191–200 of 817 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Pleased refrain from personal attacks and instead focus on debating what was actually written. I have downvoted you because this goes against the general spirit of discussion on HN.
Liberal governments will do everything but the one thing that will solve the problem: make it much, much easier to actually build more housing. Everything else is just pointless busywork.
Just like building roads can't reduce traffic, building houses can't either. It will just cause induced demand as more people will go to that area to live. Instead we should encourage people to carpool - live as roommates, or have small apartments, instead of each person getting their own single family home. /s (sort of)
Mega tower condos could solve housing issues, but the NIMBY folks and local governments need to get out of the way - https://citylimits.org/2018/10/26/cityviews-proposed-mega-to...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I think that blind bidding is a bit of a scape-goat here: Almost everything mentioned in the various comments here is a scapegoat. These all might contribute a little to the escalating prices at the margins, but they are not the root cause. The root cause is that many capitalist societies have decided that purchasing a house is the most expensive and important investment most people will make in their lifetime. Ther…
I almost agree, but I think you've got the causality backwards. > The end result is we have collectively refused to build enough housing to keep prices stable or decreasing This is not the result of a hushed down societal decision. The refusal to allow housing construction the cause of the ever increasing prices. As so often, it comes down to basic microeconomics: If you limit supply while demand rises, prices will c…
And what would you say is the cause for that? I would generally say it is people trying to protect their existing investments in housing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real estate is always a good investment (unfortunately), and capital flight from Asia is not a joke. It's happening in Europe too. Personally, I think governments in well developed countries should do their best to dissuade investment in housing as a financial instrument. Why should I compete with a millionaire, be it local or foreign, for a decent house to live in a city I've lived in for years?
Quoted post unavailable.
Also, capital from China must be at least an order greater than capital from all of Middle East combined. Not defending their decision not to do anything when your Arabs and Iranians were buying up real estate, just that it was a drop in the bucket and pretty easy to ignore. Chinese capital, on the other hand, is becoming cumbersome for quite a few countries now
> Freeland will introduce legislation that allows Canadians under the age of 40 to save as much as C$40,000 ($31,900) for a home downpayment within a new tax-exempt vehicle, the person said. I'm not an economist but this seems pretty dumb? To the extent that it helps someone afford a home that they can save tax-free for it, the same is true of some of the people they're bidding against, driving up the price they ulti…
We have a similar scheme in the UK, where you can save £4000/yr and get a 25% top-up from the government if you use the pot to buy your first home. Everything invested in this scheme is tax free: income and growth. You're completely right, it just drives up prices further... but they're vote winning policies and using these pots makes conveyencers a nice profit.
LISA specifically mentions that it has to be your first house anywhere in the world, so it is targeted at home ownership. People speculating shouldn't be able to take advantage of this.
Though LISA is pretty much useless in London. Good luck finding even a good 1 BHK under 450k inside Zone 4
Unfortunately none of them are loaded enough to buy a place, so…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real estate is always a good investment (unfortunately), and capital flight from Asia is not a joke. It's happening in Europe too. Personally, I think governments in well developed countries should do their best to dissuade investment in housing as a financial instrument. Why should I compete with a millionaire, be it local or foreign, for a decent house to live in a city I've lived in for years?
Quoted post unavailable.
> During last year’s election campaign, Trudeau’s party also proposed a ban on “blind bidding” for houses -- the prevailing system by which offers are kept secret when someone is auctioning a home. This is such a huge deal. Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying a home through a bidding war knows how unfair and one-sided this process is. It take a high-pressure emotional situation, and gives all of th…
I live in Canada, and the real estate business is such a mafia. They are leeches, and I'm not sure how much value these real estate agents are providing. It baffles me how this industry has not yet been disrupted by an outsider, like Uber did with taxis. I still remember when taxi licenses costed a fortune, and you had the exact same leeches exploiting it. They were seen as an investment in some cities, like NYC. I k…
The ruling liberal party is out of touch here like many other things. Key problem here is that the inventory is super low, part of it is due to everyone wants to settle in places like Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver due to high job concentration along with NIMBY attitude among the existing suburbs. There is an inflow of 400k immigrants every year who mainly tend to settle in the big cities such as Toronto/Montreal/Vancouv…