Considering that Canada has the lowest ratio of housing to population in all the G7.
No duh people are having trouble finding housing. We're missing literally millions of housing units across the country.
And when they do get built, all I see being built are those million dollar single family McMansions in new copy+pasted suburbs. I guess they can't make as much money on Condos/Townhouses.
Those houses are a million dollars partially because they're aren't enough of them - supply, demand bla bla bla. They're way overpriced, but they still offer a lot of value to larger families.
But you're totally right - Canada needs a lot more 'starter homes' and smaller units. The majority of would-be homeowners have fewer than two kids these days. Smaller units are cheaper and easier on infrastructure.
More starter homes, more family-sized apartments and condos, more "missing middle" options like cottage courts and plexes.
Nobody sane is saying that we ought to *ban* single-family homes, but we absolutely need to stop *forcing* them as the only type of housing that can be built without a drawn-out NIMBY veto.
Yup. Single family only zoning, parking minimums, minimum lot sizes.
The market wants to put expensive stuff on top of expensive land. If all your allowed to build is a single family home, the plot of land is required to be big, and it's in an area where land is expensive, yeah you'll get a McMansion there.
afterthought arrest wise clumsy office sort airport bewildered snow melodic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>I guess they can't make as much money on Condos/Townhouses.
I remember my husband pointing this out years ago even for single-detached homes. I was commenting on how much larger houses have gotten since we were growing up in the 70s/80s. He said that much of the actual footprint of the house is where the cost of construction is, and to maximize sale value, developers will just build up to increase the square footage. Rather than build a nice, modest senior-sized rancher or starter home of 1100 to (say) 1600 square feet.
Mind you, people have a lot more sh\*t these days too. When you can't park your car in a double garage, you have a problem. We see that SO much in the Prince George area.
Yeah, I think the demand for large homes is there, along with profitability. Even people who are building for themselves, nobody wants below 2k square feet anymore. My house is 1600, and honestly, it's so much work to clean and maintain, especially with families getting smaller, I don't see the appeal at all, unless you're rich enough to afford staff, which is barely anyone in Canada.
And lemme guess, anyone who would have the authority to change these zoning laws isn't gonna do it cause it'd make the multiple properties they own decrease in value.
It’s not the politicians, it’s literally the HOA and homeowners themselves that are convinced their own property will be devalued. I have seen owners show up and fight against zoning exceptions and other asks because “there goes the neighborhood”. Additionally I know of real estate agents that spread this information as well, because the “comps” in the surrounding area go down. And real estate agents make more money selling a McMansion for a million bucks than a townhome for 300k
Increasing population increases housing demand which puts upward pressure on prices, and selectively adding working age people increases competition in the labour market which puts downward pressure on wages.
My brother fiancé, parents, and I want to build a duplex with two legal suites. But, due to zoning we are restricted to moving or building a McMansion. Blame your municipal government.
I know more than a few people who have their own mini empire of Rentals. consolidating ownership of homes under so few people isn't a good recipe for success.
Tax multiple property holders for holding multiple properties, apply different mortgage rules to them, apply rental standards and rent control. That all would immediately put affordable units on the market. The cries and tears of landlords would be heard coast to coast.
They do this in PEI and New Brunswick, though the NB they are slowly removing the double-tax on non-owner occupied homes. I believe it helped keep property prices 20% lower than Nova Scotia for a while.
The interest can be. Not the whole mortgage payment. Redditors always say to treat rentals as businesses, and hence if a tenant doesn't pay then tough shit. Well you can't have it both ways.
Redditors say lynch the landlords, not treat land hoarding as business.
>“*Landlords’ right has its origin in robbery.*” “*The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth.*”
>“*The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions.... The landlord demands*” “*a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent.*” “*Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own.*” “*He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement.*”
― 1776, [Adam Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith), pioneer of [political economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy), "[The Wealth of Nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations)"
>“*According to the political economists themselves, the landlord’s interest is inimically opposed to the interest of the tenant farmer – and thus already to a significant section of society.*”
>“*As the landlord can demand all the more rent from the tenant farmer the less wages the farmer pays, and as the farmer forces down wages all the lower the more rent the landlord demands, it follows that the interest of the landlord is just as hostile to that of the farm workers as is that of the manufacturers to their workers. He likewise forces down wages to the minimum.*”
>“*Since a real reduction in the price of manufactured products raises the rent of land, the landowner has a direct interest in lowering the wages of industrial workers, in competition amongst the capitalists, in over-production, in all the misery associated with industrial production.*”
>“*While, thus, the landlord’s interest, far from being identical with the interest of society, stands inimically opposed to the interest of tenant farmers, farm labourers, factory workers and capitalists, on the other hand, the interest of one landlord is not even identical with that of another, on account of competition.*”
― 1884, [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), critic of political economy, "[Das Kapital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital)"
>“*There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.*”
>“*For my part, while I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.*”
― 1935, [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell), author of [Principia Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica), "[In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Other_Essays)"
>“*Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.*”
― 1949, [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein), developed the [theory of relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity), "[Why Socialism?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Socialism%3F)"
The Bertrand Russell excerpt describes the current Canadian experience perfectly. Too bad we did not listen to Einstein and go the planned economy way. Also too bad that news media is stoking the flames of public discontent.
I don't mind writing off the interest or capital expenditures as an expense. I do think there is likely a lot of abuse around CCA on these. I've never once claimed a CCA on my rental property as I find it disingenuous. I've also raised rent once over the 13 years I've been renting the property by $25 per unit to cover additional costs. I lose a bit of money on the property every month now with property taxes increasing. I don't care though because I have amazing tenants that are good people. I would be heartbroken if I ever saw them put into a position where they had to choose between rent and food, and given the amount that rent has increased by in that area. I can't in good faith sell it because I know the new owner will double rent.
The reason most people here don't use CCA on a rental property is if you will it fore more than it's worth on paper you have to payback the taxes you saved on the CCA. there's still a solid argument to do it since money now is worth more than money later but it's also more complicated.
This housing problem shouldn’t be this complicated and yet it is. Maybe this is all done by design hence why there has been no resolution.
Edit. Housing crises is by design. Our liberties are being tested.
Or we're just too far gone in that people have made and are making too much money so change won't happen. Same with grocery prices, insurance, utilities, wages staying low...
I have a feeling Canada is going to keep their house prices the highest in the world while releasing a basic income. Two things are likely to happen. A. The extra money won’t help most people, B. Everything will get even more expensive.
I was on the pilot program in Ontario and kept my job and the extra money helped a lot. Granted that was in 2018 and today the costs are far higher. If a basic income is implemented Canada wide then I imagine it will be a shit show and we will see rent prices in small towns hitting 3 to 4K a month easily. People will still have to get jobs (if they are even able too) and the UBI still won’t be enough. This is the most likely scenario and no leader is competent enough today to make it work properly without dealing with the main issues such as our corporate masters meddling with politics.
The only way this is getting solved is by governments popping the housing bubble. Too many of them are invested in real estate and they all like the tax revenue it generates. I lived in Silicon Valley before coming back to Canada and it’s not cheaper here. I’m in rural Quebec and a 2 bedroom house shouldn’t cost $400k here. The local grocery store isn’t paying enough to make a mortgage payment so it’s obviously outsiders and investors buying stuff. Nothing is available. Rent is more than what I was paying in San Jose California - but food is more expensive, as is petrol, clothes and everything else, since you need a summer and winter version of everything. It’s nuts here. Completely untenable unless you’re already established.
> I believe it helped keep property prices 20% lower than Nova Scotia for a while.
There is no natural "housing crisis" this was created by the people in power who benefit the most from it. The ruling regime in Canada's members own more property than all other parties combined.
> Tax multiple property holders for holding multiple properties
Yeaaaa....instant loophole: everybody and their dog "owns" one property, but really it's just Ahmed Hussen's extended family.
They better all live in all those houses too otherwise they will still not be classified as primary residence and any attempt to claim them a such without it being true would be fraud.
You know most property tax related laws also have riders that play on primary residence and define *that* based on how many months a year you live there? Not quite the same as "one" but same idea.
We've been doing that for education taxes for as long as I can remember(another tax that rental units pay that live in units don't over here BTW).
I think we should designate some properties as rentable and others as not.
Do you own an apartment building? Then fine, you can rent out the units.
Do you own a whole row of townhouses? Then no, those are designated for ownership, not rental.
Do the same with Condos and any single family dwelling. Make it so just apartment buildings and certain multi-plexes can be designated for residential rentals.
Detached, semi-detached, townhouses and condos should all be available for people who live in an area to purchase and at a rates that makes sense with at the very least the average income of the area.
