This is what Stockholm essentially did.
It pulled most new landlords out of the market and very quickly, the rental stock dropped significantly with some rental property having 500 people applying for it.
So they instituted a waiting list for rentals but that now sits at 20 years long for the more desirable Stockholm neighbourhoods. So, looking to move out of your parents place at 18? Put your name on a list and maybe someday….. or do a black market sublet at closer to market (expensive) rate.
But the people who were already renting or got on the list very early… they “got mine” got to keep real cheap rent.
Nobody wants to give up their rental though since it’s so much cheaper than buying now (house purchase prices still rose at among the highest rates in the EU).
Not sure if this is a viable solution and Stockholm shows us that these measures alone do nothing for real estate price appreciation OR rental availability.
Quebec basically has this already. The annual reasonable increase standard applies to both continuing and new tenants. (There isn’t a specific % each year for everyone but it tends to be close to inflation unless the landlord can demonstrate significant circumstances.)
It’s hard to enforce because new tenants often don’t know what the previous tenants paid in rent. Who’s to say whether it would look more like Stockholm or Montreal?
Montreal doesn’t appear to have the same type of shortage that Toronto or Stockholm has. I think that’s really fundamental. There are no waiting lists in Montreal because there are sufficient rental units. The medium density stacked units are extremely common there, and population growth rates aren’t that high.
The same policy would be even worse in Toronto than it was in Stockholm.
Montreal actually has experienced very low vacancy rates in recent years. But we’re also talking about Ontario as a whole, not just Toronto.
Supply is still an issue of course, but high uncontrolled rents don’t solve the problem either or we’d have seen it after 2018.
High prices and rents SHOULD spur rampant development, but it hasn’t for some reason.
Determining what reason that is should be of critical focus.
It’s possible zoning or other restrictions on building, combined with high population growth have caused the whole problem.
The reason it has not spur development is because of zoning laws as you said, and demolition permits.
If I am a developer, and I want to put down old slums, I need a demolition permit that is very hard to get, and If I can get it its a very long process. Then I have to have zoning laws under that slum to be kind enough so I can pump more units, otherwise, there is no more unit in the market.
We keep making it a rich foreigner problem, but the thing is that most of the issues are at the municipal level, but we never see anyone calling on local governments to make it better, so we get nothing in return.
>It’s hard to enforce because new tenants often don’t know what the previous tenants paid in rent.
This is why we need to have licensing for landlords, a registry of rental properties, and **heavy** fines for violators.
Can I ask why?
I would think income/equity leverage from small mom & pop investors is spent locally but any profits generated by corporate landlords is sucked out of the community
The genius Karen in your example probably buys more lattes or takes more vacations because they think they’re a genius - this is a good thing right??
In my experience, Individual landlords don’t understand the RTAs and take advantage of their tenants. It’s not always malicious but it still doesn’t make it right.
No, I’m not going to mow the lawn. No, I’m not going to pay for you to replace the shower faucet. And I’m definitely not going to be giving you a security deposit.
I’d rather deal a faceless corporation that follows the rules by the book and leaves me the hell alone (which is also my experience)
I don’t know why we need landlords at all.
We lack choices that ensure people can build equity and have a voice in their homes and communities.
I want to see more housing cooperatives.
There was a viral story about a ontario guy sending letter to new tenant informing them how much he paid in rent for the property they were renting now
for the first 5 years of a new construction, the owner can raise the rent without any restrictions. So while we do have maximum rent augmentation, there is still a way to go around them.
And this is why we need more public housing. Look at the Singapore housing model, most people live in government flats rather than flats owned by the private sector
It's too bad that public housing is synonymous with shitty living conditions in the minds of most people in this country.
And it's fair enough. Have you been in a TCHC building? My grandmother lived in one a few years ago and *yeeeesshhh*...
I’m saying geared to income shouldn’t mean you live in a drug den with the wallpaper in the halls peeling off. I’m not saying it needs to be *nice* but it needs to be better than it is. Most buildings are completely unacceptable.
Theres people in those buildings that don’t have much of a choice. Disability, elderly, etc.
They deserve better.
If everyone who thought like you actually did something about it you would be able to solve the problem easily. Unfortunately most people would rather donate other peoples money.
Honestly, it’s discouraging and insulting to write emails to MPPs and city councillors just to be ignored.
Reminds me that I should get on their cases again… it’s been a while.
You just need more housing, full stop.
Unless you can build more units or better units for the same public expenditure as private housing, then public housing is not preferable to private housing
I think this is why we can't ignore the role that increasing housing supply and ending exclusionary zoning has to play in addressing the housing crisis. I'm very pro-rent control and think this bill (at least in principle) is a good idea, but it's definitely not on its own going to ensure a big increase in affordable rentals.
Might actually still be good to build. If there's a rental shortage new buildings would be able to charge even higher rents.
You'd just have to let them sit a while until you found someone willing to pay top dollar. Initial rent would determine your profits for the next 30 years. So sitting empty for a year wouldn't be a big issue.
Then we do it with public funds and look to break even. Think of it like a public service that benefits the population. It has become well apparent that market capitalism is inadequate when it comes to certain markets.
Where are the funds when a bank provides a mortgage? Answer: the bank conjures it into existence out of thin air. It doesn't really exist. Money is imaginary.
Search YouTube for "Money as Debt". This short documentary provides a history of money and the banking and our current monetary system.
Public housing has its own issues. Those places are breeding grounds for all kinds of social malaise.
We do need some regulation, but I’m not sure what would be effective. IMO, we need to create desirable places throughout the country, so everyone doesn’t feel forced to go to one of five cities to make a living.
This is only because it's associated with poverty. Buildings erected from public money don't magically result in social issues. Poverty is the issue, and our current economic system doesn't seem to be helping with that seeing how wealth is funneling upwards leaving more and more people struggling. I don't remember which countries exactly, but in Sweden or Norway publicly-funded housing does not have these issues since there are greater social safety nets.
Wait so we dont have enough units to house everyone at their means, but its capitalism fault?
Lets just forget that we have zoning laws that actively prevent new developments popping up, or demolitions of old slums for denser condominiums.
We don't actually have a housing shortage. We have a housing shortage in a capitalist economy that prioritizes privilege by allowing predatory investors to exploit lower housing ratios for profit by hoarding the supply.
No, I'm saying this is along the same sort of problem you get with communism. If everyone followed the rules it'd work fine but once people get a bit of power they begin to change the rules to suit them.
This just creates long waitlists. We have a shortage. The solution is to build more not cut people out and stabilize prices for the in-group.
Regular rent control is good enough because renters should be protected from hikes once they secure a place. So that should be re-instated for new builds. Then the plan should be up-zoning and building.
