Mackenzie Gray on X - "When asked if house prices need to go down, new Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said, "No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable, it's a huge part of our economy. We need to be delivering more affordable housing." #cdnpoli"
Steve Saretsky on X - "Canada’s new housing minister doubles down, says we must ensure people’s assets are protected."
We are still told that housing in Vancouver skyrocketed under him for reasons out of his control
Adam Zivo: Housing minister says unaffordable homes are the answer - "Canada’s new housing minister Gregor Robertson says that the prices of existing homes shouldn’t go down , lest this negatively impact current homeowners, and that affordable housing should be provided through massive government subsidies instead. His position is economically illiterate and raises concerns about his fitness to lead this portfolio... This status quo is ossifying the economy. High housing costs have made Canadian employers less competitive: they struggle to attract skilled workers to high-cost cities, and must pay low-skilled workers higher wages to compensate for unreasonable rents. Overinvestment into real estate is also exacerbating the national productivity slump : while other countries plow their capital into research and development, we park our money in condos. There is clearly an urgent moral and economic impetus for lower housing prices. Simply keeping them flat and letting wages “catch up” will not be enough, and would, according to calculations produced by housing expert Mike Moffatt, only restore affordability to key markets after 15 to 50 years. The housing minister’s refusal to accept these truths suggests that the Liberals either do not understand housing economics, or that they prioritize the interests of existing homeowners, who comprise an enormous voting block, over the well-being of the country as a whole. Robertson’s proposed solution — mass construction of government-subsidized “affordable housing” — is not credible. While such homes can help a sliver of disadvantaged Canadians get on their feet, they are prohibitively expensive to build and cannot be provided at scale. To illustrate: in 2020 the federal Rapid Housing Initiative committed $3.83 billion to support the construction of only 15,896 new units over four years — or roughly 4,000 units per year at a cost of around $240,000 per unit. In contrast, Canada’s private market launched around 242,000 units in 2024. Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to double housing construction , but if only half of this expanded supply (125,000 units) consists of subsidized affordable housing, the costs to the federal government would be around $30 billion per year, bloating the annual operating deficit by 50 per cent. There’s no way Canada can afford that. Even if it could, it is unclear why the country should take on so much debt-fuelled spending — which younger Canadians will have to eventually pay off — simply to protect the inflated equity of existing homeowners. Robertson’s solution would effectively constitute yet another intergenerational wealth transfer from younger generations to their better-off elders. Worse yet, it would severely restrict housing options. There are around 16 million units in Canada, and approximately 75 per cent of housing purchases are of existing homes. By intentionally keeping the overall market unaffordable, Robertson would lock new buyers out of these homes and force them to buy from a relatively small pool of subsidized alternatives."
The extremely bad housing record of Canada's new housing minister - "When Gregor Robertson first became Vancouver mayor in 2008, he promised affordable housing, fewer drug overdoses, lower crime and a total end to homelessness by 2015. All of those problems would become catastrophically worse under his watch. But given that Robertson was just appointed federal housing minister on Tuesday, it’s notable that his most iconic failure was on the issue of housing affordability... Robertson had entered office promising a Vancouver that would “inspire the world.”... Robertson’s last months, by contrast, were marked by a series of interviews in which he maintained that Vancouver’s cratered unaffordability wasn’t his fault... When defending his record on housing, Robertson usually pointed to subsidized housing programs that had been approved under his tenure. “We are investing $61 million into affordable housing this year — the highest in our history,” he wrote in a 2015 op-ed in The Georgia Straight. All the while, his administration lagged on addressing many of the prime drivers of the crisis, ranging from zoning constraints to the city’s sky-high development fees. The Vancouver Sun would note in 2018 that it wasn’t until Robertson’s final council meeting as mayor that the City of Vancouver would greenlight a basic zoning reform allowing duplexes to be built in neighbourhoods zoned for single family residential. “He always knew population growth that was coming — yet everybody acted like this was a surprise,” Vancouver developer Bob Rennie, a onetime supporter of Robertson, told Postmedia in 2018. Perhaps most notably, Robertson had long resisted any notion that Vancouver home prices were being bid up by foreign buyers who were effectively treating the city’s real estate as a financial commodity. In 2015, urban planning researcher Andy Yan released a groundbreaking case study which analyzed six months’ worth of Vancouver home sales and found that 66 per cent of the buyers were signing their purchase papers with non-Anglicized Chinese names. At the time, Robertson was one of several public figures to accuse Yan’s research of being divisive. “This can’t be about race, it can’t be about dividing people … it needs to get to the core issue about addressing affordability and making sure it’s fair,” the mayor told CBC in 2015. As a Global News profile would note, only three years later Robertson would be blaming other levels of government for failing to appropriately curb “offshore investment.” On Tuesday, a reporter told Prime Minister Mark Carney that his new housing minister had overseen one of the most explosive increases in home prices in the country’s history, and asked whether this was a signal that “you don’t think housing prices should go down.” Replied Carney, Robertson “brings the type of experience that we need to tackle some aspects of this problem.”"
