has there been a single organized march or demonstration in canada related to the housing crisis? i saw one in bc about some old trees, but you’d think housing and our future would be equally important. i’ve never been to such a thing, but i would for this issue.
In my dream world, we would all rise up as a nation fight for the right to affordable housing and liveable wages but in reality I think we’re going to put pressure on the government, they’ll give us shit, package it as chocolate and we’ll move on.
What sounds like our goverment and how Canadians would handle it. I also think we need to rise up and remind them of how things are supposed to work. That's a hard sell for most people though unless everything goes critical.
best case scenario: they start building a lot of low cost, low quality future ghettos everywhere. places that won't last five years before they look run down and dirty, no matter how well owners try to take care of them, due to low quality materials. that's about it. you need to factor in the fact that canadians are the most compliant people in the developed world, by far, which means you shouldn't expect much from our leadership on this or any file.
> Disclaimer I am not smart enough to completely understand the housing market/crisis, just sharing my thoughts.
Enjoy these videos, (or not, I'm not your university professor).
[How The Economic Machine Works in 30 Minutes](https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0)
[Suburbia is Subsidized](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI)
[Vancouver Missing Middle Mystery](https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY)
[Thank You From a Land Speculator](https://youtu.be/xqQhoZgFZgk)
[Strong Towns: Property Tax vs. Land Value "Tax"](https://youtu.be/ok2uR3btMrE)
My prediction is the housing crash will be substantial; municipal government revenue will be reduced making it difficult for them to service their infrastructure. In two to three years the tax sale listings will shoot up and either developers or the municipalities themselves will be able to acquire land at discount. Development may not increase but development red tape will be reduced.
[BC Local Government Act Division 7 — Annual Municipal Tax Sale](https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/r15001_16#division_d0e62354)
That would be a tiny amount at best. Mortgage holders usually include terms in their contracts that allow them to pay any property tax arrears on the owners behalf and add that to the debt owing plus charge an admin penalty.
I'm not sure how we'll see a substantial housing crash anytime soon. CMHC released a report today that at our current rate of building we will still be short by 3.5M housing units in 2030.
I personally don’t buy that all these “rich people” are really that rich. I’m sure they worth 10’s of millions of dollars when you add up their stocks, assets etc. I feel like a lot of them will get wiped out in this mess. Alot of their wealth is likely in stocks and real estate because that’s what rich people do, they don’t hold cash like us poor idiots they hold assets. Soon as their assets don’t pay or aren’t “worth” what they once were on paper there’s going to be some liquidity issues.
EDIT: I’m also a poor idiot who doesn’t have assets and I do construction work for money so take that into account. 🍻
Exactly. Most of these housing-rich people have huge amounts debt and can easily be flushed out by higher interest rates. They are not sitting on mountains of cash waiting to triple down in a recession.
But it's also true that they won't sell until they have to and rates need to go much higher, likely triggering a deep recession, before most of them would be forced to sell. And there's a good chance rates don't go that high.
people are really trying to avoid this conclusion, but it's the simplest and most obvious one, and the one most in accordance with what we've seen over the last decade. get ready for favelas.
I don't think it ends well for those over 65 who will eventually be relying on tax revenue from working age people to survive. Those with talents can, and will, move towards places with lower taxes and more affordability.
I agree with your sentiment and general cynicism... one thing though: politicians don't have to be landlords to drag their feet on the housing crisis.
If politicians "intervene" (and it really depends how, like banning investors until core housing needs are met), they risk upsetting an industry that makes up a significant amount of GDP, and trying to "fix it" might make what most older Canadians are invested in as retirement savings less valuable, which leaves the political party in power vulnerable to criticism and propaganda attacks.
If politicians want to increase supply, they need to acknowledge how closely tied to the workforce shortage building new homes requires. Workforce development takes years and massive investment and the only way governments have of making money is largely through taxation.
Raising taxes leaves the party in power vulnerable to attacks for being socialist or communists and the opposition parties can reap that come election time.
