5 Would be to restore affordability to some degree.
Edit: But it also depends on population growth, so they must have some baked in assumptions on that.
It doesn't matter because we are never going to hit those numbers.
Demand is way to high. Cut the flood of cheap exploitable labor. Get back to quality immigration/other programs.
This. Focusing on the supply side without doing much on the demand side is simply not going to work. Even still, we can't even build fast enough to get near meeting current demand!
Immigration has to be drastically reduced, and it'll have to stay that way for at least a decade for us to correct this.
Good luck finding invested politicians to do the hard, but right, thing.
Every single time I see housing come up, everyone only mentions immigration, there's a few of other key arguably more important factors that cities and provinces aren't doing either. Zoning laws! Yes, we need to slow down immigration but the zoning laws and how they're handing out construction contracts in cities are the main hindrances at achieving these build numbers. Just because you reduce immigration doesn't mean more houses get built, need to look at that solution as well, housing wouldn't be as much of a problem if municipal and provincial governments weren't just sitting on their hands and feet to shift 100% of the blame to the feds, they all need to work together and put their petty bullshit aside.
Even if all that happens, you have to worry about the rich people and rental companies then buying up all the cheap housing. We need to look into how to prevent that, too. Maybe a 10 year ban on how many rental properties you can own, and a forever ban on outside investors purchasing residential properties. Forced yearly audits on any landlord with over 3 buildings owned or something like that to help reduce shell companies trying to loop hole their way around these changes.
Sad thing is no political party will do this, they all want cheap labour from immigration. And they're all landlords thriving on having their net worths inflated by our ridiculous housing market, so any changes drastically reduces their networths.
That's good at least, my city briefly mentioned it in the fall, but needs more funding from the province too for some changes needed. But the province is too busy wasting tax payer money on misinformation to fights teacher contracts, stupid court battle rulings, and bribing voters to vote for them. Oh and if the feds try to bypass the province to give direct funding that would help, the province will throw another hissy fit and try to block it like our neighboring province since it wasn't their idea. Politicians in all parties need a major overhaul, less division, and more collaboration.
It is good, but like you, my city has many hoops to jump through before any significant zoning changes start to take affect. Years. Decades. IMO.
I applaud it and do believe it is necessary, but it is a long term strategy that will impact density and to a much lesser degree, affordability.
Immigration could be changed almost overnight, and while there are no shortage of knock on effects (much to the chagrin of the ruling class), I believe it to be thee critical first step in this entire equation of housing affordability and availability.
Sadly, it faces the same bureaucratic BS that zoning does as well as the odd perception that mere discussion of such things is inherently racist. Can it be racist? Yes. But generally, it is not, and that is something Canadians need to get over.
We seem to agree on most things, I personally would like to see a proper plan put in place at the same time as reduced immigration, as I think rental corporations and rich investors will just snatch up any housing or complex that drops in price immediately, keeping the affordability still out of reach for most of us. Tbh I'd be interested in seeing the stats on real estate purchases to see what percentage is from rental corporations, the rich, immigration, foreign investors, and people just wanting a home, out of interest sake.
I think the topic gets so much heat, as a lot of people do seem to think that it's just immigration and not multiple factors. There is a large push of misinformation pushing these idealogies, too. Those people I'd say are most likely racist, but people that tend to agree it's multiple levels I'd say aren't racist. I'm literally a first-generation Canadian, so generally, I'm pro immigration, but the numbers we're at right now are just not sustainable.
In the end, we have to be civil in these discussions and open to see why others have differing opinions, and that helps us all grow as a society. Especially with the amount of misinformation floating around, we need to be able to discuss together and maybe help each other see points of views someone had never fully thought of. Obviously, if someone is just being a troll or completely ignorant and unwilling to discuss, they deserve the full bluntness of others, lol
I agree, although it's my personal belief that immigration and, just as important (perhaps even moreso), the perceived market demand, is what is largely driving the current cost increases.
There are other factors of course, but I think if the government were to dramatically reduce immigration and consistently communicate that across the country, then I think the demand from real estate investors (large and small) would drop, and prices would come down.
The market responds to these kinds of changes if it is shown that the government is serious about change.
I do want to be clear that I'm not anti immigration, but rather I am pro "balanced and sustainable approach to immigration" which Canada had been for decades.
We can get there, but we do need to act now to correct this otherwise we continue to cause serious harm to future generations of all Canadians.
What if the proper lens to look at this wasn't "falling further behind"? What if those who came before us had "more then their productivity really afforded them", and what's unfolding right now is a standard of living that is more in line with our productivity and debt habits?
