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House prices here in Toronto are totally obscene. I genuinely don't understand how people are forking over $500k on average.

• meric 14y ago
  Oh god. I'm in Australia and if you tell me I can get a house for $500k I'll say it's cheap. The apartment I'm living in is worth $550k. The only houses as cheap as $500k are over an hour from the CBD. Where I am living (half hour away), houses start from $800k up to $1.5m. The average (house+apartment) price is still below $600k, though.
  • roc 14y ago
    Does Australian housing also have a huge influx of Chinese buyers? I wonder to what degree their purchasing overseas is fueling that growth, not unlike Japanese purchasing in the 80s. Anecdotally, they seem to be heavily involved in Canada's situation.
    • meric 14y ago
      Anecdotally that is one of the factors driving up prices. The other main factor is the slowness in which the government opens up new land for building. Also new buildings on new land are taxed more heavily.
      • roc 14y ago
        I'll admit I don't know the first thing about the degree of suburban sprawl, or whether greenfield development taxes are sane or not in Australia. But as an American having grown up and multiply paid for the problems caused by sprawl, I'm definitely on the side of the concept of high greenfield development taxes. No building is an island and there are very real and very steep costs in maintaining and growing infrastructure to handle sprawl. It's crucial to ensure those costs are accounted for in prices. But I digress.