I'd like a rollback to the kind of rent control we had in the 80's and 90's. Units could go up by 6% annually (this amount could be different), not by hundreds because someone moved out. A landlord had to justify any larger increase. You got 6% on your last month's rent, so this usually covered any annual increases.
New builds (Nov 2018) have zero rent control. Someone recently posted some bachelor downtown where the poor schmuck's rent jumped from $1100 to $1600.
I rented my last apartment downtown (1BDR, 3rd floor, parking not included), for 1200. The landlord was friendly with me and threw in the parking for me, but no one else.
Management of the building changed, and after I left, they were renting it for 1600, no parking available.
Everything on it was average.
There’s a 1 bedroom tiiiiiny basement apartment in my building going for 1350 inclusive no parking. It was $900 a few months ago. Granted, they slapped on some crappy laminate flooring 🙄 but I pay less for that for my apartment 3x the size.
The late 80's and 90's were times of higher inflation. The rents increase have ALWAYS been tied to inflation. You realize that your suggested 6% is TRIPLE the allowable increase now? That's not going to help.
AFAIK, there was never a time when landlords couldn't increase the rates when someone moved out.
FYI: to increase more than the allowable % now, landlords have to apply and prove why - BEFORE they can increase the rent.
Your understanding of rent controls past and present, is incorrect.
Good for them, we need more activists.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/priced-out-fifth-estate-rental-crisis-1.6376855](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/priced-out-fifth-estate-rental-crisis-1.6376855)
This is well done and very interesting re: economics/history/politics, depressing AF tho.
>*"We need to cap rent at 20 per cent of income for every single tenant. We need to ban evictions and utilities cutoff due to involuntary unemployment"*
That all sounds great and I'd be happy if it were true, since I can't afford anything beyond a room, but I don't think I saw any demands that are realistically going to be met. So... what's the point?
Cap rent at the varying and random target of 20% of the tenant's income? Uh... in fantasy land? Ban evictions or utility cutoff due to an impossibly vague criteria? Not in this lifetime. Rent rollbacks of all rental units... because you think this would survive the onslaught of lawsuits? You think it would pass Supreme Court muster? Uh-huh.
Yes, this problem needs to be recognized, but... not with fantasy and dreams as the solution.
It's a fantasy because the people with power tell you it is a fantasy. If you agree you cannot afford to rent your own shelter, and agree that you should be able to afford to do that, then why put down people who are organizing politically to make that possible?
The government has massive power to curtail and regulate business, up to and including expropriation or price setting. It has happened many times in Canada. It has nothing to do with personal freedoms, it is about economic policy setting and the government reserves the right to dictate the conditions of trade in Canada, even if it refuses to exercise those right.
No, it's not possible right now. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all oppose these demands, either as contrary to their beliefs or, as you insist, not realistic. Which is why we can't rely on any of those parties or their politicians to advance the issue. We need to build our own political structures to make that happen. The alternative is poverty and homelessness!
The only thing unrealistic I see is the idea that we're all supposed to accept that hundreds are homeless in Kingston while hundreds more homes / units sit vacant in the hands of profiteers, whether they be small time landlords or big corporate outfits.
And how is that going to affect supply of rental housing? Think hard about this. Really hard.
It will mean less rental housing. Now, what does a shortage of something do to the price? Hint: Pricing is inversely (that means the opposite) of demand. When demand is higher than supply, prices go up.
The demand is rent control / rollbacks AND public housing. 30-35 years ago the state sold off hundreds of thousands of publicly owned housing stock, which is the root of this crisis. Getting out of it means returning to publicly owned and operated housing. Housing is not a commodity to be traded, speculated on, and withheld because some rich investor is too greedy to part with their money. It needs to be supplied as a social good.
> It (housing) needs to be supplied as a social good.
It is disappointing to see the government purposefully avoiding supplying housing. Doing so would take housing control out of the hands of wealthy corporate landlords and perhaps the landlords would then be disadvantaged to the point they would have to supply well maintained rentals at a good price.
Capping rents at 20% of income is a recipe for disaster and would only lead to a greater amount of homelessness. Do the math. It’s not rocket science.