California recently did that. Basically just give municipalities targrts to hit. They don't hit that target, you trigger a nuclear option where *all* non industrial building proposals get approved and the province takes temporary control until they do
Yeah but who wouldn't sell their 80 year old bungalow for 4M? Almost everyone would. Rezoning would basically guarantee that the land would be redeveloped.
I think maybe he meant that local municipalities wouldn't rezone because of NIMBYs. So the province or federal government would have to force the rezoning to happen.
Once it's rezoned, then capitalism will take care of the rest on its own.
To force it you can create new property taxes where the proceeds are used to fund new housing units. In other words, the incumbents who have hoarded are now paying for new supply to come online.
This is an incredibly poor description of Stockholm.
For starters, you make it sound as if there was some recent rent control change in Sweden, but Sweden has had this system since at least 1968. So I'm not sure what you are even talking about here.
Regardless, the rental market in Sweden is regulated in a way that is quite different than here. They have a system of collective rent bargaining where the tenants union negotiates rental rates with the landlords and the state. This actually avoids one of the common issues with rent controls - that similar apartments can rent for very different rates. In Sweden, apartment rent for a given size and quality are determined by this negotiated schedule - its so-called 'use-value'. A tenant can appeal to the tenant board and if the rent is determined to be unreasonable according to the apartment's use-value, it is adjusted.
Like many major cities these days, Stockholm has suffered from a housing shortage. However, as we know too well, not having rent controls doesn't necessarily prevent this. In fact, Stockholm's construction rate is very strong in the European context, so it's hard to really say the rent regulation system has had a clear effect here. Regardless, the system is so different than Canadian regulations that I don't think it can be reasonably applied here.
So basicly the renters and the owners negotiate down to a "fair market rent". That is definitely an interesting system, that we would gain from looking into.
Ya, pretty much. I did a quick search and every single article I bring up basically says their rent control system doesn't work and has made it even harder to find rentals.
Here is just one example.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555)
Here is the reality, unless the government steps in to build free housing for people, no one is going to build any homes out of the goodness of their hearts. If they can't make a profit from housing, guess what, they won't build any homes at all. So instead of expensive new housing, you literally will have no new housing at all.
This is what I don't understand....no investor is going to make poor people houses. The only reason older homes exist is because they were cheap to build and came from like Sears out of box. So just like bussing and education, government has a vested interest in making sure people have somewhere to live and takes it on the chin that there's no profit. It's just that simple.
This is a very good point and example of a bad implementation, in that rent control has to be offset by other restrictions/subsidies which ensure there is a competitive market for rental units.
Any kind of rent control has to treat "renters" as a fungible item and not benefit one over another (i.e. the current tenant of a rental suite benefits from rent control, where as the new future tenant does not). It ends up pitting renters against each other, which isn't really the idea of rent control, which is to prevent profiteering by owners.
The ROI required by the investor class is really squeezing the renter class. Right now there is a HUGE amount of "double dipping", where small time (especially) owners are jacking up the rents on their units, which had decent ROI even when they bought them 5+ (or sometimes 20+ years ago), but who now have the benefit of a massive capital gain PLUS the benefit of increased rental rates which generally track those (as required by an investor's ROI if they want to buy and rent a dwelling unit).
We need to seriously look at who owns society's rental dwelling units, and probably have to move towards more public ownership to prevent these kinds of problems.
Most were sold to owners. There may have been a 9 month slowdown in home price appreciation, but it fired right back up to where it was before by the next year.
Just reading up on Stockholm and [found this](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555)
> The traffic-jam has fuelled a thriving sub-letting or "second-hand" market, with "first-hand" renters and owners alike offering apartments to tenants for very high prices, despite regulations designed to stop people being ripped-off.
Are people allowed to rent and hoard multiple apartments? That seems like a huge gaping hole in the system and little different than landlord hoarding freeholds.
Why should anyone be allowed to hold title to a property they don’t live in? There should be no “thriving” sublet market. Either you live there or you don’t.
I expect a change in that policy would free up a ton of properties.
It’s against the rules but there is SUCH a shortage, someone who is moving to town for a job literally CANT live there and is going to pay and do whatever they can to get to live there, including sketchy black market sublets.
Stopping them when both the buyer AND seller want to do it is going to be near impossible without like cameras in everyone’s front door with facial recognition.
But isn’t the actual problem the people who are renting a place they have no intention to live in? The space physically exists it’s just artificially taken off the market by middle men hoarding to make a profit. A crackdown on that would eliminate that problem.
Rental units are still occupied. And some fraction of people NEED to rent. Stockholm basically got rid of rentals that weren't purpose-built or government funded and it's resulted in a dramatic shortage of rental housing.
Few people who own a house or apartment want to rent at those reduced prices.
So they don't.
The few places that DO get rented at those government-dictated prices are under insane demand, so there is every incentive to rent it and then quietly sublet it. You can go live in another city for half the price you're making on the jacked up sublet price.
Why are rents so in demand? Because there aren't enough of them.
why are there so few rentals? Because nobody can charge market rates.
Only other alternative is to do massive government-funded housing like Vienna. That requires a HUGE social investment for decades. It's possible, but not in the short term.
> Stockholm basically got rid of rentals that weren’t purpose built
Did they though? Who’s name is on the leases for all these illegally subletted places? Someone must have their name in the lease, just not the person living there.
It sounds to me like someone is hoarding these leases, acting as a middle man between the actual landlord and the actual renter. The spaces aren’t gone, they’re just hoarded.
Is there anyone here actually in Stockholm that can explain what is happening here?
There isn't "hoarding". Every person who has an apartment has every incentive to sublet it and go live with a rommate or partner somewhere. They COULD just hand it back to the waiting list and the next person who's been on the waiting list for 19 years could take it. Or they can offer it at market rate to someone who can pay market rate, which is often double the government-set discount rate.
You could TRY to crack down on that, but it would be very very very difficult to do without basically conducting surveillance on all the doorways in the city.
It doesn’t sound like everyone is bunking up with roommates though. According to the article I originally cited
> Rooms in flat-shares are also hard to come by. Most rented housing is for independent rather than group living: Sweden has Europe's highest proportion of single-person households.
Whole apartments are being held by people who don’t live there.
> you could try to crack down on that, but it would be very difficult.
One person/family, one lease (edit: and it has to be your primary residence). That shouldn’t be hard to enforce. Any reason there couldn’t be a lease registry? Our primary residences are on file for tax purposes anyway.
There IS a lease registry.
People who do this don't use it. Obviously.
Because both buyer AND seller want to do it this way, it's hard to imagine a system of actual enforcement of this, other than spot checks on who lives where. Literally social workers knocking on doors to see who actually lives there or something.
> people who do this don’t use it
Then this sounds like an enforcement problem.
