Housing affordability is a crisis in Canada

[blackbird]

Watched a lengthy CBC report on the affordability crisis in Canada.  There are rent strikes, evictions and large rent increases.

Much of these apartments buildings are owned or controlled by large corporations and investors.

Some buildings are becoming more run down and upkeep and renovations have been neglected for years.

What is the solution?  Often once they get tenants to leave, the building is renovated and receives large rent increases to cover the costs as well as a return for investors.

The companies who are the landlords have said they do not see themselves as some kind of social agency or subsidized rent service.  The investors behind the companies see it as a business like any other business and feel they deserve to get a fair return on their investments the same as any other company.

This seems to be clearly a responsibility of the federal government which created this housing shortage and rent/mortgage crisis.

How did this situation develop and what has been the federal government's part in creating this crisis?

It is getting to the point where the only solution seems to be the federal government nationalizing these apartment buildings.  This it could become a Communist system like east Germany was.  On top of all this, immigration has been huge and is adding tremendous pressure on housing because of the lack of availability in major cities in Canada.

Affordable housing is vanishing. Are these landlords to blame? | CBC.ca

[CdnFox]

we've done this 100 times. 

As long as there's fewer  homes than we have people this problem persists. If there is a balance between the number of people and the spaces available there is competition, and the prices stay low and the places stay in good repair. 

it's that damn simple. 

So we bring in fewer people to match our construction efforts OR we find ways to increase our production of infrastructure (homes, doctors etc) to keep pace, or even better both. 

Nothing else works, nothing else is relevant. If you have too many people looking for too few goods then prices go up and quality goes down. "I'll take 'Crap we knew 2000 years ago but are just figuring out again' for 500 Alex. 

This has been discussed to death. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Perspektiv said:

Many landlords have abused of "renovictions". This is a commonly used loophole for landlords, and the unintended consequence from governments trying to incentivize renovations to properties. This is nothing new.

I don't know the exact numbers nationally, but definitely do know that there has been rampant abuse of such incentives from landlords since covid-19, seeking to both cash in on current market rates, and get rid of tenants not paying high enough for them to return on their investments quicker.

What we are seeing now are landlords abusing of these loopholes quite aggressively, which also contributed to the skyrocketing rent prices.

The rapid influx of immigrants, are only a second part to the issue, as they simply drove up the demand, further incentivizing the practice which was still happening long before.

Covid-19 sort of created a domino effect. You see governments that made it impossible for landlords to increase their rents, and painfully difficult to evict tenants.

Then those protections disappeared. What do you think is going to happen?

I don't think there is a simple solution to this problem.

Some cities are looking into more bureaucracy  making harder to renovict tenants. I just see this increasing the cost of owning a property, and disentivizing repairs or renovations. 

There are multiple solutions, but one of the wisest would obviously be slowing down the influx of people.

There are however, multiple layers to this problem.

Our rental bureaucracy system is broken in Canada, and you can't fix this problem, without looking into it, too.

A good summary.  Don't lose sight of the corporate takeover of housing and the implications for ordinary working people.

Lobbying could achieve for housing what it did for immigration.

[West]

8 hours ago, blackbird said:

Watched a lengthy CBC report on the affordability crisis in Canada.  There are rent strikes, evictions and large rent increases.

Much of these apartments buildings are owned or controlled by large corporations and investors.

Some buildings are becoming more run down and upkeep and renovations have been neglected for years.

What is the solution?  Often once they get tenants to leave, the building is renovated and receives large rent increases to cover the costs as well as a return for investors.

The companies who are the landlords have said they do not see themselves as some kind of social agency or subsidized rent service.  The investors behind the companies see it as a business like any other business and feel they deserve to get a fair return on their investments the same as any other company.

This seems to be clearly a responsibility of the federal government which created this housing shortage and rent/mortgage crisis.

How did this situation develop and what has been the federal government's part in creating this crisis?