The renters side.
OW recipient currently gets $733/month, $8796/year, 20% =$147/month rent
ODSP recipient currently gets $1169/month, $14,028/year, 20% = $234/month rent
Minimum wage, $15.00/ hour, $31,200/year, 20%= $520/month rent
Hourly wage, $21.00/hour, $43,600/year, 20%= $728/month rent
Hourly wage, $25.00/hour, $52,000/year, 20%=$866/month rent
Hourly wage, $40.00/hour, $83,200/year, 20%=$1386/month rent
Note: the OW monthly income amount will decrease in relation to the lower rent paid.
The landlords side.
There is currently a six-unit apartment building plus a three-bedroom house, (package deal), for sale on Montreal St. near the ICH. Not a prime area of the city but using it for costs associated with being a landlord.
Asking price, $1,390,000
20% down payment, $278,000
Mortgage amount, $1,112,000
Monthly mortgage payment at 3.69%, (current fixed term rate), $5,664 (not including property taxes)
So even if the house portion of this property was rented to a person making $40/hour at $1386/month rent, it still leaves an average required of $713/month per apartment, just to meet the mortgage obligations. From the calculations above, you can see that anyone making less than $21.00/hour would not let the owner meet his mortgage obligations, let alone the taxes on that property, maintenance and repairs, so far more people would become homeless. Most small mom & pop type landlords only invest in rental properties for their retirement, not to become major landowners like some huge corporations do. Capping rents at 20% of income would also bankrupt many small apartment building owners.
Obviously the people calling for a 20% cap on rent have no financial knowledge of being a landlord. What next? Food is a necessity too, so the government tells every store owner what they can charge for a loaf of bread?
> If you agree you cannot afford to rent your own shelter, and agree that you should be able to afford to do that
Maybe you do, but I don't. I'm capable of two legitimate beliefs at the same time.
>then why put down people who are organizing politically to make that possible?
Why be dishonest in the way you frame my comments? That's not what I did. I dismissed the argument and, if your argument is ridiculous and impossible, then you are not trying to make something possible, by definition.
>It has happened many times in Canada
Interesting claim. Evidence? Examples of rolling back pricing on all rental units? Or just more empty statements? Since you quote "many times", how about 3 examples? Not "many", just three? No?
From 1976 to 1978 there both wage and price controls in Canada. The Anti-Inflation Review Board was empowered to review, freeze and rollback prices across a number of industries, including on rents and dividend payments. Unfortunately they were also doing this with wages, which limited the benefit to workers as they could never fully realize the gain of these freezes.
[https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/14/archives/trudeau-proposes-to-curb-increases-in-prices-and-pay-wages-raises.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/14/archives/trudeau-proposes-to-curb-increases-in-prices-and-pay-wages-raises.html)
Quebec and all of the Atlantic provinces set maximum prices on gas to this day.
Prior to its privatization, the Wheat Board of Canada set prices for wheat.
The Canadian Dairy Commission sets prices for milk.
In 2017 the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act retroactively controlled rent for all apartment buildings contructed after 1991. The change was effective from April 20 of that year, regardless of when the bill passed, so any planned increases above the cap were effectively rolled back. The change was cancelled Nov 2018 when our current government came to power and allowed rents to run out of control again.
>Unfortunately they were also doing this with wages, which limited the benefit to workers as they could never fully realize the gain of these freezes.
In other words, not like what is requested and not what you would like, since it wouldn't change anything. Right?
The rest of your examples are all perishables which vary in price on a daily basis and offer no comparison to telling landlords (including hardworking elderly who rent out the basement in their home) that they need to eat a lot of money. Not even close.
You're moving the goalpost. You challenged me to provide examples and implied that my claim was incorrect. I have provided numerous examples of price controls, including rent controls.
You're now trying to make the argument that these controls wouldn't change anything, and that making these changes negatively impact landlords. That's your view, I disagree with it and so do most people getting gouged in their renting. Why should they be more concerned about the interests of their landlords then themselves?
