5 ms·

So why don't they build more homes?

eru 5y ago
Or why don't they just tax the owning of real estate? No need to ban those 'evil' foreigners, just tax them so they can pay for what the locals want.
- bawolff 5y ago
  BC actually did this (tax empty homes). Did not affect prices. I suspect the real problem is low supply high demand + domestic speculation, which is why none of the blame the foreigner solutions work
  - asvitkine 5y ago
    Increase the taxes until there is an effect?
    - bombcar 5y ago
      A tax on empty homes that started increasing after some grace period (say 3-12 months or whatever) would be amusing because at some point the vacancy owners would start paying people to live in the house so as to avoid the tax. And if prices were going up enough, it'd be worth it.
mactavish88 5y ago
They can’t build them fast enough.
cpcallen 5y ago
Not enough land. ;-)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
smcl 5y ago
It could be that there is a sufficient amount of housing (built or being built), but that it is often not occupied on account of just being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio. In this case it could be seen as wasteful to build more, and too much of an oversupply could lead to an economic collapse if it’s on a big enough scale. The other possibility is that they are building more homes, and want them to be purchased by people who will live in them. Note: not a Canada expert and tbh the “they” in question is a bit undefined here
- 988747 5y ago
  >> being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio Why wouldn't that wealthy person rent the property out and get better ROI? Keeping it empty does not make sense to me.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    If the property itself is valuable enough? Renting the property out might not actually be worth the hassle. A single bitter tenant can cost a lot of money, from eviction to repairs/damage.
  - abdullahkhalids 5y ago
    Because they can make a far greater profit by selling the property at a moment's notice, than say renting it out for an year. I mean, a place where your rental profit is 3k/month, might sell for 100k more than you bought it for, to the next wealthy person who thinks they can make another 100k profit by holding and selling after an year.
    - kasey_junk 5y ago
      Doesn’t that imply that renters are getting extremely good deals? Is that something you want to change with governmental policy?
      - freeone3000 5y ago
hotpotamus 5y ago
My question for you (and I think about this myself) is how much would someone need to pay you for you to go into home construction?
- iefbr14 5y ago
  If I could magically subtract some 50 years from my age I would certainly consider that :)
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    Yep, given that the world is aging, especially (but not exclusively) in the 1st world, I wonder what the implications for labor are in the future.
xyst 5y ago
This is the solution but most NA cities are building the wrong type - single family homes.
ryanbrunner 5y ago
Canada has comparable housing supply with many other places that don't have the same skyrocketing unaffordability. Most parties are advocating for increasing supply, but it's definitely not the entirety of the problem (particularly when additional building carries it's own problems like sprawl and destroying farmland / ecological preserves). Also the federal government doesn't have a ton of jurisdiction into increasing supply, that's largely a provincial concern.
pards 5y ago
This the answer. The rate of population growth in major cities like Toronto isn't keeping up with the housing supply. Our cities should be building more high- and medium-density housing, and public transit to support this population.
chx 5y ago
In Vancouver, the problem is rampant NIMBYism. We have single family homes in ton of places where there should be low rises but zoning doesn't allow for it. Indeed, the solution would be to take away zoning power from the city into provincial or even federal hands and let housing be more dense where the taxpayers already paid for rapid transit. Look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_station_(SkyTrain) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_station_(SkyTrain) this is not even a particularly busy station and it has 4M passengers and these two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrew_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrew_station together has barely more than half of that.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  The city plan removed all the zones for single family homes
  - chx 4y ago
    https://mountainmath.ca/zoning_map https://mountainmath.ca/zoning_map look at all the yellow. We need them to be orange in a block or two radius around all Canada Line and SkyTrain stops. There's a smattering of that but not much.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      That's not the Vancouver draft plan map. The draft map plan had no single detached home area at all
randomdata 5y ago
Where? The farmland boom, which began in 2007, has priced residential sprawl out of the market. That's why the urban areas on arable land have been feeling more and more heat in the city limits, not being able to affordably grow like they once were able to. There are plenty of markets in Canada where the price of homes have been on the decline for the last decade, namely where agriculture is nowhere to be found, but for someone reason people don't want to live in those places.
Tiktaalik 5y ago
Toronto and Vancouver (and surrounding cities) do build quite a lot in comparison to other places, but given how much immigration the Feds are allowing they have to be building even more. The fact that there is so much development and change going on, and that it's still not enough to lower rental vacancy rates (or prices) is something that I think contributes to people feeling like maybe adding supply doesn't help and there's other problems.