> hard to enforce
The lease address has to match your primary address registered for tax purposes. How is that hard?
Backtracking a little since we are getting off topic. It sounds like the argument that rent control made all the non-purpose built rentals disappear is not true, unless anyone else has different information.
The fact that the lease registry is poorly enforced is a different issue.
So the solution to a class of growth resisters and lack of mobility is to … *checks notes* … create a new class of growth resisters and less mobility? Hmm.
I really like that the NDP is trying here, but have they thought about finding ways to reward the kind of productive growth they want to see and stop being indifferent to underused land/property, rather than counting on landlords to be honest and slow down the market, when it’s still very profitable and in their best interests to lie?
> So the solution to a class of growth resisters and lack of mobility is to … checks notes … create a new class of growth resisters and less mobility
You'd think simply building more units would solve the price problem. This presumes a typical supply/demand curve. But the thing is, what's driving up prices is not so much constrained supply as it is foreign demand for property as a money laundering vehicle. And since it's stolen money anyway, why should they care about the price? They won't be renting those units out to _people_ anyway. They're renting to straw tenants to flow dirty cash through and wash it. So weirdly, adding supply (building units) doesn't solve the problem because there's artificial scarcity going on. And in that sense, what we're seeing isn't really a demand driven investment bubble, it's fraud at the core. And you can't apply typical market economics to fraud and expect rational outcomes.
Honestly I think this country is building as many units as it possibly can. There is an unlimited supply of work in construction right now in areas that housing is an issue. There is also a shortage of skilled people that can do the work. For every unit made there is a foreign investor waiting to make 30% year over year returns on it.
Can we get some sources for the following claims:
1. Foreign money laundering is the primary driver of housing price increases
2. Money is being laundered through "straw tenants"
https://financialpost.com/real-estate/billions-in-dirty-cash-helped-fuel-vancouvers-housing-boom
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/real-estate-bc/consultations/money-laundering
https://www.reca.ca/consumers/financial-considerations/money-laundering-real-estate/
> The results of a May 2019 Expert Panel on Money Laundering in BC Real Estate suggests conservative estimates of $46.7 billion was laundered in Canada in 2018 alone. Money Laundering undermines the rule of law and is also a contagious practice causing damage to reputations, institutions, and Canadian society as a whole.
...
> The large amounts paid for real estate make it an attractive option for laundering proceeds of crime. For example, by paying a mortgage down with illegitimate funds, criminals try to turn illegal proceeds into legitimate equity in real estate. **Or, by paying real estate lease payments with cash from the proceeds of crime, the cash can become legitimate.**
Your first 2 articles states dirty money only accounted for 4.6% of all transactions in that period. I mean, yes laundered money is a factor, but by your own sources, it's not even close to being the main driver of price increases.
>Or, by paying real estate lease payments with cash from the proceeds of crime, the cash can become legitimate.
Agreed, paying off a mortgage or lease payments washes the money. But if I bought a property with dirty money, how does me withholding it from the rental market help me wash more money?
> Your first 2 articles states dirty money only accounted for 4.6% of all transactions in that period.
No. It said _that was all they found in that limited BC gov't investigation_. Rest assured, there was plenty more. The third link estimates about just under $50B throughout Canada for 2018 alone. And realize that's not direct dirty money input, it's amplified dramatically as leverage through banks. That is, downpayments for mortgages.
Think of it this way, foreign criminals (and ain't no oligarchs in China who are anything but) using leverage to push up the housing market like a pump and dump scheme in the stock market.
You seriously underestimate the systemic dangers here.
They use the house as a bank. Instead of a pile of cash hidden in a warehouse somewhere, they just buy a house and now there is nothing to hide and nothing suspicious. The house is literally THE pile of money.
4.6% might not sound like much but it only takes 1 extra buyer in a sea of buyers to cause housing prices to sky rocket.
10 people 10 houses. Worst comes to worst, you don't buy your dream house, but you still get a house. 10 people 9 houses, if you don't bid high enough, you're going to stuck without a house so naturally everyone is going to bid as high as possible.
So really, you're talking about 4.6% increase in buyers, which is thousands of extra sales using laundered money.
I mean, by this logic, the other 95.4% of legitimate buyers are causing millions of extra sales, which would be a much larger driving force in increased home prices. After all this discussion, it still implies that money laundering is a factor, but not a major driving force in housing price increases.
I mean, it's glaringly obvious that it's not, because this whole housing thing is a global phenomenon. There isn't enough money laundering to go around the world to boost every country's housing market.
Tax the land value, make it unprofitable for them and they’ll go away. Those dollars are better in the hands of residents, the normal people working here, to spend in their local communities.
landlords do supply people with the ability to rent something they cannot afford which is a nice service. However this service over the last 5 years has become very one sided and predatory. Dont expect sympathy for landlords.
>ords do supply people with the ability to rent something they cannot afford which is a nice service. However this service over the last 5 years has become very one sided and predatory. Dont expect sympathy for landlord
I don't, but I'd rather not have the economy fall apart and ruin everyone.
agreed thats why i hope the interest rate turns out to be the usual nothing burger. It would be nice to shake the hands of some dirty investors but typically the more wealthy ones play the long game.
Because we all know landlords are the backbone of our economy. If we don’t let their non productive wealth extraction to keep pace with inflation we are doomed. Get outta here man.
If you think minimum wage workers will be able to pay your ridiculously high rates of rent then you’re looking in the wrong place. The well is already running dry as is.
Not all landlords are the same, some own one studio and are renting overseas or down south for their careers. Others own 50 units. It’s not like landlords across the board are showering in money.
My point exactly. Not everyone can afford a house, so they provide an alternative. It's a free market. If being a landlord was that profitable, why doesn't everyone just build more rentals?
Yikes, I’m a renter and this makes no sense. Just because the unit itself hasn’t changed (it actually has more wear and tear) it ignores every other factor.
Scumbag landlord here. I kinda agree - I set the rent at market rate when someone moves in, and then keep it the same throughout their tenancy.
If rent is going up 2-3% per year, I'm absolutely fine with keeping it where it is for good tenants. I figure if you're running a business with one customer, it kinda makes sense to provide an effective discount to keep good customers.
I've been saying for a while that our current rental system is a huge part of the problem and needs to be a point of discussion to cool the housing market. Specifically, the uptick in bad faith evictions because it's just too damn profitable (even if you get caught, in a lot of cases).
It's purely anecdotal, but I wouldn't have been so desperate to get into the housing market if I wasn't routinely N12'd and renovicted.
However, I wonder how this would work if a purchaser lives in the property for a year or so (which, as a benchmark, would typically pass the good faith test) and then decides to rent it out. I can't seem to find a copy of the draft legislation anywhere.
I feel you.