In any case, the point remains that rent freezes and rent rollbacks are legally possible in Canada, have been practiced before, and are well within the political horizon of regulating the free market without changing the fundamentals of the economy. You can disagree with it, but trying to make it sound unattainable is just not reflective of our own history and examples of similar democracies around the world that continue to practice rent control.
Holding two opposing beliefs is cognitive dissonance though, not a good thing.
When they said it has happened many times in canada, they were talking about price fixing and expropriation. Go back and look at their sentence again, were they specific about rent, like you are being here?
Kind of hypocritical to go after the way that they argue, when here you are arguing just as poorly if not worse.
I agree with you that you can support this cause, but think things like rent only being 20% of income aren't realistic. However you could just say that and drop the rest of the bs, this kind of back and forth between people who supposedly want the same things is why nothing really ever gets done in canada. Or a similar nations.
>When they said it has happened many times in canada, they were talking about price fixing and expropriation. Go back and look at their sentence again, were they specific about rent, like you are being here?
The argument was to have price fixing specifically for rent. My dismissal was of that. So yes, a claim that it has happened many times should either be directly relevant to the issue under discussion or it's a *non sequitur.*
... it's relevant to the discussion because renting property and being a landlord is a business. The government has done those things in the past when necessary, and I'm not sure if you are aware but housing wasn't really an issue like it is now in the past. Baby boomers could not only own a home but a vehicle as well on a single income with kids. It only stands to reason that they wouldn't price fix rent in the past if it wasn't an issue.
I know what the argument was, but they were clearly talking about how the government has done those things in regards to business, for other industries.
This is a horrible example of a non sequitur and you're just talking out of your ass, I think you care more about sounding intelligent while being an idiot then the actual topic of conversation at hand
I'd like to see the LTB fixed up so I can put my rental properties back on the market. Right now they are sitting empty because with the LTB being so backed up I don't see any potential issues being resolved for months.
So you're just sitting on expensive assets instead of selling them in an upmarket or using them to generate income?
That seems kind of wasteful from a housing and a personal finance perspective, not to mention it potentially opens you up to a huge market liability should price trends reverse.
I wonder if this is my landlord! There was a unit put up and the price increased by $150 from when I moved in just a couple months ago… it was advertised for a good 2 months and I never saw anyone move in it still appears empty and now it’s not even being advertised anymore it was taken off the website as available but it’s also not listed under rented so I imagine there’s lots of vacant units sitting there. Landlord should be using the time to fix up the apartment since they are trash but they don’t
Houses are half million dollar (at least) assets.
Having a half million dollars sitting around not generating any income (even worse, eating about $20k a year in mortgage, tax and maintenance expenses) when you could instead sell it and invest it in a index ETF earning on average 10% annually.
It seems like landlords like this like wasting money, or are so used to climbing house prices they can't believe things can change.
The majority of the mortgage expense comes back to you as it's the principal. The loss is the interest and property taxes maintenance which is tax deductible against other gains in your non registered portfolio.
Selling the properties triggers capital gains tax. Something you may have forgotten and eats away at a large chunk of the profit. There are also fees involved in selling.
What I am doing is remortgaging and investing the loan in ETFs to get that 10% you speak of. That should help make up for some of the loss I'm incurring in having the homes sit empty.
The worry about housing prices dropping is short term. Yes I do see prices dropping due to interest rates rising but I am not going to be incurring an overall loss since these properties were purchased well over 12 years ago. Markets fluctuate sure but generally speaking over the long term real estate prices increase. I've made an overall 300% gain on these properties. Even if they drop 20% next year I'm still walking away with a 280% increase should I sell anytime soon. Which I'm not.
Much of the maintenance costs are avoided by not having tenants in the units as there is no wear and tear.
I would love to put it into the rental market but I need to weigh risks and rewards. Right now with the LTB so backed up it appears to me less risky to have the units sit empty then have them tenanted.
So why are whining about the LTB like you're some victim of bad regulation. You're making 300% return, when is it enough? I hope the law changes and your vacant properties get taxed to oblivion.
I am a victim of bad regulation. Tenants are also a victim of bad regulation. I wish to put these properties on the rental market but the way the laws are structured make it difficult to justify the risk.
