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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

#131

Post by [deleted] »

ABCLAW wrote: post #121
milkey_mouse wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the free market were one entity that could coordinate and say "nobody build more housing, let's squeeze as much money from what we have already", sure, that would be pretty profitable. But if there are enough participants in the marketplace (which depends on the barriers to entry to homebuilding, like regulatory capture, knowledge, capital, and permits) one will want to undercut the others and build houses margina…

>At least this is what I heard in Econ 101 Yeah, and you probably also learned a laundry list of caveats which lead to the principle you're describing being non-applicable. Real estate is not a fully commodifiable good because it is non-fungible. A house in the middle of a city is not the same thing as a house 2 hours out of the city core. There is a limited amount of under-developed land to repurpose, and a limited…

[deleted]

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

#132

Post by milkey_mouse »

ABCLAW wrote: post #121
milkey_mouse wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the free market were one entity that could coordinate and say "nobody build more housing, let's squeeze as much money from what we have already", sure, that would be pretty profitable. But if there are enough participants in the marketplace (which depends on the barriers to entry to homebuilding, like regulatory capture, knowledge, capital, and permits) one will want to undercut the others and build houses margina…

>At least this is what I heard in Econ 101 Yeah, and you probably also learned a laundry list of caveats which lead to the principle you're describing being non-applicable. Real estate is not a fully commodifiable good because it is non-fungible. A house in the middle of a city is not the same thing as a house 2 hours out of the city core. There is a limited amount of under-developed land to repurpose, and a limited…

Why does a giant condo building have to be high-end? Wouldn't that be the most efficient way to house people even if they weren't focused on profit?

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

#133

Post by usrn »

srcreigh wrote: post #107
usrn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US credit distorts the market equilibrium very heavily by making building new houses far far more expensive than buying old ones.

How does credit play into the cost of new housing? Do you mean that it's more difficult to secure a loan for new house building supplies than it is to get a mortgage on an existing home?

Yes. It's nearly impossible for normal people to get loans for land and materials.

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

#134

Post by olivermarks »

joe_the_user wrote: post #123
olivermarks wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

joe_the_user You have entirely missed my point. I broadly agree with what you say, but why is it that the western world are killing themselves in droves, when 2% of the world's population are homeless and close to a billion go hungry every day. what has gone wrong in the society that is supposed to be the flywheel of the global economy? San Francisco and Los Angeles have massive transient drug and SMI issues right no…

I broadly agree with what you say, but why is it that the western world are killing themselves in droves, when 2% of the world's population are homeless and close to a billion go hungry every day. what has gone wrong in the society that is supposed to be the flywheel of the global economy? I'm not sure what you're saying, that Westerns doing drugs are privileged and ungrateful, unable to deal with the real problems o…

Thanks.

I think the fundamental point I was making is why 'privileged' westerners are taking to psychological pain killing (and self ending) drugs in such relatively large numbers.

I'd also say, knowing quite a lot about San Francisco 'homeless' specifically, is that the social media grapevine has brought huge numbers of addicts in from around the continent because of liberal drug, crime laws, generous benefits and a rapidly growing homeless industrial complex of 'non profits' to serve them.

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

#135

Post by pandaman »

rescripting wrote: post #83
twblalock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 are…

People hold those preferences because when you live in the burbs you bear less of the cost of the externalities of urban sprawl. Basically, you get more bang for your buck. The property tax rate is the same for a whole municipality whether you are downtown in high density housing or in the burbs. You need more roads/public transportation/water mains/gas mains/buried cables etc to serve fewer people in the suburbs. Ma…

If in Canada they get gas, water, sewer and electricity paid by taxes then why not just charge the users instead? And yes, the payment for utility includes the maintenance cost. Roads wear depends on the amount of traffic so if you really wanted to be fair you might end up with the dense urbanites paying more (also we supposed to pay for this with the fuel and registration taxes in the US).

Public transportation in suburbia? Does it really happen in Canada? In the US suburbia subsidizes public transportation without using it.

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

#137

Post by com2kid »

nine_k wrote: post #93
com2kid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban commuter cars from cities and watch the demand for high density urban housing explode. Basically replicate the pre-car environment that the world's greatest cities were designed and developed during.

Many large city centers in Europe already restrict or outright ban commuter cars.

I was speaking more as a solution for American cities. :)

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

#138

Post by Markoff »

"Since early 2020, Canadian home prices have surged 30% while many Canadians lost their jobs or had periods without working due to COVID-19."

As usual blaming COVID and not COVID restrictions done by stupid politicians.

Btw. why not move to Cuba, Mexico or Southeast Asia with much lower cost of living?

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

#139

Post by philistine »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #81
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...yes? If I can buy four adjacent $1,000,000 homes and put up a mid-rise with 25 units at $400,000/each, I've just made $9,000,000 minus construction expenses.

Then why aren't they taking the time and energy to get those areas rezoned? It's possible, and I'm sure it's less expensive than the potential profit, especially if they choose an area far enough out that there are few neighbors to complain.

Why do you think those areas are restrictive with their zoning? Because people wrongfully want it that way. A developper is focused on making people and equipment work, not on being a provider of good zoning laws, and so won't fight against those tides.

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

#140

Post by incomingpain »

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.

OP is flagged so I haven't read that.

The thing about Canada is that we have basically pushed all our industry and manufacturing out of the country. To get EV cars built in Ontario we basically had to pay significant money to bring them here. Which is the opposite of what government should be doing. You want to collect $ not give $ to corporations.

So what we have left is oil industry, the government is actively trying to destroy, and real estate. The government's actions are all about keeping housing from blowing up and that means less and less supply, more and more demand by mass immigration, and meddling with regulations that will certainly make the situation worse.

So if you think the housing market is bad, the government is not your friend.

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