Opinion: Tax rule changes would level the field for first-time Muslim homebuyers - The Globe and Mail - "What if I told you our governments could significantly contribute to solving the housing affordability crisis, and addressing concerns about equity and inclusion, at the same time? It’s possible – if we embrace simple changes necessary to assist first-time Muslim homebuyers in a manner that respects their personal faith choices."
Whatever one thinks about the merits of religious exemptions and distortionary effects, how does increasing demand improve affordability?
Housing in Canada: More than 800K homes unsuitable for families - "The federal data agency deems homes "not suitable" when three or more people are occupying one bedroom. It found more than 630,800 homes had a one-bedroom shortfall in 2021 based on the number of occupants, while about 129,200 are short by two bedrooms and 45,500 are short three or more bedrooms. StatCan also calculated almost 1.5 million Canadian households lived in "core housing need" in 2021, which it defined as living in an "unsuitable, inadequate or unaffordable" dwelling and not being able to afford alternative housing in the same community... At the heart of crowding is a growing population, housing unaffordability and lack of supply, said Murtaza Haider, a Toronto Metropolitan University data science and real estate management professor. "Our population has increased continuously over the last four or five decades, but our rate of construction, the number of new housing built per million people, that rate has gone down significantly, almost half during the early '90s"... To fulfil the country's housing needs, a June report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation found the country needs 3.5 million more homes than are slated to be built by 2030... For the country's lowest-paid workers, even owning half a home is out of reach because wages are not keeping up with inflation, Haider added. "Very low-income workers are crowding into apartments, where the same bed is used by someone to sleep at night because they work during the day, and … the night shift guys who work during the night come in and sleep during the day"... Yet they're also the least likely to be represented in census crowding data. People living in precarious conditions often don't respond to census requests because a landlord rents a property to one person, but in reality, four or five people are sharing that space"
Newmarket resident: 'I don't want to see my neighbourhood turned into a bunch of soulless buildings' - "she was “appalled” to learn developer Lundy’s Lane Newmarket Assembly Inc. is hoping to tear down the home and other properties and replace them with a four-storey apartment building with 79 rental units at 43 Lundy’s Lane, 592 Watson Ave. and 40, 36 and 32 Bolton Ave. “I do not want to see my neighbourhood turned into a bunch of soulless multi-storey buildings with the inevitable associated increase in traffic and noise,” said Foppa, who fears the development is a “slippery slope.” She's not alone. Whether it's intensification in existing neighbourhoods or on green space, such as many voices raised in opposition in January to a large development proposed by Shining Hill Estates on Oak Ridges Moraine settlement lands north of St. John’s Sideroad... after growing up in Switzerland and travelling throughout Europe, she questions why politicians allow developers to bulldoze historic buildings to construct cookie-cutter apartments and condos... Focusing growth in urban centres such as Newmarket preserves environmentally sensitive lands on the Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt"
Damn greedy developers refusing to build purpose-built rental and keeping housing expensive!
Ironically, in Europe density is a lot higher
Canada Says Property Bubble “Not Great” For Locals, Good For Foreign Investors - "The government refuses to let prices drop, and will support inefficiencies. When Vaughan was asked if he would allow home prices to fall 10%, he tried to explain how hard it would be on homeowners. When discussing a price drop, the minister said “I can understand why that is seen as a positive thing for people who are trying to get into the market, but hands up if you’d like to see 10 percent of the equity in your home suddenly disappear overnight.” He then implied Canadian homes are financial instruments, not necessarily for housing"
Doug Ford’s necessary cap on vampiric development fees - "The Ford government wants to prohibit municipalities from charging extortionate development fees. Ontario’s municipal leaders, furious that they can no longer fill budget gaps by gouging younger Canadians and new immigrants, are pressuring the province to back down. If the province genuinely cares about housing affordability, it should ignore these voices, whatever the political costs... Over the past ten years, development charges have skyrocketed. In Toronto, for example, they have more than quadrupled since 2014. As these costs are almost entirely passed along to the end buyer, that means that the average young Torontonian looking to purchase their first one-bedroom condo now faces $53,432 in development charges... Municipalities have justified these extraordinary increases by pretending that the cost of development-related growth has commensurately increased. As you might surmise by the numbers (i.e. has the cost of infrastructure really quadrupled in ten years?), they’re lying. In reality, these charges often fund investments that have only a tenuous relationship with new development. For example, a significant portion of Toronto’s development fees are earmarked for subway construction and affordable housing — both are crucial investments, but neither should be shouldered so heavily by homebuyers. In a just world, these expenditures would be financed by higher property taxes that dilute costs across the entire city. However, raising property taxes is politically toxic — so the solution, it seems, is to keep them artificially low by jacking up development charges instead."
