4 ms·

>The root cause is the system that is geared to keep houses always appreciating via supply constraints: aggressive zoning, discretionary permitting, NIMBYism.

>The root cause is the system that is geared to keep houses always appreciating via supply constraints: aggressive zoning, discretionary permitting, NIMBYism. I don't agree that this is the root cause. The root cause is the artificial demand on housing created though our mass immigration policy. Canada accepts _at least_ 500,000 people per year through various channels, "temporary" foreign workers, international students (many of whom stay), refugees, and of course, normal immigration. And I am low balling that number. It could be closer to 1 million. When you bring in an entire large city worth of people, it stands to reason that this will cause massive pressure on housing prices. Now sustain that yearly increase for decades, and you have the problem we face today. There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy! So there you have it. How could you leave that completely out from your argument and only blame zoning laws and nimbyism?

quest88 4y ago
So you're saying supply isn't meeting demand. Why isn't supply meeting demand? What's preventing buildings from building more and faster?
danbolt 4y ago
> And I am low balling that number. It could be closer to 1 million. Canada's population has increased around 4 million over the past ten years, so I don't know if that velocity of closer to million tracks.
mikepurvis 4y ago
I assume the response would be that with policies that allowed for rampant building/sprawl, the market would sort this all out regardless of the population. However, these kinds of price spikes still happen in lots of places that have neither a ton of immigration or constraints on building, so it's not clear to me that either one is really a singular root cause.
- zip1234 4y ago
  A price spike, maybe. A long term unending price increase, no. Would love to see an example of a place that doesn't have such constraints on building that has high prices.
MAGZine 4y ago
In what world are "temporary" foreign workers buying homes in Canada? With what salary? Same with Refugees, students. Funny how in the first hundred years in Canada, we didn't have any issue with housing costs, despite accepting vast amounts of refugees. I'm not saying it's not making the problem worse, but to SOLELY pin it on them is IMO willful ignorance. if we banned all immigrants, of any kind, tomorrow, would Canada's housing prices collapse? I'd suspect not: credit is still cheap, and every day canadians still want homes.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >Same with Refugees, students. There are Twitter accounts dedicated to calling out multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver and Toronto, owned by "students".
  - MAGZine 4y ago
    Are you saying that Canada's housing crisis are caused by these individuals?
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    If you're referring to mainland Chinese people, China has banned capital outflows in the last two years. It's so bad and strict that mainland Chinese people are freaking out that they can't move their own money outside of China. Game's changed. Wrong scapegoat. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/chinas-capital-outflow-controls-have-gone-extreme-former https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/c...
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  In the real world! There's enough rich people in the world, that some of them send their kids to Canada for school. And some of them buy houses. Why does near every American assume that everyone outside of America is poor.
  - MAGZine 4y ago
    I'm Canadian, but thanks.
twblalock 4y ago
When more people show up, you should build more housing. Canada is a big place with a small population relative to its size — you have plenty of space. Your argument might work if Canada was a small island like Singapore, but it is one of the largest countries by land area in the world. What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? Zoning laws and nimbyism.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? There is plenty of cheap, available housing in the hinterlands of Canada. And yet, nobody wants to move there. Why do you think that is? Prime locations are scarce no matter how much land mass you have.
  - jlmorton 4y ago
    Because people want to move where jobs are available. There is a decades-long trend of urbanization throughout the world, as economies continue their transitions towards services. Canada has a deep labor shortage in its urban areas, with plenty of pent-up demand for growth. It's certainly true that if we must perpetually conserve each and every single family home in an urban area, then we'll remain housing-constrained. If that's what everyone wants to do, that's their right, but it's necessarily going to result in lower income and living standards for the country.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    I thought Alberta has a ton of free space available. No?
  - armagon 4y ago
    Honest question: where are these cheap, available houses? I thought I did live in the hinterlands, and there's nothing in that category here that doesn't need to be torn down. Since I work online, I might be able to move if the prices are right.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
biggc 4y ago
> There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy! Talk about distorting statistics in bad faith to further xenophobia… The 10 year visa is a non resident visa that allows temporary enter into Canada during that period. It doesn’t let people work, and just because someone has the Visa doesn’t mean they’re currently living in Canada
andrewmutz 4y ago
Plenty of those immigrants work in the housing industry building houses. Immigration is increasing both the supply and demand of housing.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  Labor generally ranges from 20-40% of the cost of a home, the land and materials make of the majority. An absolutely massive percentage of all immigrants would need to be in construction to outweigh the increased demand from their presence.
jlmorton 4y ago
Demand for housing is not artificial merely because it doesn't come from a citizen. Separately, Canada's population growth rate is the lowest it's been in over a hundred years, and it isn't close. The lower trend continues for decades and decades. The last time the population growth rate was increasing was in the 1950s. So this is a very strange argument to make.
2143 4y ago
> Canada accepts _at least_ 500,000 people per year through various channels, "temporary" foreign workers, international students (many of whom stay), refugees, and of course, normal immigration. And I am low balling that number. It could be closer to 1 million. > When you bring in an entire large city worth of people, it stands to reason that this will cause massive pressure on housing prices. Now sustain that yearly increase for decades, and you have the problem we face today. You make it sound like those people enter Canada and then just sit there doing nothing. Which is wrong. As long as they're LEGALLY in Canada, I don't see a problem. They're studying/taking up jobs or whatever, and they're also spending the money that they make in Canada, in Canada. This helps the existing Canadians as well. And some of them start their own businesses. That's how the economy develops. Money should keep rolling. > There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy! What's so crazy about that? You should check the numbers for USA. As for the 10 year visa part. From what I know, Canada grants B1/B2 visa with a 10 year validity for businesspeople and tourists. It does not mean they can enter and stay for 10 years. They can enter, stay for sometime (they have to state how long they intend to stay at the time of entry), and then they leave. Or atleast, the vast majority of them do. They have better things to do back home. By the way, you might also want to look into Canadians emigrating to USA. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Just saying that it happens.

