Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he has apologized to a woman in Niagara Falls, Ont. for calling her home a 'tiny little shack' in an attempt to illustrate high housing costs in the area.
It’d stop landlords from hoarding housing. A large part of the issue is that we have a newly-minted class of investor-dudebro that’s snapping up housing and redlining rent to maximize profit.
Because people could (hopefully) buy into the market instead of renting, it’d minimize the number of people in the rental market out of necessity instead of choice.
I’m in the latter camp: would love to buy, but got kicked out of the market via divorce and I can’t see a path back in ever.
You’re correct that it might see a net-negative number of available rentals, but that’s a solveable problem (via purpose-built rentals and public housing).
Both solutions, though, require government intervention, curtailing of the accumulation of wealth, and deliberate policy decisions. Both Team Red and Team Blue are allergic to stuff like that.
In the long run, purpose-built rentals (including 3+ bedroom units for families) is far more important to addressing the root cause of the housing issue. IMHO limiting independent landlord ownership is a bit like cleaning out a gunshot wound.
I know this isn’t a popular thought in some circles, but reigning in immigration until the housing stock has recovered is a vital part of the solution going forward.
The trouble is our current demographics mean that reducing immigration would have massive downsides to the economy too.
There are just too many people retiring (now and over the next decade). Without immigration to have a large enough workforce to support the people retiring, the economy will contract. Contracting economies are terrible for citizens and their countries.
The on top of that, the people retiring have a proportionally large amount of wealth. That will cause a lot of demand on our economy. If we do not have equally high immigration to increase the supply of our economy, inflation will go very high to balance supply and demand by decreasing the value of retirees savings.
Not an easy problem to deal with, big tradeoffs every way. But compared to other countries we are better situated because we can avoid the worst tradeoffs by using immigration to solve this problem. If we can figure out how to significantly increase the amount and density of our housing, Canada will be in a great position globally.
This would obviously make it cheaper to buy a home, but what would the impact be to the rental market?
Two ways:
I’m in the latter camp: would love to buy, but got kicked out of the market via divorce and I can’t see a path back in ever.
You’re correct that it might see a net-negative number of available rentals, but that’s a solveable problem (via purpose-built rentals and public housing).
Both solutions, though, require government intervention, curtailing of the accumulation of wealth, and deliberate policy decisions. Both Team Red and Team Blue are allergic to stuff like that.
In the long run, purpose-built rentals (including 3+ bedroom units for families) is far more important to addressing the root cause of the housing issue. IMHO limiting independent landlord ownership is a bit like cleaning out a gunshot wound.
I know this isn’t a popular thought in some circles, but reigning in immigration until the housing stock has recovered is a vital part of the solution going forward.
The trouble is our current demographics mean that reducing immigration would have massive downsides to the economy too.
There are just too many people retiring (now and over the next decade). Without immigration to have a large enough workforce to support the people retiring, the economy will contract. Contracting economies are terrible for citizens and their countries.
The on top of that, the people retiring have a proportionally large amount of wealth. That will cause a lot of demand on our economy. If we do not have equally high immigration to increase the supply of our economy, inflation will go very high to balance supply and demand by decreasing the value of retirees savings.
Not an easy problem to deal with, big tradeoffs every way. But compared to other countries we are better situated because we can avoid the worst tradeoffs by using immigration to solve this problem. If we can figure out how to significantly increase the amount and density of our housing, Canada will be in a great position globally.