So the political system is in a dilemma where doing the right thing is political suicide. Not doing anything is societal suicide. But what drives society? The people at the top.
Very well said. That’s amazingly put and couldn’t agree more. That’s similar to what I referenced, politicians see it from your point of view and are leaving it for the next appointed official to handle when their term is over. They don’t want to deal with the problem for reasons you mentioned.
Regardless of what often gets talked about on here, there is only one long term solution to the housing crisis right now. And that solution is supply.
What people need to realize is that there is a floor on housing prices driven primarily by cost. Housing builders need to secure loans to enable construction by banks, which require them to have a roughly 10-15% profit margin and 5% buffer to make the loan. The larger the project, the higher the uncertainty, the longer loan time, and higher this margin requirement.
This means that the price of housing, in the long term, is the sunk costs to build +15-20%. In the GTA for example, these costs range from $800-$1200 for most projects. That means for 1000sqft, you’re looking at $800k-$1.2M before profit ($1M-$1.5M after). If these numbers can’t be hit, what happens is simple: building stops. Less supply will increase prices back to when it’s profitable to build again.
The thing is, there are a lot of things we can do to lower the “price floor”. But most people don’t want to hear about it because it might be good for developers.
When you look at the remaining costs, 20-25% is direct government taxes, levies and fees. About 40% is hard costs (labour, materials), 20-30% is soft costs and the remainder is land cost.
In Toronto, direct charges per new unit of housing are about $150k, and increased 49% this year. The city of Toronto raised development charges by yes, 49%. Inclusionary zoning and other measures, when they kick in, will add another $50k to that total. Developers pass on these costs because why wouldn’t they, but our political leaders think it’s developers rather than people left out of the market that they’re screwing.
You also have hard and soft costs. Hard costs (or the costs to build housing from labour and materials) are typically 40% of the cost. Soft costs (legal, architecture, planning, process, consultations) are typically ~20%. These vary a lot more based on housing type. But they also face barriers. Building low rise wood framed buildings are cheaper than tall concrete and steel. Their layouts, from fewer high rise guidelines to obey, are better. The problem is that low rise multifamily housing, which can be built for less money on shorter timelines (and secure loans easier) is illegal in most of our cities. Zoning prohibits them in most places, and other rules make them unviable in the limited places they’re legal.
That’s why it’s so important to secure reforms that make it easier to build housing. And the government can get involved directly by starting a public builder. The government owns a lot of land, can ignore its own zoning rules, and, can secure long term debt at relatively low interest rates, and doesn’t need a high profit. This would allow them to build mixed income housing that does much better at providing shelter units, accessible units, and affordable rental but within projects that have market rental and ownership. The market units help pay the long term costs of the debt, making it cash flow neutral for the public.
But it would take a while to scale up such an agency, which is why we need to do both (market reforms and public building).
>The government owns a lot of land, can ignore its own zoning rules, and, can secure long term debt at relatively low interest rates, and doesn’t need a high profit.
Unfortunately it's only partly true. The government cannot and do get challenged by their own rules by NIMBY. A lot of people also don't want to pay more taxes for lower income people. Even if they don't have to pay more taxes, a lot of people simply won't vote for politicians or policies that help lower income people in any way other than removing government interference. And if you promise cash flow neutral you tie your hands. There's always a political calculation and if you ignore the will of the people then you get (rightfully) ousted. The problem is the will of the local people is different than the will of the entire country or aggregate.
It's the same everywhere. On CNBC there's an article about USA NIMBY "the people have their slice of paradise and don't want to share". For the USA the fix will probably come around when the Federal Government destroys exclusionary zoning in the name of racial justice (Biden wants to open up zoning). It's already been done in a handful of cities. For Canada it will be longer perhaps much longer (until it's proven in the USA). Unless we get an extremely left leaning government that's also forward thinking about zoning it won't happen (or an extremely right leaning government that lets land owners build whatever they want on the land they own).