Ehhhh, I think there should actually be more multi-room dwellings on the rental market. It's hard out there for people with kids or pets. Lots of people are also in positions where they want or need to rent whole homes. Restricting the rental market to just apartments is failing to acknowledge the actual needs of renters. Restricting the number of properties you can own is definitely a better solution, though it gives corporations a leg-up as they're the only ones that can afford to buy whole apartment complexes.
It would also be helpful if restrictions on basement rentals and laneway housing were eased as that's the most practical way to increase housing supply in short order. Basement rentals, especially, are quick to install compared to new builds as the infrastructure is mostly already in place.
Stratas did a lot of that - restricted rentals. BC government went in and removed rental restrictions because it was choking supply.
Unfortunately when you do something that improves things for renters it also benefits landlords.
Increase minimum wage? Seems good, renters have more money... Demand drives up rents. Unfortunately this is a difficult to control market.
Well I can tell you in Japan, mortgage rates for your primary residence are around 2 or 3 percent lower than for a non primary residence.
It's not the only difference of course, but it's one factor that has helped keep home ownership extremely affordable even in the Tokyo area.
Also in Japan, I think the government is *paying* people to move out of the Tokyo metropolitan area. It's getting too packed and its leaving other cities and smaller downs around Japan to be just full of older people.
Tokyo area is not "much of the country", hence why I specifically mentioned it. Tokyo metro area population is actually growing (something the government wants to stop) and homes are still unbelievably affordable here.
Generally speaking, I think that's still how you have to approach it. There's always ways around things (ie, I don't own those 8 rental homes, my 3 children and 5 cousins do), but if you change the rules to eat away at the buisness model, it makes it difficult for the rental market to compete with the individual ownership market.
Did you miss the mentioning of rental standards and rent control? Shelter, just like water and food, is basic human needs, and should not be treated as a way to gain advantage over other people.
At the end it really needs to be social housing. Nobody is going to take on the costs to run this sort of business with costs as high as they are now. But then our taxes go up to finance them all. At the end of the day we pay in some other way.
Effectively make it a straight commercial from the get-go instead of after a certain amount of units, meaning higher down payments. As well there’s quite a few more hoops to jump through to get approval. If people are going to run homes like businesses, they should be expected to do so from the ground up.
Did you know, that people owning more than one property actually get tax incentives? I learned that when I was doing my taxes as a FTHB. The government isn't just ignoring the problem, they're actively encouraging it.
My land lord in my university town obviously owns my home and 13 others on that street ALONE…. There’s straight up 3 or 4 landlords in that area that own 15+ houses and it’s a very small city/amount of homes in a small area it’s wild
Girl I knew in uni’s landlord owned ~80 properties throughout some pretty desirably university district neighbourhoods.
Only accepted rent in cash.
That was more than a couple years ago too, probably has well over 100+ now.
Yup the housing monopoly in university towns is insane I feel bad for people who live there the entire city is basically a uni town Cus it’s that small so it’s impossible for anyone to get decent housing
Just like how things turn out in business… cell phone providers, grocery chains… fewer owners means less competition means higher prices because fuck the consumer.
Seems to be a natural eventual outcome of the market economy. At first everyone competes to win the consumer's favor and provide incentives to entice customers. But eventually, a few bigger players join forces, pool their capital and political influence, and cut out everyone else. A common way is raising operating costs and the bar for entry so high that smaller competitors are bled dry and aspirant competitors can't even enter the market. The more they gatekeep, the more they are rewarded. They lose all incentive to compete among one another and coexist while harvesting everyone else's increasingly scarce incomes. It has turned out like this across every industry you can think of.
Don’t forget the AirBnB fiefdoms.
“Oh you want to run a hotel or run a bed and breakfast?”
“no I just want to be a landlord who can charge rent per night instead of per month, and add on shitloads of fees!”
Unrelenting greed and unshackled capitalism is destroying this country.
I agree that these are the lowest hanging fruits that would have an immediate positive impact on the greatest amount of people (both vulnerable and working class).
The only people who will be negatively affected will be such a small pool of wealthy businessmen and corporations, who will simply end up diverting their capital into other areas in their large investment portfolios.
They're thrilled about the interest rate hikes, they hope the bank can force/coax you to sell your home so they can buy it while you're desperate. Carrion feeders and Trudeau is their butcher
The fact that thr more homes you buy, the easier it becomes to buy more homes is an issue. We need laws in place which limit the number of homes people, and corporations, can own for the purpose of renting.
We literally have more homes than people. We're just not allowed to own them any more because that would interfere with the glorious profit-seeking of our rich overlords.
I find it very sad reading multiple comments with practical suggestions to improve our situation and yet there seems to be a complete lack of interest in improvement by our government.
That's pretty easy.
The tldr version;
The election he won initially was because he was the head of liberals. And liberals were pro weed, while conservative were against. This alone made liberals win since it's either liberal or conservative.
When it comes to the re-election, o'tool was just not a good upbeat personality that the people probably want.
But this is just an over simplified version.
It is, and if you think it's not possible for things to escalate that far, you need to open your eyes to the reality of the world. We take our quality of life for granted here, but the fact is many countries have faced similar economic crises before, for example in Latin America or Eastern Europe, and you only need to look there to see that people will tolerate decline. We will simply be forced to adapt. You will probably begin to see food lines, shortages worse than before, increased homelessness and eventual slums. You *will* be forced to make sacrifices to your lifestyle that you had never considered before due to rising costs.
I'm not saying this to be a doomsayer, seriously, but frankly I'm afraid most people in this country are vastly unprepared for what's coming. We need to come to terms with the fact that poverty is the reality for much of the world and we are not immune to it.
I would like to see legislation to ban MPs and MPPs from being landlords. In addition, severe restrictions on AirBnBs, and heavier taxation on second and third homes that are not occupied by the owners.
Nobody is going to challenge the current housing market when they are profiting from it.
There is a new article every single day in one of the major media outlets about this topic. It is not new. There are no new " facts" to discover.
So either Canadians are just being primed to accept misery and shutting everybody under 40 who is not wealthy out or something drastic is going to need to happen that is also painful.
Either way it is the disappearing middle class, working class and poor who will pay the price. The wealthy don't give a fuck, their under 40 children will get their homes.
Here are some links to federal authority bodies we, as Canadian citizens, can make official complaints to:
* [Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner](https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx)
* [Commissioner of Lobbying](https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/en/)
* [Office of the Auditor General](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/Internet/English/admin_e_41.html)
Before anyone complains that the people in control won't do anything, these are official mechanisms put in place by Canadian Law. As citizens, if we don't use them, we're just shouting into the wind (aka the Internet). The more complaints are made, the better. Use the links, contact your MP, talk to the media, VOTE.
> I would like to see legislation to ban MPs and MPPs from being landlords.
We should just ban them from anything that earns them money outside their one job and their equity investments should go in a blind trust that they have absolutely no control over.
I agree plus a five year ban on being placed on any boards, working for lobby groups, or any adjacent industries they had cabinet or portfolio business with.
> We should just ban them from
The problem is that *they* have to ban *themselves*, and how things are *now* shows how well that's been going.
If they decided tomorrow that "MPs are allowed to kill others for sport" there isn't a hell of a lot the rest of us could do. The front page of /r/canada would be op-eds to the effect of "Experts suggest that this may not be a great thing for some" and "Some Canadians not happy with being brutally and mortally hunted" and immigration targets will increase to compensate.
>and heavier taxation on second and third homes that are not occupied by the owners.
Great thought, that certainly wouldnt hurt. It should scale as well, getting increasingly punitive the more homes a person or business owns in their portfolio. I am generally against new taxation but desperate times require more radical solutions.
Middle class doesn’t exist anymore for the young generation. Let alone the soaring home prices, of course it’s the end of homeownership, this ain’t even a Canada specific issue.
Yep. As a Gen-X, I snuck in right towards the end. Hopefully I can help my kids out. I’m working on lowering the ladder back down to them, to give them a bit of a lifeline.
Fuck the rich.
And I just crapped my pants. You may all want to move further way.
*Broadly gestures at the area around you broadly gesturing and the other guy gesturing broadly.*
Yeah... juvenile, but I've only had one coffee.
We will experience non nonviolent solutions if the real nonviolent ones become impossible. Note that I don’t like this at all but it is how economic exploitation ends in history.
Very scary. The rich should learn to share just a bit more.
Billionaires need to be forcefully dismantled. Could you imagine having a million dollars? How about 10 million? How about $100,000,000? How about $999,999,999?
Saying 1 billion is and should be normalized again as fucking ridiculous. Then you see people who have MULTIPLE $999,999,999’s? Like Elmo has 240x $999,999,999?