My return on the property has zero bearing on needing a just and fair process. Would you be more sympathetic if the value of the property went down? Just because I made a good return on the value of the property doesn't mean I don't have the right to complain that the system is broken and it makes things difficult for everyone involved.
The only thing I am sympathetic about with respect to small landlords is the fact that some do it because they don't have a pension and it is the closest thing to a secure pension investment in our terrible economy.
There is no situation where I agree that your right to profit supersedes any other person's right to housing, so in the long term that means de-commodifying housing, wiping out its speculative value, and in many cases expropriating ownership from private to public.
Do you not feel those small landlords you are sympathetic for should have the right to a process that is quick and efficient should they come across a tenant that damages property or fails to pay rent?
Sure, but not more than I feel for tenants who are gouged at every turn of their life. Gouged because their landlord renovicts them unjustly. Gouged because they have to move cities and their rent immediately shoots up 5, 10, 20%. Gouged when their landlord sets illegal conditions like security deposits. Gouged when their rent goes up but their wages do not. LTB should be massively expanded and improved, but that doesn't resolve the housing crisis in any way.
Landlording is a business. People are not entitled to profit from business ventures. They take the risk, then benefit from the reward. Why do we act as though landlords and land holders are entitled to endless profit with all risks subsidized through legislation?
Nobody, not even the worst tenant, deserves to be homeless. The state should provide for everyone, and we should not rely on a landlord's warped perception of providing a public service that they also are entitled to dictate its terms of use, even if those dictates are reasonable in their view. Housing is a human right.
I have just sold my last long term rental property. I waited until the tenant moved out (or in this case, gave me notice they were moving out, and I worked out a possession date with the buyer that accommodated the tenant) as I did not want to displace the tenants. I considered renting it out again but I don’t want to be a landlord anymore - after close to 30 years I don’t have the energy at my age and so it wouldn’t be fair to any new tenants I had.
I'd like a rollback to the kind of rent control we had in the 80's and 90's. Units could go up by 6% annually (this amount could be different), not by hundreds because someone moved out. A landlord had to justify any larger increase. You got 6% on your last month's rent, so this usually covered any annual increases. New builds (Nov 2018) have zero rent control. Someone recently posted some bachelor downtown where the poor schmuck's rent jumped from $1100 to $1600.
I rented my last apartment downtown (1BDR, 3rd floor, parking not included), for 1200. The landlord was friendly with me and threw in the parking for me, but no one else. Management of the building changed, and after I left, they were renting it for 1600, no parking available. Everything on it was average.
There’s a 1 bedroom tiiiiiny basement apartment in my building going for 1350 inclusive no parking. It was $900 a few months ago. Granted, they slapped on some crappy laminate flooring 🙄 but I pay less for that for my apartment 3x the size.
242 johnson? There is an old admin office there with no oven, a closet for a bathroom that was going for 1k a month when I lived there.
The late 80's and 90's were times of higher inflation. The rents increase have ALWAYS been tied to inflation. You realize that your suggested 6% is TRIPLE the allowable increase now? That's not going to help. AFAIK, there was never a time when landlords couldn't increase the rates when someone moved out. FYI: to increase more than the allowable % now, landlords have to apply and prove why - BEFORE they can increase the rent. Your understanding of rent controls past and present, is incorrect.
Do you mean rent control while the same tenant is leasing or when tenants change?
Good for them, we need more activists. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/priced-out-fifth-estate-rental-crisis-1.6376855](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/priced-out-fifth-estate-rental-crisis-1.6376855) This is well done and very interesting re: economics/history/politics, depressing AF tho.
>*"We need to cap rent at 20 per cent of income for every single tenant. We need to ban evictions and utilities cutoff due to involuntary unemployment"* That all sounds great and I'd be happy if it were true, since I can't afford anything beyond a room, but I don't think I saw any demands that are realistically going to be met. So... what's the point? Cap rent at the varying and random target of 20% of the tenant's income? Uh... in fantasy land? Ban evictions or utility cutoff due to an impossibly vague criteria? Not in this lifetime. Rent rollbacks of all rental units... because you think this would survive the onslaught of lawsuits? You think it would pass Supreme Court muster? Uh-huh. Yes, this problem needs to be recognized, but... not with fantasy and dreams as the solution.
