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Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

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Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#31

Post by frozenport »

beiller wrote: post #8
epicureanideal wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the real estate value bubble has expanded beyond all reasonable limits. I'm very interested to find out how this ends...

It will end in either a correction of the price of housing, or a correction on the currency those houses are priced in to bring it back in line with the rest of the world, because from my understanding the economics when adjusted for wages in Canada is the number that is way out of whack. Place your bets!

I don't see a "correction" anytime soon.

There are no vacant units and Canada is rapidly filling in with immigrants.

Areas like Toronto are booming. Demand is good, supply lags. This could be the state of affairs for decades.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#32

Post by nostromo »

epicureanideal wrote: post #3
walrus01 wrote: post #2

in many major canadian cities right now the minimum required income to meet the income ratio tests to afford a new mortgage for the cheapest, smallest 1BD condo on the market is now $150,000/year. the real estate value bubble has expanded beyond all reasonable limits. entirely aside from the assisted death issue, something has gone fundamentally wrong in the economy if it looks like there's going to be a permanent su…

> the real estate value bubble has expanded beyond all reasonable limits. I'm very interested to find out how this ends...

Inflation is the only way it can end without another financial crisis.

A married couple both making 150k will be seen as middle class soon. It’s already true in a few cities.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#33

Post by jmspring »

RedShift1 wrote: post #14
Calamitous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m more curious how it started.

I think it started with mostly foreigners buying up property, not to live in but as investment to keep the value of their money, like using housing as an alternate currency to dollars

I have been venturing to Vancover BC for the better part of the last 30 years. In that time, there were waves of hippies selling in Kits and moving to the Okanagan, etc. Prices went up. What has happened in the last 15+ years is a noticable vacancy when you look at housing as you walk around. An influx of foreing money has been buying up and keeping properties vacant. This is happening all up and down the west coast. Some of that money may not be foreign, but a lot is.

BC has attempted a lack of occupancy tax and it seems like it's not working.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#34

Post by SapporoChris »

giarc wrote: post #19

I think it is important to note that the story is of 1 person that completed MAID and 2 that contemplated it. The headline perhaps implies more cases.

My thoughts exactly. I have enough outrage already. Before I get outraged about this, I'd like to know how prevalent the problem is.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#35

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

nostromo wrote: post #24
thinkingkong wrote: post #4

Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your way out of the problem before you plug the leak. But there are obvious misaligned incentives to do that. The value system of our economy and culture seems to be obsessed with making basic needs a profit center, at all costs, regardless of the consequence.

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at e…

The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#36

Post by rob74 »

ugjka wrote: post #18
pizza wrote: post #7

When the state does more to keep medically-assisted death accessible than living, that seems a lot like eugenics to me

Also a lot mentally ill people commit suicide this way, because it is legal (at least in Belgium)

Well, if they are determined to do it, this way is better than the alternatives, because it avoids harming others (physically or mentally - there are a lot of train drivers around the world with PTSD from running over people, although they have no chance of stopping in time to avoid it). Of course avoiding the suicide would be the best option...

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#37

Post by beiller »

tjr225 wrote: post #29
beiller wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will end in either a correction of the price of housing, or a correction on the currency those houses are priced in to bring it back in line with the rest of the world, because from my understanding the economics when adjusted for wages in Canada is the number that is way out of whack. Place your bets!

I’m curious where exactly in the rest of the world you think these cheap homes are in major metropolitan areas? https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/hong-kong-average-house-pric... Canada doesn’t even make it to the top 3 Edit: I got a bit more curious so found a more up to date article and Van makes it to 3rd: https://www.bosshunting.com.au/lifestyle/real-estate/most-ex... However, you can see that expensive housing is n…

From my reading online, Canada is in the top spots for the most expensive housing when adjusted for income. https://www.statista.com/statistics/237529/price-to-income-r...

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#38

Post by awll »

nostromo wrote: post #24
thinkingkong wrote: post #4

Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your way out of the problem before you plug the leak. But there are obvious misaligned incentives to do that. The value system of our economy and culture seems to be obsessed with making basic needs a profit center, at all costs, regardless of the consequence.

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at e…

I feel like the best counterexamples to this are Singapore(82% of the population lives in public housing which makes it affordable for local residents) and Vienna(25% of the city lives in publicly funded social housing which decreases costs for everyone).

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#39

Post by twblalock »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #35
nostromo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at e…

The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.

> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues.

You only end up with that if that is what sells, i.e. that is what homebuyers want. If the average Canadian didn't want that, the developers would build something else.

Your real problem here is with the preferences of the people who buy new homes, and you aren't going to change those preferences by regulating housing developers.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#40

Post by frostwarrior »

nostromo wrote: post #24
thinkingkong wrote: post #4

Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your way out of the problem before you plug the leak. But there are obvious misaligned incentives to do that. The value system of our economy and culture seems to be obsessed with making basic needs a profit center, at all costs, regardless of the consequence.

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at e…

By the free market alone, letting everyone get a home sounds like a terrible decision. There's a finite number of people that need a home and by the point everyone gets their own home, your business is doomed.

On the other side, letting housing to be crazy expensive, with few people capable of getting a new house, will always be profitable.

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