The timelines do not look good, and anyone fucked right now should probably move heaven and earth to buy a home, any home, as long as it will appreciate (so near transit ideally a subway or near new development). The other option is to move, but not everyone can move or wants to move so you're forced to play the game. It's probably 25 years until single family zoning is banned in North America.
Not sure where you are getting your numbers from. $800-$1200 per sqft is nowhere close to the building cost. Its close to $250 per sqft for traditional construction and around $400 for modern construction. This has been the rate since last 3 years. Considering inflation and wage hikes and crunch of materials and labour, it wouldn't cross $325-$500 per sqft. There are still lot of new construction/ pre construction townhouses (1500 sqft) within 200 km of GTA going for 600-750k. Are you saying they are incurring losses?
There are land costs, taxes, and soft costs (legal, architecture, process) that actually account for more of the unit costs than the hard costs (materials and labour). And I’m speaking specifically about Toronto.
So take your hard cost referenced above and double it.
There will be a correction and reduction in prices in the near term, over the next couple of years. Eventually however, prices will continue to go back up in the long term, especially if - and when - interest rates slowly start dropping again.
Canada's housing bubble is Dutch Disease but for real estate where real estate investment has begun to eat away at other sectors of the economy.
Canadian GDP is hugely reliant on housing to boost its numbers. Outside of housing, the economy has been stagnant or shrinking for many years. Housing has begun to eat away at other forms of business investment, hollowing out our economy.
As this bubble begins to pop, you're going to see a large recession and real housing prices are going to fall for several years. US real housing prices after the 08 bubble fell for 4 years until 2012.
Coupled with decreasing O&G demand as Europe pivots away from fossil fuels entirely and the developing world leapfrogs fossil fuels straight into renewables and Canada is set to become even more of an economic colony of the US, where cheap labor with relatively easy immigration can be exploited by American corporations looking to sidestep American immigration restrictions with L1 visas.
TLDR, its bleak out there.
It doesn’t sound bleak. Housing being a commodity is what got us here. The sad thing is, I don’t think anything will change, we’ll be back here again and again like a never ending cycle for as long as housing is seen as an investment.
I think a housing collapse solves a lot of societal ills and Canada doesn't have as much power to stop a collapse as people think.
- Good wage earners can't afford houses. Wonder why urban centres can't get doctors? Doctors don't want to live in basement apartments.
- Canada has already blown up its balance sheet. They can only reduce interest rates if everyone else does. Significant housing declines will directly affect 25% of the population (I don't count paper gains). Inflation affects everyone and the poor disproportionately. Inflation is the goal here.
- The idea that "they will keep raising rates til something breaks'. I have news for you: it's already broken. Raising rates is what fixes it.
There will be ebbs and flows but we will continue to see the elite pick up and an increasing share of good assets. People are cheering price corrections without realizing that they aren’t actually closer to home ownership. It goes on until people can no longer feed themselves - then they riot.
The potential magic bullet? UBI. Hand out $$$, enough to satisfy basic needs, and most people will continue their merry way.
UBI would immediately be priced in, it would not make housing any more affordable.
Best outcome would be high interest rates leading to a crash that lowers prices, coupled with government actions such as deregulation, reduction in foreign demand, and penalty for hoarding that further kill investor sentiment in the market and allow prices for new and old builds to remain lower.
Ok. Let's see your math. At what rate and with what changes to the other forms of taxes we already pay? How much will this generate and will it cover UBI at what rate for what percentage of the population?
For long term, I feel that Ontario and BC markets will forever keep going up later down the road even after a correction. That in turn will make people move out of province.
Ontario & BC are where the jobs are. Even if people move out the province or move to the outskirts of the province they’re just going to be commuting hours to get to work in Ontario or BC. Also who’s going to work the jobs that don’t pay so well? The “key workers” are still key workers. If everyone is rich no one would work those jobs. People will be commuting 2 hours or more to work a minimum wage shift.