The policy misstep that caused American and Canadian house prices to diverge - "The U.S. housing market shares a lot in common with Canada. The building codes are similar, we use the same materials, and build similar-sized houses. Zoning rules and suburban expansion have followed the same general trends. There are some foreign buyers in both countries, though the U.S. attracts more foreigners than Canada does. And yet curiously, the average price of a home in America is half the price of a Canadian home. There are some construction cost differences, such as more undocumented laborers in the U.S. and slab-on-grade versus basement foundations. However, these costs alone cannot account for the $300,000 difference in the average house price. One meaningful policy difference? Canada has the primary residence exemption, which allows anyone who has lived in their home for at least one year to capture the profit of selling the home entirely tax-free. This is incredibly generous. Other tax-sheltered assets in Canada have stricter conditions. TFSA and RRSP programs have annual contribution caps; they don’t allow leveraged investing. This makes housing the most incentivized place to put our money. This plays out on nearly every house sale in Canada. The seller of a house gets a windfall of tax-free profits and that money has an obvious place to go—into the next house. They can take that to the bank and leverage it up 5X, 10X, or even 20X again. With this extra-budgetary flexibility provided by the bank, they can buy their next house with less price sensitivity, so bidding $100,000 over asking might not put the loan at risk. And just like that house prices in the neighborhood jump 10 percent... The U.S. has a similar but slightly different policy. Firstly, Americans with a home mortgage get to write off their interest expense. This is a huge win for new homeowners who are paying a lot of interest in the first few years of paying the mortgage. This annual benefit puts money in people’s pockets at a time when they are likely to spend it back into the economy. Secondly, the capital gains exemption is capped at $250k, or $500k for a couple. Thirdly, it requires living in the house for two years... The interest rate write-off encourages more frequent moving—and Americans do move about twice as many times in their lifetime than Canadians on average... Tax policy is not the be-all-end-all of housing policies that will fix Canada’s house prices. But, it is one of the few things that the federal government can directly influence... It would be remiss to ignore the other major contributors to house prices that affect both sides of the border. A bevy of municipal rules for zoning, building codes, permitting, road construction, setbacks, lot sizes, and density limits make it hard to build things. Every objection to a new tower or infill or rental units or not enough affordable housing eats away at anyone’s appetite to propose a new building. Construction has also been left behind in productivity improvements over the last 50 years. Houses are still often built on-site by hand with hammers and nails. Canada also faces a labour shortage in the trades and many construction workers are already booked into next year. There are a lot of headwinds. However, any changes that work to bring down prices, would also be lowering the asset values of the existing homes. It will be a battle to go up against homeowners defending the value of their homes, and cities that protect high property values for their tax revenue."
Canadian Housing Affordability Hits Unsustainable Level: BoC Index - "Housing affordability is now the worst in over 30 years, according to the index. The share of income needed is the highest since Q3 1990, with only two quarters in the 90s coming in higher. In total, only 8 quarters in the past 50 years have been less affordable according to this measure. Rivaling two of Canada’s biggest bubbles is less than ideal, to say the least... There’s always the risk it can get worse, which some firms expect in the short-term. However, the issue has never persisted for long. Countries where the average household would be in shelter poverty, tend to provide a poor value proposition."