It is getting to the point where the only solution seems to be the federal government nationalizing these apartment buildings.  This it could become a Communist system like east Germany was.  On top of all this, immigration has been huge and is adding tremendous pressure on housing because of the lack of availability in major cities in Canada.

Affordable housing is vanishing. Are these landlords to blame? | CBC.ca

This is what many folks like myself were saying when we started rapidly increasing our population faster than the infrastructure and housing that would allow for it. 

Instead of listening, people were called racists. Almost like this was by design. 

Well here we are and many public funded institutions are in bad shape as well.

[Michael Hardner]

18 minutes ago, West said:

This is what many folks like myself were saying when we started rapidly increasing our population faster than the infrastructure and housing that would allow for it. 

Instead of listening, people were called racists.  

Well, often people would say something like immigrants had values incompatible with democracy, or somesuch so it wasn't like people were calling economic arguments 'racist'.  But if you have an example, we'd be glad to admoish the poster who said that.

[West]

38 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well, often people would say something like immigrants had values incompatible with democracy, or somesuch so it wasn't like people were calling economic arguments 'racist'.  But if you have an example, we'd be glad to admoish the poster who said that.

The other day I was listening to a debate for city mayor. There's a very far left person running and that was essentially the crux of her argument. 

They give out these freebies to new immigrants for business startups while the university grad who's parents are paying for said freebies get nothing and have to find their own way. If you oppose you get called names.

Just one example. 

You also hear it all the time in the press. Anything less than full surrender to mass immigration is considered racist. Which isn't really much of an argument to begin with. 

It's not just housing. But education as well.. where there's a shortage of EAs and teachers are expected to modify course content to students who don't speak English, placing strain on resources in the classroom. 

I get it's a catch 22 especially in industries like agriculture who have issues getting their crops off in time due to labor shortages. But there's still pretty significant impacts on everything from hospital wait times to housing to classrooms that's really crippled with even a smallest percentage of an increase.

This also played a role on why we all had to muzzle up and governments got overly involved in how many people a health 30 something year old could have in their homes during covid

[ExFlyer]

Not sure what people are deeming the "housing crisis" is.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association sales are better than last year. Of course, not nearly as good as the panic buying COVID years but s good as if not better than 2018 to 2021.

• National home sales edged back 0.7% month-over-month in July.

• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) monthly activity came in 4.8% above July 2023.

• The number of newly listed properties ticked up 0.9% month-over-month.

• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) edged up 0.2% month-over-month but was down 3.9% year-over-year.

• The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average sale price was almost unchanged (-0.2%) on a year-over-year basis in July."

https://stats.crea.ca/en-CA/

Have prices gone up? For sure but housing is still selling.Prices are purely a supply and demand issue and, sellers taking advantage of that.

Blaming immigrants is nonsensical. There is no evidence or proof or even talk about immigrants causing or directing or a factor in the housing sales issue.

 

 

Edited September 10 by ExFlyer

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

Many landlords have abused of "renovictions". This is a commonly used loophole for landlords, and the unintended consequence from governments trying to incentivize renovations to properties. This is nothing new.

I don't know the exact numbers nationally, but definitely do know that there has been rampant abuse of such incentives from landlords since covid-19, seeking to both cash in on current market rates, and get rid of tenants not paying high enough for them to return on their investments quicker.

What we are seeing now are landlords abusing of these loopholes quite aggressively, which also contributed to the skyrocketing rent prices.

The rapid influx of immigrants, are only a second part to the issue, as they simply drove up the demand, further incentivizing the practice which was still happening long before.

Covid-19 sort of created a domino effect. You see governments that made it impossible for landlords to increase their rents, and painfully difficult to evict tenants.

Then those protections disappeared. What do you think is going to happen?

I don't think there is a simple solution to this problem.

Some cities are looking into more bureaucracy  making harder to renovict tenants. I just see this increasing the cost of owning a property, and disentivizing repairs or renovations. 

