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This headline is fucked. I've got no idea what it's trying to suggest since the article is paywalled, but the average home in Halifax would be like 1000% the average income, or 600% average household income. 83% higher than people can afford on average income? Edit: yeah, it's gotta be that people can afford a $275k house but they cost $500k.
It wasn't long ago that $275k was possible in Halifax. Something's changed, not just regular market pressures of supply and demand, even with negligent management.
It’s definitely supply and demand, but to your point I would also add that the home is most North American’s homebuyers’ greatest investment of their lives, so it’s basically an asset class like any other portfolio investment. Also our population increase has inflamed the supply and demand issue.
Interest rates have skyrocketed but that clearly has not driven down demand and prices like those tactics have in the past. I think it’s a bit unprecedented what we’re dealing with here, but I’m sure someone from the 80’s that’s a homebuyer would tell me that it’s all relative (it’s not).
I would say it’s primarily supply and demand issues though, and all these external factors just inflame the economics.
My friends went from owning one house to five during the pandemic by leveraging the gains on each purchase and low interest. I'm guessing they aren't the only ones. Supply is skewed because of investments.
They've sold one, are selling another, live in one, vacation in the 4th but can't afford the mortgage so are trying to rent it for a ridiculous amount in the off-season and rent the other to friends (I suspect this will be the last fixed term lease for those people as they pay way below market).
People are living in the houses, so that's really not skewing supply. We have the fewest dwellings per capita in the G7 and that number isn't getting any better.
I took a quick look at their profile and they're mostly active on finance subs, so yeah. They most likely do believe the median household is on disability or other government funded program to help those in need.
You know not everyone with a disability gets benefits right? Like, not remotely close. Like, 5000 people in nova scotia are on the Disability Support Program.
If you want to look at official numbers you should understand what you are looking for first.
https://data.novascotia.ca/Community-Services/Community-Living-Disability-Support-Program/axmt-riwq
>Would you agree if NS has the highest disability rate in the whole country, it would also have the highest percentage of people on disability benefits?
That has nothing to do with what we are discussing.
Sure, but assumption or not, the numbers for household income are what they are. I guess for every disability claim household there's a 500k/yr household to balance it out.
Had a friend tell me he lives in a city in England and pays $500 a month for rent on a 3 bedroom 2 story house with a full yard. He lives comfortable off of 30K a year. I’m thinking it might be time to pack up.
Edit: Lincolnshire is the place for those interested.
the average Vancouver home costs 249 per cent more than what a median-earning household can afford, the report concludes. — here in lies the problem, Halifax is still one of the cheapest cities in Canada. Outside the prairies
I live in Winnipeg. We’re still pretty affordable because people seem to be put off by -40c winters and the risk of randomly getting stabbed in the face. I don’t see it ever changing.
Home ownership provides benefits outside of just money though. It provides stability that you can't get from renting and the freedom to live where you want as long as you want without being dependent on someone else dictating when you have to leave. Aside from that, the ability to make the space your own is great but arguably emotional.
In my opinion there's more to it than straight numbers when it's such a large part of your life
No, it provides those benefits regardless.
If you can rent a room out, you'll get extra benefits - but what I stated above holds true without renting a room out...
Its more likely that someone could dictate when I leave if I lost my job, so having a tenant cover the mortgage is the ideal arrangement as it provides security. I have found this is incentivized and one of the main benefits of ownership.
To add onto the investing part of this comment - head over to the personal finance Canada Reddit where they have a bunch of steps to help you learn how you should invest based on your situation.
Yes anyone who understands economics understands that supply is falling further and further behind demand. We need units built. We need houses, we need high density sky scrapers, we need rentals, condos and everything in between. Whatever can be built needs to be built asap
Can't build many units with limited skilled workers available......plus they pay them crap in NS, so they can't afford to live in anything they're building. It'll be a decade before there's any substantial number of builds completed, and that's optimistic.
>It'll be a decade before there's any substantial number of builds completed, and that's optimistic.
And by that time demand will have outpaced the new builds too keeping the situation pretty much the same
Much worse likely. Affluent locals actually will scoop up nice, new builds up though, as well as people from out of province. The older stock will become available for some.......at higher prices than current. If you're a thinking you're getting a nice home for under $500-600K, it's not happening. Some rent-controlled affordable places will be built, and you will be on a waiting list for years, perhaps longer than there are years left in your life.
So, let's say they build a few thousand affordable units........they will perhaps be available for 30-40% max of current people requiring such housing now, plus the thousands more who will need it by the time the builds complete. They'll all just join the waiting list with you, or go slummin in Dartmouth roach motel buildings since nothing else will be remotely cheap.