Outrage over developer's plan to buy single-family homes reveals a Canadian fixation - "In the current overheated dog-eat-dog race to buy a home in Canada, we probably shouldn't have been shocked by the wave of outrage triggered by a big property developer's plan to buy thousands of detached family homes and rent them out. Nonetheless, many in the real estate business have been surprised by the reaction — including those at Core Development, the very company that is planning to sink $1 billion into buying, fixing up and renting out around 4,000 ground-level suburban homes across Ontario, B.C., Quebec and Atlantic Canada over the next five years... when Latafat announced the company's plans, she was convinced Core was effectively performing a public service, answering a need by creating more affordable rental homes in places where people wanted to live. "For each single-family rental house that comes on the market, two rental units are provided, thus doubling the rental supply"... Those who follow the real estate market say it is hard to unravel all the reasons for the scale of the anger... For anyone who understands what drives the property game, an op-ed in the Globe and Mail Thursday referring to Core as "profit-mongers" was a bit of a stretch. Whether you call it "mongering" or something that sounds nicer, earning a profit is at the indispensable heart of creating housing in Canada. Earning a profit is why builders constructed the home most of us live in now. It's also why giant real estate investment trusts buy or build most Canadian rental apartments — and have for years, said BMO economist Robert Kavcic... With a push toward densification, ownership of the old-fashioned house with a garden has become an object of desire whose appeal is only increased by a shortage of such properties. In some ways, it is a psychological fixation unfamiliar in places like Hong Kong, New York or many large European cities... As Canada's urban populations grow, people find it difficult to face a change that has already happened elsewhere in the world. "It's not that families can't afford housing here," said Kavcic. "It's just that the housing they can afford doesn't look like their parents' or their grandparents'"... Helen Wojtowitsch has lived in Toronto's Bloor West Village for 53 years, next door to a small house she says developers want to turn into a condo. She said she feels there just isn't space for a multi-family home on that single lot — and neighbours have put up posters and collected signatures in an effort to stop the development, saying it threatens the character of the neighbourhood. Yet urban development experts insist that what Core Development is doing is just what Canada's crowded cities need... Longtime private real estate analyst Ben Rabidoux has sympathy for those who fear the effect and the price competition for single family homes when giant corporations get into the business, earning not just rents but the speculative increase in value of the properties. But he also understands the plight of renters who might actually benefit from corporate owners over smaller landlords. "What you end up with is a lot of mom-and pop-investors who, because the cash flow in single-family properties is not great, they are banking on [price] appreciation," said Rabidoux, who runs North Cove Advisors. "And they are more likely to sell when you get a strong run-up in prices and that upends the people that are renting.""
Weird. The liberals keep claiming that more affordable housing is needed, so they should cheer the creation of more rental units (creating 2 housing units out of 1 doubles what you had before). But then they also hate condos, so go figure. Really, they just hate rich people and big companies, and don't want things to change
A lot of people claim families need single family homes (of course, they also oppose urban sprawl, developing farmland/the Greenbelt and god save you if you suggest developing the wilderness). Weird how in the rest of the world people are able to live in apartments
Futuristic city in the works to replace tract of farmland north of Toronto - "A massive new complex is planned to rise above a rural stretch of Yonge Street, an ambitious plan to create a new mixed-use destination just north of Newmarket's city limits in the sleepy community of East Gwillimbury... the project intends to create a new urban focal point along Yonge Street, anchored by over 2,918 units and a combined 6,200 residents."
Of course, the farmland romanticisers got very upset about a high density development in a prime area providing new housing.
Futuristic city in the works to replace tract of farmland north of Toronto : toronto - "But where should people live? If we look at how much land is being used by farms, we can see the land used for crops hasn't decreased, so the impact of city expansion is having almost no impact on farmland. The only drops are from "Tame and seeded pasture" and "All other", which includes land that's not being planted, as well as Christmas tree farms, but neither of those categories really impacts people."
He got downvoted because the farmland romanticisers don't like facts. Ironically, the farmland romanticisers are probably usually big on globalisation
Longtime midtown Toronto tenants fear proposed condos will price them out of their neighbourhood - "More than 120 tenants in a midtown apartment building say they're worried they'll be forced out if the city approves a new development application in one of Toronto's most desirable neighbourhoods. They live at 55 Brownlow Ave., a mid-rise building just a block west of Mount Pleasant Road and Eglinton Avenue East that's been targeted for redevelopment. That means they'll have to move once the developer's application is approved, likely within the next couple of years. "Some of the tenants have lived in this building for over 50 years, and a lot of those people are [on] fixed incomes," said Megan Kee, a tenant who's helping to organize residents. "They're low income, they're young families, they're seniors, and they can't afford to go anywhere else." The Yonge-Eglinton area, because of its proximity to transit, has been identified by the province as a neighbourhood ripe for additional housing. The developer, Menkes, filed the rezoning application in 2021. It calls for the properties from 55 to 75 Brownlow to be demolished and replaced with three condo towers of 45, 40 and 35 storeys... Coun. Josh Matlow, who represents the neighbourhood as part of Ward 12, Toronto-St. Paul's, said city regulations guarantee the current tenants will be given first right of refusal on those new units at rents comparable to what they're paying now. Matlow said in the crunch to find more housing for more people, the province has designated the Yonge-Eglinton neighbourhood, with its easy access to pubic transit, an "Urban Growth Centre," meaning the city's expected to adapt its zoning rules to allow for more new residents. And that means more new housing developments... Kee, a tenant in the building for seven years, said the residents' aim is to stop the demolition of 55 Brownlow and get the developers to redesign the plans for the rest of the site around it. She said the residents don't have a not-in-my-back-yard, or NIMBY, attitude about greater density in their neighbourhood. "It's a very different situation than NIMBYism in my perspective," she said. "This is these people's homes. If you don't have a home, everything else in your life falls apart."... "This is a regular occurrence in Toronto these days. There's a lot of buildings in fairly good repair that are getting torn down for a quick buck.""