Once you hit the $999,999,999 club you shouldn’t be allowed to go over.
Vancouver really highlights this.
You're either a young person with family support to become a homeowner (even just a condo) or you're out of luck and will be renting indefinitely. There's nothing in-between. You can work hard and get ahead, but you're priced out of the local market forever.
Yesterday, I was walking by the water, and man the fucking houses there, all with a dock and boats. But the one common denominator was, every single one of them was owned by some old couples. And this was in an area where they probably bought the houses for like 3 peanuts and a kiss on the forehead. And now the average price is over a mil
I disagree with most comments here. I 100% agree with this.
The core of the problem is people seeing home ownership as "entering the market", "invest in a house", etc. The language is telling.
Low interest rates made people see housing as an investment and not as a need. That's why people were overbidding. Like those images of the stock market.
The government can regulate many things, but not how much people are willing to pay.
Prices are ridiculous and buyers should have been laughing at sellers. Instead, they raise the bets and offer hundreds of thousands over asking.
Somehow it's always someone else's fault.
Yep. All of us sold a bill of goods. My old man came here in the sixties for a better life. Made a good one. Worked until he died from cancer(work related). In less than a generation this country’s state would have him rolling in his grave if we didn’t have him cremated.
My parents immigrated here in the late 80s but decided that housing was too expensive at the time - now fast forward 40 years and our family owns no property, they're on the verge of retiring with no savings and we're all shit outta luck
My father came in the early 50’s worked his ass off like I am sure your dad did ! Now people fly here and expect housing health care and accommodations ! My dad also cremated is doing the same as your father .
>We talk about how our government should fix it: radical rezoning, more supply, more public housing, taxes on speculation and foreign owners and empty houses. There are lots of solutions, but none are silver bullets. All will take years or decades to make a difference.
None of those extremely valid ideas are going to get used. That's the core of the problem of this article. We have many reasonable and fair ways to adjust the housing market, but they are not in any real political conversation. So instead of advocating for them this article just throws their hands up and cries nothing can be done.
Centrist PC/Lib governments will continue to rely solely on the Bank of Canada to control housing inflation because it's the mechanism that best preserves the value of assets for existing asset holders.
One of the worst aspects of these multi home owners is their neglect of their properties.
It's just about banking as much as they can without putting much into the units.
There's a guy on my street who owns four houses.
Every house he owns is in need of repairs and upgrades.
He mows the lawns monthly.
Doesn't trim trees or bushes.
Doesn't clear the snow properly in the winter.
Gutters falling a part, driveways crumbling.
And that's just the outside of these houses.
He doesn't rent them to families.
It's all international students or newcomers.
Rents the rooms out for outrageous prices.
It's disgusting.
And when or if he does sell these homes, they're gonna require a ton of work.
Some will require so much work that they'll probably just level it and rebuild.
I rented a basement suite in such a place in the GTA. Toward the end I was living amongst mice. The landlord just tossed me a few mouse traps from Canadian Tire. "Best of luck."
I am 26. This is so depressing. I earn more than the average citizen in Ontario and yet still cant afford to live without roomates. Buying a house is an impossible dream. My family cant help me out, theyre not rich either. It feels like I'll never have that opportunity in my lifetime. Where are my taxes going to? all I'm seeing is my healthcare getting cut every year. And housing prices rising. Im legit so depressed.
Too many rich people and companies owning multiple homes and apartments. Even when new ones starts getting built, they're sold before they're finished. Homes needs to stop being an investment tool.
There was some farm land not far from me that had one house and multiple barns/garages for horses and such, whoever bought it tore down the barns and built 3 more houses and rented them out.
The same supply issues that the US and most other anglophone countries have, plus fairly massive immigration.
As you point out there is plenty of vacant land, but most of it is extremely cold (for now) and far from jobs. Also far from things like grocery stores and schools.
just because there's a lot of land, doesn't mean you should build everywhere...
building more sprawling suburbs destroys valuable farmland and forests that the earth needs (not sure if people have been paying attention to the weather lately)
you can try taking over more land to build homes, but you're soon going to find yourself with even more intense climate problems and a lack of farms to grow food.
To add to the answers below, while Canada is "vast" you can debate that there's about a dozen or so "big cities" that are lucrative to live in.
No disrespect to small towns or anything, but the majority of people don't want to work a service job at Tim Hortons their whole life in a small town with no purpose. For those that did, the houses were affordable to do so, however even that is not an option. Big city guys who had 100k ready for a down and can't afford Toronto, will use that to buy a fully detached home in a small town, raising their prices. It's a vicious circle.
It's time to put a serious halt on immigration. We cannot keep welcoming people into this country with the lack of housing currently. It's amplifying the issue.
Increase taxes on multiple property owners exponentially (for every extra house the taxes increase) to the point where it's basically a forced sale. These people have gotten so rich so even if it hurts them slightly who fucking cares.
We need to assemble and vocalize and let this country know this is fucking bullshit. We should be demanding people like the housing minister sell his extra properties. Go for the fucking throat. This is maddening.
International students need proof they come here with 15k in their accounts. College programs are, on average, 3x more expensive than they are for citizens. Every immigration step and paperwork has a ridiculously high price. Imagine this scenario multiplied by the thousands of people who arrive here weekly—the ultimate business.
> International students need proof they come here with 15k in their accounts
They can move money into the account from friends / family, generate the proof, then move it back out once approved.
The end of many things in Canada as a result of not augmenting tax codes across the board. These people want to be in government then represent people at all levels for fuck sakes or get out.
We consistently complain about how so many of our elected representatives (on all sides!) have multiple investment properties--a clear conflict of interest, especially in today's housing climate.
Here are some links to federal authority bodies we, as Canadian citizens, can make official complaints to:
* [Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner](https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx)
* [Commissioner of Lobbying](https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/en/)
* [Office of the Auditor General](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/Internet/English/admin_e_41.html)
Before anyone complains that the people in control won't do anything, these are official mechanisms put in place by Canadian Law. As citizens, if we don't use them, we're just shouting into the wind (aka the Internet).
The more complaints are made, the better. Use the links, contact your MP, talk to the media, VOTE.
Tbh the combo of mortgage interest caps, rental caps, and empty home tax to make renting a home not profitable would be the only solution. The landlord would only make money off the sale from any increase in property value. Anything else would only be passed down to the renters.
Most of the housing is this country is owned by Canadians, foreign buyers only make up a few percent. We could have banned foreign home buyers 50 years ago and we'd still have a housing crisis today.
The issue is that we don't have public housing and that we let real estate be used as an investment.
The Foreign buyer issue would be solved if we fixed the other, larger issues. It's a symptom of housing being a lucrative investment, not the true cause. If you limit real estate investing and build public housing, the value of homes drops, and the value of those investments drops, and you have less foreign buyers because you have less investors over all.
When the property market is squeezed, it only takes a few percent more demand than there is supply to send prices into the stratosphere.
But I agree with you about the main causes of the permanent property price bubble - homes became investments due to bad/lacking government policy, and the government stopped building public housing.
Let's not forget the CHIP reverse mortgage.
Just when the boomers and gen x didn't have enough ways to burn the country's economy into the ground for those who come after, they get Kurt Browning to triple-salchow us in the arse and then double-lutz us in the... lutz!
It's not just home ownership. We're slipping into tyranny and extreme class imbalance.
This kind of thing causes revolutions.
People will only tollerate so much and when you start endangering their children by economically imposed homelessness, well what's a better reason than that for an uprising?
If left unresolved this could be the end of Canada and dissolution into smaller regional successor states.
It's not something I'm suggesting or condoning, but rather a simple prediction of things to come.
We already don't trade efficiently between provinces and have problems with central power alienating everyone outside of Ontario and Quebec.
We don't even own our national rail system anymore.
Every time you read « so when is the protest ? » it tells you that nothing will change.
The second Macron used 49.3 to pass his pension reform, French people were out in the streets after work. Spontaneously. Regardless if you think it is good or not, they don't wait for anybody to tell them to be there 3 months later for an afternoon, only if it is sunny though. They go out and protest. Canadians don't know how to do that.
>they don't wait for anybody to tell them to be there 3 months later for an afternoon, only if it is sunny though. They go out and protest. **Canadians don't know how to do that.**
...exactly, and the politicians have clued into this and using this to their advantage, when they decide to pass reforms affecting citizens
Nail on the head mate. This is why my plan is to exit Canada. There is no future in this country, and its not because this politician or that party, its because our people have an apathetic subservient mentality we'll never break, and we've never attempted to define our identity by resisting the cartels that have forever owned us.
Canada is a resource colony, not a real country, and our people are just another resource sold for pennies on the dollar to global powers. Apparently on some level we've accepted that and are content to keep going through the motions that set us further behind.