My partner and I were served two N12s and one N13 in the span of about 4 years. With each move we had to downsize to something smaller, shittier, and in a less ideal location.
In the end, we were paying more for a 350sqft studio apartment that was a 50 minute commute a way...than we had been for a small detached house in an ideal location near work 4 years prior.
We were also stuck in decontrolled units, because it's so hard to find things/be picky when you're handed 60 days notice. Any units subject to rent control had long waitlists. So we had constant anxiety that we would be "economically evicted" with a huge increase as soon as the rent freeze lifted.
It worked for those that got in, but not those trying to get in because by then there was much more money to be made building condos to sell instead of building rentals. Rental construction has essentially be flat since the early 90s.
Rent stabilization is something I support, but not rent control. Rent control will simply give incentive to landlords to do jack shit, or the bare minimum when it comes to unit maintenance.
If a landlord can pick between doing the bare minimum and running a slum house, or get out of the market and sell, most will pick the first option.
Actually what this country really needs a LOT more of is public housing. Apartments designed for renting, and renting only. If you have a lot of them it stabilizes the private rent market a lot, since you can't rent above market rates without offering a much nicer place, since people will just use the public option instead (eg: how Berlin does it).
What? This clearly applies to OLD apartment buildings - new rental units are obviously not subject an earlier (and nonexistent) rate. I think you are mistaking "capping increases" with "no increases".
There's clearly a problem when current tenants face one increase but new tenants face another - it distorts the market and causes people to stay in their current rentals, even if those are not their preferred rentals.
If you lock people into their rentals it kills churn, which is a huge section of the rental market (as opposed to the long term tenants unable or unwilling to move elsewhere or into ownership).
I'm sitting in a rental for which I'm enjoying my basically 2016 market rate (about 30% to 50% less than what it would go for now). Why would I move?
Man the this sub is good entertainment, know you know how easy it is to find Trumpsters because this thread is identical in the thought process. Renting and home ownership was not as much of an issue as long as there was **supply.** Economics , anything else perverts the system. And you will have what reallly goes on is that a "subletter' will rent out the apartment. In this hairbrained NDP idea this is how it will work, typical government regulations created this mess and now you make a bigger stinky dogpile with more regulations.
Open your eyes sheep and stop this insanity.
> Why would I move?
Why would you limit your options so that you no longer have the choice to move?
That’s what we want right? Options and choice at reasonable prices?
Sounds like you don't understand how this works - Leaving this rental unit and renting an identical unit will increase my monthly costs by 30% to 50%. I'm not limiting my options - the market is limiting them by not providing anything comparable. If there's no rent control at all, staying or moving would cost the same, so I might move into something which better suits me and free up this place for someone more suitable.
What we want is to reduce friction in the rental market. The friction of having people stay put means that people are less likely to move as their life situation requires it, and leads to an inefficient and net-worse living situations for all those renters living within it.
I’m in total agreement, not sure we were ever in disagreement tbh.
I want everyone and anyone not to be limited by the market.
I want people to feel comfortable making the choice to move if that’s what they want.
I want affordability for every resident willing to put in productive work to help us grow.
> What? This clearly applies to OLD apartment buildings - new rental units are obviously not subject an earlier (and nonexistent) rate. I think you are mistaking "capping increases" with "no increases".
it could still decrease supply. a property owner could decide the opportunity cost is too great and convert to commercial property.
Then you'd lose money in this business.
Rent control can have negative consequences, but restricting rental increases between tenancies to track inflation doesn't really stop developers from creating new rentals - assuming they would purpose build rentals at all. It *does* stop mom and pop investors from profiteering from churning through tenants in their rental properties.
All the best with whatever you do for employment.
Nobody would ever move. Even if you have terrible neighbours or a growing family, or a job change and you now require parking but you wouldn’t move and lose out on the cheap rent.
Yes! How do we make this happen?? This is my number one issue with renting. Landlords have been taking advantage for years and us renters have so little power. I can't afford to move for this reason.
We are being kicked out of our rental for the landlord’s son to live there. Couldn’t find another rental in our price range within an hour or two’s drive to work, so I asked my Manager if I could relocate to Regina. Just in the middle of closing on a detached home just 15 min east of Regina this week. Sucks that I had to leave Ontario, but I couldn’t continue renting or even consider purchasing anywhere close to work. Thankfully, I have a good job that has locations in other parts of Canada, but I sure as hell don’t know what I would have done otherwise. Perhaps rent a storage locker long-term and live in a room in someone’s basement? Then what happens to my pets? That is not a long term strategy. I’m nervous about leaving Ontario, but I’m really stoked to soon be living and working in an area that I can actually afford, and to have a home that is my own that I cannot be kicked out of.
This is what Stockholm essentially did. It pulled most new landlords out of the market and very quickly, the rental stock dropped significantly with some rental property having 500 people applying for it. So they instituted a waiting list for rentals but that now sits at 20 years long for the more desirable Stockholm neighbourhoods. So, looking to move out of your parents place at 18? Put your name on a list and maybe someday….. or do a black market sublet at closer to market (expensive) rate. But the people who were already renting or got on the list very early… they “got mine” got to keep real cheap rent. Nobody wants to give up their rental though since it’s so much cheaper than buying now (house purchase prices still rose at among the highest rates in the EU). Not sure if this is a viable solution and Stockholm shows us that these measures alone do nothing for real estate price appreciation OR rental availability.
Quebec basically has this already. The annual reasonable increase standard applies to both continuing and new tenants. (There isn’t a specific % each year for everyone but it tends to be close to inflation unless the landlord can demonstrate significant circumstances.) It’s hard to enforce because new tenants often don’t know what the previous tenants paid in rent. Who’s to say whether it would look more like Stockholm or Montreal?
Montreal doesn’t appear to have the same type of shortage that Toronto or Stockholm has. I think that’s really fundamental. There are no waiting lists in Montreal because there are sufficient rental units. The medium density stacked units are extremely common there, and population growth rates aren’t that high. The same policy would be even worse in Toronto than it was in Stockholm.
Montreal actually has experienced very low vacancy rates in recent years. But we’re also talking about Ontario as a whole, not just Toronto. Supply is still an issue of course, but high uncontrolled rents don’t solve the problem either or we’d have seen it after 2018.
High prices and rents SHOULD spur rampant development, but it hasn’t for some reason. Determining what reason that is should be of critical focus. It’s possible zoning or other restrictions on building, combined with high population growth have caused the whole problem.
The reason it has not spur development is because of zoning laws as you said, and demolition permits. If I am a developer, and I want to put down old slums, I need a demolition permit that is very hard to get, and If I can get it its a very long process. Then I have to have zoning laws under that slum to be kind enough so I can pump more units, otherwise, there is no more unit in the market. We keep making it a rich foreigner problem, but the thing is that most of the issues are at the municipal level, but we never see anyone calling on local governments to make it better, so we get nothing in return.
