4 ms·
Except the reality is that local speculation is also wild and crazy. It's just easier to blame foreigners. I've read stats that indicate that nearly 20% of hom
by amscanne 6y ago
Except the reality is that local speculation is also wild and crazy. It's just easier to blame foreigners.
I've read stats that indicate that nearly 20% of home owners in the Toronto area own at least one additional "investment" property. This rings true with my own experience, as the cult of home ownership is ridiculously strong in Canada, and many have been betting on and fueling rampant speculation for the past decade -- buying boxes in the sky for hundreds of thousands of dollars under the assumption that real estate just keeps going up.
But the anecdotal stories about the occasional foreign buyer is somehow much more satisfying and comforting than the thought that Canadians are also responsible.
- specialist 6y agoI'm also offended by the blame of foreigners. Core problem is housing shortage. We need more. I don't care how we get there. So I support upzoning, MIL units, penalizing unused (vacant) units, and any other idea for increasing supply. We just need to figure out what policy mix works. The blame game is just a distraction by the incumbent players.
- dasudasu 6y agoThe argument being made is that this wild speculation is enabled by the money laundering. If you know laundering will keep happening with impunity and that the whole thing is tacitly approved and backstopped by the Canadian government, then it becomes rational to participate too.
- amscanne 6y agoThat may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that locals share a large portion of responsibility. Money laundering is no doubt happening, but the activity is tiny as a fraction of the market. To give an example of how exaggerated it is: before implementing the empty homes, the city of Vancouver estimated that 25,000 homes were empty. The final result: only 2,500, one tenth what everyone thought.