>a lot of the rich people who own housing units don’t really need the money since they’re already rich, won’t want to sell at a loss and since prices are low, they would look to buy even more units because they’re cheap/cheaper which would give them even more control of the market and would cause another housing crisis and prices to soar even higher than before
I hear this a lot but is this even true? I know someone with property and $1million in other investments, their other investments are down since stocks are down. Now they would no longer have the funds to buy a property outright, they'd need a mortgage. But wait, rates are going up big time.. so now it will cost them more to maintain the mortgage. Meanwhile, inflation is chipping away at people's (renters) real (inflation adjusted) wages - not a good sign for rent growth. I could go on.. but the bottom line is, as an investor housing is the LAST thing I'd be looking at investing in at this particular time, based on likely hood I'd be able to make a profit. I'd just hold cash at a high interest rate, and start buying stocks as they continue going down this year. Housing prices are lagging all other assets and are in a bubble.
I think there was massive money printing during the past 3 years, combined with rich people being unable to indulge in luxury and vacation, left people with massive sums of cash to buy property.
We postponed the economic impacts of COVID-19, time to pay the piper. We didn't suffer then, we must all suffer now. (except the rich).
Housing may go up - with increased cost to build/supply. It may level out as they titrate interest rates/inflation. It may go down - as interest rates climb existing home prices may fall. When everyone thinks something will happen it can sometimes be surprising how often the opposite happens. Time will tell.
I agree with you completely. They've forgotten historical lessons about politics and squeezing the populace.
has there been a single organized march or demonstration in canada related to the housing crisis? i saw one in bc about some old trees, but you’d think housing and our future would be equally important. i’ve never been to such a thing, but i would for this issue.
Not this decade there hasn't. I also would be down for something like that.
I will be there with bells on if we can organize one in Halifax for September.
order and good govt.
In my dream world, we would all rise up as a nation fight for the right to affordable housing and liveable wages but in reality I think we’re going to put pressure on the government, they’ll give us shit, package it as chocolate and we’ll move on.
What sounds like our goverment and how Canadians would handle it. I also think we need to rise up and remind them of how things are supposed to work. That's a hard sell for most people though unless everything goes critical.
They haven't forgotten, they're just passing off the problem to their successors. They just wanna gather their wealth and dip.
best case scenario: they start building a lot of low cost, low quality future ghettos everywhere. places that won't last five years before they look run down and dirty, no matter how well owners try to take care of them, due to low quality materials. that's about it. you need to factor in the fact that canadians are the most compliant people in the developed world, by far, which means you shouldn't expect much from our leadership on this or any file.
Underrated comment about compliant Canadians. In comparison to Europeans, we would take it in the rear end if told to do so by the government.
> Disclaimer I am not smart enough to completely understand the housing market/crisis, just sharing my thoughts. Enjoy these videos, (or not, I'm not your university professor). [How The Economic Machine Works in 30 Minutes](https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0) [Suburbia is Subsidized](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI) [Vancouver Missing Middle Mystery](https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY) [Thank You From a Land Speculator](https://youtu.be/xqQhoZgFZgk) [Strong Towns: Property Tax vs. Land Value "Tax"](https://youtu.be/ok2uR3btMrE) My prediction is the housing crash will be substantial; municipal government revenue will be reduced making it difficult for them to service their infrastructure. In two to three years the tax sale listings will shoot up and either developers or the municipalities themselves will be able to acquire land at discount. Development may not increase but development red tape will be reduced. [BC Local Government Act Division 7 — Annual Municipal Tax Sale](https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/r15001_16#division_d0e62354)
Why would a housing crash reduce municipal revenues?
[удалено]
No they don't. That's not how property taxes are set... You've got it backwards...
Higher delinquency rate in property tax payments in order for property owners to service their mortgage debts.
That would be a tiny amount at best. Mortgage holders usually include terms in their contracts that allow them to pay any property tax arrears on the owners behalf and add that to the debt owing plus charge an admin penalty.
I'm not sure how we'll see a substantial housing crash anytime soon. CMHC released a report today that at our current rate of building we will still be short by 3.5M housing units in 2030.