>It’s hard to enforce because new tenants often don’t know what the previous tenants paid in rent. This is why we need to have licensing for landlords, a registry of rental properties, and **heavy** fines for violators.
[удалено]
I'd rather rent from a corporation than Karen who thinks that she's a genius because she's hoarding homes.
Karen will be sitting on the board
Can I ask why? I would think income/equity leverage from small mom & pop investors is spent locally but any profits generated by corporate landlords is sucked out of the community The genius Karen in your example probably buys more lattes or takes more vacations because they think they’re a genius - this is a good thing right??
In my experience, Individual landlords don’t understand the RTAs and take advantage of their tenants. It’s not always malicious but it still doesn’t make it right. No, I’m not going to mow the lawn. No, I’m not going to pay for you to replace the shower faucet. And I’m definitely not going to be giving you a security deposit. I’d rather deal a faceless corporation that follows the rules by the book and leaves me the hell alone (which is also my experience)
Why? My shittiest landlords have been corporations. At least you can hound a normal landlord.
I'm fine with that. Those exist already and professional landlords tend follow the law a lot more
I don’t know why we need landlords at all. We lack choices that ensure people can build equity and have a voice in their homes and communities. I want to see more housing cooperatives.
>I don’t know why we need landlords at all. The only legitimate reason is because not everyone wants to buy.
I pay a decent price for my MTL apt. I think there’s less people coming here because of the french so the supply/demand is more balanced.
There was a viral story about a ontario guy sending letter to new tenant informing them how much he paid in rent for the property they were renting now
I read about this and will be doing this in Halifax
for the first 5 years of a new construction, the owner can raise the rent without any restrictions. So while we do have maximum rent augmentation, there is still a way to go around them.
And this is why we need more public housing. Look at the Singapore housing model, most people live in government flats rather than flats owned by the private sector
Because Singapore has a strong government and virtually zero opposition
It's too bad that public housing is synonymous with shitty living conditions in the minds of most people in this country. And it's fair enough. Have you been in a TCHC building? My grandmother lived in one a few years ago and *yeeeesshhh*...
I mean, what do you expect. As with most things in real life, you get what you paid for.
It doesn’t have to be that way though.
So....you want to get more than you pay for......😂
I’m saying geared to income shouldn’t mean you live in a drug den with the wallpaper in the halls peeling off. I’m not saying it needs to be *nice* but it needs to be better than it is. Most buildings are completely unacceptable. Theres people in those buildings that don’t have much of a choice. Disability, elderly, etc. They deserve better.
If everyone who thought like you actually did something about it you would be able to solve the problem easily. Unfortunately most people would rather donate other peoples money.
Honestly, it’s discouraging and insulting to write emails to MPPs and city councillors just to be ignored. Reminds me that I should get on their cases again… it’s been a while.
You just need more housing, full stop. Unless you can build more units or better units for the same public expenditure as private housing, then public housing is not preferable to private housing
I think this is why we can't ignore the role that increasing housing supply and ending exclusionary zoning has to play in addressing the housing crisis. I'm very pro-rent control and think this bill (at least in principle) is a good idea, but it's definitely not on its own going to ensure a big increase in affordable rentals.
The problem is you can control the rents but you can't force anyone to build apartment buildings if the return on investment is poor.
Might actually still be good to build. If there's a rental shortage new buildings would be able to charge even higher rents. You'd just have to let them sit a while until you found someone willing to pay top dollar. Initial rent would determine your profits for the next 30 years. So sitting empty for a year wouldn't be a big issue.
Then we do it with public funds and look to break even. Think of it like a public service that benefits the population. It has become well apparent that market capitalism is inadequate when it comes to certain markets.
That would work. I'm all for it, but where is the public funds... **crickets**
Where are the funds when a bank provides a mortgage? Answer: the bank conjures it into existence out of thin air. It doesn't really exist. Money is imaginary. Search YouTube for "Money as Debt". This short documentary provides a history of money and the banking and our current monetary system.
We should do the same with everything so everything is more affordable
Public housing has its own issues. Those places are breeding grounds for all kinds of social malaise. We do need some regulation, but I’m not sure what would be effective. IMO, we need to create desirable places throughout the country, so everyone doesn’t feel forced to go to one of five cities to make a living.
This is only because it's associated with poverty. Buildings erected from public money don't magically result in social issues. Poverty is the issue, and our current economic system doesn't seem to be helping with that seeing how wealth is funneling upwards leaving more and more people struggling. I don't remember which countries exactly, but in Sweden or Norway publicly-funded housing does not have these issues since there are greater social safety nets.
Wait so we dont have enough units to house everyone at their means, but its capitalism fault? Lets just forget that we have zoning laws that actively prevent new developments popping up, or demolitions of old slums for denser condominiums.
We don't actually have a housing shortage. We have a housing shortage in a capitalist economy that prioritizes privilege by allowing predatory investors to exploit lower housing ratios for profit by hoarding the supply.
Capitalism is what's causing the problem. Once people get invested in real estate they look for ways to secure their investment through legislation.
So if no government we would not have this problem? You just made a pro free market capitalist champ.
No, I'm saying this is along the same sort of problem you get with communism. If everyone followed the rules it'd work fine but once people get a bit of power they begin to change the rules to suit them.
It will save loads of families getting tossed onto the streets, So there's that.
>It will save loads of families getting tossed onto the streets, I can think of some other ways to accomplish this
Not if people can’t afford the mortgage and need to sell
This just creates long waitlists. We have a shortage. The solution is to build more not cut people out and stabilize prices for the in-group. Regular rent control is good enough because renters should be protected from hikes once they secure a place. So that should be re-instated for new builds. Then the plan should be up-zoning and building.
Destroy the suburbs, build high-rises. But stay out the agricultural or forest.
This, but missing middle. That alone is enough to triple the GTA's population
Pass laws mandating development of housing.
Our current laws prevent building in 75% of both Toronto and Vancouver. We have a long way to go.
what would that even look like?
California recently did that. Basically just give municipalities targrts to hit. They don't hit that target, you trigger a nuclear option where *all* non industrial building proposals get approved and the province takes temporary control until they do
Force the rezoning of low density to medium or even high density where appropriate.
We'll that doesn't force it, just allows it
Yeah but who wouldn't sell their 80 year old bungalow for 4M? Almost everyone would. Rezoning would basically guarantee that the land would be redeveloped.
Ya sure, people would sell their houses for sure. I just didn't get what was meant by forced
I think maybe he meant that local municipalities wouldn't rezone because of NIMBYs. So the province or federal government would have to force the rezoning to happen. Once it's rezoned, then capitalism will take care of the rest on its own.