quest88 4y ago

So you're saying supply isn't meeting demand. Why isn't supply meeting demand? What's preventing buildings from building more and faster?

danbolt 4y ago

> And I am low balling that number. It could be closer to 1 million. Canada's population has increased around 4 million over the past ten years, so I don't know if that velocity of closer to million tracks.

mikepurvis 4y ago

I assume the response would be that with policies that allowed for rampant building/sprawl, the market would sort this all out regardless of the population. However, these kinds of price spikes still happen in lots of places that have neither a ton of immigration or constraints on building, so it's not clear to me that either one is really a singular root cause.

zip1234 4y ago
A price spike, maybe. A long term unending price increase, no. Would love to see an example of a place that doesn't have such constraints on building that has high prices.

MAGZine 4y ago

In what world are "temporary" foreign workers buying homes in Canada? With what salary? Same with Refugees, students. Funny how in the first hundred years in Canada, we didn't have any issue with housing costs, despite accepting vast amounts of refugees. I'm not saying it's not making the problem worse, but to SOLELY pin it on them is IMO willful ignorance. if we banned all immigrants, of any kind, tomorrow, would Canada's housing prices collapse? I'd suspect not: credit is still cheap, and every day canadians still want homes.

itsoktocry 4y ago
>Same with Refugees, students. There are Twitter accounts dedicated to calling out multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver and Toronto, owned by "students".
- MAGZine 4y ago
  Are you saying that Canada's housing crisis are caused by these individuals?
- chaostheory 4y ago
  If you're referring to mainland Chinese people, China has banned capital outflows in the last two years. It's so bad and strict that mainland Chinese people are freaking out that they can't move their own money outside of China. Game's changed. Wrong scapegoat. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/chinas-capital-outflow-controls-have-gone-extreme-former https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/c...
dukeofdoom 4y ago
In the real world! There's enough rich people in the world, that some of them send their kids to Canada for school. And some of them buy houses. Why does near every American assume that everyone outside of America is poor.
- MAGZine 4y ago
  I'm Canadian, but thanks.

twblalock 4y ago

When more people show up, you should build more housing. Canada is a big place with a small population relative to its size — you have plenty of space. Your argument might work if Canada was a small island like Singapore, but it is one of the largest countries by land area in the world. What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? Zoning laws and nimbyism.

itsoktocry 4y ago
>What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? There is plenty of cheap, available housing in the hinterlands of Canada. And yet, nobody wants to move there. Why do you think that is? Prime locations are scarce no matter how much land mass you have.
- jlmorton 4y ago
  Because people want to move where jobs are available. There is a decades-long trend of urbanization throughout the world, as economies continue their transitions towards services. Canada has a deep labor shortage in its urban areas, with plenty of pent-up demand for growth. It's certainly true that if we must perpetually conserve each and every single family home in an urban area, then we'll remain housing-constrained. If that's what everyone wants to do, that's their right, but it's necessarily going to result in lower income and living standards for the country.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  I thought Alberta has a ton of free space available. No?
- armagon 4y ago
  Honest question: where are these cheap, available houses? I thought I did live in the hinterlands, and there's nothing in that category here that doesn't need to be torn down. Since I work online, I might be able to move if the prices are right.
BitwiseFool 4y ago

biggc 4y ago

> There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy! Talk about distorting statistics in bad faith to further xenophobia… The 10 year visa is a non resident visa that allows temporary enter into Canada during that period. It doesn’t let people work, and just because someone has the Visa doesn’t mean they’re currently living in Canada

andrewmutz 4y ago

Plenty of those immigrants work in the housing industry building houses. Immigration is increasing both the supply and demand of housing.

HideousKojima 4y ago
Labor generally ranges from 20-40% of the cost of a home, the land and materials make of the majority. An absolutely massive percentage of all immigrants would need to be in construction to outweigh the increased demand from their presence.

jlmorton 4y ago

Demand for housing is not artificial merely because it doesn't come from a citizen. Separately, Canada's population growth rate is the lowest it's been in over a hundred years, and it isn't close. The lower trend continues for decades and decades. The last time the population growth rate was increasing was in the 1950s. So this is a very strange argument to make.

2143 4y ago

> Canada accepts _at least_ 500,000 people per year through various channels, "temporary" foreign workers, international students (many of whom stay), refugees, and of course, normal immigration. And I am low balling that number. It could be closer to 1 million. > When you bring in an entire large city worth of people, it stands to reason that this will cause massive pressure on housing prices. Now sustain that yearly increase for decades, and you have the problem we face today. You make it sound like those people enter Canada and then just sit there doing nothing. Which is wrong. As long as they're LEGALLY in Canada, I don't see a problem. They're studying/taking up jobs or whatever, and they're also spending the money that they make in Canada, in Canada. This helps the existing Canadians as well. And some of them start their own businesses. That's how the economy develops. Money should keep rolling. > There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy! What's so crazy about that? You should check the numbers for USA. As for the 10 year visa part. From what I know, Canada grants B1/B2 visa with a 10 year validity for businesspeople and tourists. It does not mean they can enter and stay for 10 years. They can enter, stay for sometime (they have to state how long they intend to stay at the time of entry), and then they leave. Or atleast, the vast majority of them do. They have better things to do back home. By the way, you might also want to look into Canadians emigrating to USA. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Just saying that it happens.