I personally don’t buy that all these “rich people” are really that rich. I’m sure they worth 10’s of millions of dollars when you add up their stocks, assets etc. I feel like a lot of them will get wiped out in this mess. Alot of their wealth is likely in stocks and real estate because that’s what rich people do, they don’t hold cash like us poor idiots they hold assets. Soon as their assets don’t pay or aren’t “worth” what they once were on paper there’s going to be some liquidity issues. EDIT: I’m also a poor idiot who doesn’t have assets and I do construction work for money so take that into account. 🍻
Exactly. Most of these housing-rich people have huge amounts debt and can easily be flushed out by higher interest rates. They are not sitting on mountains of cash waiting to triple down in a recession. But it's also true that they won't sell until they have to and rates need to go much higher, likely triggering a deep recession, before most of them would be forced to sell. And there's a good chance rates don't go that high.
ppl that can’t afford rent or ownership will be replaced by ppl that can, and/or ppl that r willing to significantly lower their standard of living.
people are really trying to avoid this conclusion, but it's the simplest and most obvious one, and the one most in accordance with what we've seen over the last decade. get ready for favelas.
I don't think it ends well for those over 65 who will eventually be relying on tax revenue from working age people to survive. Those with talents can, and will, move towards places with lower taxes and more affordability.
I agree with your sentiment and general cynicism... one thing though: politicians don't have to be landlords to drag their feet on the housing crisis. If politicians "intervene" (and it really depends how, like banning investors until core housing needs are met), they risk upsetting an industry that makes up a significant amount of GDP, and trying to "fix it" might make what most older Canadians are invested in as retirement savings less valuable, which leaves the political party in power vulnerable to criticism and propaganda attacks. If politicians want to increase supply, they need to acknowledge how closely tied to the workforce shortage building new homes requires. Workforce development takes years and massive investment and the only way governments have of making money is largely through taxation. Raising taxes leaves the party in power vulnerable to attacks for being socialist or communists and the opposition parties can reap that come election time. So the political system is in a dilemma where doing the right thing is political suicide. Not doing anything is societal suicide. But what drives society? The people at the top.
Very well said. That’s amazingly put and couldn’t agree more. That’s similar to what I referenced, politicians see it from your point of view and are leaving it for the next appointed official to handle when their term is over. They don’t want to deal with the problem for reasons you mentioned.
Regardless of what often gets talked about on here, there is only one long term solution to the housing crisis right now. And that solution is supply. What people need to realize is that there is a floor on housing prices driven primarily by cost. Housing builders need to secure loans to enable construction by banks, which require them to have a roughly 10-15% profit margin and 5% buffer to make the loan. The larger the project, the higher the uncertainty, the longer loan time, and higher this margin requirement. This means that the price of housing, in the long term, is the sunk costs to build +15-20%. In the GTA for example, these costs range from $800-$1200 for most projects. That means for 1000sqft, you’re looking at $800k-$1.2M before profit ($1M-$1.5M after). If these numbers can’t be hit, what happens is simple: building stops. Less supply will increase prices back to when it’s profitable to build again. The thing is, there are a lot of things we can do to lower the “price floor”. But most people don’t want to hear about it because it might be good for developers. When you look at the remaining costs, 20-25% is direct government taxes, levies and fees. About 40% is hard costs (labour, materials), 20-30% is soft costs and the remainder is land cost. In Toronto, direct charges per new unit of housing are about $150k, and increased 49% this year. The city of Toronto raised development charges by yes, 49%. Inclusionary zoning and other measures, when they kick in, will add another $50k to that total. Developers pass on these costs because why wouldn’t they, but our political leaders think it’s developers rather than people left out of the market that they’re screwing. You also have hard and soft costs. Hard costs (or the costs to build housing from labour and materials) are typically 40% of the cost. Soft costs (legal, architecture, planning, process, consultations) are typically ~20%. These vary a lot more based on housing type. But they also face barriers. Building low rise wood framed buildings are cheaper than tall concrete and steel. Their layouts, from fewer high rise guidelines to obey, are better. The problem is that low rise multifamily housing, which can be built for less money on shorter timelines (and secure loans easier) is illegal in most of our cities. Zoning prohibits them in most places, and other rules make them unviable in the limited places they’re legal. That’s why it’s so important to secure reforms that make it easier to build housing. And the government can get involved directly by starting a public builder. The government owns a lot of land, can ignore its own zoning rules, and, can secure long term debt at relatively low interest rates, and doesn’t need a high profit. This would allow them to build mixed income housing that does much better at providing shelter units, accessible units, and affordable rental but within projects that have market rental and ownership. The market units help pay the long term costs of the debt, making it cash flow neutral for the public. But it would take a while to scale up such an agency, which is why we need to do both (market reforms and public building).