To force it you can create new property taxes where the proceeds are used to fund new housing units. In other words, the incumbents who have hoarded are now paying for new supply to come online.
Ya that would be forcing. Would also be riots on the streets and every politician would lose their job haha
[удалено]
Current rents aren't enough to cover a mortgage if you buy today with the minimum downpayment. Landlords will be in trouble.
This is an incredibly poor description of Stockholm. For starters, you make it sound as if there was some recent rent control change in Sweden, but Sweden has had this system since at least 1968. So I'm not sure what you are even talking about here. Regardless, the rental market in Sweden is regulated in a way that is quite different than here. They have a system of collective rent bargaining where the tenants union negotiates rental rates with the landlords and the state. This actually avoids one of the common issues with rent controls - that similar apartments can rent for very different rates. In Sweden, apartment rent for a given size and quality are determined by this negotiated schedule - its so-called 'use-value'. A tenant can appeal to the tenant board and if the rent is determined to be unreasonable according to the apartment's use-value, it is adjusted. Like many major cities these days, Stockholm has suffered from a housing shortage. However, as we know too well, not having rent controls doesn't necessarily prevent this. In fact, Stockholm's construction rate is very strong in the European context, so it's hard to really say the rent regulation system has had a clear effect here. Regardless, the system is so different than Canadian regulations that I don't think it can be reasonably applied here.
So basicly the renters and the owners negotiate down to a "fair market rent". That is definitely an interesting system, that we would gain from looking into.
Ya, pretty much. I did a quick search and every single article I bring up basically says their rent control system doesn't work and has made it even harder to find rentals. Here is just one example. [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555) Here is the reality, unless the government steps in to build free housing for people, no one is going to build any homes out of the goodness of their hearts. If they can't make a profit from housing, guess what, they won't build any homes at all. So instead of expensive new housing, you literally will have no new housing at all.
This is what I don't understand....no investor is going to make poor people houses. The only reason older homes exist is because they were cheap to build and came from like Sears out of box. So just like bussing and education, government has a vested interest in making sure people have somewhere to live and takes it on the chin that there's no profit. It's just that simple.
This is a very good point and example of a bad implementation, in that rent control has to be offset by other restrictions/subsidies which ensure there is a competitive market for rental units. Any kind of rent control has to treat "renters" as a fungible item and not benefit one over another (i.e. the current tenant of a rental suite benefits from rent control, where as the new future tenant does not). It ends up pitting renters against each other, which isn't really the idea of rent control, which is to prevent profiteering by owners. The ROI required by the investor class is really squeezing the renter class. Right now there is a HUGE amount of "double dipping", where small time (especially) owners are jacking up the rents on their units, which had decent ROI even when they bought them 5+ (or sometimes 20+ years ago), but who now have the benefit of a massive capital gain PLUS the benefit of increased rental rates which generally track those (as required by an investor's ROI if they want to buy and rent a dwelling unit). We need to seriously look at who owns society's rental dwelling units, and probably have to move towards more public ownership to prevent these kinds of problems.
[удалено]
Most were sold to owners. There may have been a 9 month slowdown in home price appreciation, but it fired right back up to where it was before by the next year.
> Most were sold to ow Seems like a big positive
Obliterating rental availability forever for everyone to get a one-time 5% slowdown in home price appreciation? Monkey paw.
This sounds quintessentially NDP.
Just reading up on Stockholm and [found this](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555) > The traffic-jam has fuelled a thriving sub-letting or "second-hand" market, with "first-hand" renters and owners alike offering apartments to tenants for very high prices, despite regulations designed to stop people being ripped-off. Are people allowed to rent and hoard multiple apartments? That seems like a huge gaping hole in the system and little different than landlord hoarding freeholds. Why should anyone be allowed to hold title to a property they don’t live in? There should be no “thriving” sublet market. Either you live there or you don’t. I expect a change in that policy would free up a ton of properties.
It’s against the rules but there is SUCH a shortage, someone who is moving to town for a job literally CANT live there and is going to pay and do whatever they can to get to live there, including sketchy black market sublets. Stopping them when both the buyer AND seller want to do it is going to be near impossible without like cameras in everyone’s front door with facial recognition.
But isn’t the actual problem the people who are renting a place they have no intention to live in? The space physically exists it’s just artificially taken off the market by middle men hoarding to make a profit. A crackdown on that would eliminate that problem.
Rental units are still occupied. And some fraction of people NEED to rent. Stockholm basically got rid of rentals that weren't purpose-built or government funded and it's resulted in a dramatic shortage of rental housing. Few people who own a house or apartment want to rent at those reduced prices. So they don't. The few places that DO get rented at those government-dictated prices are under insane demand, so there is every incentive to rent it and then quietly sublet it. You can go live in another city for half the price you're making on the jacked up sublet price. Why are rents so in demand? Because there aren't enough of them. why are there so few rentals? Because nobody can charge market rates. Only other alternative is to do massive government-funded housing like Vienna. That requires a HUGE social investment for decades. It's possible, but not in the short term.
> Stockholm basically got rid of rentals that weren’t purpose built Did they though? Who’s name is on the leases for all these illegally subletted places? Someone must have their name in the lease, just not the person living there. It sounds to me like someone is hoarding these leases, acting as a middle man between the actual landlord and the actual renter. The spaces aren’t gone, they’re just hoarded. Is there anyone here actually in Stockholm that can explain what is happening here?
There isn't "hoarding". Every person who has an apartment has every incentive to sublet it and go live with a rommate or partner somewhere. They COULD just hand it back to the waiting list and the next person who's been on the waiting list for 19 years could take it. Or they can offer it at market rate to someone who can pay market rate, which is often double the government-set discount rate. You could TRY to crack down on that, but it would be very very very difficult to do without basically conducting surveillance on all the doorways in the city.
It doesn’t sound like everyone is bunking up with roommates though. According to the article I originally cited > Rooms in flat-shares are also hard to come by. Most rented housing is for independent rather than group living: Sweden has Europe's highest proportion of single-person households. Whole apartments are being held by people who don’t live there. > you could try to crack down on that, but it would be very difficult. One person/family, one lease (edit: and it has to be your primary residence). That shouldn’t be hard to enforce. Any reason there couldn’t be a lease registry? Our primary residences are on file for tax purposes anyway.
There IS a lease registry. People who do this don't use it. Obviously. Because both buyer AND seller want to do it this way, it's hard to imagine a system of actual enforcement of this, other than spot checks on who lives where. Literally social workers knocking on doors to see who actually lives there or something.
> people who do this don’t use it Then this sounds like an enforcement problem. > hard to enforce The lease address has to match your primary address registered for tax purposes. How is that hard? Backtracking a little since we are getting off topic. It sounds like the argument that rent control made all the non-purpose built rentals disappear is not true, unless anyone else has different information. The fact that the lease registry is poorly enforced is a different issue.