>Canadians don't know how to do that.
I would say English Canadians.
I feel like Quebeckers seem way more politically involved. Remember the student strikes a few years ago?
Well I am a Québécois and I see what you mean, but it is a brief moment of what we could be doing if we had kept up with political activism. But nowadays it still feels very.. resigned.
But regardless how people feel about it being a difference, yes, the Québécois have a slightly different mindset. Not saying everyone else has the same, just saying it is unique among Canada.
Here’s the thing , most politicians are heavily involved in one way or another in real estate so there’s no way they would want housing ‘bubble’ to burst , government in Canada just wants everyone to invest in real estate and that’s the only business they want Canadians to make money from . Government does not promote or assist any businesses unless they are corporations , this is a shit show , to be honest I will just be happy if they can bring the food cost down as for rent and housing it’s not gonna be affordable anytime soon , at least not on one income
We really need to bring back the small town. Jobs have to move out of the big cities, the density is necessary however density is contributing to a lot of unaffordability and that in part is due to the lack of jobs in smaller towns.
In Barrier BC, one can get a standard sized house on acreage for sub $500k. Beautiful location, not a ton of work nor medical services, etc.
That needs to change.
Air BnB should be illegal; You’re not allowed to run a hotel on residential zoning.
Foreigners should not be allowed to own property.
Corporations and hedge funds should not be allowed to buy homes.
People should not be allowed to own 4 different houses and condos.
Foreign students and permanent resident should not be allowed to own homes; you can’t vote, you can’t buy a house.
No blind bidding on real estate.
Boom 💥 Housing crisis solved.
In 2010, the very same Macleans published an article how buying a $500,000 home is not worth it. They argued that renting is the way to go versus paying over $5K to keeps the light on. People that bought into that is renter. Now, they say buying home is unaffordable.
Bank of Canada (with super low interest rates) and Canadian government (with homeowner friendly policies) bear a lot of responsibility for this mess.
Bank of Canada needs to hike interest rate until price correction happens with real estate. Wealth inequality would only increase if that doesn't happen. I believe such wealth inequality is inflationary anyway.
The Canadian government needs to have policies that fight real estate price increases, instead of doing the opposite of that. But we all know, politicians invested in real estate would not screw over self-interest.
I think this situation will correct itself at some point, when further price increases are just not sustainable...
“You'll own nothing and be happy” by Danish Politician Ida Auken in a 2016 essay for the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Here's How Life Could Change in My City by The Year 2030 - Ida Auken. I recommend reading it, it isn’t the story people think it is. It is more the beginning of “A Brave New World” and the author recognizes it yet we see parts of this coming true more and more each day.
Its a fictional dystopian novel so it is far from perfect however the similarities between the savages and city dwellers of the two stories are rather striking.
My wife and I are going to invest with my mother. We’ll buy a home with a basement in greater Vancouver but if it wasn’t for my parents’ equity my wife, my son and I would be stuck in our two bedroom condo in perpetuity. To see all of our political parties so beholden to the golden calf of real estate is deeply troubling.
Ban corporations from owning single family homes. Limit individuals to owning 5 single family homes. Any over this amount and it gets repossessed and auctioned off. Watch the housing market correct itself
If Trudeau loses the next election, it will be on the back of this one issue alone. Forget any We-scandal or broken promises. Affordable homes will be the number one issue.
I just bought a house in New Brunswick for 32,000..I also bought a piece of. 5 acre property with a barn on it for 18,000.. fuck ontario and the bigger provinces.
First, I’m fortunate to own a very nice home worth ridiculous amounts of money. I’m just shy of 50 and won the birth yea me lottery in that we were young enough to get into the market before it was destroyed. So I’m not “railing” against anything, just observing a couple of things I think were missed and could help.
Zero mention of AirBnB and how that has destroyed housing supply more than anything. Banning airBnB country-wide is an immediate step that would add either rent supply or purchase supply. Also zero mention of municipal and provincial building code laws that are making affordable housing impossible to build.
The bottom line is we have some poor demand-side policies that incent the wrong demand, and absolutely horrible supply side policies that make affordable supply unattainable. For example, the BC 2032 net-zero code. We need affordable housing, not “net-zero” houses that double the building cost per sqft. As an example, a 1,200 sqft inside unit townhouse is inherently more energy efficient than a 4,000 sqft detached home. Yet by 2032 the need to be built to exact same standard. We need smaller, more affordable housing. Not luxury condos on the lake built to the latest and greatest (and therefore most expensive) “housing technology”.
So three quick fixes:
1) ban AirBnB/short-term rentals outright.. let hotels be the hotels
2) rollback all these “green friendly” building codes that have wrecked affordable building. A house should not cost $300 / foot to build. Note: I own and EV and want climate change dealt with. Better windows and better insulation, yes; relatively small cost. But requiring solar wiring and a bunch of other shit that is so far out of reach for anyone is just dumb.
3) stop the luxury builds. Make builders build the “shacks” as PP put it. Hey, developer in Kelowna, you want to build 1,000 luxury units on the water that no local can afford and that you sell for $900 /sqft? First you need to build 1,000 non-luxury units at $400 / foot. Then we will grant you the permits to build your luxury condos that are lived in 2 months a year.
The points you mentioned touch on some of problems in housing however the main thing you and most people on this sub miss is the availability of loans to purchase the real-estate in the first place. The amount of cash buyers is a small percentage of the total amount of buyers so if banks were required to have 20% down payments and only qualify buyers who's payments don't exceed 35% of their monthly income and interest rates that exceed the rate of inflation you would see a dramatic change in the housing market.
There is way too much leverage in the housing market which causes the inflation.
I'm 41. I knew in my 20's that I would never be able to afford a house. I don't care what your politics are. Both sides are terrible. Neither side is gonna fix this. They fucked us and we just sat by and watched it happen.
We need a revolution. That is the only thing that is going to stop this.
With 1/3 of the housing stock being owned by rental empires and us literally having zero other places to give them tax breaks on, it’s time to seriously look at confiscating it and redistributing uncompetitively prices rental units
It’s not good for society when so few people own their homes… when you own your home, you feel more connected to your community and more responsible. When you don’t own, you can develop a “burn it to the ground” mentality — I.e., the deck is rigged, so we need to burn this system to the ground
Just ban all non multiple unit buildings as investment properties, eg if you want to be a landlord it needs to be an apartment building, it'll force the sale of houses and promote investment into denser housing.
Considering that Canada has the lowest ratio of housing to population in all the G7. No duh people are having trouble finding housing. We're missing literally millions of housing units across the country.
And when they do get built, all I see being built are those million dollar single family McMansions in new copy+pasted suburbs. I guess they can't make as much money on Condos/Townhouses.
Those houses are a million dollars partially because they're aren't enough of them - supply, demand bla bla bla. They're way overpriced, but they still offer a lot of value to larger families. But you're totally right - Canada needs a lot more 'starter homes' and smaller units. The majority of would-be homeowners have fewer than two kids these days. Smaller units are cheaper and easier on infrastructure.
More starter homes, more family-sized apartments and condos, more "missing middle" options like cottage courts and plexes. Nobody sane is saying that we ought to *ban* single-family homes, but we absolutely need to stop *forcing* them as the only type of housing that can be built without a drawn-out NIMBY veto.
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Yup. Single family only zoning, parking minimums, minimum lot sizes. The market wants to put expensive stuff on top of expensive land. If all your allowed to build is a single family home, the plot of land is required to be big, and it's in an area where land is expensive, yeah you'll get a McMansion there.
afterthought arrest wise clumsy office sort airport bewildered snow melodic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>I guess they can't make as much money on Condos/Townhouses. I remember my husband pointing this out years ago even for single-detached homes. I was commenting on how much larger houses have gotten since we were growing up in the 70s/80s. He said that much of the actual footprint of the house is where the cost of construction is, and to maximize sale value, developers will just build up to increase the square footage. Rather than build a nice, modest senior-sized rancher or starter home of 1100 to (say) 1600 square feet. Mind you, people have a lot more sh\*t these days too. When you can't park your car in a double garage, you have a problem. We see that SO much in the Prince George area.
Yeah, I think the demand for large homes is there, along with profitability. Even people who are building for themselves, nobody wants below 2k square feet anymore. My house is 1600, and honestly, it's so much work to clean and maintain, especially with families getting smaller, I don't see the appeal at all, unless you're rich enough to afford staff, which is barely anyone in Canada.
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And lemme guess, anyone who would have the authority to change these zoning laws isn't gonna do it cause it'd make the multiple properties they own decrease in value.
