Canada wants to make homes affordable without crushing prices

Whenever they say "I don't want to drive down prices" that demonstrates a fundamental unseriousness about the crisis.

It seems to me that increasing supply alone is not going to cut it. Are there not a bunch of financial groups with nearly bottomless wallets that enable them to afford to buy up any amount of property to rent or flip at any price they want, even if it means some properties sit on the market empty for a long time? This government policy seems analogous to having people with $100 dollars sitting at a no-limit poker table with a bunch of billionaires who can afford to endlessly put you all in on every bet, so they always bet more than you have and then the government comes in and says they will allow for more games to be played. Wouldn’t the policy be pointless if you don’t also limit the number of games the wealthy players can play?

Canada wants to eat it's cake while also having it. Something like 60% of Canadians own their home or live in a home their parents own. 40% of a country is more than sufficient to tear the country apart if they lose faith in the society they live in. Allowing housing to become investments has been a mistake that needs to be corrected for the long term stability of the nation.

They want the existing houses to remain expensive while the new houses somehow are cheap? Sounds like they're wishing for a magic trick, or are trying to put lipstick on their business-as-usual pig.

Just tax homes past a primary residence like Singapore. We know it works and at least it'll be real obvious those against are the immoral asses we thought they were

Those two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other.

And I want a unicorn!! 🦄

Call me a radical, but this is a speculation issue. Stop allowing homes to be the object of speculation by limiting the amount of properties people can buy/have.

Yeah that won't happen. Houses just get bought up by those who can afford so they a) can rent them out and b) use it as a safe investment. House prices need to come back down to fix this anytime soon so they can't be seen as an investment.

"I want to stop being an alcoholic but I'd like to drink occasionally"

There is a logic to this. Private developers will not make multi-year, large capital investments in something if they think that its value is guaranteed to decrease. That should be obvious.

And we desperately need to increase supply. For better or worse, we do still live in a capitalist society so its going to be up to the private sector to increase supply, with the govt providing an incentivizing role. The govt ever saying anything like "we need to bring house prices down" would paralyze private sector investment into building houses.

FWIW, in my esteemed position as an armchair big-social-problems-fixer, the solution is obvious: Govt investment/subsidies to convert downtown commercial real estate towers into condos. Instead of forcing people back to the office to salvage what's left of the real estate value for those empty towers. The owners get their handout, people can continue to work from home, it's good for the environment too! I dunno, I think it makes sense.

Selfishly want Canada to road test some ridiculous tax for residential properties that you own but don’t personally reside in. 50% progressive increase in property taxes for every residential property beyond the one you live in or something.

I wish they would raise the HBP limit for RRSP that can be used towards a downpayment. It's not like I'm going to be able to retire with that if I can't build equity beforehand.

From the CRA "Currently, the HBP withdrawal limit is $35,000. This applies to withdrawals made after March 19, 2019."

From the article "Recent surges — prices have risen 36 per cent in three years"

So it should be closer to $50,000. Maybe $60, 000 would be better to account for prices continuing to rise while we wait for something to be done to improve the situation.

Maybe we need to be more vocal? 🤔

Contact the Prime Minister https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/connect/contact

I'm guessing he has a few investment properties already.

Housing as an investment is the problem. They dont want to stop that so fuck the poors i guess :/

Canada International Billionaires want to make homes places where poor people live affordable profitable without crushing prices

*fixed your headline

Possibly making a statement before election. Doubt government has any intention make housing affordable.

"I want you to buy a home at this price."

I can't afford that.

"But what if you paid anyway..."

Interesting to compare with this: https://thewalrus.ca/there-is-no-housing-crisis/

I read an article a while back that argued the only way to really make housing affordable is to build MASSIVE amounts of housing.

Supply and demand is at least part of the problem.