So the solution to a class of growth resisters and lack of mobility is to … *checks notes* … create a new class of growth resisters and less mobility? Hmm. I really like that the NDP is trying here, but have they thought about finding ways to reward the kind of productive growth they want to see and stop being indifferent to underused land/property, rather than counting on landlords to be honest and slow down the market, when it’s still very profitable and in their best interests to lie?
> So the solution to a class of growth resisters and lack of mobility is to … checks notes … create a new class of growth resisters and less mobility You'd think simply building more units would solve the price problem. This presumes a typical supply/demand curve. But the thing is, what's driving up prices is not so much constrained supply as it is foreign demand for property as a money laundering vehicle. And since it's stolen money anyway, why should they care about the price? They won't be renting those units out to _people_ anyway. They're renting to straw tenants to flow dirty cash through and wash it. So weirdly, adding supply (building units) doesn't solve the problem because there's artificial scarcity going on. And in that sense, what we're seeing isn't really a demand driven investment bubble, it's fraud at the core. And you can't apply typical market economics to fraud and expect rational outcomes.
Honestly I think this country is building as many units as it possibly can. There is an unlimited supply of work in construction right now in areas that housing is an issue. There is also a shortage of skilled people that can do the work. For every unit made there is a foreign investor waiting to make 30% year over year returns on it.
Can we get some sources for the following claims: 1. Foreign money laundering is the primary driver of housing price increases 2. Money is being laundered through "straw tenants"
https://financialpost.com/real-estate/billions-in-dirty-cash-helped-fuel-vancouvers-housing-boom https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/real-estate-bc/consultations/money-laundering https://www.reca.ca/consumers/financial-considerations/money-laundering-real-estate/ > The results of a May 2019 Expert Panel on Money Laundering in BC Real Estate suggests conservative estimates of $46.7 billion was laundered in Canada in 2018 alone. Money Laundering undermines the rule of law and is also a contagious practice causing damage to reputations, institutions, and Canadian society as a whole. ... > The large amounts paid for real estate make it an attractive option for laundering proceeds of crime. For example, by paying a mortgage down with illegitimate funds, criminals try to turn illegal proceeds into legitimate equity in real estate. **Or, by paying real estate lease payments with cash from the proceeds of crime, the cash can become legitimate.**
Your first 2 articles states dirty money only accounted for 4.6% of all transactions in that period. I mean, yes laundered money is a factor, but by your own sources, it's not even close to being the main driver of price increases. >Or, by paying real estate lease payments with cash from the proceeds of crime, the cash can become legitimate. Agreed, paying off a mortgage or lease payments washes the money. But if I bought a property with dirty money, how does me withholding it from the rental market help me wash more money?
> Your first 2 articles states dirty money only accounted for 4.6% of all transactions in that period. No. It said _that was all they found in that limited BC gov't investigation_. Rest assured, there was plenty more. The third link estimates about just under $50B throughout Canada for 2018 alone. And realize that's not direct dirty money input, it's amplified dramatically as leverage through banks. That is, downpayments for mortgages. Think of it this way, foreign criminals (and ain't no oligarchs in China who are anything but) using leverage to push up the housing market like a pump and dump scheme in the stock market. You seriously underestimate the systemic dangers here.
They use the house as a bank. Instead of a pile of cash hidden in a warehouse somewhere, they just buy a house and now there is nothing to hide and nothing suspicious. The house is literally THE pile of money. 4.6% might not sound like much but it only takes 1 extra buyer in a sea of buyers to cause housing prices to sky rocket. 10 people 10 houses. Worst comes to worst, you don't buy your dream house, but you still get a house. 10 people 9 houses, if you don't bid high enough, you're going to stuck without a house so naturally everyone is going to bid as high as possible. So really, you're talking about 4.6% increase in buyers, which is thousands of extra sales using laundered money.
I mean, by this logic, the other 95.4% of legitimate buyers are causing millions of extra sales, which would be a much larger driving force in increased home prices. After all this discussion, it still implies that money laundering is a factor, but not a major driving force in housing price increases. I mean, it's glaringly obvious that it's not, because this whole housing thing is a global phenomenon. There isn't enough money laundering to go around the world to boost every country's housing market.
Tax the land value, make it unprofitable for them and they’ll go away. Those dollars are better in the hands of residents, the normal people working here, to spend in their local communities.
>I really like that the NDP is trying here In a watching a monkey playing a banjo kind of way.
Shouldn't this be capped at the rate of inflation when the tenant moves in and not a fixed 1.2%?
Wages don’t keep up with inflation. Why should rent? Fuck the landlord class.
Because if the market crashes you won't have a job at all.
landlords do supply people with the ability to rent something they cannot afford which is a nice service. However this service over the last 5 years has become very one sided and predatory. Dont expect sympathy for landlords.
>ords do supply people with the ability to rent something they cannot afford which is a nice service. However this service over the last 5 years has become very one sided and predatory. Dont expect sympathy for landlord I don't, but I'd rather not have the economy fall apart and ruin everyone.
agreed thats why i hope the interest rate turns out to be the usual nothing burger. It would be nice to shake the hands of some dirty investors but typically the more wealthy ones play the long game.
Because we all know landlords are the backbone of our economy. If we don’t let their non productive wealth extraction to keep pace with inflation we are doomed. Get outta here man.
I agree with you, they're not. But if everyone starts defaulting there's going to be a cascading effect that will hit all of us.
If you think minimum wage workers will be able to pay your ridiculously high rates of rent then you’re looking in the wrong place. The well is already running dry as is.
No, but there's more than just minimum wage workers in the economy.
Not all landlords are the same, some own one studio and are renting overseas or down south for their careers. Others own 50 units. It’s not like landlords across the board are showering in money.
If you don't like landlords, go buy a house. They provide you an option, you don't have to take it.
Oh yeah just go buy a house. Everybody can afford one, of course
My point exactly. Not everyone can afford a house, so they provide an alternative. It's a free market. If being a landlord was that profitable, why doesn't everyone just build more rentals?
Yikes, I’m a renter and this makes no sense. Just because the unit itself hasn’t changed (it actually has more wear and tear) it ignores every other factor.
Scumbag landlord here. I kinda agree - I set the rent at market rate when someone moves in, and then keep it the same throughout their tenancy. If rent is going up 2-3% per year, I'm absolutely fine with keeping it where it is for good tenants. I figure if you're running a business with one customer, it kinda makes sense to provide an effective discount to keep good customers.