There are multiple solutions, but one of the wisest would obviously be slowing down the influx of people.

There are however, multiple layers to this problem.

Our rental bureaucracy system is broken in Canada, and you can't fix this problem, without looking into it, too.

Complete bullshit. 

Landlord have a right to renovate and repair their property. Nobody has a right to rent the same place forever. 

And if there were enough places this wouldn't matter.  Landlords would be very cautious about doing it becasue there'd be no guarantee the places would re-rent quickly after the fact. 

 

[Michael Hardner]

31 minutes ago, West said:

The other day I was listening to a debate for city mayor. There's a very far left person running and that was essentially the crux of her argument. 

They give out these freebies to new immigrants for business startups while the university grad who's parents are paying for said freebies get nothing and have to find their own way. If you oppose you get called names.

Just one example. 

You also hear it all the time in the press. Anything less than full surrender to mass immigration is considered racist. Which isn't really much of an argument to begin with. 

It's not just housing. But education as well.. where there's a shortage of EAs and teachers are expected to modify course content to students who don't speak English, placing strain on resources in the classroom. 

I get it's a catch 22 especially in industries like agriculture who have issues getting their crops off in time due to labor shortages. But there's still pretty significant impacts on everything from hospital wait times to housing to classrooms that's really crippled with even a smallest percentage of an increase.

This also played a role on why we all had to muzzle up and governments got overly involved in how many people a health 30 something year old could have in their homes during covid

Well, I for one read lots of coverage that talks about the negative effects of immigration.  I will give an example after you give the one I already asked for.

[CdnFox]

21 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

 

Have prices gone up? For sure but housing is still selling.

And rental places are still renting

But the price of owning a home now represents well over 33% of people's income, often as much as 50%. That is basically the definition of poverty. Rents are the same, you can still rent a place but it's going to cost you so much money that approximately the bottom 20% of the Canadian population can't even afford it.

That's why it's a crisis. People cannot afford the homes that they're living in and they can't afford to be without a home. They are going broke, they are relying on food banks and charity, in many cases they are skipping meals

If you already owned a home you're fine. But a young couple in their 30s these days will have one hell of a time buying a place to live ever in their lifetimes unless they get lucky with the bank of mom and Dad. And was rents going up if you don't own you could find yourself priced out of that market pretty quick too.

And as far as immigrants go, they are really struggling to find places to live that they can afford with their lower incomes

[West]

14 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well, I for one read lots of coverage that talks about the negative effects of immigration.  I will give an example after you give the one I already asked for.

I did already. The mayoral debate. 

A few days ago some people were arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on a synagogue down east. You'd agree that this is incompatible with western civilization, would you not? 

Edited September 10 by West

[Michael Hardner]

29 minutes ago, West said:

I did already. The mayoral debate. 

A few days ago some people were arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on a synagogue down east. You'd agree that this is incompatible with western civilization, would you not? 

Well, forgive me but if you don't have a link I can't just accept your characterization of what was said, given that I already challenged your previous statement.

Of course violence is incompatible with culture we want to foster, but there's no way to project this incident on to mass policy if that's what you mean.

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

And rental places are still renting

But the price of owning a home now represents well over 33% of people's income, often as much as 50%. That is basically the definition of poverty. Rents are the same, you can still rent a place but it's going to cost you so much money that approximately the bottom 20% of the Canadian population can't even afford it.

That's why it's a crisis. People cannot afford the homes that they're living in and they can't afford to be without a home. They are going broke, they are relying on food banks and charity, in many cases they are skipping meals

If you already owned a home you're fine. But a young couple in their 30s these days will have one hell of a time buying a place to live ever in their lifetimes unless they get lucky with the bank of mom and Dad. And was rents going up if you don't own you could find yourself priced out of that market pretty quick too.

