5 ms·

> Cars getting stolen non-stop; police literally advising to just leave keys at the front of the house so that it's easier to steal and criminals don't have to

> Cars getting stolen non-stop; police literally advising to just leave keys at the front of the house so that it's easier to steal and criminals don't have to resort to violence > A real estate market that's so stupid that there's no point in investing in other businesses > Immigration at a level where we're adding the equivalent of our fifth most populous province (we have 13 - so no cherry picking) every year, while also having lots of social services. > Immigration policies that make no sense. We went from having a strict system to people just gaming the system so that univerities and random industries can have access to cheap labor to keep the economy numbers looking good in the short term. Lots of people that use Canada as a stepping stone to the US or EU. > Governments at all levels have absolutely no plans for any kind of infrastructure or fixing issues with housing. Local blames federal, federal blames local. It's pointless to say since everyone does it; but for anyone on the fence, if you get a chance, just jump ship to the US for your co-op or something.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
Canada’s problems are almost entirely from their refusal to curb real estate speculation and build housing people can afford. This is also a fairly new problem, so that it’s painted as intractable seems bizarre. I would also add that most of Canada’s problems with real estate speculation have made their way south of the border, where things are only about 30% less bad.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Canada's problem is much bigger than real estate. Adding 3%+ of your population yearly drives down wages and increases housing costs. Canada not building enough housing to support that influx is only part of the problem.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Why do you say "3%+"? Googling "Canada population annual growth rate" brings up a chart that shows an annual growth rate that never exceeds 1.5% over the past 30 years. Canada's growth rate was significantly higher that the US from 2016-2020, but otherwise doesn't really look that different.
    - slily 3y ago
      This was in the news for a bit: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230927/dq230927a-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230927/dq230... (+2.9%). These immigration statistics make it clear: https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigra... This started after Trudeau was re-elected for the second time, but he has been consistent in calling for increased immigration. I guess he expected it to be his last term and decided to go all out. Of course, considering the timing (housing crisis and stagflation) that's a bad look.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  100%. The problem with housing that's so expensive that it's out of reach is that it completely reinforces the idea that "it doesn't matter how hard you work, I'll never be able to afford a decent place to live", and once large swaths of the population give up on the idea that hard work is rewarded, very bad things tend to happen. People lose faith in institutions, they blame everything as "corrupt", and they're not exactly wrong. It becomes a world of haves vs. have-nots where what defines a "have" is that you, or a parent, already owns a home in a semi-desirable area or better.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  The only way to curb real estate speculation is to make the investment much less attractive. Do this by building like mad, cut down trees and get it done. If you don't like cutting down trees, you don't like immigration.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > Do this by building like mad By whom? Things aren't quite so bad now that higher interest rates has scared many people away from building, but prior to that contractors were booked up years in advance. There was nobody else to build more than what we were already building. Sure, the old adage of "just pay the workers more" might work to attract more workers into home construction, but then the cost of housing needs to go up to pay them...
    - osigurdson 3y ago
      Can't some of the immigration include people that know how to build houses?
      - randomdata 3y ago
        If you have the wherewithal to be able to build a house, you can do any job out there. So, without a compelling offer, why work in construction? Everyone and their brother will happily hire you to do something else. Perhaps the government could be more heavy-handed, only allowing immigrants into the country under force of building houses, but that goes against Canadian culture, not to mention that other industries who rely on immigrant labour would cry fowl and the Canadians working in construction will feel attacked. Not going to happen. The only real way around it is to see Canada's job market crumble. When building homes is the only work available, then you'll see people begging for those types of jobs (Canadian citizens included). But when there is work elsewhere, most people are going to go elsewhere. Building homes is not exactly compelling work – at least not at the going rate.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  Thats not really true. We do have a governmwnt regulation problem but it is mostly local. I live in a city that is routinely top 3 for ease of building and even here i am looking at a month or two for the city to get the review process started on my new garage build. The best is a disaster here, the worst is unforgiveable. What we need is provinces stuffing much relaxed regulation down city's throats and forcing service times measured in days and weeks not months and years. Something that would solve this would look like cutting residential zones down to two max and have the lowest approved for anything from single family to six story multifamily and the second being bigger than that. Have automatic amd fast conversion from one to the other at some reasonable amalgamated lot size. Get rid of most parking requiremwnts, get rid of most lot coverage limits, get rid of the dual fire escape stairwells in the lower density zone (one is enough),get rid of minimum house/ suite sizes, have any proposal within the zoning limits approved within a week.
userbinator 3y ago
The US has its own share of problems too, although being a huge and very diverse country, there's a lot of variance between states and even within them.
- api 3y ago
  The US has many of these problems but to a much lesser extent, it seems. Housing is crazy in the US in many cities but there's a vast interior where it's still somewhat reasonable. There are lots of medium sized cities with sane housing prices and good culture and jobs (if you can't or don't want to go full remote). The other problems are much less in the US. We have a stupid broken immigration system too but the US is so big the problem is buffered.
  - galdosdi 3y ago
    Yeah, the medium (and "uncool" large) cities are where it's at in the US. Smaller is very affordable to live, but the lack of jobs is commensurate with the affordability. I've never lived in Chicago but it seems like a particularly good bet in terms of affordability vs access to jobs and markets. Atlanta, Houston, and Philadelphia also all seem to be more affordable than they should considering their access to jobs and markets. It's getting worse all the time though. It feels like we have to hurry to buy or be left out. Everywhere is less affordable than it was just a few years ago.
    - epiccoleman 3y ago
      Repping Columbus, OH as a pretty nice "uncool" city. Definitely feel that same hurry you describe though. We bought a place in 2020 and now have an extra kid, and could really use another room for a home office too. Houses in our school district of the size we'd like (nothing crazy, like a 2000 sq ft 4 bed with a basement would be fine) are now pushing into the mid 450s, and it'll probably be worse by the time I'm in position to look at another move. The one advantage we have (and it's a big advantage!) is that since we've owned a house for a few years now we get to benefit a bit from the crazy rise in prices. Our place was originally 250 and now would probably go for close to 100k more. That amount of equity build up in 4 years is pretty wild!