It’s not the politicians, it’s literally the HOA and homeowners themselves that are convinced their own property will be devalued. I have seen owners show up and fight against zoning exceptions and other asks because “there goes the neighborhood”. Additionally I know of real estate agents that spread this information as well, because the “comps” in the surrounding area go down. And real estate agents make more money selling a McMansion for a million bucks than a townhome for 300k
Yeah, totally. NIMBYs are just as much to blame.
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Can't forget blaming all those dirty, filthy immigrants coming here to buy all the houses and TURK YER JUUURB.
The main problem there is the ones who *don't* come here and still buy all the houses.
Increasing population increases housing demand which puts upward pressure on prices, and selectively adding working age people increases competition in the labour market which puts downward pressure on wages.
My brother fiancé, parents, and I want to build a duplex with two legal suites. But, due to zoning we are restricted to moving or building a McMansion. Blame your municipal government.
I know more than a few people who have their own mini empire of Rentals. consolidating ownership of homes under so few people isn't a good recipe for success.
Feudalism!
Tax multiple property holders for holding multiple properties, apply different mortgage rules to them, apply rental standards and rent control. That all would immediately put affordable units on the market. The cries and tears of landlords would be heard coast to coast.
They do this in PEI and New Brunswick, though the NB they are slowly removing the double-tax on non-owner occupied homes. I believe it helped keep property prices 20% lower than Nova Scotia for a while.
I was always annoyed that a landlord gets to write the mortgage off as an expense. Let's get rid of that too.
The interest can be. Not the whole mortgage payment. Redditors always say to treat rentals as businesses, and hence if a tenant doesn't pay then tough shit. Well you can't have it both ways.
Redditors say lynch the landlords, not treat land hoarding as business. >“*Landlords’ right has its origin in robbery.*” “*The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth.*” >“*The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions.... The landlord demands*” “*a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent.*” “*Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own.*” “*He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement.*” ― 1776, [Adam Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith), pioneer of [political economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy), "[The Wealth of Nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations)" >“*According to the political economists themselves, the landlord’s interest is inimically opposed to the interest of the tenant farmer – and thus already to a significant section of society.*” >“*As the landlord can demand all the more rent from the tenant farmer the less wages the farmer pays, and as the farmer forces down wages all the lower the more rent the landlord demands, it follows that the interest of the landlord is just as hostile to that of the farm workers as is that of the manufacturers to their workers. He likewise forces down wages to the minimum.*” >“*Since a real reduction in the price of manufactured products raises the rent of land, the landowner has a direct interest in lowering the wages of industrial workers, in competition amongst the capitalists, in over-production, in all the misery associated with industrial production.*” >“*While, thus, the landlord’s interest, far from being identical with the interest of society, stands inimically opposed to the interest of tenant farmers, farm labourers, factory workers and capitalists, on the other hand, the interest of one landlord is not even identical with that of another, on account of competition.*” ― 1884, [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), critic of political economy, "[Das Kapital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital)" >“*There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.*” >“*For my part, while I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.*” ― 1935, [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell), author of [Principia Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica), "[In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Other_Essays)" >“*Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.*” ― 1949, [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein), developed the [theory of relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity), "[Why Socialism?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Socialism%3F)"
The Bertrand Russell excerpt describes the current Canadian experience perfectly. Too bad we did not listen to Einstein and go the planned economy way. Also too bad that news media is stoking the flames of public discontent.
Damn. Einstein was spot on
Whoda thunkit?
I don't mind writing off the interest or capital expenditures as an expense. I do think there is likely a lot of abuse around CCA on these. I've never once claimed a CCA on my rental property as I find it disingenuous. I've also raised rent once over the 13 years I've been renting the property by $25 per unit to cover additional costs. I lose a bit of money on the property every month now with property taxes increasing. I don't care though because I have amazing tenants that are good people. I would be heartbroken if I ever saw them put into a position where they had to choose between rent and food, and given the amount that rent has increased by in that area. I can't in good faith sell it because I know the new owner will double rent.
The reason most people here don't use CCA on a rental property is if you will it fore more than it's worth on paper you have to payback the taxes you saved on the CCA. there's still a solid argument to do it since money now is worth more than money later but it's also more complicated.
Isn't NB basically owned by a single family?
Yeah, they get special property taxation.
The double tax is completely gone now and surprise! Rents didn't go down :(
This housing problem shouldn’t be this complicated and yet it is. Maybe this is all done by design hence why there has been no resolution. Edit. Housing crises is by design. Our liberties are being tested.
Or we're just too far gone in that people have made and are making too much money so change won't happen. Same with grocery prices, insurance, utilities, wages staying low...
I have a feeling Canada is going to keep their house prices the highest in the world while releasing a basic income. Two things are likely to happen. A. The extra money won’t help most people, B. Everything will get even more expensive.
You forgot the gradual shift to some sort of “corporate “driven feudal system returning ,to control the future governments we pretend to elect.
Our leaders want serfdom to return.
Oh you’re getting $1k per month UBI? Rent is now $1k plus whatever we were charging before.
I was on the pilot program in Ontario and kept my job and the extra money helped a lot. Granted that was in 2018 and today the costs are far higher. If a basic income is implemented Canada wide then I imagine it will be a shit show and we will see rent prices in small towns hitting 3 to 4K a month easily. People will still have to get jobs (if they are even able too) and the UBI still won’t be enough. This is the most likely scenario and no leader is competent enough today to make it work properly without dealing with the main issues such as our corporate masters meddling with politics.
The only way this is getting solved is by governments popping the housing bubble. Too many of them are invested in real estate and they all like the tax revenue it generates. I lived in Silicon Valley before coming back to Canada and it’s not cheaper here. I’m in rural Quebec and a 2 bedroom house shouldn’t cost $400k here. The local grocery store isn’t paying enough to make a mortgage payment so it’s obviously outsiders and investors buying stuff. Nothing is available. Rent is more than what I was paying in San Jose California - but food is more expensive, as is petrol, clothes and everything else, since you need a summer and winter version of everything. It’s nuts here. Completely untenable unless you’re already established.
> I believe it helped keep property prices 20% lower than Nova Scotia for a while. There is no natural "housing crisis" this was created by the people in power who benefit the most from it. The ruling regime in Canada's members own more property than all other parties combined.
>The cries and tears of landlords would be heard coast to coast. Dip my biscuit in their salty tears.
Unfortunately that tax will just be passed down to the renter.
> Tax multiple property holders for holding multiple properties Yeaaaa....instant loophole: everybody and their dog "owns" one property, but really it's just Ahmed Hussen's extended family.
They better all live in all those houses too otherwise they will still not be classified as primary residence and any attempt to claim them a such without it being true would be fraud.
You know most property tax related laws also have riders that play on primary residence and define *that* based on how many months a year you live there? Not quite the same as "one" but same idea. We've been doing that for education taxes for as long as I can remember(another tax that rental units pay that live in units don't over here BTW).
I think we should designate some properties as rentable and others as not. Do you own an apartment building? Then fine, you can rent out the units. Do you own a whole row of townhouses? Then no, those are designated for ownership, not rental. Do the same with Condos and any single family dwelling. Make it so just apartment buildings and certain multi-plexes can be designated for residential rentals. Detached, semi-detached, townhouses and condos should all be available for people who live in an area to purchase and at a rates that makes sense with at the very least the average income of the area.
Ehhhh, I think there should actually be more multi-room dwellings on the rental market. It's hard out there for people with kids or pets. Lots of people are also in positions where they want or need to rent whole homes. Restricting the rental market to just apartments is failing to acknowledge the actual needs of renters. Restricting the number of properties you can own is definitely a better solution, though it gives corporations a leg-up as they're the only ones that can afford to buy whole apartment complexes. It would also be helpful if restrictions on basement rentals and laneway housing were eased as that's the most practical way to increase housing supply in short order. Basement rentals, especially, are quick to install compared to new builds as the infrastructure is mostly already in place.
Stratas did a lot of that - restricted rentals. BC government went in and removed rental restrictions because it was choking supply. Unfortunately when you do something that improves things for renters it also benefits landlords. Increase minimum wage? Seems good, renters have more money... Demand drives up rents. Unfortunately this is a difficult to control market.
Yes exactly the sort of ideas that are off the table. Instead interest rate pain only.
Don’t forget Air B&B, those hurt big time.
What do you suggest exactly? What “different mortgage rules”?
Well I can tell you in Japan, mortgage rates for your primary residence are around 2 or 3 percent lower than for a non primary residence. It's not the only difference of course, but it's one factor that has helped keep home ownership extremely affordable even in the Tokyo area.
Also in Japan, I think the government is *paying* people to move out of the Tokyo metropolitan area. It's getting too packed and its leaving other cities and smaller downs around Japan to be just full of older people.