And as far as immigrants go, they are really struggling to find places to live that they can afford with their lower incomes

The stats form the Canadian Real Estate Association demonstrates the housing sales are back to where they were pre COVID crisis panic price sales years. (or very close) Where prices went sky high and seemingly stayed there.

Thing is the folks that over bid and over bought during the COVID crisis are now feeling the effects of that. They are living in overpriced homes and cannot sell them for less.

Yes, rental owners are still renting and yes, they are charging more but, that is because it costs more to maintain, to repair and to pay taxes, wages for management and services, services themselves (plumbers, electricians etc). Landlords are not a charity. They are in a business for profit...like every other business. Go ask a store owner for cheaper food or booze or clothes. or a car...you will get laughed at.

If immigrants are having difficulty, so is everyone else.

Edited September 10 by ExFlyer

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

The stats form the Canadian Real Estate Association demonstrates the housing sales are back to where they were pre COVID crisis panic price sales years. (or very close) Where prices went sky high and seemingly stayed there.

Yes.  That despite the fact the population has increased radically and it's becoming harder and harder to afford. 

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Thing is the folks that over bid and over bought during the COVID crisis are now feeling the effects of that. They are living in overpriced homes and cannot sell them for less.

Sure but we had a crisis before covid.

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Yes, rental owners are still renting and yes, they are charging more but, that is because it costs more to maintain, to repair and to pay taxes. Landlords are not a charity. They are in a business for profit...like every other business. Go ask a store owner for cheaper food or booze or clothes. or a car...you will get laughed at.

Again, sure but it's mostly  a supply issue.  Absolutely prices have increased with inflation because it costs more to maintain it but most of the price increases come from supply issues. IF there's enough places, land doesn't sell for as high, homes don't sell for as high, and subsequently rents aren't as high. 

Quote

If immigrants are having difficulty, so is everyone else.

That's true, but for those who were born and raised here there's already sort of a natural support mechanism for that.  For immigrants it can slow or stall their integration into our society and we've see what that looks like in france and england. 

[ExFlyer]

9 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Yes.  That despite the fact the population has increased radically and it's becoming harder and harder to afford. 

Sure but we had a crisis before covid.

Again, sure but it's mostly  a supply issue.  Absolutely prices have increased with inflation because it costs more to maintain it but most of the price increases come from supply issues. IF there's enough places, land doesn't sell for as high, homes don't sell for as high, and subsequently rents aren't as high. 

That's true, but for those who were born and raised here there's already sort of a natural support mechanism for that.  For immigrants it can slow or stall their integration into our society and we've see what that looks like in france and england. 

As the Canadian Real Estate Association chart shows, bo, COVID years was the housing crisis trigger.

I have always said housing and prices are a supply and demand problem.

What is the "natural support mechanism"? 

Many immigrants come here with lost of money. We have even gas to put restrictions on non resident immigrant housing purchases.

What does what look like in England and France?

 

[herbie]

Watch British TV shows and note the flats and rowhouses.
Don't think those would be popular in the eyes of the affordable housing complainers in N America. Nor would Soviet blockhouses or US 'project housing'.

We have a serious very complicated problem that absolutely no govt at any level can snap their fingers and solve. All levels working together can only make a dent.
A kid that worked for me is turning 30 and owns 4 houses, rents out 3. His Dad owns 14 spread from BC to Ont. Another guy bought half the trailers and the mobile court himself and rents them. Are they good guys or evil slumlords? The problem or the solution? Do we regulate the real estate freemarket or deregulate it?
Those are some of the things we need to decide.
 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Blaming immigrants is nonsensical.

I would have to agree. I think they may have factored into rental costs (by skyrocketing the demand),  but the average newcomer isn't buying a house. Also many newcomers are simply moving in with family, or will likely move in together.

Also, immigrants are just as victimized. Many are being forced to pay 6 or more months of rent up front, illegally by landlords knowing many of these newcomers aren't aware of their rights, yet need a place to stay.