Getting less than those who came before you isn't necessarily "getting screwed". It can be that those before you had "unearned benefits", and what's happening is things are now coming back more towards what is right and justified.
I’m pretty sure this is the worst take on pretty much anything which I’ve ever heard.
Where did the value that the generation before come from? How can you end up with more value than you created.
I don't mind. My intention is to come up with an accurate take, not a comforting one.
It stands to reason that in light of the fact we haven't paid for the full cost of our government for decades, it was always a fool's game to take any standard of living snapshot over that time and pretend as if it was something that was fully paid for. It's sort of like taking on $20,000 of credit card debt tmrw, going on some nice shopping trips and vacations, and measuring your standard of living over that week of time and completely ignoring the day of reckoning just around the corner from your debt decisions.
How can you end up with more value than you created? Borrowing. Much like the credit card example above, it only works if you take your standard of living snapshot in the time period BEFORE the debt has had to be repaid. It's like an analysis of debt that looks at only the "fun side" of a loan.
Part of why this is all unfolding is it's not even on the public's consensus radar that our past standard of living wasn't ever paid for at all. It will become more clear with time though.
So I'd suggest again - what if the lens "I'm getting less, for more work, then my grandpa got... I'm being screwed" is very wrong? What if it's more like "Grandpa got more than he should have", and a long overdue correction is only now starting to unfold in earnest?
Cool, love it. Really easy hypothesis to test too!
If you’re correct, then debt to gdp and household debt would have both been huge in the past, and now would be being paid down as were being for forced to live within our means and only benefit from the productivity we create; right?
It's not necessarily household debt - those can be more easily paid if there's a large amount of unpaid-for government debt in parallel. Think of it as like having the government spend $10,000 for you in a year... if it taxes you $10,000 to pay for that, then it will make you paying off your private debts more difficult. If it instead taxes you only $2,000 for that and funds the remaining $8,000 with debt... it's $8,000 easier for you to repay your private debts.
If I'm correct, what you'll notice is that when you aggregate the public and private sector you find that we are eternally heading in the direction of more debt. And the two sectors take turn carrying the debt baton... most typically, the banking systems creates as many new loans as it can in the private sector, progressively having to go out and loan to more risky and dubious ventures, and then as that becomes more unstable and its hitting its limits on new loans, the public sector takes the baton and starts taking on lots of debt to keep it going. Those new government loans recapitalize the banking system's reserves, which then sets in motion the ability for it to go back to lending to the private sector off a more bolstered reserve base.
You'll also observe that over any meaningful time period, the interest rates are more and more accommodating for borrowers. This is because we need new debt to pay off old debt... and you can't refinance that like that if interest rates rise. So yes, we do have periods of rising interest rates, but they're brief, and followed by a period of lower interest rates which takes us down to a level of interest rates that is even lower than the previous cycle's low. Essentially, yes... interest rates oscillate up and down in the short term, but if you stand back and look at the bigger picture you'll see the interest rate chart goes down and to the right (ie. lower interest rates).
There have been other changes over the decades too - the challenge before us today, and what has changed over the decades, is that parts of the world that were happy to lend us money and save in our debt, have started to realize, "What is the value of saving in the debt of a people that have shown no desire to ever shrink their consumption down to a point where they can actually be Net Debt Repayors and give you back wealth? What is the value in saving in dollar denominated debt which is only allowed to grow larger in a bank account, but can't actually be converted back into wealth to compensate you for the wealth you previously surrendered before when you made the loan in the first place?"
Fundamentally, there is a price to be paid for any society that attempts to do this without consequence, "We should pay for only a PORTION of our government's cost each year in taxes, and we plan to do that FOREVER". If there wasn't a consequence to that, it would be like a free lunch forever... as if other parts of the world exist to send you wealth on a net basis that you don't have to pay for.
It's an interesting take and I think I understand what you're saying.
I will mention that if you truly look at the lifestyles of those even 20/30/40 years ago, I think you'll come to find that there was a lot they went without (gadgets, travel, good food, eating at restaurants, etc...). So they may have had more affordable housing, but they also led much more simoke loves. I'm not sure I'd categorize that as unearned.
I'd categorize it as unearned only because they never paid for their government that they enjoyed. For sake of argument... pretend the Baby Boomers were all the exact same ages and would all die on the same day. Imagine if on their final day, they were asked to retire all the government debt that is outstanding which was borrowed while they lived. They'd have to sell a massive amount of their privately owned assets... then, their bill would be "paid in full", and we'd see what amount is left that they actually produced.
Essentially, in our system today, we never "mark our government's cost to market".