eru 5y ago

Or why don't they just tax the owning of real estate? No need to ban those 'evil' foreigners, just tax them so they can pay for what the locals want.

bawolff 5y ago
BC actually did this (tax empty homes). Did not affect prices. I suspect the real problem is low supply high demand + domestic speculation, which is why none of the blame the foreigner solutions work
- asvitkine 5y ago
  Increase the taxes until there is an effect?
  - bombcar 5y ago
    A tax on empty homes that started increasing after some grace period (say 3-12 months or whatever) would be amusing because at some point the vacancy owners would start paying people to live in the house so as to avoid the tax. And if prices were going up enough, it'd be worth it.

mactavish88 5y ago

They can’t build them fast enough.

cpcallen 5y ago

Not enough land. ;-)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

smcl 5y ago

It could be that there is a sufficient amount of housing (built or being built), but that it is often not occupied on account of just being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio. In this case it could be seen as wasteful to build more, and too much of an oversupply could lead to an economic collapse if it’s on a big enough scale. The other possibility is that they are building more homes, and want them to be purchased by people who will live in them. Note: not a Canada expert and tbh the “they” in question is a bit undefined here

988747 5y ago
>> being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio Why wouldn't that wealthy person rent the property out and get better ROI? Keeping it empty does not make sense to me.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  If the property itself is valuable enough? Renting the property out might not actually be worth the hassle. A single bitter tenant can cost a lot of money, from eviction to repairs/damage.
- abdullahkhalids 5y ago
  Because they can make a far greater profit by selling the property at a moment's notice, than say renting it out for an year. I mean, a place where your rental profit is 3k/month, might sell for 100k more than you bought it for, to the next wealthy person who thinks they can make another 100k profit by holding and selling after an year.
  - kasey_junk 5y ago
    Doesn’t that imply that renters are getting extremely good deals? Is that something you want to change with governmental policy?
    - freeone3000 5y ago

hotpotamus 5y ago

My question for you (and I think about this myself) is how much would someone need to pay you for you to go into home construction?

iefbr14 5y ago
If I could magically subtract some 50 years from my age I would certainly consider that :)
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  Yep, given that the world is aging, especially (but not exclusively) in the 1st world, I wonder what the implications for labor are in the future.

xyst 5y ago

This is the solution but most NA cities are building the wrong type - single family homes.

ryanbrunner 5y ago

Canada has comparable housing supply with many other places that don't have the same skyrocketing unaffordability. Most parties are advocating for increasing supply, but it's definitely not the entirety of the problem (particularly when additional building carries it's own problems like sprawl and destroying farmland / ecological preserves). Also the federal government doesn't have a ton of jurisdiction into increasing supply, that's largely a provincial concern.

pards 5y ago

This the answer. The rate of population growth in major cities like Toronto isn't keeping up with the housing supply. Our cities should be building more high- and medium-density housing, and public transit to support this population.

chx 5y ago

In Vancouver, the problem is rampant NIMBYism. We have single family homes in ton of places where there should be low rises but zoning doesn't allow for it. Indeed, the solution would be to take away zoning power from the city into provincial or even federal hands and let housing be more dense where the taxpayers already paid for rapid transit. Look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_station_(SkyTrain) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_station_(SkyTrain) this is not even a particularly busy station and it has 4M passengers and these two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrew_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrew_station together has barely more than half of that.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
The city plan removed all the zones for single family homes
- chx 4y ago
  https://mountainmath.ca/zoning_map https://mountainmath.ca/zoning_map look at all the yellow. We need them to be orange in a block or two radius around all Canada Line and SkyTrain stops. There's a smattering of that but not much.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    That's not the Vancouver draft plan map. The draft map plan had no single detached home area at all

randomdata 5y ago

Where? The farmland boom, which began in 2007, has priced residential sprawl out of the market. That's why the urban areas on arable land have been feeling more and more heat in the city limits, not being able to affordably grow like they once were able to. There are plenty of markets in Canada where the price of homes have been on the decline for the last decade, namely where agriculture is nowhere to be found, but for someone reason people don't want to live in those places.

Tiktaalik 5y ago

Toronto and Vancouver (and surrounding cities) do build quite a lot in comparison to other places, but given how much immigration the Feds are allowing they have to be building even more. The fact that there is so much development and change going on, and that it's still not enough to lower rental vacancy rates (or prices) is something that I think contributes to people feeling like maybe adding supply doesn't help and there's other problems.