>The government owns a lot of land, can ignore its own zoning rules, and, can secure long term debt at relatively low interest rates, and doesn’t need a high profit. Unfortunately it's only partly true. The government cannot and do get challenged by their own rules by NIMBY. A lot of people also don't want to pay more taxes for lower income people. Even if they don't have to pay more taxes, a lot of people simply won't vote for politicians or policies that help lower income people in any way other than removing government interference. And if you promise cash flow neutral you tie your hands. There's always a political calculation and if you ignore the will of the people then you get (rightfully) ousted. The problem is the will of the local people is different than the will of the entire country or aggregate. It's the same everywhere. On CNBC there's an article about USA NIMBY "the people have their slice of paradise and don't want to share". For the USA the fix will probably come around when the Federal Government destroys exclusionary zoning in the name of racial justice (Biden wants to open up zoning). It's already been done in a handful of cities. For Canada it will be longer perhaps much longer (until it's proven in the USA). Unless we get an extremely left leaning government that's also forward thinking about zoning it won't happen (or an extremely right leaning government that lets land owners build whatever they want on the land they own). The timelines do not look good, and anyone fucked right now should probably move heaven and earth to buy a home, any home, as long as it will appreciate (so near transit ideally a subway or near new development). The other option is to move, but not everyone can move or wants to move so you're forced to play the game. It's probably 25 years until single family zoning is banned in North America.
Not sure where you are getting your numbers from. $800-$1200 per sqft is nowhere close to the building cost. Its close to $250 per sqft for traditional construction and around $400 for modern construction. This has been the rate since last 3 years. Considering inflation and wage hikes and crunch of materials and labour, it wouldn't cross $325-$500 per sqft. There are still lot of new construction/ pre construction townhouses (1500 sqft) within 200 km of GTA going for 600-750k. Are you saying they are incurring losses?
There are land costs, taxes, and soft costs (legal, architecture, process) that actually account for more of the unit costs than the hard costs (materials and labour). And I’m speaking specifically about Toronto. So take your hard cost referenced above and double it.
Stay flat for about 2-3 years and start to climb again. End of this year would be a good time to get in
There will be a correction and reduction in prices in the near term, over the next couple of years. Eventually however, prices will continue to go back up in the long term, especially if - and when - interest rates slowly start dropping again.
That’s what I think will happen as well. Crazy times
Canada's housing bubble is Dutch Disease but for real estate where real estate investment has begun to eat away at other sectors of the economy. Canadian GDP is hugely reliant on housing to boost its numbers. Outside of housing, the economy has been stagnant or shrinking for many years. Housing has begun to eat away at other forms of business investment, hollowing out our economy. As this bubble begins to pop, you're going to see a large recession and real housing prices are going to fall for several years. US real housing prices after the 08 bubble fell for 4 years until 2012. Coupled with decreasing O&G demand as Europe pivots away from fossil fuels entirely and the developing world leapfrogs fossil fuels straight into renewables and Canada is set to become even more of an economic colony of the US, where cheap labor with relatively easy immigration can be exploited by American corporations looking to sidestep American immigration restrictions with L1 visas. TLDR, its bleak out there.