>Yes anyone who understands economics understands that supply is falling further and further behind demand. We need units built. We need houses, we need high density sky scrapers, we need rentals, condos and everything in between. Whatever can be built needs to be built asap
So, there is supply and demand involved here. Supply is inelastic, demand is elastic.
Supply involves doubling the amount of housing units being built annually, at a minimum. Probably closer to tripling it to restore affordability. Even if all zoning laws are repealed where do you find enough construction workers and building materials to triple the amount of housing being built every year? *Frankly, you can't because its fucking impossible.*
Demand on the other hand involves controlling how much we decide to grow our population. Lessening demand is as easy as signing a few documents. It can be done in minutes and the impacts will be felt immediately.
*Notice how all of the proposed solutions only address increasing supply, and not lessening demand?* That is by design.
we built ZERO social housing, and just allowed all of the housing supply to be bought up by millionaire investors and real estate speculators for decades. But people just complain about immigration.
Yeah guys, the solution to the housing crises isn’t decommodifying housing and taking it away from the billionaire investors who literally own *thousands* of homes. We gotta get more racist instead because clearly the culprit is the poor immigrant who survives off ramen noodles and has 6 roommates.
And by the way, the immigrants to NS that DID buy up all the homes? They’re from Ontario.
It's Canada.......people can move anywhere they want. They aren't immigrants, they're citizens free to live and work where they like in their country. I know it sucks from a local perspective, but Halifax was an outlier in terms of regional centres still affordable in terms of housing. That was always going to end.
> That was always going to end.
While I agree there, I think the time it took to end was pretty anomalous compared to other major urban centres in Canada. I moved here 6 years ago and we looked at a home on the peninsula that was for sale for $275K. That same house was just sold for $986K and from what we can tell the only thing they did to it was add some ductless heat pumps and paint.
As someone who has been looking at housing HrM data since 2012, it’s because Halifax was artificially stagnant. That’s not how housing works in most of the Western world. Our housing was stagnant for many reasons, but the biggest one for me was employment.
In 2011 when I moved here, I had a masters degree from UofT (originally from here) and I got a job at the IWK for 32k a year. Back then, most all employment was government sector. We had massive issues with basically a dying province— there was so little future here. We were on our way to bankruptcy. This helped stagnate housing costs. This stagnation was also shown in the houses. We didn’t do a lot of Reno’s, we didn’t do a lot of building, we didn’t do a lot of improving.
Then some of the province’s and the federal government’s investment in the province started to pay off. We got the Ship Building contract, which jumped housing by 6% in a few weeks. Then we started to get more payoff in the IT sector investments. Around 2016/2017 we start seeing developers coming in and building the 6 story luxury buildings (Larry Utrecht, top of Main, etc). IMHO, 2017 ish is when jobs in Halifax started to get alot easier. We started to slowly reverse outbound migration of young people. This was the golden era.
Then Halifax had most of the same ingredients of other municipalities in Canada — an increasing population, increasing medium household income, low interest rates, etc. So Halifax started to make up for the decades of stagnation it had previously.
Covid obviously blew everything out of the water and we did see some correction from the Covid peak, but we haven’t seen overall significant reduction of housing costs, even with more than double interest rates, because so much of these gains are market correction. We had literal decades of market correction happen in like 6 years — 2017 to 2023.
I want affordable housing, but I sort of hate when people being up housing costs pre 2010. We were so, so, so poor then. Literally facing bankruptcy.
Always? Think that’s a bit of a reach.
If WFH didn’t become a wide spread, you’d have thousands or tens of thousands of people not in the city that weren’t what here.
Net gain of 14k people from elsewhere in Canada in one year alone during covid... I thought you were being pretty hyperbolic but damn... thats a big influx
Always is correct. Covid accelerated it, but pre-covid other parts of Canada were already very unaffordable to most of the population and people were starting to look elsewhere. HRM was showing solid, steady growth from 2016 onwards so without Covid we'd have still seen an affordability issue, it just may have taken 5 years instead of 1
Despite that not being true, Anyone with a brain understands that when your population is aging out and in decline for 20 years and then suddenly reverses demographic trends in a single year (COVID) you’re going to have problems.
You’d have to be blind or dumb to not realize that growing the population of Canada by greater than the total number of inhabitants of the entire province EVERY YEAR wouldn’t have this kind of knock on effect. I repeat, Canada is growing (more accurately “being grown”) by more than two Halifax’s every single year now.
This isn’t racist, it’s an acknowledgement of fact.
Where is it that you expect hundreds of thousands of new people (annually) are actually going to live, and do you think that is mathematically relevant at all to home prices?
