Someone Explain This So Called Housing Crisis?

[Islam Imamate]

Yes as a homeowner, I wouldn't want my home devalued by high density housing. I wouldn't want to deal with higher rates of crime, auto theft and home burglaries either.

They can build high density housing on empty lots of property that aren't in good neighborhoods.

Some of the best neighborhoods have multifamily units in my metro area. I've worked in construction which meant doing jobs in upscale neighborhoods and I've seen multiplexes in the middle of a high end SFH neighborhood. The buildings looked historic so my guess is they are older neighborhoods where these properties are grandfathered in.

When people think "low income" they assume it means the lower classes and especially non-whites and immigrants but in many cases the people living in these multifamily units in upscale neighborhoods are young people from the upper middle class who are starting their careers. So yes they're "poorer" but they're not exactly the dregs of society. If its a prime location the units will still be expensive relative to the wider metro area, its just that they're cheaper than living in the surrounding SFHs.

From what I've read here in the US there is about a shortage of 1 million homes. that has created a housing shortage crisis. Home builders are reportedly not building as many new homes due to increased regulations written 10 years ago, making it more difficult and more expensive to create a house. To buy a new home in the US you need an income of over $100,000 it was announced last month.

Hope regulations are eased so some new homes can be made. I have my doubts that will happen while Biden is in office though.

Its not people like Biden who are for these regulations, its NIMBYs at the local level like the guy I replied to above.

 

[Islam Imamate]

So you want to create a stratified and segregated society based on income? Aka you want to the do same thing that led to the current hosting crisis. Brilliant.

Where would you build high density, more affordable housing?

What people like that don't realize is that in many cases they're not shutting out criminals or addicts, they're shutting out young middle class folks who need a cheaper place when starting their careers. But their selfishness and shortsightedness blinds them to this fact.

 

[boingyman]

Or just move to the Deep South

 

[jx820]

Taking this together with what I was saying to @Unknown Pleasures leads me to also mention how angry I am with the Bank of Canada.

The reason people are clenching their anuses so tightly here is the BoC won't cut interest rates until at least June, the fucking motherfuckers. I'm no expert but it's still really clear they have this situation ass-backwards and their refusal to start lowering rates sooner is the cause of this mass puckering. It's plain as fucking day.

Inflation on food prices is nearly in line with the goal rate, last measured at 2.4% so now it's mainly the high cost of home ownership that makes things seem so bad to people.

I'd expect that when interest goes down the demand for mortgages (and by proxy housing) will increase and drive prices up.

 

[avenue94]

Yes as a homeowner, I wouldn't want my home devalued by high density housing. I wouldn't want to deal with higher rates of crime, auto theft and home burglaries either.

They can build high density housing on empty lots of property that aren't in good neighborhoods.

Why should your home be exempt from market forces? That's like arguing that there should be a limit on car production so that my brand new car holds its value better.

They can build high density housing on empty lots of property that aren't in good neighborhoods.

So you want to make housing even more expensive by increasing infrastructure costs to create new housing, and as a cherry on top, you want to make new housing purposefully less desirable by making sure it's in bumfuck and not near economic opportunities.

You might as well as have just said you want the government to tailor all of its policies to you the silly individual, and fuck the millions of other US citizens.

Hope regulations are eased so some new homes can be made. I have my doubts that will happen while Biden is in office though.

Most regulations that restirct supply are at the state and local level. See the lovely nimby above and you'll see why building housing is so hard.

 

[Dalarna3]

Not enough homes built, not enough areas worthwhile to live in, so there’s a crush. Too many new people to house. Not enough multi family buildings for said new people

 

[terrapin]

You live in a bubble and you said yourself you've not given the topic 10 minutes' thought.

There are a million adults in this country enrolled as students in college/university. They rent.

Over half a million people received temporary foreign worker permits in 2023. They rent.

In 2022 over 18 million people in this country were counted as single. The population of Canada is only ~40 million. And what percentage of single people are in the market for a house, do you suppose?

Try putting some more thought into something before you decide it's bullshit.

You've got to be one of the biggest assholes on this site and I feel sorry for you. I think you are so toxic you can't even read or respond or discuss things in good faith. I'm having a friendly conversation with people and then you come in like some insane person. I can't even relate to it....

A person like you is not going to be conscious enough to understand how damaging that is to your life, but you are a source of toxicity in this world and I feel sorry for you for that. It must be very hard for you to be you.

 

[Scheme]

Respectully, I disagree the reasons for growth of rural/suburban areas is a result of Covid-19 and being able to work from home. It might have played a small factor, but cities were headed in the direction of the current problem anyways. I would suspect it is because people either can't afford the urban units, or the banks will not go that high on a pre-approval/approval so people more or less have to look outside the cities regardless.

People can't just move to suburban/rural areas willy-nilly, they are geographically bound by their jobs generally. Remote work has removed that boundary as of recent for tens of millions of Americans.

Surprisingly to me, suburban house price per square foot actually surpassed urban house price per square foot as per Redfin data:

Square Footage Is Now Worth More in the Suburbs Than Cities

As home prices fall fastest in cities and mortgage rates rise, the value of a square foot in the suburbs has caught up with that of urban centers.

www.redfin.com

With price growth in rural and suburban areas increasing much faster than cities, this would go against your argument that people are moving due to not being able to afford the prices in urban areas. All else being equal I think that millions of Americans have moved to rural/suburban areas since they were no longer geographically bound by cities, causing their prices to go up disproportionately compared to city prices.