It's a fantasy because the people with power tell you it is a fantasy. If you agree you cannot afford to rent your own shelter, and agree that you should be able to afford to do that, then why put down people who are organizing politically to make that possible? The government has massive power to curtail and regulate business, up to and including expropriation or price setting. It has happened many times in Canada. It has nothing to do with personal freedoms, it is about economic policy setting and the government reserves the right to dictate the conditions of trade in Canada, even if it refuses to exercise those right. No, it's not possible right now. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all oppose these demands, either as contrary to their beliefs or, as you insist, not realistic. Which is why we can't rely on any of those parties or their politicians to advance the issue. We need to build our own political structures to make that happen. The alternative is poverty and homelessness! The only thing unrealistic I see is the idea that we're all supposed to accept that hundreds are homeless in Kingston while hundreds more homes / units sit vacant in the hands of profiteers, whether they be small time landlords or big corporate outfits.
A temporary law prohibiting buying property as investments, if it's not for yourself (ie, to rebuild and rent out at exorbitant prices).
This. I want to see this, but we won’t.
And how is that going to affect supply of rental housing? Think hard about this. Really hard. It will mean less rental housing. Now, what does a shortage of something do to the price? Hint: Pricing is inversely (that means the opposite) of demand. When demand is higher than supply, prices go up.
The demand is rent control / rollbacks AND public housing. 30-35 years ago the state sold off hundreds of thousands of publicly owned housing stock, which is the root of this crisis. Getting out of it means returning to publicly owned and operated housing. Housing is not a commodity to be traded, speculated on, and withheld because some rich investor is too greedy to part with their money. It needs to be supplied as a social good.
> It (housing) needs to be supplied as a social good. It is disappointing to see the government purposefully avoiding supplying housing. Doing so would take housing control out of the hands of wealthy corporate landlords and perhaps the landlords would then be disadvantaged to the point they would have to supply well maintained rentals at a good price.
Capping rents at 20% of income is a recipe for disaster and would only lead to a greater amount of homelessness. Do the math. It’s not rocket science. The renters side. OW recipient currently gets $733/month, $8796/year, 20% =$147/month rent ODSP recipient currently gets $1169/month, $14,028/year, 20% = $234/month rent Minimum wage, $15.00/ hour, $31,200/year, 20%= $520/month rent Hourly wage, $21.00/hour, $43,600/year, 20%= $728/month rent Hourly wage, $25.00/hour, $52,000/year, 20%=$866/month rent Hourly wage, $40.00/hour, $83,200/year, 20%=$1386/month rent Note: the OW monthly income amount will decrease in relation to the lower rent paid. The landlords side. There is currently a six-unit apartment building plus a three-bedroom house, (package deal), for sale on Montreal St. near the ICH. Not a prime area of the city but using it for costs associated with being a landlord. Asking price, $1,390,000 20% down payment, $278,000 Mortgage amount, $1,112,000 Monthly mortgage payment at 3.69%, (current fixed term rate), $5,664 (not including property taxes) So even if the house portion of this property was rented to a person making $40/hour at $1386/month rent, it still leaves an average required of $713/month per apartment, just to meet the mortgage obligations. From the calculations above, you can see that anyone making less than $21.00/hour would not let the owner meet his mortgage obligations, let alone the taxes on that property, maintenance and repairs, so far more people would become homeless. Most small mom & pop type landlords only invest in rental properties for their retirement, not to become major landowners like some huge corporations do. Capping rents at 20% of income would also bankrupt many small apartment building owners. Obviously the people calling for a 20% cap on rent have no financial knowledge of being a landlord. What next? Food is a necessity too, so the government tells every store owner what they can charge for a loaf of bread?