bugglebeetle 3y ago

Canada’s problems are almost entirely from their refusal to curb real estate speculation and build housing people can afford. This is also a fairly new problem, so that it’s painted as intractable seems bizarre. I would also add that most of Canada’s problems with real estate speculation have made their way south of the border, where things are only about 30% less bad.

ipaddr 3y ago
Canada's problem is much bigger than real estate. Adding 3%+ of your population yearly drives down wages and increases housing costs. Canada not building enough housing to support that influx is only part of the problem.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Why do you say "3%+"? Googling "Canada population annual growth rate" brings up a chart that shows an annual growth rate that never exceeds 1.5% over the past 30 years. Canada's growth rate was significantly higher that the US from 2016-2020, but otherwise doesn't really look that different.
  - slily 3y ago
    This was in the news for a bit: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230927/dq230927a-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230927/dq230... (+2.9%). These immigration statistics make it clear: https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigra... This started after Trudeau was re-elected for the second time, but he has been consistent in calling for increased immigration. I guess he expected it to be his last term and decided to go all out. Of course, considering the timing (housing crisis and stagflation) that's a bad look.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
100%. The problem with housing that's so expensive that it's out of reach is that it completely reinforces the idea that "it doesn't matter how hard you work, I'll never be able to afford a decent place to live", and once large swaths of the population give up on the idea that hard work is rewarded, very bad things tend to happen. People lose faith in institutions, they blame everything as "corrupt", and they're not exactly wrong. It becomes a world of haves vs. have-nots where what defines a "have" is that you, or a parent, already owns a home in a semi-desirable area or better.
osigurdson 3y ago
The only way to curb real estate speculation is to make the investment much less attractive. Do this by building like mad, cut down trees and get it done. If you don't like cutting down trees, you don't like immigration.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Do this by building like mad By whom? Things aren't quite so bad now that higher interest rates has scared many people away from building, but prior to that contractors were booked up years in advance. There was nobody else to build more than what we were already building. Sure, the old adage of "just pay the workers more" might work to attract more workers into home construction, but then the cost of housing needs to go up to pay them...
  - osigurdson 3y ago
    Can't some of the immigration include people that know how to build houses?
    - randomdata 3y ago
      If you have the wherewithal to be able to build a house, you can do any job out there. So, without a compelling offer, why work in construction? Everyone and their brother will happily hire you to do something else. Perhaps the government could be more heavy-handed, only allowing immigrants into the country under force of building houses, but that goes against Canadian culture, not to mention that other industries who rely on immigrant labour would cry fowl and the Canadians working in construction will feel attacked. Not going to happen. The only real way around it is to see Canada's job market crumble. When building homes is the only work available, then you'll see people begging for those types of jobs (Canadian citizens included). But when there is work elsewhere, most people are going to go elsewhere. Building homes is not exactly compelling work – at least not at the going rate.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
snapplebobapple 3y ago
Thats not really true. We do have a governmwnt regulation problem but it is mostly local. I live in a city that is routinely top 3 for ease of building and even here i am looking at a month or two for the city to get the review process started on my new garage build. The best is a disaster here, the worst is unforgiveable. What we need is provinces stuffing much relaxed regulation down city's throats and forcing service times measured in days and weeks not months and years. Something that would solve this would look like cutting residential zones down to two max and have the lowest approved for anything from single family to six story multifamily and the second being bigger than that. Have automatic amd fast conversion from one to the other at some reasonable amalgamated lot size. Get rid of most parking requiremwnts, get rid of most lot coverage limits, get rid of the dual fire escape stairwells in the lower density zone (one is enough),get rid of minimum house/ suite sizes, have any proposal within the zoning limits approved within a week.

userbinator 3y ago

The US has its own share of problems too, although being a huge and very diverse country, there's a lot of variance between states and even within them.

api 3y ago
The US has many of these problems but to a much lesser extent, it seems. Housing is crazy in the US in many cities but there's a vast interior where it's still somewhat reasonable. There are lots of medium sized cities with sane housing prices and good culture and jobs (if you can't or don't want to go full remote). The other problems are much less in the US. We have a stupid broken immigration system too but the US is so big the problem is buffered.
- galdosdi 3y ago
  Yeah, the medium (and "uncool" large) cities are where it's at in the US. Smaller is very affordable to live, but the lack of jobs is commensurate with the affordability. I've never lived in Chicago but it seems like a particularly good bet in terms of affordability vs access to jobs and markets. Atlanta, Houston, and Philadelphia also all seem to be more affordable than they should considering their access to jobs and markets. It's getting worse all the time though. It feels like we have to hurry to buy or be left out. Everywhere is less affordable than it was just a few years ago.
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    Repping Columbus, OH as a pretty nice "uncool" city. Definitely feel that same hurry you describe though. We bought a place in 2020 and now have an extra kid, and could really use another room for a home office too. Houses in our school district of the size we'd like (nothing crazy, like a 2000 sq ft 4 bed with a basement would be fine) are now pushing into the mid 450s, and it'll probably be worse by the time I'm in position to look at another move. The one advantage we have (and it's a big advantage!) is that since we've owned a house for a few years now we get to benefit a bit from the crazy rise in prices. Our place was originally 250 and now would probably go for close to 100k more. That amount of equity build up in 4 years is pretty wild!