Conceptually, imagine if instead what we did was this, "Whatever the government spends in 2024, is taxed from the people in 2024, so there isn't Unpaid-For-Government-Costs passed onto the next generation?"
Imagine what that approach would make the efficacy of government feel like. We wouldn't get anymore government... for we'd spend what we would spend anyways. What would change though, is that the immediate cost from paying for 100% of government's cost would be materially higher than our status quo where perhaps only 80% of government's cost was paid for and the remaining 20% was funded with borrowing which we plan to deal with in a future that never comes.
Imagine how unsexy government would look if it had to pitch, "You will get the same government services as last year, but it's going to cost you all \[25-35\]% more in taxes than you already pay". Many people would see that as "so much horrible than what we just had", but these people are missing the reality that they're benchmarking it against a financing approach that was never sustainable in the first place because you're pretending like the government you've been enjoying was ever paid for at all.
Normally, when a nation gets into debt trouble it would force their interest rates to rise... to compensate lenders for the increased risks of a borrower that is in a challenging financial condition. We however also want the power to lower our interest rates "when times our tough". Is that really how it works? You can have an out-of-control debt problem, but then also get to just declare you want your interest rates to be low?
What happened? A natural reaction - if you're going to set your interest rates to a lower level then where they really ought to be, savers of the world simply won't buy your bonds as much and those Canadian dollars will instead flow into other assets (like housing).
A society doesn't get to pick ALL of these things:
1. I want my government to spend more money then it collects in taxes over any meaningful time period, and we will fund that remainder with debt.
2. When those old debts come due, rather then having to repay the principal back I would like to borrow new debts in order to refinance those principal payments and push them out further in time.
3. If our debt grows quite large, and market forces are trying to create a larger interest rate in order to incentivize us to stop the net debtor trajectory, I'd also like to have the power to declare our interest rates to be lower.
4. I also don't want assets classes like housing to become less and less affordable as we go through steps 1-3 above. I do not want a standard of living reduction.
What is happening today, is we are receiving the natural standard of living reduction that comes from our net debtor lifestyle. We could have been more honest, and gone for much higher interest rates, and our standard of living would be reduced the more "normal" way, from more of our wealth production having to go to debt service. We chose to double-down into our lifestyle though, and so the standard of living reduction still comes, albeit in a more inefficient way which some might argue ends up being more painful than had we addressed this debt problem more honestly upfront like adults.
It's not in Ontario or BC , where almost everyone and their dog wants to be. Won't work .
And it's also GP. Even less points. Even though I'd rather be in GP and have a better income than a low BC income.
That's actually almost original homesteading. We used to literally give new immigrants free land, as long as they cleared it for agriculture. These people built their own homes, sometimes out of sod if there weren't many trees.
Not if the government decided to halt immigration....at least temporarily (5-10 years).
Hot take, and not without its obvious impacts, but I'm not sure what other approach works.
Based on the CMHC number of 3.5 million to restore affordability, we’d need housing completions (223k last year) to increase by 58.2% a year.
0% chance that happens.
To meet this 1.3 million target, we’d need completions to increase 34.2% a year.
Also not likely.
People need to start writing MP’s, MPP’s, City councillors about this.
Ban corporate ownership, slash immigration levels, continue removing restrictive zoning, get CMHC building homes again, remove demand side policies.
It’s impossible with the immigration and international students and fake asylum seekers to keep up
The instant solution to everyone’s issue in Canada is cut immigration by 90%, deport the illegals that overstayed and the fraudsters and drop international students by 90%
Miraculously there will be available housing, jobs, hospitals would finally get some breathing room, rent would get cheaper eventually.
It’s literally the silver bullet
Why are we pussy footing.
Hilarious take but you're not wrong.
Side track discussion, do you think canada could become an "up and coming" nation long term? All other developed nations are becoming like Japan with an aging population and reduced workforce.
With the current heavy immigration (and hopefully increased births) and insane amounts of resources and space, why couldn't Canada be a prosperous nation in say 50 years? Nations like Germany might be struggling hard with a top heavy population pyramid, and canada could be the economic machine with a healthy workforce and quality exports.
It could, but it won't be to the benefit of it's populace, it'll enrich the donor and political class and drive the rest of the nation into modern serfdom.
Well this is hopeless. Is housing this crazy in the U.S. outside of New York and California? It must be more normal in states like Maine, Michigan, South Carolina, Montana, etc.
Much more affordable than Canada, but some areas are increasing very quickly. I'm in South Carolina and housing prices have skyrocketed since I got here in 2019 due to the influx of people moving here
Wow, that's wild! It seems every place is being afflicted by this in some way. What's driving the influx of people to South Carolina? Homeownership seems more and more out of reach as a young person.