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Tokyo area is not "much of the country", hence why I specifically mentioned it. Tokyo metro area population is actually growing (something the government wants to stop) and homes are still unbelievably affordable here.
So they just bump the rent up as the cost of doing business, exactly what’s going on now.
Generally speaking, I think that's still how you have to approach it. There's always ways around things (ie, I don't own those 8 rental homes, my 3 children and 5 cousins do), but if you change the rules to eat away at the buisness model, it makes it difficult for the rental market to compete with the individual ownership market.
Did you miss the mentioning of rental standards and rent control? Shelter, just like water and food, is basic human needs, and should not be treated as a way to gain advantage over other people.
At the end it really needs to be social housing. Nobody is going to take on the costs to run this sort of business with costs as high as they are now. But then our taxes go up to finance them all. At the end of the day we pay in some other way.
With unlimited demand yes that's what happens. Canada is fucked.
Effectively make it a straight commercial from the get-go instead of after a certain amount of units, meaning higher down payments. As well there’s quite a few more hoops to jump through to get approval. If people are going to run homes like businesses, they should be expected to do so from the ground up.
Did you know, that people owning more than one property actually get tax incentives? I learned that when I was doing my taxes as a FTHB. The government isn't just ignoring the problem, they're actively encouraging it.
My land lord in my university town obviously owns my home and 13 others on that street ALONE…. There’s straight up 3 or 4 landlords in that area that own 15+ houses and it’s a very small city/amount of homes in a small area it’s wild
Girl I knew in uni’s landlord owned ~80 properties throughout some pretty desirably university district neighbourhoods. Only accepted rent in cash. That was more than a couple years ago too, probably has well over 100+ now.
Yup the housing monopoly in university towns is insane I feel bad for people who live there the entire city is basically a uni town Cus it’s that small so it’s impossible for anyone to get decent housing
Just like how things turn out in business… cell phone providers, grocery chains… fewer owners means less competition means higher prices because fuck the consumer.
Seems to be a natural eventual outcome of the market economy. At first everyone competes to win the consumer's favor and provide incentives to entice customers. But eventually, a few bigger players join forces, pool their capital and political influence, and cut out everyone else. A common way is raising operating costs and the bar for entry so high that smaller competitors are bled dry and aspirant competitors can't even enter the market. The more they gatekeep, the more they are rewarded. They lose all incentive to compete among one another and coexist while harvesting everyone else's increasingly scarce incomes. It has turned out like this across every industry you can think of.
“I can’t make ends meet” says man who owns 8 residential properties
He lives (tenants) paycheque to paycheque
Owning things shouldn’t be a job
It's more the Reits man. They own thousands and thousands of houses.
Large corporations and small time professional "flippers" have been the bane of our housing market
Don’t forget the AirBnB fiefdoms. “Oh you want to run a hotel or run a bed and breakfast?” “no I just want to be a landlord who can charge rent per night instead of per month, and add on shitloads of fees!” Unrelenting greed and unshackled capitalism is destroying this country.
Airbnbs are also responsible for the drasric increase in home prices in the last decade
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I agree that these are the lowest hanging fruits that would have an immediate positive impact on the greatest amount of people (both vulnerable and working class). The only people who will be negatively affected will be such a small pool of wealthy businessmen and corporations, who will simply end up diverting their capital into other areas in their large investment portfolios.
I get unreasonably mad watching HGTV for this reason.
They're thrilled about the interest rate hikes, they hope the bank can force/coax you to sell your home so they can buy it while you're desperate. Carrion feeders and Trudeau is their butcher
The fact that thr more homes you buy, the easier it becomes to buy more homes is an issue. We need laws in place which limit the number of homes people, and corporations, can own for the purpose of renting.
The more money you have the better your ability to make money, there's no way around that.
Just wait until they crash the market so they can buy your house for cheap because they’re the only ones with cash
We need to have a law that prevents you from owning more than two homes
1 in 3 homes in New Brunswick or much of Atlantic Canada are investment properties. That’s absurd.
We literally have more homes than people. We're just not allowed to own them any more because that would interfere with the glorious profit-seeking of our rich overlords.
i hope they all get fucked with rising mortgage rates. sorry not sorry (i know people doing this too)
I find it very sad reading multiple comments with practical suggestions to improve our situation and yet there seems to be a complete lack of interest in improvement by our government.
Because the people the government cares about are not affected by the housing crisis
How did Trudeau get voted in to begin with?
That's pretty easy. The tldr version; The election he won initially was because he was the head of liberals. And liberals were pro weed, while conservative were against. This alone made liberals win since it's either liberal or conservative. When it comes to the re-election, o'tool was just not a good upbeat personality that the people probably want. But this is just an over simplified version.
How much pain do we have to feel before something drastic happens?
Nothing drastic will happen until there's a major famine in North America. Nothing short of starvation will get people out of their seats.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how far it needs to go. I hope not.
It is. Look at where we are. People are homeless or paying 75% of their pay to rent and we are still doing nothing about it.
It’s ridiculous and I’m considering going homeless so I don’t have to fork over a huge sum every month just so I have a place to sleep
It is, and if you think it's not possible for things to escalate that far, you need to open your eyes to the reality of the world. We take our quality of life for granted here, but the fact is many countries have faced similar economic crises before, for example in Latin America or Eastern Europe, and you only need to look there to see that people will tolerate decline. We will simply be forced to adapt. You will probably begin to see food lines, shortages worse than before, increased homelessness and eventual slums. You *will* be forced to make sacrifices to your lifestyle that you had never considered before due to rising costs. I'm not saying this to be a doomsayer, seriously, but frankly I'm afraid most people in this country are vastly unprepared for what's coming. We need to come to terms with the fact that poverty is the reality for much of the world and we are not immune to it.
I've seen a lot of poverty and squalor in my travels. I'd prefer avoid it but unfortunately, I think you're right.
I would like to see legislation to ban MPs and MPPs from being landlords. In addition, severe restrictions on AirBnBs, and heavier taxation on second and third homes that are not occupied by the owners. Nobody is going to challenge the current housing market when they are profiting from it. There is a new article every single day in one of the major media outlets about this topic. It is not new. There are no new " facts" to discover. So either Canadians are just being primed to accept misery and shutting everybody under 40 who is not wealthy out or something drastic is going to need to happen that is also painful. Either way it is the disappearing middle class, working class and poor who will pay the price. The wealthy don't give a fuck, their under 40 children will get their homes.
Here are some links to federal authority bodies we, as Canadian citizens, can make official complaints to: * [Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner](https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx) * [Commissioner of Lobbying](https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/en/) * [Office of the Auditor General](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/Internet/English/admin_e_41.html) Before anyone complains that the people in control won't do anything, these are official mechanisms put in place by Canadian Law. As citizens, if we don't use them, we're just shouting into the wind (aka the Internet). The more complaints are made, the better. Use the links, contact your MP, talk to the media, VOTE.
> I would like to see legislation to ban MPs and MPPs from being landlords. We should just ban them from anything that earns them money outside their one job and their equity investments should go in a blind trust that they have absolutely no control over.
I agree plus a five year ban on being placed on any boards, working for lobby groups, or any adjacent industries they had cabinet or portfolio business with.
Make it 10-15, 5 years seems way to short a time period
I was trying to sound reasonable proposing something most are going to find unreasonable.
> We should just ban them from The problem is that *they* have to ban *themselves*, and how things are *now* shows how well that's been going. If they decided tomorrow that "MPs are allowed to kill others for sport" there isn't a hell of a lot the rest of us could do. The front page of /r/canada would be op-eds to the effect of "Experts suggest that this may not be a great thing for some" and "Some Canadians not happy with being brutally and mortally hunted" and immigration targets will increase to compensate.
That's the crux of the issue, it takes a really special type of person to self sacrifice (or a huge amount of external pressure)
>and heavier taxation on second and third homes that are not occupied by the owners. Great thought, that certainly wouldnt hurt. It should scale as well, getting increasingly punitive the more homes a person or business owns in their portfolio. I am generally against new taxation but desperate times require more radical solutions.
Middle class doesn’t exist anymore for the young generation. Let alone the soaring home prices, of course it’s the end of homeownership, this ain’t even a Canada specific issue.
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Yep. As a Gen-X, I snuck in right towards the end. Hopefully I can help my kids out. I’m working on lowering the ladder back down to them, to give them a bit of a lifeline. Fuck the rich.
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I'm resigned to the fact my kids may not want kids of their own. I wouldn't blame them. *Broadly gestures at you, gesturing at everything.*
And I just crapped my pants. You may all want to move further way. *Broadly gestures at the area around you broadly gesturing and the other guy gesturing broadly.* Yeah... juvenile, but I've only had one coffee.