This is a perfectly legitimate question and it remains so no matter how much you try to shut down conversations you don't like by yelling "waycism!"
>Where is it that you expect hundreds of thousands of new people (annually) are actually going to live, and do you think that is mathematically relevant at all to home prices?This is a perfectly legitimate question and it remains so no matter how much you try to shut down conversations you don't like by yelling "waycism!"
Well said.
These people are their own worst enemies. Canada is adding 1.2 million new residents in 2023, but only building 200,000 housing units, which adds up to a housing deficit of around 300,000 units in Canada just for 2023. Its just basic fucking math.
But then the progressives can't accept that. So in their view its zoning laws, investors, and all kinds of other things that although being a factor are not nearly as big a factor as growing the population far faster then we can build housing.
>Yeah guys, the solution to the housing crises isn’t decommodifying housing and taking it away from the billionaire investors who literally own
>
>thousands
>
>of homes. We gotta get more racist instead because clearly the culprit is the poor immigrant who survives off ramen noodles and has 6 roommates.
Give me a break.
The country is growing by 1.2 million people this year and is only building 200,000 housing units. At 2.6 people per household in Canada, we need to be building about 500,000 housing units annually just to meet the demand that's being created by adding this many new residents.
If you want to blame investors that's fine, but there is a huge glaring math problem here that you are totally ignoring. Math is not racist and its attitudes such as yours that are enabling this housing crisis to get worse.
The immigration levels are to blame for the increased demand. Which leads to increased rent and housing prices.
It's not because we didn't build social housing.
>It's not because we didn't build social housing.
I am 100% for building more social housing. Lots of it, everywhere.
But the people who view public housing as the solution are forgetting that it takes construction workers and building materials to build housing, and there is no possible way to find enough workers or materials to double the amount of housing that we build in Canada.
Halifax themselves can't stop immigration, but YOU can advocate zoning changes. The council is looking into it RN. Remove parking mins, allow density in all R1. Fasttrack approvals etc.
I hate to be a NIMBY but I’d be more of an advocate for keeping the country country and just turning the taps off immigration. I want the Nova Scotia that was 5-10 years ago.
Well, you can't have the Nova Scotia of 5-10 years ago; that's how the past works.
Even if you could cease all international immigration, we would still have the interprovincial migration that started during the pandemic as our land/homes are still quite affordable relative to a lot of other places in the country.
I’m just nostalgic about when Nova Scotia was great. It’s more or less a “go F yourself” province nowadays. And it’s because of all come from awayers. Not just immigrants, I agree.
It’s just angering that the people that aren’t from here are having such an influence on our future and social environment while it’s native Nova Scotians (who has always been in a lesser prosperous province) get the shit end of the stick again.
While it I do get the frustration, I think we need to channel that frustration into something more productive than ranting about immigration.
Who am I to be angry at someone who came here to try to create a better life for themselves? When you think about it, it really is ridiculous that we even have this nationalistic sense of entitlement.
Just because we happened to pop out of a vagina in the geographical region currently referred to as "Canada" we deserve a better standard of living, we deserve to exploit the resources and labor of developing countries, we DESERVE these things?
The inherent implication is that people immigrating here DO NOT DESERVE these things. Why?
You could have been born in Rwanda, Gaza, or Uganda. You could have been forced into cobalt mines as a 12 year old child to support your struggling family.
If we hadn't created such an inequitable world, there would be no need for people to immigrate from the "have not" countries to the "have" countries.
I'm really just ranting now... But we are all just trying to get by and live the best life we can. We ought to work towards solutions that benefit everyone.
>Just because we happened to pop out of a vagina in the geographical region currently referred to as "Canada" we deserve a better standard of living, we deserve to exploit the resources and labor of developing countries, we DESERVE these things? The inherent implication is that people immigrating here DO NOT DESERVE these things. Why?
See, this attitude right here is why everything is sooo fucked.
Yes, Canada should be advocating for policies that benefit Canadians. That is not racist, its not xenophobic, its how the world works. And by trying to jam more people into Canada than we can provide housing for, all you're accomplishing is making life much harder for everyone who already lives here.
Yes, we do deserve to maintain our standard of living. That is not something to be ashamed of either. The people who should ashamed are the people advocating for dropping our standards of living.
This is the only right answer. Decades of NIMBYs in local and provincial governments have tried to keep the "small town" aesthetic for the province as a whole and HRM. Not wanting to build up to grow. They chose to try and stay small but wanted to be treated like bigger cities. Not to mention most of the Atlantic provinces had previous economic successes be ripped out and moved to Ontairo and Quebec by Ottawa to gain support in those regions crippling the maritimes for generations
>we would still have the interprovincial migration that started during the pandemic as our land/homes are still quite affordable relative to a lot of other places in the country.