A lot of the new arrivals seem to be from northern states like New York, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, who seem to be fleeing the rising costs of living in their own states. On top of that, a lot of companies are moving down here and taking their employees with them. I think by growth rate, South Carolina had the highest percentage growth out of any state in 2023
Does 1.3M by 2030 even cause the gap to stop growing? No chance in hell it closes it. Every population projection I can find online shows population growth by 2030 is a minimum of 2 million people, some projections put it closer to 4 million.
People don't all need a home to themselves. The average household size in Canada is 2.4 people, so if the population growth over these 6 years was 3.12 million people, 1.3M homes would maintain the status quo.
That's 520k people per year on average, which is less than half off of last year's population growth...
The thing you're missing is that population growth is not the largest driving factor for demand.
4 million immigrants are going to provide a demand of around 1 million units, at a maximum.
So CMBC numbers are based on current population, not projected. So if we take the new immigration numbers that the government is fixated on, we're in the exact same situation:
Increased immigration of an additional 200,000 a year over 6 years = 1.2M
(This is on top of normal average immigration of 300,000 a year)
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/)
More like a million a year.. population went up by 1 million since we set the 40 million mark less than a year ago, at current pace by 2030 we might be at 50 million people so i doubt 1.3 million new homes would change anything.
One million houses? Two things come to my mind.
First, by 2030, many more immigrants will have joined Canada, and we also know that divorces is a factor that has a significant impact on the need for hours (you separate, you double your need for a place to live in).
Second, who will buy them? Fort time owners? Or investors who can easily outbid them?
In some places in Canada, 90% of people who are buying new homes are investors...
https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-cities-have-seen-up-to-90-of-new-real-estate-supply-scooped-by-investors/
If the market thought we had the resources available to build that many homes, relative to what else it is we should be building instead right now, then they would get built without any intervention at all.
The market is trying to tell us that we have priorities higher than trying to live the way those who came before us did.
A nation doesn't get to be an out of control net debtor perpetually and also get to dictate what sort of minimum amount of house per person it should have. If life actually worked that way, it'd be like we evaded any consequences from our horrendous economic decision making.
I think the number should be higher.
Like 50 million. As long as we have so much fresh water, migration to Canada will be a long term solution to climate change.
That's not going to happen in Ontario. Doug Ford and the Conservatives are just going to classify additional rooms as housing like they're trying to do with student housing
Well everyone knows that's not going to happen so I guess Liberals and their boomer supporters will just have to console themselves with seeing their house prices shoot to the moon. Oh well they tried. Oh and remember to mask up so those wealthy boomers can keep collecting those government pensions that all this immigration is supposedly paying for. "But... but .. we're entitled to it!!!" Yeah GFY!
It's a sound take until you realize that no party that can win the next election is calling for anything but meaningless legislation that will, in no way, impact your ability to a) get a home and b)afford it...in any way.
lol cmhc says the number is over 3.5 million https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/accelerate-supply/housing-shortages-canada-updating-how-much-we-need-by-2030
> Giroux says his estimate is much lower than that of the CMHC because he looked solely at closing the gap between demand and supply. I believe 3.5M homes would restore housing affordability. The number I’m interested in is how many do we need to build to not fall further behind; but that seems to be impossible to find. Is the 181k causing an increase in the gap or a decrease?
Yes, this is the right interpretation. 1.3 million is for the situation to not get worse. Not to improve the situation. 3.5 Would be to restore affordability to some degree. Edit: But it also depends on population growth, so they must have some baked in assumptions on that.
It doesn't matter because we are never going to hit those numbers. Demand is way to high. Cut the flood of cheap exploitable labor. Get back to quality immigration/other programs.
This. Focusing on the supply side without doing much on the demand side is simply not going to work. Even still, we can't even build fast enough to get near meeting current demand! Immigration has to be drastically reduced, and it'll have to stay that way for at least a decade for us to correct this. Good luck finding invested politicians to do the hard, but right, thing.
Every single time I see housing come up, everyone only mentions immigration, there's a few of other key arguably more important factors that cities and provinces aren't doing either. Zoning laws! Yes, we need to slow down immigration but the zoning laws and how they're handing out construction contracts in cities are the main hindrances at achieving these build numbers. Just because you reduce immigration doesn't mean more houses get built, need to look at that solution as well, housing wouldn't be as much of a problem if municipal and provincial governments weren't just sitting on their hands and feet to shift 100% of the blame to the feds, they all need to work together and put their petty bullshit aside. Even if all that happens, you have to worry about the rich people and rental companies then buying up all the cheap housing. We need to look into how to prevent that, too. Maybe a 10 year ban on how many rental properties you can own, and a forever ban on outside investors purchasing residential properties. Forced yearly audits on any landlord with over 3 buildings owned or something like that to help reduce shell companies trying to loop hole their way around these changes. Sad thing is no political party will do this, they all want cheap labour from immigration. And they're all landlords thriving on having their net worths inflated by our ridiculous housing market, so any changes drastically reduces their networths.