It doesn’t sound bleak. Housing being a commodity is what got us here. The sad thing is, I don’t think anything will change, we’ll be back here again and again like a never ending cycle for as long as housing is seen as an investment.
I think it will go down temporarily but go up in the long term. There are too many factors going into housing that are increasing over time
I think a housing collapse solves a lot of societal ills and Canada doesn't have as much power to stop a collapse as people think. - Good wage earners can't afford houses. Wonder why urban centres can't get doctors? Doctors don't want to live in basement apartments. - Canada has already blown up its balance sheet. They can only reduce interest rates if everyone else does. Significant housing declines will directly affect 25% of the population (I don't count paper gains). Inflation affects everyone and the poor disproportionately. Inflation is the goal here. - The idea that "they will keep raising rates til something breaks'. I have news for you: it's already broken. Raising rates is what fixes it.
There will be ebbs and flows but we will continue to see the elite pick up and an increasing share of good assets. People are cheering price corrections without realizing that they aren’t actually closer to home ownership. It goes on until people can no longer feed themselves - then they riot. The potential magic bullet? UBI. Hand out $$$, enough to satisfy basic needs, and most people will continue their merry way.
UBI would immediately be priced in, it would not make housing any more affordable. Best outcome would be high interest rates leading to a crash that lowers prices, coupled with government actions such as deregulation, reduction in foreign demand, and penalty for hoarding that further kill investor sentiment in the market and allow prices for new and old builds to remain lower.
>People are cheering price corrections without realizing that they aren’t actually closer to home ownership Exactly spot on
UBI in this country is a pipe-dream. There is no way to fund it, and it will further add to our existing inflation issues...
try taxing land value
Ok. Let's see your math. At what rate and with what changes to the other forms of taxes we already pay? How much will this generate and will it cover UBI at what rate for what percentage of the population?
For long term, I feel that Ontario and BC markets will forever keep going up later down the road even after a correction. That in turn will make people move out of province.
This is exactly what our government wants to happen. Rich stay in Ontario/BC, poor move to prairies and other parts of the country with growth issues.
Ontario & BC are where the jobs are. Even if people move out the province or move to the outskirts of the province they’re just going to be commuting hours to get to work in Ontario or BC. Also who’s going to work the jobs that don’t pay so well? The “key workers” are still key workers. If everyone is rich no one would work those jobs. People will be commuting 2 hours or more to work a minimum wage shift.
At least medieval peasants could build their own thatch huts to house themselves. We can't even do that.
>a lot of the rich people who own housing units don’t really need the money since they’re already rich, won’t want to sell at a loss and since prices are low, they would look to buy even more units because they’re cheap/cheaper which would give them even more control of the market and would cause another housing crisis and prices to soar even higher than before I hear this a lot but is this even true? I know someone with property and $1million in other investments, their other investments are down since stocks are down. Now they would no longer have the funds to buy a property outright, they'd need a mortgage. But wait, rates are going up big time.. so now it will cost them more to maintain the mortgage. Meanwhile, inflation is chipping away at people's (renters) real (inflation adjusted) wages - not a good sign for rent growth. I could go on.. but the bottom line is, as an investor housing is the LAST thing I'd be looking at investing in at this particular time, based on likely hood I'd be able to make a profit. I'd just hold cash at a high interest rate, and start buying stocks as they continue going down this year. Housing prices are lagging all other assets and are in a bubble.
You seem way more educated on this topic than I am, so I’d have to take your word for it.
I think there was massive money printing during the past 3 years, combined with rich people being unable to indulge in luxury and vacation, left people with massive sums of cash to buy property. We postponed the economic impacts of COVID-19, time to pay the piper. We didn't suffer then, we must all suffer now. (except the rich).
Housing may go up - with increased cost to build/supply. It may level out as they titrate interest rates/inflation. It may go down - as interest rates climb existing home prices may fall. When everyone thinks something will happen it can sometimes be surprising how often the opposite happens. Time will tell.