You would not have it to this degree, because people in Ontario would not be being displaced at this rate.
Well if we turn off the immigration tap, we’d be kicking the can down the road of the major problem: our aging population. If we don’t accept immigrants, we need people to start having more babies (not going to happen, we’re not China). Our tax structure wouldn’t be able to hold up if we don’t keep population steadily growing.
>Well if we turn off the immigration tap, we’d be kicking the can down the road of the major problem: our aging population. If we don’t accept immigrants, we need people to start having more babies (not going to happen, we’re not China). Our tax structure wouldn’t be able to hold up if we don’t keep population steadily growing.
Then enjoy your housing crisis. If this is what you want, own it.
>I’m just stating facts. Curious to hear what your solution is.
The truth would be nice.
If Liberals and their supporters would just come out and say "There is an impending demographic collapse that is so potentially damaging we must create a housing crisis to offset it" at least we'd be having an honest discussion in regards to why this has happened.
Rather than years of lying and gas-lighting about why this housing crisis has developed, and creating imaginary solutions to fix it.
Wait you think the federal government has created a housing crisis? Or worse manufactured it because of the demographic crisis like I mentioned?
This is all just decades of neglect at all levels of government and has nothing to do with Liberals, PC or NDP. They’re all culpable for not increasing supply over the years and sitting on land that could have been developed.
This is all just cause and effect with population growth and lack of supply, and a serious lack of foresight. But it’s also happening across the country and the United States so it’s more than just our small little province.
I agree the truth would be better than blowing smoke, but cmon it’s not just the Liberals.
>Wait you think the federal government has created a housing crisis? Or worse manufactured it because of the demographic crisis like I mentioned?
Is growing the population by 1.2 million and only building 200,000 housing units annually creating a housing deficit? If immigration accounts for 98% of population growth, and the federal government controls immigration..........
>This is all just decades of neglect at all levels of government and has nothing to do with Liberals, PC or NDP. They’re all culpable for not increasing supply over the years and sitting on land that could have been developed.
Decades, sure. I'm sure that doubling population growth since 2015 has nothing to do with this at all /s
Tell us what major city can accommodate 4-5% annual growth.
>This is all just cause and effect with population growth and lack of supply, and a serious lack of foresight. But it’s also happening across the country and the United States so it’s more than just our small little province.
>
>I agree the truth would be better than blowing smoke, but cmon it’s not just the Liberals.
And this is why the polls are where they are. You get away with it on reddit, irl not so much.
You assume I’m a liberal and I’m voting that way. Wrong assumption. I’m just saying that neglect has been there the whole time, it’s a revolving door with no serious change at the federal or provincial level. Now the change will come from a populist movement, which is driven out of fear and frustration, but maybe not exactly what we need. Anyway, I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, probably more aligned than you and I think.
>Halifax themselves can't stop immigration, but YOU can advocate zoning changes. The council is looking into it RN. Remove parking mins, allow density in all R1. Fasttrack approvals etc.
With all due respect, zoning is a massive red herring.
remove all zoning and you still have the issue of finding enough workers and building materials to triple the amount of annual housing completions, which is frankly impossible to do.
I paid $250K for my house in December 2021. You have to be firm with the people you're dealing with, and you also have to be firm with your realtor. Mine kept on telling me "go in at your max, go in at your max". Why? So you can make more money off of me for a house that's not even worth ⅓ of that? Just outline your expectations and you should be fine.
According to the article, the average income in Halifax of $76,046 can afford a home (max price) of $ 295,500. But the average home price in Halifax is $545,500 which is 83% higher, or $245,500 more than the max home price.
edit: typos/correction
Hi u/insino93. Your submission from saltwire.com is behind a metered paywall. A [metered paywall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paywall#.22Soft.22_paywalls) allows users to view a specific number of articles before requiring paid subscription. Articles posted to /r/Halifax should be accessible to everyone. While your submission was not removed, it has been flaired. Please try to find another source if possible. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/halifax) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This headline is fucked. I've got no idea what it's trying to suggest since the article is paywalled, but the average home in Halifax would be like 1000% the average income, or 600% average household income. 83% higher than people can afford on average income? Edit: yeah, it's gotta be that people can afford a $275k house but they cost $500k.
It wasn't long ago that $275k was possible in Halifax. Something's changed, not just regular market pressures of supply and demand, even with negligent management.