Of course, we are told that his experience as Mayor of Vancouver is helpful. Achievements don't matter if you're on the left, and failure is rewarded with bigger positions
As Canada's new housing minister, Vancouver's ex-mayor faces tall order - "During this year’s federal election, the Conservatives blasted Robertson for what they called his “failed record as mayor of Vancouver” from 2008 to 2018, a period of increases in home prices, rents, and housing taxes. Prime Minister Carney, who recruited Robertson to run federally, said Tuesday the former mayor brings “the type of experience” needed to help tackle Canada’s housing crisis... Municipal and regional charges on housing have been a major source of friction between levels of government. Former federal housing minister Sean Fraser inserted himself into the debate in 2023 when he urged Metro Vancouver directors to reconsider large fee hikes for residential construction, warning they could jeopardize badly needed new housing. Metro directors — locally elected mayors and councillors — argued they had no other way to fund billions of dollars in infrastructure needs... Magee, who supported Robertson’s federal run this year, said that Robertson and Vision deserve credit for doing what they could with limited municipal powers and an unhelpful Conservative federal government... Robertson is also remembered in Vancouver for announcing, while running for mayor in 2008, a target of ending street homelessness by 2015. Although the number of people sleeping outdoors declined in Robertson’s early years in office as new social housing and shelter capacity were added, by the time he left office in 2018 the homeless population had grown significantly."
You are only responsible for your record if it pushes the left wing agenda. Weird how when it's a Liberal government we're told that housing is a provincial responsibility, but when it was a Conservative government, they were to blame for housing problems
Former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson whose housing policies were controversial now federal housing minister - The Globe and Mail - "others in the development community worry that Mr. Robertson will try to attach too many environmental objectives – energy efficiency and water recycling, for example – to housing-support programs. They believe the pursuit of these goals has led to some of the current issues with unaffordability. “All the new environmental costs, we’re getting into $55,000 to $60,000 per home on that policy alone,” Mr. Ilich said. Chris Gardner, chief executive officer of the non-union Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, said he is concerned Mr. Robertson will carry on with policies that he said were flawed then and are still flawed. “He said he would end homelessness and homelessness got worse, the streets got worse,” Mr. Gardner added."
Gregor Robertson, the Mayor of Vancouver from 2008 - 2018; is the new Minister of Housing : r/canadahousing - "Respectfully, I disagree. It’s true that the provincial government holds power over housing but Vancouver’s zoning laws have been a major driver of their housing crisis, and that’s controlled by city council and the mayor. Gregor Robertson had a decade to act on this. Vancouver is one of the most exclusionary-zoned cities in North America. Vancouver has a huge issue with NIMBYism and push back against densification. As of the end of Robertson’s tenure in 2018, over 80% of residential land was still zoned exclusively for detached single-family homes. He only expanded density along SkyTrain corridors. There should have been more of a city-wide approach. Also for the record the foreign buyers tax was implemented by the B.C. provincial government in 2016, not the city and the Vacant Homes Tax won’t impact affordability without deeper land use reform. The point isn’t to blame Robertson for a global issue with housing affordability but Vancouver’s housing shortage has local causes too, and the zoning disaster during Robertson’s time in office made the problem worse, not better. When 80% of your residential land is reserved for low-density homes in one of the most expensive cities on earth, that’s a political failure."
Ottawa has to allow home prices to fall to make housing more affordable, experts say - "Moffatt crunched the numbers last month on how long it would take for housing to return to 2005 levels of affordability if the average home price holds steady while wages grow at a nominal pace of three per cent annually. Across Canada, he said, it would take 18 years to return to more affordable home price-to-income ratios — while in Ontario and British Columbia it would take roughly 25 years... While Moffatt said he welcomes policies that encourage more housing for vulnerable Canadians and those experiencing homelessness, efforts to build more below-market housing units won't address the "middle-class housing crisis."... Concordia University economist Moshe Lander agrees with Moffatt that home prices must come down if the government hopes to see broad affordability restored to the market over the next generation. But he also questions whether the federal government should be the arbiter of housing affordability in the first place, given that so many of the political decisions are out of its control... At the local level, he said, politicians tend to seek the support of homeowners because — unlike renters — they tend to stay put in a riding or district. Lander said that most efforts to win renters' votes tend to be "tepid" at best and "counterproductive" at worst. Policies that target the demand-side of the equation — helping Canadians become homeowners — tend to put upward pressure on home prices at the same time, he said."