I mean, if they contribute, its via unintended consequences, and incompetent government policy. The immigrants themselves, can't be held responsible for this.

[blackbird]

Immigrants say it's not their fault.  LOL.  What would we expect them to say?

[impartialobserver]

housing affordability is a crisis everywhere except the midwestern US. 

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

As the Canadian Real Estate Association chart shows, bo, COVID years was the housing crisis trigger.

 

Not even a little bit.  The housing crisis was already beginning in 2015.  Trudeau campaigned on it during that year. 

The last time homes were really affordable was 2003-2004 according to the cmhc.

Canada’s Housing Supply Shortage: Restoring affordability by 2030 | CMHC (cmhc-schl.gc.ca)

The problem slowly got worse till 2015, then it took off. 

It has been estimated that between 2016 and 2022 we built 100,000 too few homes per year on average for our growth.  It is estimated that at THIS point we're over a million homes short and that is increasing every single year.  

And housing starts have fallen since those reports. 

We had a problem - trudeau's rampant increase in population growth without concern for the infrastructure turned it into a crisis. It is now a disaster and if things continue we will be short of what we need by tens of millions of homes. 

The crisis did not start in 2020 with covid. 

And nothing whatsoever is going to solve it until the number of homes is adequate for the population. Period. 

8 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Immigrants say it's not their fault.  LOL.  What would we expect them to say?

It's not their fault. 

They were told to come, they were told it would be great and we'd love to have them by a gov't who did not give a rats ass there was no where for them to live. 

They didn't know.  This is trudeau's fault. His own people warned him years ago this is what would happen. 

[West]

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well, forgive me but if you don't have a link I can't just accept your characterization of what was said, given that I already challenged your previous statement.

Of course violence is incompatible with culture we want to foster, but there's no way to project this incident on to mass policy if that's what you mean.

Please explain. I think a perfectly good policy would be to avoid accepting immigration from a country that wants to wage war on Canada as just one example.

I'm not saying all people there do but enough to question why you'd want to put the safety and wellbeing of your citizens at risk just to prove your virtue. 

Just to be up front about my position on immigration I don't have an issue if 1. They share our values of peace and prosperity and 2. If our existing institutions can handle such a thing without contributing to spiraling inflation and housing shortages for the people who already live here. 

Edited September 10 by West

[West]

14 hours ago, CdnFox said:

we've done this 100 times. 

As long as there's fewer  homes than we have people this problem persists. If there is a balance between the number of people and the spaces available there is competition, and the prices stay low and the places stay in good repair. 

it's that damn simple. 

So we bring in fewer people to match our construction efforts OR we find ways to increase our production of infrastructure (homes, doctors etc) to keep pace, or even better both. 

Nothing else works, nothing else is relevant. If you have too many people looking for too few goods then prices go up and quality goes down. "I'll take 'Crap we knew 2000 years ago but are just figuring out again' for 500 Alex. 

This has been discussed to death. 

The social experiment the Progressives pushed on everyone has been destructive. 

Harm reduction and letting a free flow of drugs has rotted out communities. 

Mass immigration has had catastrophic impacts on housing shortages, spiraling inflation and have led to targeting of Jewish synagogue. 

Next they want to do universal basic income which will be another disaster. 

Their only real argument is emotionally abusing people into accepting failed policy. 

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

100%. But if you know many landlords like I do, many are guilty of faking repairs, or not completing them, just to give the boot to a tenant, or force them to pay a much higher rent. 

And? 

seriously - the gov't passes laws that unreasonably and unfairly regulate what people can and can't do with their own property.  in retaliation those people follow the law to the very edge to try to use their property the way they'd like 

Meanwhile during covid the gov't decides landlords should provide the social safety net for free and makes it illegal to evict people EVEN IF THEY"RE NOT PAYING THEIR RENT during covid. Owners, many of whom are simply people who managed to scrape together enough to buy an extra place as an investment, now have to pay for these people to live rent free and do whatever damage they want to the place. Many suffer serious financial hardship as a result. 