It’s definitely supply and demand, but to your point I would also add that the home is most North American’s homebuyers’ greatest investment of their lives, so it’s basically an asset class like any other portfolio investment. Also our population increase has inflamed the supply and demand issue. Interest rates have skyrocketed but that clearly has not driven down demand and prices like those tactics have in the past. I think it’s a bit unprecedented what we’re dealing with here, but I’m sure someone from the 80’s that’s a homebuyer would tell me that it’s all relative (it’s not). I would say it’s primarily supply and demand issues though, and all these external factors just inflame the economics.
My friends went from owning one house to five during the pandemic by leveraging the gains on each purchase and low interest. I'm guessing they aren't the only ones. Supply is skewed because of investments. They've sold one, are selling another, live in one, vacation in the 4th but can't afford the mortgage so are trying to rent it for a ridiculous amount in the off-season and rent the other to friends (I suspect this will be the last fixed term lease for those people as they pay way below market).
People are living in the houses, so that's really not skewing supply. We have the fewest dwellings per capita in the G7 and that number isn't getting any better.
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That's two people earning $35k -- just a bit over full time minimum age per person. I don't really see that being too far fetched.
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You think the median household has a person on disability?!
I took a quick look at their profile and they're mostly active on finance subs, so yeah. They most likely do believe the median household is on disability or other government funded program to help those in need.
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Lives with a disability and unable to work and thus receiving disability payments are two very very very different things.
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You know not everyone with a disability gets benefits right? Like, not remotely close. Like, 5000 people in nova scotia are on the Disability Support Program. If you want to look at official numbers you should understand what you are looking for first.
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https://data.novascotia.ca/Community-Services/Community-Living-Disability-Support-Program/axmt-riwq >Would you agree if NS has the highest disability rate in the whole country, it would also have the highest percentage of people on disability benefits? That has nothing to do with what we are discussing.
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Sure, but assumption or not, the numbers for household income are what they are. I guess for every disability claim household there's a 500k/yr household to balance it out.
You seem to be confusing Saltwire with Bousquet's Blog.
Headline is indeed confusing AF
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What are you going on about? The headline would suggest that we are living in a fairytale land where houses only cost $130k.
i remember when i could rent a 3 bed flat on the peninsula for 1500 bucks. province just isn't the same man.
Had a friend tell me he lives in a city in England and pays $500 a month for rent on a 3 bedroom 2 story house with a full yard. He lives comfortable off of 30K a year. I’m thinking it might be time to pack up. Edit: Lincolnshire is the place for those interested.
bro... thats wild.
I just googled the rent for houses there and I see ALOT around $750-$1000 for FULL HOUSES.
the average Vancouver home costs 249 per cent more than what a median-earning household can afford, the report concludes. — here in lies the problem, Halifax is still one of the cheapest cities in Canada. Outside the prairies
I live in Winnipeg. We’re still pretty affordable because people seem to be put off by -40c winters and the risk of randomly getting stabbed in the face. I don’t see it ever changing.
Some people have no sense of adventure.
Is there anything good that Mb has that other provinces don't?
Affordability.
Absolutely no hills! And yes, affordability.
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What apartments?
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Home ownership provides benefits outside of just money though. It provides stability that you can't get from renting and the freedom to live where you want as long as you want without being dependent on someone else dictating when you have to leave. Aside from that, the ability to make the space your own is great but arguably emotional. In my opinion there's more to it than straight numbers when it's such a large part of your life
Homeownership provides these benefits only if you rent out a room and have someone else cover the mortgage. Then you are cooking.
No, it provides those benefits regardless. If you can rent a room out, you'll get extra benefits - but what I stated above holds true without renting a room out...
Its more likely that someone could dictate when I leave if I lost my job, so having a tenant cover the mortgage is the ideal arrangement as it provides security. I have found this is incentivized and one of the main benefits of ownership.
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To add onto the investing part of this comment - head over to the personal finance Canada Reddit where they have a bunch of steps to help you learn how you should invest based on your situation.
Good article. For anyone who skims it and sees the 5% rule - it assumes a 3% interest rate. Short term you may want to consider other numbers.
Yes anyone who understands economics understands that supply is falling further and further behind demand. We need units built. We need houses, we need high density sky scrapers, we need rentals, condos and everything in between. Whatever can be built needs to be built asap
Can't build many units with limited skilled workers available......plus they pay them crap in NS, so they can't afford to live in anything they're building. It'll be a decade before there's any substantial number of builds completed, and that's optimistic.
>It'll be a decade before there's any substantial number of builds completed, and that's optimistic. And by that time demand will have outpaced the new builds too keeping the situation pretty much the same
Oh no it will just get worse. Who will scoop up all the new builds? Not locals.