As per that Redfin link as well, the average rural house costs more than the average urban house. That is likely due to the difference in square footage, but from a pure affordability point of view this would also favour urban areas.

Mortgage lenders should be more than enthused with the current mortgage rates to give out loans. Given that actual nominal house prices have remained steady for the past few years, the majority of the cost increases is actually in interest payments which benefits the lender. This is further skewed by the fact that there is actually less demand for mortgages as well due to high interest rates, the current mortgage lenders would be more incentivized to give out loans to keep their revenues up with a smaller pool of demand.

 

[Natural Order]

I don't think it's a full on ban-but whatever; what legislation has been passed is quite recent. I think it's no surprise the first signs of rapid inflation in housing prices was in Vancouver, BC and more or less spread west to east. PEI was likely last to be affected because of our strict laws on out of province ownership, there being so little land to begin with.

I believe it just took longer for people to figure out how to game the system here and then away we went, just like every other province.

Check this out,

Consider the difference between the period from 2014-2018 and 2019-2023. The mean house price in the US is not even as high as $400,000 FFS. But yeah, that's all on account of immigrants coming in and living 10 to a domicile. Riiiiiight, got it.

The Buddhists bought it all up!

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

In Europe it's the same thing.
A couple that both work, can only afford the cheapest houses.
Only when you already bought a house, which went up in value the past 10 years,
can buy a 'normal' house

 

[Natural Order]

0.8% vacancy rate here in Nova Scotia I believe. A 2 bedroom apartment 3 years ago was $1400. It's $2400 now. And I'm in the armpit of Canada.

Best part of all is that the immigration flood gates are wide open at the same time. It's fucked up like a soup sandwich and will take something drastic to correct. My gut is telling me some very bad things in the next 2 years. May have to think about moving the family, even possibly out of Canada. This place is going to be Haiti in 15 years at this rate.

 

[Kassitus]

Trudeau is letting in 1.2 million per year into a country that is only a few decades removed from having a population of less than 20 million. Our infrastructure never had a chance to accommodate this. The root cause is investment firms who buy up land, demolish everything and build condos, and pay off politicians to make sure the demand is increased with immigration to drive up prices.

 

[PBAC]

in the netherlands a tonne of the apartments are purchased by Chinese scalping bots half a second after they up and go straight to Chinese tenants, who pay a fee to be given priority by the scalpers. Actually this is likely the same all over Europe. There's an entire market in China targeting the western housing market.

In Ireland the homes went under and were taken over by the National Assets Management Agency who can't rent or sell properties. Currently there are a shit tonne of vacant properties that can't be leased out.

 

[STRYDG]

Nailed it.
Also, developers no longer want to build starter homes - small homes with one or two bedrooms that are affordable for those who have never before bought a home. They only want to build McMansions now.

I dont understand this. Especially in our area a developer will buy a property , good house and good sized yard, bulldoze that bitch then fill it with 4 to 6 houses.

How in the fuckiscle do these houses cost 800k each (when the original house/land cost around 1.5mil) when you get fuck all land, can basically high five your neighbour through the windows and dont even have a space to park your car?

This infill housing is ruining our area and infrustrature cant keep up. Would be nice if the greedy fucks could just make regular 3 bedroom houses or even 2 bedroom units but everything is profit now.

 

[Andy Capp]

I'd expect that when interest goes down the demand for mortgages (and by proxy housing) will increase and drive prices up.

But people who don't really need to give a fuck about housing prices right this minute because they already own one are also puckering for no other reason than apprehension. The lack of growth in the economy is pretty much just due to people's worry about the economy.

 

[Andy Capp]

0.8% vacancy rate here in Nova Scotia I believe. A 2 bedroom apartment 3 years ago was $1400. It's $2400 now. And I'm in the armpit of Canada.

Best part of all is that the immigration flood gates are wide open at the same time. It's fucked up like a soup sandwich and will take something drastic to correct. My gut is telling me some very bad things in the next 2 years. May have to think about moving the family, even possibly out of Canada. This place is going to be Haiti in 15 years at this rate.

I think that's the textbook example of clutching yer pearls.

 

[Broke Lester]

How about reading articles from experts if you're actually curious to learn.

Most of the replies in the thread are just heresay opinions and bro science.

Funny, the so called experts were under the opinion that there would be a market crash in Toronto for the last 25 plus years, never happened.

 

[Andy Capp]

I don’t think the math supports that. The % of owner occupied homes in the US and Canada have been very stable over time. Homeownership in the US and Canada are, and have been in the upper 60% range steadily.

It's still a racket. Like the collectables market. People in the know sell them back and forth, raising prices all the while, then dump them on a sucker.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

But people who don't really need to give a fuck about housing prices right this minute because they already own one are also puckering for no other reason than apprehension. The lack of growth in the economy is pretty much just due to people's worry about the economy.

I think to be fair if you have say a half million mortgage and you know when you re fi you have to pay say 4% more interest that's an extra $20,000 a year. Puckering up is probably the right play. Of course that's only a fraction of the case of everyone who got money, but it probably leaks into rental prices too.

 

[Andy Capp]

I'd expect that when interest goes down the demand for mortgages (and by proxy housing) will increase and drive prices up.

That's a good argument for why barriers to increasing supply should be where efforts to address the issue are focused.