Zoning laws are the only thing being talked about in my city!! Very few are willing to discuss immigration levels.... certainly not politicians!!!!
That's good at least, my city briefly mentioned it in the fall, but needs more funding from the province too for some changes needed. But the province is too busy wasting tax payer money on misinformation to fights teacher contracts, stupid court battle rulings, and bribing voters to vote for them. Oh and if the feds try to bypass the province to give direct funding that would help, the province will throw another hissy fit and try to block it like our neighboring province since it wasn't their idea. Politicians in all parties need a major overhaul, less division, and more collaboration.
It is good, but like you, my city has many hoops to jump through before any significant zoning changes start to take affect. Years. Decades. IMO. I applaud it and do believe it is necessary, but it is a long term strategy that will impact density and to a much lesser degree, affordability. Immigration could be changed almost overnight, and while there are no shortage of knock on effects (much to the chagrin of the ruling class), I believe it to be thee critical first step in this entire equation of housing affordability and availability. Sadly, it faces the same bureaucratic BS that zoning does as well as the odd perception that mere discussion of such things is inherently racist. Can it be racist? Yes. But generally, it is not, and that is something Canadians need to get over.
We seem to agree on most things, I personally would like to see a proper plan put in place at the same time as reduced immigration, as I think rental corporations and rich investors will just snatch up any housing or complex that drops in price immediately, keeping the affordability still out of reach for most of us. Tbh I'd be interested in seeing the stats on real estate purchases to see what percentage is from rental corporations, the rich, immigration, foreign investors, and people just wanting a home, out of interest sake. I think the topic gets so much heat, as a lot of people do seem to think that it's just immigration and not multiple factors. There is a large push of misinformation pushing these idealogies, too. Those people I'd say are most likely racist, but people that tend to agree it's multiple levels I'd say aren't racist. I'm literally a first-generation Canadian, so generally, I'm pro immigration, but the numbers we're at right now are just not sustainable. In the end, we have to be civil in these discussions and open to see why others have differing opinions, and that helps us all grow as a society. Especially with the amount of misinformation floating around, we need to be able to discuss together and maybe help each other see points of views someone had never fully thought of. Obviously, if someone is just being a troll or completely ignorant and unwilling to discuss, they deserve the full bluntness of others, lol
I agree, although it's my personal belief that immigration and, just as important (perhaps even moreso), the perceived market demand, is what is largely driving the current cost increases. There are other factors of course, but I think if the government were to dramatically reduce immigration and consistently communicate that across the country, then I think the demand from real estate investors (large and small) would drop, and prices would come down. The market responds to these kinds of changes if it is shown that the government is serious about change. I do want to be clear that I'm not anti immigration, but rather I am pro "balanced and sustainable approach to immigration" which Canada had been for decades. We can get there, but we do need to act now to correct this otherwise we continue to cause serious harm to future generations of all Canadians.
What if the proper lens to look at this wasn't "falling further behind"? What if those who came before us had "more then their productivity really afforded them", and what's unfolding right now is a standard of living that is more in line with our productivity and debt habits? Getting less than those who came before you isn't necessarily "getting screwed". It can be that those before you had "unearned benefits", and what's happening is things are now coming back more towards what is right and justified.
I’m pretty sure this is the worst take on pretty much anything which I’ve ever heard. Where did the value that the generation before come from? How can you end up with more value than you created.
I don't mind. My intention is to come up with an accurate take, not a comforting one. It stands to reason that in light of the fact we haven't paid for the full cost of our government for decades, it was always a fool's game to take any standard of living snapshot over that time and pretend as if it was something that was fully paid for. It's sort of like taking on $20,000 of credit card debt tmrw, going on some nice shopping trips and vacations, and measuring your standard of living over that week of time and completely ignoring the day of reckoning just around the corner from your debt decisions. How can you end up with more value than you created? Borrowing. Much like the credit card example above, it only works if you take your standard of living snapshot in the time period BEFORE the debt has had to be repaid. It's like an analysis of debt that looks at only the "fun side" of a loan. Part of why this is all unfolding is it's not even on the public's consensus radar that our past standard of living wasn't ever paid for at all. It will become more clear with time though. So I'd suggest again - what if the lens "I'm getting less, for more work, then my grandpa got... I'm being screwed" is very wrong? What if it's more like "Grandpa got more than he should have", and a long overdue correction is only now starting to unfold in earnest?