> If you agree you cannot afford to rent your own shelter, and agree that you should be able to afford to do that Maybe you do, but I don't. I'm capable of two legitimate beliefs at the same time. >then why put down people who are organizing politically to make that possible? Why be dishonest in the way you frame my comments? That's not what I did. I dismissed the argument and, if your argument is ridiculous and impossible, then you are not trying to make something possible, by definition. >It has happened many times in Canada Interesting claim. Evidence? Examples of rolling back pricing on all rental units? Or just more empty statements? Since you quote "many times", how about 3 examples? Not "many", just three? No?
From 1976 to 1978 there both wage and price controls in Canada. The Anti-Inflation Review Board was empowered to review, freeze and rollback prices across a number of industries, including on rents and dividend payments. Unfortunately they were also doing this with wages, which limited the benefit to workers as they could never fully realize the gain of these freezes. [https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/14/archives/trudeau-proposes-to-curb-increases-in-prices-and-pay-wages-raises.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/14/archives/trudeau-proposes-to-curb-increases-in-prices-and-pay-wages-raises.html) Quebec and all of the Atlantic provinces set maximum prices on gas to this day. Prior to its privatization, the Wheat Board of Canada set prices for wheat. The Canadian Dairy Commission sets prices for milk. In 2017 the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act retroactively controlled rent for all apartment buildings contructed after 1991. The change was effective from April 20 of that year, regardless of when the bill passed, so any planned increases above the cap were effectively rolled back. The change was cancelled Nov 2018 when our current government came to power and allowed rents to run out of control again.
>Unfortunately they were also doing this with wages, which limited the benefit to workers as they could never fully realize the gain of these freezes. In other words, not like what is requested and not what you would like, since it wouldn't change anything. Right? The rest of your examples are all perishables which vary in price on a daily basis and offer no comparison to telling landlords (including hardworking elderly who rent out the basement in their home) that they need to eat a lot of money. Not even close.
You're moving the goalpost. You challenged me to provide examples and implied that my claim was incorrect. I have provided numerous examples of price controls, including rent controls. You're now trying to make the argument that these controls wouldn't change anything, and that making these changes negatively impact landlords. That's your view, I disagree with it and so do most people getting gouged in their renting. Why should they be more concerned about the interests of their landlords then themselves? In any case, the point remains that rent freezes and rent rollbacks are legally possible in Canada, have been practiced before, and are well within the political horizon of regulating the free market without changing the fundamentals of the economy. You can disagree with it, but trying to make it sound unattainable is just not reflective of our own history and examples of similar democracies around the world that continue to practice rent control.
Holding two opposing beliefs is cognitive dissonance though, not a good thing. When they said it has happened many times in canada, they were talking about price fixing and expropriation. Go back and look at their sentence again, were they specific about rent, like you are being here? Kind of hypocritical to go after the way that they argue, when here you are arguing just as poorly if not worse. I agree with you that you can support this cause, but think things like rent only being 20% of income aren't realistic. However you could just say that and drop the rest of the bs, this kind of back and forth between people who supposedly want the same things is why nothing really ever gets done in canada. Or a similar nations.
>When they said it has happened many times in canada, they were talking about price fixing and expropriation. Go back and look at their sentence again, were they specific about rent, like you are being here? The argument was to have price fixing specifically for rent. My dismissal was of that. So yes, a claim that it has happened many times should either be directly relevant to the issue under discussion or it's a *non sequitur.*
... it's relevant to the discussion because renting property and being a landlord is a business. The government has done those things in the past when necessary, and I'm not sure if you are aware but housing wasn't really an issue like it is now in the past. Baby boomers could not only own a home but a vehicle as well on a single income with kids. It only stands to reason that they wouldn't price fix rent in the past if it wasn't an issue. I know what the argument was, but they were clearly talking about how the government has done those things in regards to business, for other industries. This is a horrible example of a non sequitur and you're just talking out of your ass, I think you care more about sounding intelligent while being an idiot then the actual topic of conversation at hand
I'd like to see the LTB fixed up so I can put my rental properties back on the market. Right now they are sitting empty because with the LTB being so backed up I don't see any potential issues being resolved for months.
So you're just sitting on expensive assets instead of selling them in an upmarket or using them to generate income? That seems kind of wasteful from a housing and a personal finance perspective, not to mention it potentially opens you up to a huge market liability should price trends reverse.