So much for densification, since you can never tear down existing housing. More sexy to pursue the fantasy that developing on parking lots and abandoned industrial sites will solve the housing problem. And of course all the people who don't know how demand and supply work claim that only affordable housing is needed and condos are useless
Developers pitch futuristic condo community to replace entire Toronto golf course (Facebook comments)
Naturally, people are upset at high density housing near public transit replacing a golf course (not nature or farmland) when 95% of the land will become open space for public use. Some were complaining that golf will become less accessible to non-rich people. Naturally. And of course there was the usual whining about how 5% affordable housing isn't enough - presumably 0% coming from this project failing is better
Some Ukrainians refugees returning home due to K-W housing crisis: grassroots group
Ukraine can't be that dangerous after all
City of Mississauga rejects applications for 2 residential towers because proposed buildings are too tall - "The City of Mississauga rejected applications for two residential towers in Port Credit steps from two major transit stations this month, saying the buildings proposed were too tall. But the province of Ontario says the city can no longer make this type of decision due to municipal planning changes the province brought into play in late 2022... this is not the only development Mississauga has rejected recently, citing height concerns. The city also rejected a multi-tower proposal for 30 Eglinton Ave. W. — a development which would be on the LRT line — at its March planning meeting. Staff cited sun and shadow studies and other concerns with having tall towers, recommending that councillors reject the proposal, which they did. The handful of residents who attended the March meeting spoke out against both projects, saying increased density would lead to busyness, traffic and concerns related to shadows for their neighbourhoods. Some housing advocates who were not at the meeting say they've had enough of the city trying to limit housing in many Mississauga neighbourhoods. "Mississauga should find ways to say yes to housing instead of saying no to housing near transit, again and again," said housing advocate Bilal Akhtar. "Don't get in the way of the province." He says the Port Credit site would mean that people could work in Mississauga or Toronto and have a fast car-free commute, something that ought to be encouraged... Harminder Dhillon of Engage Peel, says he's disappointed to see his adult children priced out of living in Mississauga to be close to him. He views councillors as pandering to residents who don't want more density in their neighbourhoods... He says density also makes it more feasible to include affordable units. "If you want affordable housing on this site, we need to be OK with the 42 storeys. We need to be OK with less parking," he said. "There is no way we solve the affordable housing crisis in the Greater Toronto Area without politicians who are willing to upset the neighbours"
Developers are bad, so liberals will bash Doug Ford for helping his developer buddies. Because housing springs up from nowhere
Toronto landlord leaves a handwritten note to tenant begging them to pay rent - "Sameer Singhania, who lives in an apartment building in South Riverdale, told blogTO that he noticed the letter attached to his neighbour's door, who allegedly moved in last September. "You are $9000 behind in rent now," the letter reads. "The landlord cannot afford to pay the mortgages, taxes, maintenance, etc. without your rent." "The landlord is on the verge of bankruptcy. Please do the right thing by paying your rent or moving out. I am not an evil landlord," the letter continues. "I'm just trying to make my ends meet. Let's work together to find a solution." Singhania told blogTO that after speaking to his neighbour, he suspects them to be someone "who rents out units and then plays the system." "It sounded to me like he wants to live there rent-free and knows how to do it legally as there is a long backlog at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) tribunal," he explained. "He seemed almost confident and cocky that he cannot be evicted without the court order which can [take] up to a year apparently these days," Singhania said. "He did not look scared." Last year, a member of the Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario (SOLO), Varun Sriskanda, told blogTO that many small landlords can't afford to pay mortgage, property taxes, and utilities due to unpaid rent. According to Sriskanda, most of these disputes are resolved by way of eviction at the LTB for non-payment of rent, but with endless backlogs and long wait times, this means financial ruin for many small landlords who have to survive without rent."
