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I'd argue the main cause of this is the REALTORs/real estate boards/MLS system that stonewalls any attempts at making real estate information publicly available

I'd argue the main cause of this is the REALTORs/real estate boards/MLS system that stonewalls any attempts at making real estate information publicly available precisely because the size of their paycheques relies on this information remaining hidden from the public. The conflict of interest beggars belief, but it's allowed to remain, among other reasons, since it also tends to benefit political parties courting votes from homeowners who see their home values continue to rise. All of this though (ending blind bidding, making buy and sell data publicly available, etc.) is just using a bucket to bail out the Titanic since the system is designed to have prices continuously rise since Canadians are in house debt up to their eyeballs and have no idea how else to actually save for the long term and any party that actually changed this would likely never get voted into power again, if they even continued to exist.

throwaway894345 4y ago
What's stopping Canada from increasing its housing stock? Surely Canada has plenty of space for its 30M citizens, right? (Yes, I understand that much of the territory is uninhabitable, but even still...).
- Pet_Ant 4y ago
  Sorry, but if we want to address climate change and protect the environment, then we need to do this without sprawling outwards.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    Increasing housing stock doesn't imply sprawling outwards (e.g., replace a detached house with an apartment/condo complex), and anyway housing stock is probably a negligible contributor to climate change and habitat destruction (presumably forestry, agriculture, heavy industry, fossil fuel energy, etc are far larger culprits).
  - xedrac 4y ago
    Supply and demand isn't going to change. You can build up instead of out, but I think the point was there's insufficient supply.
    - Pet_Ant 4y ago
      Yes, I was suggesting infill over sprawl. Multi family dwellings do not displace more nature than a single family does
  - la6472 4y ago
    Nothing is better than sprawling outwards. Most of the white collar jobs can be done remotely , so commute is not needed. Most of groceries and other stuff can be delivered. A truck doing 100 deliveries is surely less traffic than everyone going to the supermarkets. And most importantly with sprawling outwards citizens can enjoy the outdoors and take care of their health. And even more importantly high density of population leads to increased crime , encourage homelessness and provide all sorts of administrative nightmares.I would say we have reached a technological inflection point where we at at last free to spread out and yet stay connected. Let us embrace it. This is the future. This is the way.
    - trylfthsk 4y ago
      Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society. The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        > Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society. I don't think this is strictly true. I don't like the model, but big box stores seem pretty sustainable (everyone drives to a distribution center for their goods). An actual last mile distribution system (a la Amazon) also appears to work pretty well. Neither of these are exclusively available to the economic elite. > The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market. I don't doubt that infrastructure costs decrease with density, but density doesn't keep urban municipalities from building infrastructure that they can't afford to maintain any more than other places. Quality of governance and density are almost certainly independent variables.
      - la6472 4y ago
        Service availability decreasing with population density is still old school thought. Rapid advances in technology over the years enable stretching infrastructure outwards. Who knows someday we may be extending our infrastructures to cover the whole globe and even to outer space. It is not subsidized and it is certainly not for the elite only. It is more about human aspiration. As a species we can look towards piling on top of each other or we can choose to expand and live a quality life according to one’s own aspiration. Look at the big picture.
- alex_sf 4y ago
  There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k.a cool spots. Because that doesn't exist, we claim to have a housing shortage.
  - ep103 4y ago
    I'm not in Canada, but I am in the NYC region, and your comment is absurd. Assuming you want to live in a safe area, but not live inside the 5 city boros, you're looking at 1MM for a house, and an hour+ commute. But yeah, "cool spots". /s
    - tnel77 4y ago
      There’s certainly an element of ignorance in their comment, but there’s also some truth. I am originally from a rural area in the Midwest USA. I know a statistically significant number of people from high school and college who purposely moved to bigger cities because of “the culture” or “there’s so much more to do.” They are right. I live in a much bigger city now for those exact reasons, but the demand justifiably has resulted in wildly more expensive houses. I could buy a modest house in my hometown for $85k right now. That same house where I currently live would easily be selling for $300-350k. You make more money here, but not by much. We need to work on improving our housing density issues, but there’s an undeniable element of “I don’t want to live there” going on.
      - leshow 4y ago
        The average house price in Canada is over 800k now. In a city like Toronto I would expect that to be higher.
  - waterlaw 4y ago
    In Ontario it's not just urban centers. Prices are going up almost everywhere. Towns with a grocery store and Tim Hortons are seeing prices explode. One problem in Canadian provinces is your taxes remain the same regardless of where you live, but if you need access to healthcare or education, then you have to live near a major city. Particularly if you want quality healthcare. In fact the cost of living goes up if you're a rural inhabitant in most of Ontario. Electricity is more expensive, heating is expensive, etc.
- vkou 4y ago
  The fact that half of those 30M people have 80% of their wealth tied in keeping housing unaffordable. Between them and the banks that own all of those 30 year mortgages, that's all the political pressure you need.
- alfor 4y ago
  Regulations... Most land is off limits. Were I live the land is ’protected’ for agricultural use even though it is marginal at best and most farms doesn’t use the land. In my case it killed my agribusiness project because the amount of work, the delays and the risks where too much to bear. We can no longer build what we used to build in the 60’s and 70’s because of the regulations in spite of the technology being much better.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    There were also literally half as many people back then.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  38 million, with an annual immigration target of over 400k, plus foreign students, temporary visas, etc. New construction simply isn't keeping up with demand. Politicians have tried to solve this from the supply side for decades, but many of the issues like zoning are in provincial and municipal jurisdiction, where the incentive is to keep prices high and homeowners happy. So the federal government refuses to address the demand side of the equation (very high immigration rate) while the the provinces and municipalities block increases in supply. The natural result? Runaway price increases, and the rest of Canada's economy becoming uncompetitive because employees can't find a house within a 2 hour commute for under $1MM in the GTA.

throwaway894345 4y ago

What's stopping Canada from increasing its housing stock? Surely Canada has plenty of space for its 30M citizens, right? (Yes, I understand that much of the territory is uninhabitable, but even still...).