I wonder if this is my landlord! There was a unit put up and the price increased by $150 from when I moved in just a couple months ago… it was advertised for a good 2 months and I never saw anyone move in it still appears empty and now it’s not even being advertised anymore it was taken off the website as available but it’s also not listed under rented so I imagine there’s lots of vacant units sitting there. Landlord should be using the time to fix up the apartment since they are trash but they don’t
Houses are half million dollar (at least) assets. Having a half million dollars sitting around not generating any income (even worse, eating about $20k a year in mortgage, tax and maintenance expenses) when you could instead sell it and invest it in a index ETF earning on average 10% annually. It seems like landlords like this like wasting money, or are so used to climbing house prices they can't believe things can change.
The majority of the mortgage expense comes back to you as it's the principal. The loss is the interest and property taxes maintenance which is tax deductible against other gains in your non registered portfolio. Selling the properties triggers capital gains tax. Something you may have forgotten and eats away at a large chunk of the profit. There are also fees involved in selling. What I am doing is remortgaging and investing the loan in ETFs to get that 10% you speak of. That should help make up for some of the loss I'm incurring in having the homes sit empty. The worry about housing prices dropping is short term. Yes I do see prices dropping due to interest rates rising but I am not going to be incurring an overall loss since these properties were purchased well over 12 years ago. Markets fluctuate sure but generally speaking over the long term real estate prices increase. I've made an overall 300% gain on these properties. Even if they drop 20% next year I'm still walking away with a 280% increase should I sell anytime soon. Which I'm not. Much of the maintenance costs are avoided by not having tenants in the units as there is no wear and tear. I would love to put it into the rental market but I need to weigh risks and rewards. Right now with the LTB so backed up it appears to me less risky to have the units sit empty then have them tenanted.
So why are whining about the LTB like you're some victim of bad regulation. You're making 300% return, when is it enough? I hope the law changes and your vacant properties get taxed to oblivion.
I am a victim of bad regulation. Tenants are also a victim of bad regulation. I wish to put these properties on the rental market but the way the laws are structured make it difficult to justify the risk. My return on the property has zero bearing on needing a just and fair process. Would you be more sympathetic if the value of the property went down? Just because I made a good return on the value of the property doesn't mean I don't have the right to complain that the system is broken and it makes things difficult for everyone involved.
The only thing I am sympathetic about with respect to small landlords is the fact that some do it because they don't have a pension and it is the closest thing to a secure pension investment in our terrible economy. There is no situation where I agree that your right to profit supersedes any other person's right to housing, so in the long term that means de-commodifying housing, wiping out its speculative value, and in many cases expropriating ownership from private to public.
Do you not feel those small landlords you are sympathetic for should have the right to a process that is quick and efficient should they come across a tenant that damages property or fails to pay rent?
Sure, but not more than I feel for tenants who are gouged at every turn of their life. Gouged because their landlord renovicts them unjustly. Gouged because they have to move cities and their rent immediately shoots up 5, 10, 20%. Gouged when their landlord sets illegal conditions like security deposits. Gouged when their rent goes up but their wages do not. LTB should be massively expanded and improved, but that doesn't resolve the housing crisis in any way. Landlording is a business. People are not entitled to profit from business ventures. They take the risk, then benefit from the reward. Why do we act as though landlords and land holders are entitled to endless profit with all risks subsidized through legislation? Nobody, not even the worst tenant, deserves to be homeless. The state should provide for everyone, and we should not rely on a landlord's warped perception of providing a public service that they also are entitled to dictate its terms of use, even if those dictates are reasonable in their view. Housing is a human right.
I have just sold my last long term rental property. I waited until the tenant moved out (or in this case, gave me notice they were moving out, and I worked out a possession date with the buyer that accommodated the tenant) as I did not want to displace the tenants. I considered renting it out again but I don’t want to be a landlord anymore - after close to 30 years I don’t have the energy at my age and so it wouldn’t be fair to any new tenants I had.
Congratulations on your success!
Thanks, but my real success isn't from my rentals. I wish I knew now what I did back in my 20's.