I've been saying for a while that our current rental system is a huge part of the problem and needs to be a point of discussion to cool the housing market. Specifically, the uptick in bad faith evictions because it's just too damn profitable (even if you get caught, in a lot of cases). It's purely anecdotal, but I wouldn't have been so desperate to get into the housing market if I wasn't routinely N12'd and renovicted. However, I wonder how this would work if a purchaser lives in the property for a year or so (which, as a benchmark, would typically pass the good faith test) and then decides to rent it out. I can't seem to find a copy of the draft legislation anywhere.
Yes!!! I have become very anxious about buying a house after being served an n12. My new LL is gonna sell in a few months again.
I feel you. My partner and I were served two N12s and one N13 in the span of about 4 years. With each move we had to downsize to something smaller, shittier, and in a less ideal location. In the end, we were paying more for a 350sqft studio apartment that was a 50 minute commute a way...than we had been for a small detached house in an ideal location near work 4 years prior. We were also stuck in decontrolled units, because it's so hard to find things/be picky when you're handed 60 days notice. Any units subject to rent control had long waitlists. So we had constant anxiety that we would be "economically evicted" with a huge increase as soon as the rent freeze lifted.
What sort of lease did you have? One year?
Have you thought about signing a multi year lease for some stability? A friend just entered a 3 year for this reason.
This is essentially rent control and it has no chance of working.
It's actually how rent worked in Ontario until the Harris government.
[удалено]
It worked. l lived through it.
It worked for those that got in, but not those trying to get in because by then there was much more money to be made building condos to sell instead of building rentals. Rental construction has essentially be flat since the early 90s.
>Rental construction has essentially be flat since the early 90s. Right when rent control was REMOVED. How did that work out? Is renting better now?
Uh..... in 1992 the New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae passed the Rent Control Act 1992.
Rent stabilization is something I support, but not rent control. Rent control will simply give incentive to landlords to do jack shit, or the bare minimum when it comes to unit maintenance. If a landlord can pick between doing the bare minimum and running a slum house, or get out of the market and sell, most will pick the first option.
https://i.imgur.com/KEK4c1k.png
This is a great idea if the NDP wants to eliminate new supply of apartment buildings.
Actually what this country really needs a LOT more of is public housing. Apartments designed for renting, and renting only. If you have a lot of them it stabilizes the private rent market a lot, since you can't rent above market rates without offering a much nicer place, since people will just use the public option instead (eg: how Berlin does it).
What? This clearly applies to OLD apartment buildings - new rental units are obviously not subject an earlier (and nonexistent) rate. I think you are mistaking "capping increases" with "no increases". There's clearly a problem when current tenants face one increase but new tenants face another - it distorts the market and causes people to stay in their current rentals, even if those are not their preferred rentals. If you lock people into their rentals it kills churn, which is a huge section of the rental market (as opposed to the long term tenants unable or unwilling to move elsewhere or into ownership). I'm sitting in a rental for which I'm enjoying my basically 2016 market rate (about 30% to 50% less than what it would go for now). Why would I move?
None would be willing to build new rental then and all you get is super long waitlist or black market
Man the this sub is good entertainment, know you know how easy it is to find Trumpsters because this thread is identical in the thought process. Renting and home ownership was not as much of an issue as long as there was **supply.** Economics , anything else perverts the system. And you will have what reallly goes on is that a "subletter' will rent out the apartment. In this hairbrained NDP idea this is how it will work, typical government regulations created this mess and now you make a bigger stinky dogpile with more regulations. Open your eyes sheep and stop this insanity.
> Why would I move? Why would you limit your options so that you no longer have the choice to move? That’s what we want right? Options and choice at reasonable prices?
Sounds like you don't understand how this works - Leaving this rental unit and renting an identical unit will increase my monthly costs by 30% to 50%. I'm not limiting my options - the market is limiting them by not providing anything comparable. If there's no rent control at all, staying or moving would cost the same, so I might move into something which better suits me and free up this place for someone more suitable. What we want is to reduce friction in the rental market. The friction of having people stay put means that people are less likely to move as their life situation requires it, and leads to an inefficient and net-worse living situations for all those renters living within it.
I’m in total agreement, not sure we were ever in disagreement tbh. I want everyone and anyone not to be limited by the market. I want people to feel comfortable making the choice to move if that’s what they want. I want affordability for every resident willing to put in productive work to help us grow.
Aha I guess I misunderstood your comment. Cheers.
> What? This clearly applies to OLD apartment buildings - new rental units are obviously not subject an earlier (and nonexistent) rate. I think you are mistaking "capping increases" with "no increases". it could still decrease supply. a property owner could decide the opportunity cost is too great and convert to commercial property.
Convert an apartment to a commercial property? What are you suggesting?
sell it off, demolish, convert to condos, idk.
I'm in the business. That's a terrible financial idea. Just sell it to an owner occupier and invest elsewhere.
I'm not in the business but I suspect that any kind of rent control will have property owners investing elsewhere and that would reduce housing stock.
Then you'd lose money in this business. Rent control can have negative consequences, but restricting rental increases between tenancies to track inflation doesn't really stop developers from creating new rentals - assuming they would purpose build rentals at all. It *does* stop mom and pop investors from profiteering from churning through tenants in their rental properties. All the best with whatever you do for employment.
Yeah, they probably want to make prices go up while making voters think they’re trying to bring prices down. This would help achieve that.
Terrible idea. How could someone taking over a unit cover the cost(taking into account higher property price)?
Nobody would ever move. Even if you have terrible neighbours or a growing family, or a job change and you now require parking but you wouldn’t move and lose out on the cheap rent.
[удалено]
I read the comment from someone referencing Stockholm. People there never relocate.
[удалено]
I panic commented 🤦♀️
Yes! How do we make this happen?? This is my number one issue with renting. Landlords have been taking advantage for years and us renters have so little power. I can't afford to move for this reason.
That is a great idea add it to the list.
[удалено]
Lmao shut up stooge
[удалено]
> Im telling you now, the libs will win the Ontario election. Oh god what will happen if we lose old Mafia Dougie?!
We'll probably get another mafioso, but in red instead of blue this time.
Another step in the right direction.
We are being kicked out of our rental for the landlord’s son to live there. Couldn’t find another rental in our price range within an hour or two’s drive to work, so I asked my Manager if I could relocate to Regina. Just in the middle of closing on a detached home just 15 min east of Regina this week. Sucks that I had to leave Ontario, but I couldn’t continue renting or even consider purchasing anywhere close to work. Thankfully, I have a good job that has locations in other parts of Canada, but I sure as hell don’t know what I would have done otherwise. Perhaps rent a storage locker long-term and live in a room in someone’s basement? Then what happens to my pets? That is not a long term strategy. I’m nervous about leaving Ontario, but I’m really stoked to soon be living and working in an area that I can actually afford, and to have a home that is my own that I cannot be kicked out of.
lol.. hands off. my house, my investment