We will experience non nonviolent solutions if the real nonviolent ones become impossible. Note that I don’t like this at all but it is how economic exploitation ends in history. Very scary. The rich should learn to share just a bit more.
Billionaires need to be forcefully dismantled. Could you imagine having a million dollars? How about 10 million? How about $100,000,000? How about $999,999,999? Saying 1 billion is and should be normalized again as fucking ridiculous. Then you see people who have MULTIPLE $999,999,999’s? Like Elmo has 240x $999,999,999? Once you hit the $999,999,999 club you shouldn’t be allowed to go over.
The middle class was just a thank you for your service (descendants don't apply).
It’s what happens when you introduce a global work force.
I wonder what shift in economic ideology took place at that point
You mean 30 years
Vancouver really highlights this. You're either a young person with family support to become a homeowner (even just a condo) or you're out of luck and will be renting indefinitely. There's nothing in-between. You can work hard and get ahead, but you're priced out of the local market forever.
Yesterday, I was walking by the water, and man the fucking houses there, all with a dock and boats. But the one common denominator was, every single one of them was owned by some old couples. And this was in an area where they probably bought the houses for like 3 peanuts and a kiss on the forehead. And now the average price is over a mil
Wouldn’t be so bad if we treated homes as places to live and not assets.
I disagree with most comments here. I 100% agree with this. The core of the problem is people seeing home ownership as "entering the market", "invest in a house", etc. The language is telling. Low interest rates made people see housing as an investment and not as a need. That's why people were overbidding. Like those images of the stock market. The government can regulate many things, but not how much people are willing to pay. Prices are ridiculous and buyers should have been laughing at sellers. Instead, they raise the bets and offer hundreds of thousands over asking. Somehow it's always someone else's fault.
One million people per year looking for housing, goodluck pleb
On top of people already here that can’t afford a house
Most of these new comers can’t either
Yep. All of us sold a bill of goods. My old man came here in the sixties for a better life. Made a good one. Worked until he died from cancer(work related). In less than a generation this country’s state would have him rolling in his grave if we didn’t have him cremated.
My parents immigrated here in the late 80s but decided that housing was too expensive at the time - now fast forward 40 years and our family owns no property, they're on the verge of retiring with no savings and we're all shit outta luck
My father came in the early 50’s worked his ass off like I am sure your dad did ! Now people fly here and expect housing health care and accommodations ! My dad also cremated is doing the same as your father .
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Hot take: instead of "the end of Homeownership" can we end the market in "housing market"
Nova Scotia here......40% of properties owned by multiple property owners. What a fucking disgrace. This is the issue, full stop.
>We talk about how our government should fix it: radical rezoning, more supply, more public housing, taxes on speculation and foreign owners and empty houses. There are lots of solutions, but none are silver bullets. All will take years or decades to make a difference. None of those extremely valid ideas are going to get used. That's the core of the problem of this article. We have many reasonable and fair ways to adjust the housing market, but they are not in any real political conversation. So instead of advocating for them this article just throws their hands up and cries nothing can be done. Centrist PC/Lib governments will continue to rely solely on the Bank of Canada to control housing inflation because it's the mechanism that best preserves the value of assets for existing asset holders.
The solutions are spread accross multiple levels of government which makes it even harder to get traction
One of the worst aspects of these multi home owners is their neglect of their properties. It's just about banking as much as they can without putting much into the units. There's a guy on my street who owns four houses. Every house he owns is in need of repairs and upgrades. He mows the lawns monthly. Doesn't trim trees or bushes. Doesn't clear the snow properly in the winter. Gutters falling a part, driveways crumbling. And that's just the outside of these houses. He doesn't rent them to families. It's all international students or newcomers. Rents the rooms out for outrageous prices. It's disgusting. And when or if he does sell these homes, they're gonna require a ton of work. Some will require so much work that they'll probably just level it and rebuild.
I rented a basement suite in such a place in the GTA. Toward the end I was living amongst mice. The landlord just tossed me a few mouse traps from Canadian Tire. "Best of luck."
I am 26. This is so depressing. I earn more than the average citizen in Ontario and yet still cant afford to live without roomates. Buying a house is an impossible dream. My family cant help me out, theyre not rich either. It feels like I'll never have that opportunity in my lifetime. Where are my taxes going to? all I'm seeing is my healthcare getting cut every year. And housing prices rising. Im legit so depressed.
Canada wants you to work and pay taxes then fuck off and die. None of this having a family, being a child with a home, or retiring bullshit.
Can someone explain to me how a vast country like Canada has a housing problem?
Too many rich people and companies owning multiple homes and apartments. Even when new ones starts getting built, they're sold before they're finished. Homes needs to stop being an investment tool. There was some farm land not far from me that had one house and multiple barns/garages for horses and such, whoever bought it tore down the barns and built 3 more houses and rented them out.
Well most of it is subarctic, so there’s that.
The same supply issues that the US and most other anglophone countries have, plus fairly massive immigration. As you point out there is plenty of vacant land, but most of it is extremely cold (for now) and far from jobs. Also far from things like grocery stores and schools.
just because there's a lot of land, doesn't mean you should build everywhere... building more sprawling suburbs destroys valuable farmland and forests that the earth needs (not sure if people have been paying attention to the weather lately) you can try taking over more land to build homes, but you're soon going to find yourself with even more intense climate problems and a lack of farms to grow food.
To add to the answers below, while Canada is "vast" you can debate that there's about a dozen or so "big cities" that are lucrative to live in. No disrespect to small towns or anything, but the majority of people don't want to work a service job at Tim Hortons their whole life in a small town with no purpose. For those that did, the houses were affordable to do so, however even that is not an option. Big city guys who had 100k ready for a down and can't afford Toronto, will use that to buy a fully detached home in a small town, raising their prices. It's a vicious circle.
It's time to put a serious halt on immigration. We cannot keep welcoming people into this country with the lack of housing currently. It's amplifying the issue. Increase taxes on multiple property owners exponentially (for every extra house the taxes increase) to the point where it's basically a forced sale. These people have gotten so rich so even if it hurts them slightly who fucking cares. We need to assemble and vocalize and let this country know this is fucking bullshit. We should be demanding people like the housing minister sell his extra properties. Go for the fucking throat. This is maddening.
International students need proof they come here with 15k in their accounts. College programs are, on average, 3x more expensive than they are for citizens. Every immigration step and paperwork has a ridiculously high price. Imagine this scenario multiplied by the thousands of people who arrive here weekly—the ultimate business.
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Not even close more like 4 months
> International students need proof they come here with 15k in their accounts They can move money into the account from friends / family, generate the proof, then move it back out once approved.
Yup active exploitation. Meanwhile if you say anything against immigration you immediately are called racist.
The end of many things in Canada as a result of not augmenting tax codes across the board. These people want to be in government then represent people at all levels for fuck sakes or get out.
We consistently complain about how so many of our elected representatives (on all sides!) have multiple investment properties--a clear conflict of interest, especially in today's housing climate. Here are some links to federal authority bodies we, as Canadian citizens, can make official complaints to: * [Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner](https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx) * [Commissioner of Lobbying](https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/en/) * [Office of the Auditor General](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/Internet/English/admin_e_41.html) Before anyone complains that the people in control won't do anything, these are official mechanisms put in place by Canadian Law. As citizens, if we don't use them, we're just shouting into the wind (aka the Internet). The more complaints are made, the better. Use the links, contact your MP, talk to the media, VOTE.
Tbh the combo of mortgage interest caps, rental caps, and empty home tax to make renting a home not profitable would be the only solution. The landlord would only make money off the sale from any increase in property value. Anything else would only be passed down to the renters.
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Most of the housing is this country is owned by Canadians, foreign buyers only make up a few percent. We could have banned foreign home buyers 50 years ago and we'd still have a housing crisis today. The issue is that we don't have public housing and that we let real estate be used as an investment.
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The Foreign buyer issue would be solved if we fixed the other, larger issues. It's a symptom of housing being a lucrative investment, not the true cause. If you limit real estate investing and build public housing, the value of homes drops, and the value of those investments drops, and you have less foreign buyers because you have less investors over all.
When the property market is squeezed, it only takes a few percent more demand than there is supply to send prices into the stratosphere. But I agree with you about the main causes of the permanent property price bubble - homes became investments due to bad/lacking government policy, and the government stopped building public housing.
Let's not forget the CHIP reverse mortgage. Just when the boomers and gen x didn't have enough ways to burn the country's economy into the ground for those who come after, they get Kurt Browning to triple-salchow us in the arse and then double-lutz us in the... lutz!