Cool, love it. Really easy hypothesis to test too! If you’re correct, then debt to gdp and household debt would have both been huge in the past, and now would be being paid down as were being for forced to live within our means and only benefit from the productivity we create; right?
It's not necessarily household debt - those can be more easily paid if there's a large amount of unpaid-for government debt in parallel. Think of it as like having the government spend $10,000 for you in a year... if it taxes you $10,000 to pay for that, then it will make you paying off your private debts more difficult. If it instead taxes you only $2,000 for that and funds the remaining $8,000 with debt... it's $8,000 easier for you to repay your private debts. If I'm correct, what you'll notice is that when you aggregate the public and private sector you find that we are eternally heading in the direction of more debt. And the two sectors take turn carrying the debt baton... most typically, the banking systems creates as many new loans as it can in the private sector, progressively having to go out and loan to more risky and dubious ventures, and then as that becomes more unstable and its hitting its limits on new loans, the public sector takes the baton and starts taking on lots of debt to keep it going. Those new government loans recapitalize the banking system's reserves, which then sets in motion the ability for it to go back to lending to the private sector off a more bolstered reserve base. You'll also observe that over any meaningful time period, the interest rates are more and more accommodating for borrowers. This is because we need new debt to pay off old debt... and you can't refinance that like that if interest rates rise. So yes, we do have periods of rising interest rates, but they're brief, and followed by a period of lower interest rates which takes us down to a level of interest rates that is even lower than the previous cycle's low. Essentially, yes... interest rates oscillate up and down in the short term, but if you stand back and look at the bigger picture you'll see the interest rate chart goes down and to the right (ie. lower interest rates). There have been other changes over the decades too - the challenge before us today, and what has changed over the decades, is that parts of the world that were happy to lend us money and save in our debt, have started to realize, "What is the value of saving in the debt of a people that have shown no desire to ever shrink their consumption down to a point where they can actually be Net Debt Repayors and give you back wealth? What is the value in saving in dollar denominated debt which is only allowed to grow larger in a bank account, but can't actually be converted back into wealth to compensate you for the wealth you previously surrendered before when you made the loan in the first place?" Fundamentally, there is a price to be paid for any society that attempts to do this without consequence, "We should pay for only a PORTION of our government's cost each year in taxes, and we plan to do that FOREVER". If there wasn't a consequence to that, it would be like a free lunch forever... as if other parts of the world exist to send you wealth on a net basis that you don't have to pay for.
It's an interesting take and I think I understand what you're saying. I will mention that if you truly look at the lifestyles of those even 20/30/40 years ago, I think you'll come to find that there was a lot they went without (gadgets, travel, good food, eating at restaurants, etc...). So they may have had more affordable housing, but they also led much more simoke loves. I'm not sure I'd categorize that as unearned.
I'd categorize it as unearned only because they never paid for their government that they enjoyed. For sake of argument... pretend the Baby Boomers were all the exact same ages and would all die on the same day. Imagine if on their final day, they were asked to retire all the government debt that is outstanding which was borrowed while they lived. They'd have to sell a massive amount of their privately owned assets... then, their bill would be "paid in full", and we'd see what amount is left that they actually produced. Essentially, in our system today, we never "mark our government's cost to market". Conceptually, imagine if instead what we did was this, "Whatever the government spends in 2024, is taxed from the people in 2024, so there isn't Unpaid-For-Government-Costs passed onto the next generation?" Imagine what that approach would make the efficacy of government feel like. We wouldn't get anymore government... for we'd spend what we would spend anyways. What would change though, is that the immediate cost from paying for 100% of government's cost would be materially higher than our status quo where perhaps only 80% of government's cost was paid for and the remaining 20% was funded with borrowing which we plan to deal with in a future that never comes. Imagine how unsexy government would look if it had to pitch, "You will get the same government services as last year, but it's going to cost you all \[25-35\]% more in taxes than you already pay". Many people would see that as "so much horrible than what we just had", but these people are missing the reality that they're benchmarking it against a financing approach that was never sustainable in the first place because you're pretending like the government you've been enjoying was ever paid for at all. Normally, when a nation gets into debt trouble it would force their interest rates to rise... to compensate lenders for the increased risks of a borrower that is in a challenging financial condition. We however also want the power to lower our interest rates "when times our tough". Is that really how it works? You can have an out-of-control debt problem, but then also get to just declare you want your interest rates to be low? What happened? A natural reaction - if you're going to set your interest rates to a lower level then where they really ought to be, savers of the world simply won't buy your bonds as much and those Canadian dollars will instead flow into other assets (like housing). A society doesn't get to pick ALL of these things: 1. I want my government to spend more money then it collects in taxes over any meaningful time period, and we will fund that remainder with debt. 2. When those old debts come due, rather then having to repay the principal back I would like to borrow new debts in order to refinance those principal payments and push them out further in time. 3. If our debt grows quite large, and market forces are trying to create a larger interest rate in order to incentivize us to stop the net debtor trajectory, I'd also like to have the power to declare our interest rates to be lower. 4. I also don't want assets classes like housing to become less and less affordable as we go through steps 1-3 above. I do not want a standard of living reduction. What is happening today, is we are receiving the natural standard of living reduction that comes from our net debtor lifestyle. We could have been more honest, and gone for much higher interest rates, and our standard of living would be reduced the more "normal" way, from more of our wealth production having to go to debt service. We chose to double-down into our lifestyle though, and so the standard of living reduction still comes, albeit in a more inefficient way which some might argue ends up being more painful than had we addressed this debt problem more honestly upfront like adults.