Pet_Ant 4y ago
Sorry, but if we want to address climate change and protect the environment, then we need to do this without sprawling outwards.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Increasing housing stock doesn't imply sprawling outwards (e.g., replace a detached house with an apartment/condo complex), and anyway housing stock is probably a negligible contributor to climate change and habitat destruction (presumably forestry, agriculture, heavy industry, fossil fuel energy, etc are far larger culprits).
- xedrac 4y ago
  Supply and demand isn't going to change. You can build up instead of out, but I think the point was there's insufficient supply.
  - Pet_Ant 4y ago
    Yes, I was suggesting infill over sprawl. Multi family dwellings do not displace more nature than a single family does
- la6472 4y ago
  Nothing is better than sprawling outwards. Most of the white collar jobs can be done remotely , so commute is not needed. Most of groceries and other stuff can be delivered. A truck doing 100 deliveries is surely less traffic than everyone going to the supermarkets. And most importantly with sprawling outwards citizens can enjoy the outdoors and take care of their health. And even more importantly high density of population leads to increased crime , encourage homelessness and provide all sorts of administrative nightmares.I would say we have reached a technological inflection point where we at at last free to spread out and yet stay connected. Let us embrace it. This is the future. This is the way.
  - trylfthsk 4y ago
    Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society. The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      > Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society. I don't think this is strictly true. I don't like the model, but big box stores seem pretty sustainable (everyone drives to a distribution center for their goods). An actual last mile distribution system (a la Amazon) also appears to work pretty well. Neither of these are exclusively available to the economic elite. > The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market. I don't doubt that infrastructure costs decrease with density, but density doesn't keep urban municipalities from building infrastructure that they can't afford to maintain any more than other places. Quality of governance and density are almost certainly independent variables.
    - la6472 4y ago
      Service availability decreasing with population density is still old school thought. Rapid advances in technology over the years enable stretching infrastructure outwards. Who knows someday we may be extending our infrastructures to cover the whole globe and even to outer space. It is not subsidized and it is certainly not for the elite only. It is more about human aspiration. As a species we can look towards piling on top of each other or we can choose to expand and live a quality life according to one’s own aspiration. Look at the big picture.
alex_sf 4y ago
There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k.a cool spots. Because that doesn't exist, we claim to have a housing shortage.
- ep103 4y ago
  I'm not in Canada, but I am in the NYC region, and your comment is absurd. Assuming you want to live in a safe area, but not live inside the 5 city boros, you're looking at 1MM for a house, and an hour+ commute. But yeah, "cool spots". /s
  - tnel77 4y ago
    There’s certainly an element of ignorance in their comment, but there’s also some truth. I am originally from a rural area in the Midwest USA. I know a statistically significant number of people from high school and college who purposely moved to bigger cities because of “the culture” or “there’s so much more to do.” They are right. I live in a much bigger city now for those exact reasons, but the demand justifiably has resulted in wildly more expensive houses. I could buy a modest house in my hometown for $85k right now. That same house where I currently live would easily be selling for $300-350k. You make more money here, but not by much. We need to work on improving our housing density issues, but there’s an undeniable element of “I don’t want to live there” going on.
    - leshow 4y ago
      The average house price in Canada is over 800k now. In a city like Toronto I would expect that to be higher.
- waterlaw 4y ago
  In Ontario it's not just urban centers. Prices are going up almost everywhere. Towns with a grocery store and Tim Hortons are seeing prices explode. One problem in Canadian provinces is your taxes remain the same regardless of where you live, but if you need access to healthcare or education, then you have to live near a major city. Particularly if you want quality healthcare. In fact the cost of living goes up if you're a rural inhabitant in most of Ontario. Electricity is more expensive, heating is expensive, etc.
vkou 4y ago
The fact that half of those 30M people have 80% of their wealth tied in keeping housing unaffordable. Between them and the banks that own all of those 30 year mortgages, that's all the political pressure you need.
alfor 4y ago
Regulations... Most land is off limits. Were I live the land is ’protected’ for agricultural use even though it is marginal at best and most farms doesn’t use the land. In my case it killed my agribusiness project because the amount of work, the delays and the risks where too much to bear. We can no longer build what we used to build in the 60’s and 70’s because of the regulations in spite of the technology being much better.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  There were also literally half as many people back then.
pseudo0 4y ago
38 million, with an annual immigration target of over 400k, plus foreign students, temporary visas, etc. New construction simply isn't keeping up with demand. Politicians have tried to solve this from the supply side for decades, but many of the issues like zoning are in provincial and municipal jurisdiction, where the incentive is to keep prices high and homeowners happy. So the federal government refuses to address the demand side of the equation (very high immigration rate) while the the provinces and municipalities block increases in supply. The natural result? Runaway price increases, and the rest of Canada's economy becoming uncompetitive because employees can't find a house within a 2 hour commute for under $1MM in the GTA.