All the leftists who hate landlords will gloat and say the landlord deserves it... then get upset when there aren't enough properties to rent. Just like they mock landlords when their investments lose money and crow that investments are not risk free... then get upset when landlords take steps to mitigate their risk (like asking for bank statements or more months of deposit)
Bank of Canada rate pause could force landlords to sell properties: Experts - ""For every month we have a rate pause, there will be landlords who will struggle to hold onto their rental properties,” Davelle Morrison, broker at Bosley Real Estate, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview on Wednesday. She noted that those investment property owners who are currently operating at a loss will likely be forced to sell, or, increase the price of rent to keep up with costs. In either scenario, the renter gets squeezed, she added... Owners who are selling their properties due to financial stress have increased 300 per cent year-over-year in Toronto, Daniel Foch, broker at RARE Real Estate, told BNN Bloomberg"
The leftists will cheer landlords being forced to sell... till they realise it will mean they get evicted, and they themselves still won't be able to afford a place
Trudeau's immigration policy worsening housing affordability crisis: Rosenberg - "Ottawa’s lofty immigration targets are exacerbating Canada’s housing affordability crisis that could create an “unstable situation” while possibly jeopardizing the Liberals’ re-election, according to Bay Street economist David Rosenberg. “A nation where folks in their 30s are crowded out of the housing market because of an elongated period of excessive home price inflation that is the result of federal government policy is not a very happy nation,” he said in his widely read Breakfast with Dave newsletter on May 3. “This will all come out in the wash in the next election, and if I were in opposition, this is the card I would be playing.” Canada already had a demand-supply imbalance prior to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government announcing updated immigration targets to the tune of 500,000 newcomers a year... Increasing the growth of the population, which added a record of more than one million people last year, is helping sustain inflation and preventing the Bank of Canada’s rate hikes from taking steam out of the housing market... Home prices, meanwhile, are beginning to rise again and add more inflationary pressure since the ratio of population to housing stock is 40 per cent above historical norms... For the housing market to normalize, home prices would need to correct by nearly 30 per cent, the central bank would need to bring the overnight policy rate down by two percentage points or incomes would need to swell 40 per cent"
Too bad liberals keep insisting it's not an issue and anyone who mentions it is racist (that is actually a policy on r/CanadaHousing
Richmond Hill residents 'heartbroken' over loss of trees in established neighbourhoods - "Thompson lives in a community in north Richmond Hill that has long revolved around the woods. Residents, drawn to soaring trees, moved here and signed covenants to protect them. Now they are watching the greenery clear-cut and disappear. Many say it’s an example of what’s happening across the region. They are concerned the canopy loss harms the environment and their physical and mental health. Others say it’s an unavoidable cost of growth and may even be good for the environment. For the last few years, longtime residents watched the large, single-home lots south of Bloomington sell to investors, older, smaller homes demolished to make way for larger ones, or subdivided to hold several multi-million-dollar houses — their beloved trees chopped, chipped and carted away. “I can understand trees needing to be removed because they are diseased or very old and a danger to the public, but it’s plain in some areas the land is purchased and an immediate application put though to build," resident Howard Doughty said. "Trees are taken down to make room. There’s no justification for this because these aren’t going to be affordable homes and there’s ample land already scheduled for development.” Neighbour Nancy Stephens is "heartbroken." “What about existing homeowners' rights?" she asked. "It’s always about the developers’ rights. Why should they get to come here and strip the trees and cram homes in? There are thousands of acres in Ontario that don’t have a tree on it. Why buy in an established, mature forested neighbourhood?” “The only explanation I can think of is developers make more money on bigger homes,” Suzanne Payne said. She wonders if it’s a symptom of changing times: fewer people engaged in local communities, treating property purchases as investment... with provincial rules now allowing up to three units per lot, Davidson worries that “backyards will be stripped everywhere.” Phil Pothen sees it differently. “These low-density neighbourhoods are Ontario’s biggest environmental problem,” the Ontario environment program manager for Environmental Defence, an environmental advocacy group, said. “They build in C02 emissions, they push sprawl into actual wildlife habitat, and we desperately need more homes.” While trees should not be removed to expand existing single-family homes — this squanders trees and construction labour and materials desperately need to build more homes — Pothen said trees should never stand in the way of denser development that keeps protected Greenbelt land from being eroded. “Every home that gets added to an existing neighbourhood is a win for the environment,” he said. “It is saving trees and farmland in places that are much more environmentally sensitive ... one less piece of natural heritage that doesn’t get lost.” Residents fighting back in Beaufort Hills say neighbourhoods blessed with older trees are worthy of protection. They suggest ways to encourage preservation: education helping homeowners understand why and how to keep their trees healthy, infill relegated to areas with transit and jobs, requirements for builders to plan around existing trees, limits on percentage of trees that may be removed, and requirements that builders replace lost trees with new ones in nearby parks or boulevards. “This is the biggest investment in our life,” Alana Kanapka said. “Many of us bought because of the beauty of the area … This isn’t helping with housing. It’s destroying a beautiful community for profit.”"
People with tree fetishes are weird. There're already so many reasons why housing is pricey but of course they benefit from higher home prices