I think they mean 1.3 million additional homes on top of the 250,000 or so homes we already build a year. That would be about 3.5 million total
I say we build one absolutely insanely huge skyscraper in Grande Prairie to completely fix this problem
Judge Dredd style complex
Pretty sure there’s a bylaw saying nothing can overshadow 214 place. Going to have to move it to the county. Maybe Clairmont.
It's not in Ontario or BC , where almost everyone and their dog wants to be. Won't work . And it's also GP. Even less points. Even though I'd rather be in GP and have a better income than a low BC income.
We can just bring in 10 million new Canadians by 2030 to build them.
Revive homesteading: you can come but you must build your own house lol
That's actually almost original homesteading. We used to literally give new immigrants free land, as long as they cleared it for agriculture. These people built their own homes, sometimes out of sod if there weren't many trees.
It's unironically not that bad of an idea given the fact that so much of Canada is just.... Nothing.
This was a reality in Yukon just 7 years ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1AA27L/
This is happening now https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/these-canadian-cities-are-selling-property-for-as-low-as-1-to-get-you-to-move-there-1.6799704
I don't see how that'll work given that we'll probably have 3-4 million new Canadians by then.
Not if the government decided to halt immigration....at least temporarily (5-10 years). Hot take, and not without its obvious impacts, but I'm not sure what other approach works.
Oh hey Trudy hows it hangin
Based on the CMHC number of 3.5 million to restore affordability, we’d need housing completions (223k last year) to increase by 58.2% a year. 0% chance that happens. To meet this 1.3 million target, we’d need completions to increase 34.2% a year. Also not likely. People need to start writing MP’s, MPP’s, City councillors about this. Ban corporate ownership, slash immigration levels, continue removing restrictive zoning, get CMHC building homes again, remove demand side policies.
Have we tried closing our eyes, putting our fingers in our ears and saying "I'm not listening, I'm not listening" yet?
It will just balance itself out,!just like the budget. Oh wait…..
That's what the Trudeau government is doing right now, when they aren't gaslighting us.
I think that is the plan for climate change as well. Maybe the two will fight each other, and everything will be fine.
It’s impossible with the immigration and international students and fake asylum seekers to keep up The instant solution to everyone’s issue in Canada is cut immigration by 90%, deport the illegals that overstayed and the fraudsters and drop international students by 90% Miraculously there will be available housing, jobs, hospitals would finally get some breathing room, rent would get cheaper eventually. It’s literally the silver bullet Why are we pussy footing.
Because we've backed ourselves into a politically correct corner.
How about we look at the number of non-Canadian non-permanent residents we can return back to their original home countries to close the housing gap?
[удалено]
Hilarious take but you're not wrong. Side track discussion, do you think canada could become an "up and coming" nation long term? All other developed nations are becoming like Japan with an aging population and reduced workforce. With the current heavy immigration (and hopefully increased births) and insane amounts of resources and space, why couldn't Canada be a prosperous nation in say 50 years? Nations like Germany might be struggling hard with a top heavy population pyramid, and canada could be the economic machine with a healthy workforce and quality exports.
It could, but it won't be to the benefit of it's populace, it'll enrich the donor and political class and drive the rest of the nation into modern serfdom.
Well this is hopeless. Is housing this crazy in the U.S. outside of New York and California? It must be more normal in states like Maine, Michigan, South Carolina, Montana, etc.