That's pretty fair, right?

There's a dozen other examples almost as bad.  There's no 'landlords rights' to speak of.  Landlords are treated like the evil step mom in a disney movie. 

And now the 'nice' ones are almost totally driven out of the market and they're not coming back soon. As a result housing starts are down.  the only people willing to rent are Mega corporations who can buy up properties and pay for the lawyers and staff to really grind the hell out of the tenants. There are fewer and fewer Mom and Pops out there every month.

Do you know how many rental properties in Canada are made each year that aren't absolutely forced on the Developers by the government in order to secure a property that they really want to develop? It is beyond tiny. Nobody wants to rent, and the people that do want to rent are the megacorps that are the last people you'd want to rent from because of these stupid laws, because that's what landlords have been forced to, and the people are going to pay a higher price

Edited September 10 by CdnFox

[DUI_Offender]

Canada should ban home ownership for new Canadians for their first 5 years. People from China and India are buying so many homes that it's making it unaffordable for everyone.

[CdnFox]

34 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

About as fair as renovictions being used in predatory fashion, so no.

And yet there's tonnes of things like that. And i don't see anyone standing up and saying 'Hey if it isn't fair to landlords then they won't be there for us". 

So there you go. 

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If you rent me a space within your property, sure you own it, but I pay for my space within it. I think its rather reasonable for me to have rights, too.

You have rights to use it while you rent it, but not to rent it forever. What other thing do we rent in our society where we demand that the person renting it then has a right to it forever?

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I have heard of tenants from hell, as well as landlords from hell.

The one necessitates the other these days. 

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Both should be protected. 

Well call me when that happens.

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The loudest minority make the demographic  look bad. As a black person, I would say, welcome to my world.

Its a bad look to push people out of their apartments in the heat of an outbreak that made many lose their jobs.

 

Fine - then have the gov't step up and pay their rent so they don't get kicked out. That way everybody chips in. 

But landlords are not there for 'looks'.  They did NOT sign on to to single handedly pay for canada's social safety net in times of trouble. 

And THEN when inflation went up and their costs soared the gov't said "ohhh sorry, i know we've been saying you can raise rents with inflation but that's when there was none. now that their is  you can't raise rents to match it, you'll have to just spend your own money supporting these people. 

So guess what happens.  You know there was a grant here in bc where basically if you agreed to build a basement suite and rent it out the gov't would pay most of it just to get some new rentals on the market? Almost nobody took them up on it. nobody wanted to risk being a landlord these days. 

 

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I think you're focusing on one side. There have been tenants abusing of these loopholes, but also landlords abusing of their tenants, making such legislative actions feel necessary, albeit bringing with it unintended consequences.

Only one side ever gets discussed. And when you say abusing the rules what you really mean is they want to use their property the way that they want to use their property and not lose money. Why should there be a law that says if you rent you must rent for eternity and you have no right to raise that rent to market value? Why does renting to someone mean that you give up your rights to your property till the end of time?

At the very least let them ACTUALLY increase rents to match inflation or mortgage rates. That was a pretty cruel stab in the back, the gov't creates inflation and then expects land lords to foot the bill for it. 

Making it a requirement to give reasonable notice is one thing. You can't kick someone out on the street at the end of the month. But making a tenant a form of co-ownership is wrong and all it does is leave you with fewer landlords and meaner ones.  And nobody is willing to talk about it.  But unfair renovictions, we'll discuss that all day and night in our country right now. 

If you don't like renting buy your own place. 

 

23 minutes ago, DUI_Offender said:

Canada should ban home ownership for new Canadians for their first 5 years. People from China and India are buying so many homes that it's making it unaffordable for everyone.

That's just dumb.  we know that the homes are not empty. So even if someoen else owned them there wouldn't be enough homes for people and the prices would still be high.  Foreign ownership doesn't make a damn bit of difference at this point.