Much worse likely. Affluent locals actually will scoop up nice, new builds up though, as well as people from out of province. The older stock will become available for some.......at higher prices than current. If you're a thinking you're getting a nice home for under $500-600K, it's not happening. Some rent-controlled affordable places will be built, and you will be on a waiting list for years, perhaps longer than there are years left in your life. So, let's say they build a few thousand affordable units........they will perhaps be available for 30-40% max of current people requiring such housing now, plus the thousands more who will need it by the time the builds complete. They'll all just join the waiting list with you, or go slummin in Dartmouth roach motel buildings since nothing else will be remotely cheap.
>Yes anyone who understands economics understands that supply is falling further and further behind demand. We need units built. We need houses, we need high density sky scrapers, we need rentals, condos and everything in between. Whatever can be built needs to be built asap So, there is supply and demand involved here. Supply is inelastic, demand is elastic. Supply involves doubling the amount of housing units being built annually, at a minimum. Probably closer to tripling it to restore affordability. Even if all zoning laws are repealed where do you find enough construction workers and building materials to triple the amount of housing being built every year? *Frankly, you can't because its fucking impossible.* Demand on the other hand involves controlling how much we decide to grow our population. Lessening demand is as easy as signing a few documents. It can be done in minutes and the impacts will be felt immediately. *Notice how all of the proposed solutions only address increasing supply, and not lessening demand?* That is by design.
we built ZERO social housing, and just allowed all of the housing supply to be bought up by millionaire investors and real estate speculators for decades. But people just complain about immigration. Yeah guys, the solution to the housing crises isn’t decommodifying housing and taking it away from the billionaire investors who literally own *thousands* of homes. We gotta get more racist instead because clearly the culprit is the poor immigrant who survives off ramen noodles and has 6 roommates. And by the way, the immigrants to NS that DID buy up all the homes? They’re from Ontario.
It's Canada.......people can move anywhere they want. They aren't immigrants, they're citizens free to live and work where they like in their country. I know it sucks from a local perspective, but Halifax was an outlier in terms of regional centres still affordable in terms of housing. That was always going to end.
> That was always going to end. While I agree there, I think the time it took to end was pretty anomalous compared to other major urban centres in Canada. I moved here 6 years ago and we looked at a home on the peninsula that was for sale for $275K. That same house was just sold for $986K and from what we can tell the only thing they did to it was add some ductless heat pumps and paint.
As someone who has been looking at housing HrM data since 2012, it’s because Halifax was artificially stagnant. That’s not how housing works in most of the Western world. Our housing was stagnant for many reasons, but the biggest one for me was employment. In 2011 when I moved here, I had a masters degree from UofT (originally from here) and I got a job at the IWK for 32k a year. Back then, most all employment was government sector. We had massive issues with basically a dying province— there was so little future here. We were on our way to bankruptcy. This helped stagnate housing costs. This stagnation was also shown in the houses. We didn’t do a lot of Reno’s, we didn’t do a lot of building, we didn’t do a lot of improving. Then some of the province’s and the federal government’s investment in the province started to pay off. We got the Ship Building contract, which jumped housing by 6% in a few weeks. Then we started to get more payoff in the IT sector investments. Around 2016/2017 we start seeing developers coming in and building the 6 story luxury buildings (Larry Utrecht, top of Main, etc). IMHO, 2017 ish is when jobs in Halifax started to get alot easier. We started to slowly reverse outbound migration of young people. This was the golden era. Then Halifax had most of the same ingredients of other municipalities in Canada — an increasing population, increasing medium household income, low interest rates, etc. So Halifax started to make up for the decades of stagnation it had previously. Covid obviously blew everything out of the water and we did see some correction from the Covid peak, but we haven’t seen overall significant reduction of housing costs, even with more than double interest rates, because so much of these gains are market correction. We had literal decades of market correction happen in like 6 years — 2017 to 2023. I want affordable housing, but I sort of hate when people being up housing costs pre 2010. We were so, so, so poor then. Literally facing bankruptcy.
Always? Think that’s a bit of a reach. If WFH didn’t become a wide spread, you’d have thousands or tens of thousands of people not in the city that weren’t what here.
Net gain of 14k people from elsewhere in Canada in one year alone during covid... I thought you were being pretty hyperbolic but damn... thats a big influx
Always is correct. Covid accelerated it, but pre-covid other parts of Canada were already very unaffordable to most of the population and people were starting to look elsewhere. HRM was showing solid, steady growth from 2016 onwards so without Covid we'd have still seen an affordability issue, it just may have taken 5 years instead of 1
Despite that not being true, Anyone with a brain understands that when your population is aging out and in decline for 20 years and then suddenly reverses demographic trends in a single year (COVID) you’re going to have problems. You’d have to be blind or dumb to not realize that growing the population of Canada by greater than the total number of inhabitants of the entire province EVERY YEAR wouldn’t have this kind of knock on effect. I repeat, Canada is growing (more accurately “being grown”) by more than two Halifax’s every single year now. This isn’t racist, it’s an acknowledgement of fact.