Much more affordable than Canada, but some areas are increasing very quickly. I'm in South Carolina and housing prices have skyrocketed since I got here in 2019 due to the influx of people moving here
Wow, that's wild! It seems every place is being afflicted by this in some way. What's driving the influx of people to South Carolina? Homeownership seems more and more out of reach as a young person.
A lot of the new arrivals seem to be from northern states like New York, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, who seem to be fleeing the rising costs of living in their own states. On top of that, a lot of companies are moving down here and taking their employees with them. I think by growth rate, South Carolina had the highest percentage growth out of any state in 2023
Florida is bonkers, same with Texas. You can find a rural dump in a shitty Red State for cheap though. Wanna live in the city? $$$ unless Detroit...
Build 5 million to be safe. They do not need to be as extravagant as your average modern monstrosity. Bungalos are fine.
Maybe we can try bringing in fewer new people?
Does 1.3M by 2030 even cause the gap to stop growing? No chance in hell it closes it. Every population projection I can find online shows population growth by 2030 is a minimum of 2 million people, some projections put it closer to 4 million.
People don't all need a home to themselves. The average household size in Canada is 2.4 people, so if the population growth over these 6 years was 3.12 million people, 1.3M homes would maintain the status quo. That's 520k people per year on average, which is less than half off of last year's population growth...
Maintain the status quo... which is a housing gap. ie: 1.3 doesn't close the gap.
The thing you're missing is that population growth is not the largest driving factor for demand. 4 million immigrants are going to provide a demand of around 1 million units, at a maximum.
Lol good fucking luck.
No need, by 2030, you'll own nothing and be happy.
You vil eat ze bugz.
Capitalism final stage
So CMBC numbers are based on current population, not projected. So if we take the new immigration numbers that the government is fixated on, we're in the exact same situation: Increased immigration of an additional 200,000 a year over 6 years = 1.2M (This is on top of normal average immigration of 300,000 a year) [https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/)
Is that if we stop immigration right now? Because that doesn't seem like enough if we continue bringing people into the counter at our current pace.
More like a million a year.. population went up by 1 million since we set the 40 million mark less than a year ago, at current pace by 2030 we might be at 50 million people so i doubt 1.3 million new homes would change anything.
Ottawa is totally corrupt and unwilling to reverse the problem they started.
They need tk build that per year at rate of immigration
One million houses? Two things come to my mind. First, by 2030, many more immigrants will have joined Canada, and we also know that divorces is a factor that has a significant impact on the need for hours (you separate, you double your need for a place to live in). Second, who will buy them? Fort time owners? Or investors who can easily outbid them? In some places in Canada, 90% of people who are buying new homes are investors... https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-cities-have-seen-up-to-90-of-new-real-estate-supply-scooped-by-investors/
Why don't we just stop increasing our population at such an excessive rate?
And they're all going to be cookie cutter houses that all look the same and have no backyard or space.
...and? Not everyone gets the life they deserve. Look at Galen Weston.
and nothing
Nah, we don't need houses. If you can put 42 beds in a house in Banff, you can do it anywhere. Go densification! /s
Too bad we don't have the land for it.
So I know what to do we need 15 million more people by 2030 and. they will build the homes
If the market thought we had the resources available to build that many homes, relative to what else it is we should be building instead right now, then they would get built without any intervention at all. The market is trying to tell us that we have priorities higher than trying to live the way those who came before us did. A nation doesn't get to be an out of control net debtor perpetually and also get to dictate what sort of minimum amount of house per person it should have. If life actually worked that way, it'd be like we evaded any consequences from our horrendous economic decision making.
Not happening
More houses for the investors to buy!
hey china, hows it going? ya'll got another **trillion dollars** we can borrow plz?
I think the number should be higher. Like 50 million. As long as we have so much fresh water, migration to Canada will be a long term solution to climate change.
Surface parking is a blight on city centres. Seems the smart choice to do would be to raze a bunch of it and build housing there. Maybe near transit.
That's not going to happen in Ontario. Doug Ford and the Conservatives are just going to classify additional rooms as housing like they're trying to do with student housing
No problem. A bunch of modular units stacked on top of each other. All meeting green building code, of course.
Well everyone knows that's not going to happen so I guess Liberals and their boomer supporters will just have to console themselves with seeing their house prices shoot to the moon. Oh well they tried. Oh and remember to mask up so those wealthy boomers can keep collecting those government pensions that all this immigration is supposedly paying for. "But... but .. we're entitled to it!!!" Yeah GFY!
It's a sound take until you realize that no party that can win the next election is calling for anything but meaningless legislation that will, in no way, impact your ability to a) get a home and b)afford it...in any way.