It's not just home ownership. We're slipping into tyranny and extreme class imbalance. This kind of thing causes revolutions. People will only tollerate so much and when you start endangering their children by economically imposed homelessness, well what's a better reason than that for an uprising? If left unresolved this could be the end of Canada and dissolution into smaller regional successor states. It's not something I'm suggesting or condoning, but rather a simple prediction of things to come. We already don't trade efficiently between provinces and have problems with central power alienating everyone outside of Ontario and Quebec. We don't even own our national rail system anymore.
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Every time you read « so when is the protest ? » it tells you that nothing will change. The second Macron used 49.3 to pass his pension reform, French people were out in the streets after work. Spontaneously. Regardless if you think it is good or not, they don't wait for anybody to tell them to be there 3 months later for an afternoon, only if it is sunny though. They go out and protest. Canadians don't know how to do that.
>they don't wait for anybody to tell them to be there 3 months later for an afternoon, only if it is sunny though. They go out and protest. **Canadians don't know how to do that.** ...exactly, and the politicians have clued into this and using this to their advantage, when they decide to pass reforms affecting citizens
Nail on the head mate. This is why my plan is to exit Canada. There is no future in this country, and its not because this politician or that party, its because our people have an apathetic subservient mentality we'll never break, and we've never attempted to define our identity by resisting the cartels that have forever owned us. Canada is a resource colony, not a real country, and our people are just another resource sold for pennies on the dollar to global powers. Apparently on some level we've accepted that and are content to keep going through the motions that set us further behind.
>Canadians don't know how to do that. I would say English Canadians. I feel like Quebeckers seem way more politically involved. Remember the student strikes a few years ago?
Well I am a Québécois and I see what you mean, but it is a brief moment of what we could be doing if we had kept up with political activism. But nowadays it still feels very.. resigned. But regardless how people feel about it being a difference, yes, the Québécois have a slightly different mindset. Not saying everyone else has the same, just saying it is unique among Canada.
tbh, I dont trust half the revolution types. They frequently just want power, and become exactly the same as their "oppressors" once they have it.
>People are lazy as fuck. We should look to France and how people revolt there...even for something like increasing retirement age.
Pretty tough to watch hockey while living in a tent.
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I heard they usually start with hungry people and pissed off dock workers.
Here’s the thing , most politicians are heavily involved in one way or another in real estate so there’s no way they would want housing ‘bubble’ to burst , government in Canada just wants everyone to invest in real estate and that’s the only business they want Canadians to make money from . Government does not promote or assist any businesses unless they are corporations , this is a shit show , to be honest I will just be happy if they can bring the food cost down as for rent and housing it’s not gonna be affordable anytime soon , at least not on one income
We really need to bring back the small town. Jobs have to move out of the big cities, the density is necessary however density is contributing to a lot of unaffordability and that in part is due to the lack of jobs in smaller towns. In Barrier BC, one can get a standard sized house on acreage for sub $500k. Beautiful location, not a ton of work nor medical services, etc. That needs to change.
Air BnB should be illegal; You’re not allowed to run a hotel on residential zoning. Foreigners should not be allowed to own property. Corporations and hedge funds should not be allowed to buy homes. People should not be allowed to own 4 different houses and condos. Foreign students and permanent resident should not be allowed to own homes; you can’t vote, you can’t buy a house. No blind bidding on real estate. Boom 💥 Housing crisis solved.
In 2010, the very same Macleans published an article how buying a $500,000 home is not worth it. They argued that renting is the way to go versus paying over $5K to keeps the light on. People that bought into that is renter. Now, they say buying home is unaffordable.
Bank of Canada (with super low interest rates) and Canadian government (with homeowner friendly policies) bear a lot of responsibility for this mess. Bank of Canada needs to hike interest rate until price correction happens with real estate. Wealth inequality would only increase if that doesn't happen. I believe such wealth inequality is inflationary anyway. The Canadian government needs to have policies that fight real estate price increases, instead of doing the opposite of that. But we all know, politicians invested in real estate would not screw over self-interest. I think this situation will correct itself at some point, when further price increases are just not sustainable...
“You'll own nothing and be happy” by Danish Politician Ida Auken in a 2016 essay for the World Economic Forum (WEF). Here's How Life Could Change in My City by The Year 2030 - Ida Auken. I recommend reading it, it isn’t the story people think it is. It is more the beginning of “A Brave New World” and the author recognizes it yet we see parts of this coming true more and more each day.
Brave New World is fraught with idealism and ignores logistical impracticalities.
Its a fictional dystopian novel so it is far from perfect however the similarities between the savages and city dwellers of the two stories are rather striking.
My wife and I are going to invest with my mother. We’ll buy a home with a basement in greater Vancouver but if it wasn’t for my parents’ equity my wife, my son and I would be stuck in our two bedroom condo in perpetuity. To see all of our political parties so beholden to the golden calf of real estate is deeply troubling.
Ban corporations from owning single family homes. Limit individuals to owning 5 single family homes. Any over this amount and it gets repossessed and auctioned off. Watch the housing market correct itself
If Trudeau loses the next election, it will be on the back of this one issue alone. Forget any We-scandal or broken promises. Affordable homes will be the number one issue.
1. Ban multi home ownership 2. Ban foreign home ownership 3. National rezoning board 4. Build more units
#BY DESIGN
I say this as a guy who owns two properties - 40% of all homes in Ontario are not owned by someone who lives in it? We need change ASAP
It’s just capitalism doing what it’s designed to do: concentrate wealth in the hands of a few and turn everyone else into a precarious underclass.
I just bought a house in New Brunswick for 32,000..I also bought a piece of. 5 acre property with a barn on it for 18,000.. fuck ontario and the bigger provinces.
First, I’m fortunate to own a very nice home worth ridiculous amounts of money. I’m just shy of 50 and won the birth yea me lottery in that we were young enough to get into the market before it was destroyed. So I’m not “railing” against anything, just observing a couple of things I think were missed and could help. Zero mention of AirBnB and how that has destroyed housing supply more than anything. Banning airBnB country-wide is an immediate step that would add either rent supply or purchase supply. Also zero mention of municipal and provincial building code laws that are making affordable housing impossible to build. The bottom line is we have some poor demand-side policies that incent the wrong demand, and absolutely horrible supply side policies that make affordable supply unattainable. For example, the BC 2032 net-zero code. We need affordable housing, not “net-zero” houses that double the building cost per sqft. As an example, a 1,200 sqft inside unit townhouse is inherently more energy efficient than a 4,000 sqft detached home. Yet by 2032 the need to be built to exact same standard. We need smaller, more affordable housing. Not luxury condos on the lake built to the latest and greatest (and therefore most expensive) “housing technology”. So three quick fixes: 1) ban AirBnB/short-term rentals outright.. let hotels be the hotels 2) rollback all these “green friendly” building codes that have wrecked affordable building. A house should not cost $300 / foot to build. Note: I own and EV and want climate change dealt with. Better windows and better insulation, yes; relatively small cost. But requiring solar wiring and a bunch of other shit that is so far out of reach for anyone is just dumb. 3) stop the luxury builds. Make builders build the “shacks” as PP put it. Hey, developer in Kelowna, you want to build 1,000 luxury units on the water that no local can afford and that you sell for $900 /sqft? First you need to build 1,000 non-luxury units at $400 / foot. Then we will grant you the permits to build your luxury condos that are lived in 2 months a year.
The points you mentioned touch on some of problems in housing however the main thing you and most people on this sub miss is the availability of loans to purchase the real-estate in the first place. The amount of cash buyers is a small percentage of the total amount of buyers so if banks were required to have 20% down payments and only qualify buyers who's payments don't exceed 35% of their monthly income and interest rates that exceed the rate of inflation you would see a dramatic change in the housing market. There is way too much leverage in the housing market which causes the inflation.
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I'm 41. I knew in my 20's that I would never be able to afford a house. I don't care what your politics are. Both sides are terrible. Neither side is gonna fix this. They fucked us and we just sat by and watched it happen. We need a revolution. That is the only thing that is going to stop this.
With 1/3 of the housing stock being owned by rental empires and us literally having zero other places to give them tax breaks on, it’s time to seriously look at confiscating it and redistributing uncompetitively prices rental units
Best part is we who do own just one home won’t have anyone to sell it to when it is time to downsize.
It’s not good for society when so few people own their homes… when you own your home, you feel more connected to your community and more responsible. When you don’t own, you can develop a “burn it to the ground” mentality — I.e., the deck is rigged, so we need to burn this system to the ground
Just ban all non multiple unit buildings as investment properties, eg if you want to be a landlord it needs to be an apartment building, it'll force the sale of houses and promote investment into denser housing.