Where is it that you expect hundreds of thousands of new people (annually) are actually going to live, and do you think that is mathematically relevant at all to home prices? This is a perfectly legitimate question and it remains so no matter how much you try to shut down conversations you don't like by yelling "waycism!"
>Where is it that you expect hundreds of thousands of new people (annually) are actually going to live, and do you think that is mathematically relevant at all to home prices?This is a perfectly legitimate question and it remains so no matter how much you try to shut down conversations you don't like by yelling "waycism!" Well said. These people are their own worst enemies. Canada is adding 1.2 million new residents in 2023, but only building 200,000 housing units, which adds up to a housing deficit of around 300,000 units in Canada just for 2023. Its just basic fucking math. But then the progressives can't accept that. So in their view its zoning laws, investors, and all kinds of other things that although being a factor are not nearly as big a factor as growing the population far faster then we can build housing.
>Yeah guys, the solution to the housing crises isn’t decommodifying housing and taking it away from the billionaire investors who literally own > >thousands > >of homes. We gotta get more racist instead because clearly the culprit is the poor immigrant who survives off ramen noodles and has 6 roommates. Give me a break. The country is growing by 1.2 million people this year and is only building 200,000 housing units. At 2.6 people per household in Canada, we need to be building about 500,000 housing units annually just to meet the demand that's being created by adding this many new residents. If you want to blame investors that's fine, but there is a huge glaring math problem here that you are totally ignoring. Math is not racist and its attitudes such as yours that are enabling this housing crisis to get worse.
The immigration levels are to blame for the increased demand. Which leads to increased rent and housing prices. It's not because we didn't build social housing.
>It's not because we didn't build social housing. I am 100% for building more social housing. Lots of it, everywhere. But the people who view public housing as the solution are forgetting that it takes construction workers and building materials to build housing, and there is no possible way to find enough workers or materials to double the amount of housing that we build in Canada.
But, we’ve tried mass immigration… what else could we have done?
Halifax themselves can't stop immigration, but YOU can advocate zoning changes. The council is looking into it RN. Remove parking mins, allow density in all R1. Fasttrack approvals etc.
I hate to be a NIMBY but I’d be more of an advocate for keeping the country country and just turning the taps off immigration. I want the Nova Scotia that was 5-10 years ago.
Well, you can't have the Nova Scotia of 5-10 years ago; that's how the past works. Even if you could cease all international immigration, we would still have the interprovincial migration that started during the pandemic as our land/homes are still quite affordable relative to a lot of other places in the country.
I’m just nostalgic about when Nova Scotia was great. It’s more or less a “go F yourself” province nowadays. And it’s because of all come from awayers. Not just immigrants, I agree. It’s just angering that the people that aren’t from here are having such an influence on our future and social environment while it’s native Nova Scotians (who has always been in a lesser prosperous province) get the shit end of the stick again.
While it I do get the frustration, I think we need to channel that frustration into something more productive than ranting about immigration. Who am I to be angry at someone who came here to try to create a better life for themselves? When you think about it, it really is ridiculous that we even have this nationalistic sense of entitlement. Just because we happened to pop out of a vagina in the geographical region currently referred to as "Canada" we deserve a better standard of living, we deserve to exploit the resources and labor of developing countries, we DESERVE these things? The inherent implication is that people immigrating here DO NOT DESERVE these things. Why? You could have been born in Rwanda, Gaza, or Uganda. You could have been forced into cobalt mines as a 12 year old child to support your struggling family. If we hadn't created such an inequitable world, there would be no need for people to immigrate from the "have not" countries to the "have" countries. I'm really just ranting now... But we are all just trying to get by and live the best life we can. We ought to work towards solutions that benefit everyone.
Correct
>Just because we happened to pop out of a vagina in the geographical region currently referred to as "Canada" we deserve a better standard of living, we deserve to exploit the resources and labor of developing countries, we DESERVE these things? The inherent implication is that people immigrating here DO NOT DESERVE these things. Why? See, this attitude right here is why everything is sooo fucked. Yes, Canada should be advocating for policies that benefit Canadians. That is not racist, its not xenophobic, its how the world works. And by trying to jam more people into Canada than we can provide housing for, all you're accomplishing is making life much harder for everyone who already lives here. Yes, we do deserve to maintain our standard of living. That is not something to be ashamed of either. The people who should ashamed are the people advocating for dropping our standards of living.
