391–400 of 1001 posts
Housing cannot be both affordable and a good investment / retirement plan. Most people's primary savings are the equity in their home. Governments are in for a real sticky treat.
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I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think to promote everyone's owning a house, and even small-size investments, but to avoid megacorps the ideal would be something like: 1 house - tax breaks 2 houses - same taxes as currently for 2 houses 3+ houses - incrementally more expensive with each extra house Also there's a really nice law in Spain, born for the wrong reasons, that makes you pay more taxes if the hous…
> 1 house - tax breaks Why should society be subsidizing home ownership more than they already do? The real estate market already discriminates against people who cannot afford a deposit (an increasing proportion of people, since house prices are increasing so rapidly), and the design of North American cities encourages urban spawl which is unsustainable with current property tax rates. [1] > and I think to promote e…
Amusingly enough we have rent inversions in many markets right now, rental costs are below mortgage carrying costs.
I'm a homeowner in Toronto and I don't think this will help. They've eliminated a small number of buyers from the market but have added other incentives like a first home buyers tax credit that will only fuel the fire - Australia tried this with tragic results. >> working with provinces and territories to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Blind…
I live in Toronto as well. We make a good income, have large savings for a down payment, and recently thought about buying a house. It's depressing. So, I decided to look at the City Plan -- to see what the actual plan is for addressing the housing cost crisis in Toronto. Not surprisingly, the real problem became very clear to me, almost immediately. The problem is not blind bidding. The problem is not foreign buyers…
For ease of searching, this phenomenon is often called the "missing middle" problem. And it sucks, because as the already-high-density areas get more and more dense over time, it just reinforces the fear of density that people in the low-density neighborhoods have, because it confirms their prior belief that density means 50 story condo towers, and only 50 story condo towers.
Chicago is a wonderful counterexample to this - lots of neighborhoods are a mix of SFH, SFH with ADUs, MFH with 2, 3 or 4 units, and small 4 or 5 story apartment buildings, with nary a condo tower in sight.
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We don't have implementation of the bill yet, just the budget line. Obviously the government knows about this problem, so if they take measures to prevent it, then we'll know they are actually serious. Note that a corporation is not consequence free. An owner occupied home pays no tax on capital gains. A corporation owned one is double taxed.
The typical workaround in UK is that instead of selling the house, the corporation that directly or or directly owns it is sold instead, usually on a tax haven.
I'm a homeowner in Toronto and I don't think this will help. They've eliminated a small number of buyers from the market but have added other incentives like a first home buyers tax credit that will only fuel the fire - Australia tried this with tragic results. >> working with provinces and territories to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Blind…
Yes, this is a political move to appeal to the electorate for window dressing and not based on merits or practical and well-thought considerations. "Hey, we banned those darned foreigners just for you, can we get some love now at the ballot box? xoxo"
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Could a better thought out measure achieve the same goals? How would you do it? I feel a strong tax on houses you don't personally live in (because you rent them or because you're a company) could be efficient, but I'd love to hear other people's take on the subject.
The sale of investment properties is already subject to capital gains tax.
They could also bring in additional property transfer taxes for reach home, taxing people more for each additional property they buy. Singapore does this.
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You may notice that the US population has grown, and continues to grow, and the abstract group comprised of "people who rent homes" continue to grow, and to need more to rent. Corporations happen to be the ones filling this need now. Of course there is nothing that says they have to, or that it has to be corporations, nor is there any special noble virtue that we should ascribe to them beyond that of a prudent invest…
> You may notice that the US population has grown, and continues to grow, and the abstract group comprised of "people who rent homes" continue to grow, and to need more to rent. "People who rent homes" aren't some special type of consumer that isn't interested in buying a home. While there are situations where renting is preferable even if it's possible to buy, many renters only rent because it's not possible for the…
This accusation would make a lot of sense if the corporations in question are either (a) a monopoly or (b) an illegal trust, colluding with each other, and through (a) or (b) the corporations enjoyed sufficient concentration of the housing sector that they had pricing power — the ability to restrict the supply and raise prices to make money.
This is not the case. The housing market is fairly competitive, and many different buyers, sellers, homeowners, and home-builders participate and compete with each other. Prices are rising for other reasons: a reduced number of homebuilders, in the aftermath of the 2008 crash; various political land-use, zoning, environmental, and similar homebuilding restrictions; a reduction in the overall labor pool, which impacts the labor in new home construction; labor and other supply chain impacts on the availability of components that are used in new home construction; and a significant pandemic-induced shift in real estate usage patterns (almost everyone wants more space now).
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Stress test currently means you need to qualify at 5-6% if you have 20% down. If you are putting less than 20% then the stress test is even higher. I doubt we will see 5-6% interest rates in the next 5 years.
Tell that to the 5.1% rate a friend of mine just got on a new home purchase with >20% downpayment. I dunno if rates are a lot better in Canada or something, but we're already in 5-6% range in the US for some properties. They had excellent credit too.
Foreigners, especially the billionaire type, can and have been setting up shell corporations through which to purchase Canadian real estate. The proposed measure will do nothing to stop this practice. The measures proposed by the Canadian government are likely just political posturing and indented to "pull the wool over the eyes" of Canadian voters because the housing bubble/crisis has reached epic proportions and ev…
Could a better thought out measure achieve the same goals? How would you do it? I feel a strong tax on houses you don't personally live in (because you rent them or because you're a company) could be efficient, but I'd love to hear other people's take on the subject.
It's a problem that needs to be solved on the supply side. Trying to solve it on the demand side is like trying to damn a river with a sieve.
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I'd argue the main cause of this is the REALTORs/real estate boards/MLS system that stonewalls any attempts at making real estate information publicly available precisely because the size of their paycheques relies on this information remaining hidden from the public. The conflict of interest beggars belief, but it's allowed to remain, among other reasons, since it also tends to benefit political parties courting vot…
What's stopping Canada from increasing its housing stock? Surely Canada has plenty of space for its 30M citizens, right? (Yes, I understand that much of the territory is uninhabitable, but even still...).