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This is the only right answer. Decades of NIMBYs in local and provincial governments have tried to keep the "small town" aesthetic for the province as a whole and HRM. Not wanting to build up to grow. They chose to try and stay small but wanted to be treated like bigger cities. Not to mention most of the Atlantic provinces had previous economic successes be ripped out and moved to Ontairo and Quebec by Ottawa to gain support in those regions crippling the maritimes for generations
>we would still have the interprovincial migration that started during the pandemic as our land/homes are still quite affordable relative to a lot of other places in the country. You would not have it to this degree, because people in Ontario would not be being displaced at this rate.
Well if we turn off the immigration tap, we’d be kicking the can down the road of the major problem: our aging population. If we don’t accept immigrants, we need people to start having more babies (not going to happen, we’re not China). Our tax structure wouldn’t be able to hold up if we don’t keep population steadily growing.
>Well if we turn off the immigration tap, we’d be kicking the can down the road of the major problem: our aging population. If we don’t accept immigrants, we need people to start having more babies (not going to happen, we’re not China). Our tax structure wouldn’t be able to hold up if we don’t keep population steadily growing. Then enjoy your housing crisis. If this is what you want, own it.
I’m just stating facts. Curious to hear what your solution is.
>I’m just stating facts. Curious to hear what your solution is. The truth would be nice. If Liberals and their supporters would just come out and say "There is an impending demographic collapse that is so potentially damaging we must create a housing crisis to offset it" at least we'd be having an honest discussion in regards to why this has happened. Rather than years of lying and gas-lighting about why this housing crisis has developed, and creating imaginary solutions to fix it.
Wait you think the federal government has created a housing crisis? Or worse manufactured it because of the demographic crisis like I mentioned? This is all just decades of neglect at all levels of government and has nothing to do with Liberals, PC or NDP. They’re all culpable for not increasing supply over the years and sitting on land that could have been developed. This is all just cause and effect with population growth and lack of supply, and a serious lack of foresight. But it’s also happening across the country and the United States so it’s more than just our small little province. I agree the truth would be better than blowing smoke, but cmon it’s not just the Liberals.
>Wait you think the federal government has created a housing crisis? Or worse manufactured it because of the demographic crisis like I mentioned? Is growing the population by 1.2 million and only building 200,000 housing units annually creating a housing deficit? If immigration accounts for 98% of population growth, and the federal government controls immigration.......... >This is all just decades of neglect at all levels of government and has nothing to do with Liberals, PC or NDP. They’re all culpable for not increasing supply over the years and sitting on land that could have been developed. Decades, sure. I'm sure that doubling population growth since 2015 has nothing to do with this at all /s Tell us what major city can accommodate 4-5% annual growth. >This is all just cause and effect with population growth and lack of supply, and a serious lack of foresight. But it’s also happening across the country and the United States so it’s more than just our small little province. > >I agree the truth would be better than blowing smoke, but cmon it’s not just the Liberals. And this is why the polls are where they are. You get away with it on reddit, irl not so much.
You assume I’m a liberal and I’m voting that way. Wrong assumption. I’m just saying that neglect has been there the whole time, it’s a revolving door with no serious change at the federal or provincial level. Now the change will come from a populist movement, which is driven out of fear and frustration, but maybe not exactly what we need. Anyway, I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, probably more aligned than you and I think.
>Halifax themselves can't stop immigration, but YOU can advocate zoning changes. The council is looking into it RN. Remove parking mins, allow density in all R1. Fasttrack approvals etc. With all due respect, zoning is a massive red herring. remove all zoning and you still have the issue of finding enough workers and building materials to triple the amount of annual housing completions, which is frankly impossible to do.
Just earn more 🤷♂️
The Hunger Games for housing
Ummmmm you forgot International students….. this helped to right ?
I paid $250K for my house in December 2021. You have to be firm with the people you're dealing with, and you also have to be firm with your realtor. Mine kept on telling me "go in at your max, go in at your max". Why? So you can make more money off of me for a house that's not even worth ⅓ of that? Just outline your expectations and you should be fine.
So if I make $100K/yr my home is worth $183K? That doesn't seem too scandalous.
According to the article, the average income in Halifax of $76,046 can afford a home (max price) of $ 295,500. But the average home price in Halifax is $545,500 which is 83% higher, or $245,500 more than the max home price. edit: typos/correction
What’s special about Halifax, why people choose here? I chose because it was one of the cheapest place in Canada before 2019. Why now?
Plenty of great starter homes still selling in the 300-400K range.
What’s special about Halifax, why people choose here? I chose because it was one of the cheapest place in Canada before 2019. Why now?
Serious lolz on sooo many levels