Globe editorial: The true cost of soaring development charges on new homes - The Globe and Mail : r/canadahousing - "A simple concept that people fail to understand. When people hear us say "development charges are too high" it's somehow interpreted as us saying "development charges should be ZERO" as if we're the ones who are irrational."
Metro Vancouver looking at standardized six-storey wood apartments - "A Metro Vancouver report on rental housing is considering a different approach: Making it easier to build six-storey apartment buildings out of wood. The report’s name is a mouthful, “Streamlining the Delivery of Rental Housing Through Pre-Approved Plans and Off-Site Construction.” But it has a simple goal: making rental housing cheaper to build. Concrete buildings typically cost 20 to 24 per cent more to build than wooden ones. So the report, which will probably go to Metro in January, calls for low-rise wood frame buildings. The report also wants to make it easier to build... Building regulations vary from city to city. Going through the bureaucratic process can be time consuming — Epp said it usually takes five years from “conception to occupancy” to build a wood-frame apartment building in Metro Vancouver... The idea is to draft regulations for these buildings that essentially pre-approve them, cutting out the need for time-consuming rezoning applications, and to also allow for some prefabrication of the buildings in factories. “Time is a really substantial component of (building) cost, whether or not you’ve got land carrying costs during that entirety of that time,” Epp said. “You’re paying your professional consultants, you’ve got insurance costs, you’ve got (construction) escalation (costs). So the shorter you can make that time, the more you’re saving. “On some projects, this could be hundreds of thousands of dollars a month that can be saved when you’re shaving time off.”... Many low-rise market condo buildings are already built with a concrete base and foundation, with wood framing above."
Canadians need more housing not more mortgages and debt - "the federal government announced new rules that will allow homebuyers to pay mortgage instalments over 30 rather than 25 years and take on more debt through smaller down payments. It is being pitched as a way to increase affordability, especially for first time homebuyers. But by focusing on increasing individual debt loads rather than increasing low-cost supply, the change does little to help those who need secure, well-located homes the most. The policy is an evidence-free “nothing burger” from a desperate government that can’t think its way out of the same failed solutions. For four decades, Canadian policies have continued to fuel high demand for homeownership, without responding adequately to the supply problems that have caused high house prices and rents. The average home price has almost doubled in relation to income in the past two decades. Meanwhile, we are building fewer homes than we were in the 1970s, despite having double the population."
Of course, this being The Star, the "solution" is more government intervention in the form of government-supported housing
Why Doesn't Toronto Build Normal Apartment Buildings Since There Is A Housing Crisis? : r/askTO - "There is just no money in building rental units. The only ones you see are because government is subsidizing them. And on a personal level, I got out years ago from my rental properties. I was a great landlord who treated people well and kept rents lower than market, and I still got screwed by professional tenants who use the laws strongly in their favour, and on top of that, you get to be called a greedy asshole just by being a landlord at all. Cool, enjoy your zero percent vacancy, and keep wondering why it is happening. Look at any landlord board online, everyone is getting out in droves."
Why did we stop building condos for families? : r/TorontoRealEstate - "Guys, 3 bedroom condos are 1MM+ before maintenance fees. Think about it. If you're a married couple with kids, for 1MM+ you can afford a house with a yard, no noise conflicts with neighbours, parking for more than 1 vehicle at no extra charge and without traffic to get in/out of the building, and good schools under 5 minute walking distance. Stop trying to pretend there is a demand for 3 bed condos."
Why did we stop building condos for families? : r/TorontoRealEstate - ""limit profit margins" yea, that's worked realll well everywhere else that has tried it. Developers aren't building large units - we should ban them from making money on them, that'll be sure to get them to build more of them!"
Of course, it's easier to blame investors and speculators and claim that builders only build small units to cater to them
Ontario reaches ‘tipping point’ with more than 81K people experiencing homelessness | Globalnews.ca : r/ontario - "In my city, the NIMBYs are a lot of middle aged people who all argue that we shouldn’t build condos because we need affordable housing and how the rose garden they planted when they moved in won’t survive the shadows cast by condos. They also were opposed to the new emergency shelter that was being built."
Damn greedy landlords and corporations!
Population jumped 90,000 in one year Brampton data shows - "New data shows that Brampton’s population went from 656,480 in 2021 to 745,557 in 2022, an increase of 89,077 or 13.6 per cent in just one year... Mayor Patrick Brown indicated Brampton is growing at a rate four times faster than Canada, and five times that of Ontario. He said the city is seeing “explosive growth” compared to similar municipalities."
Of course, this has no link with the huge increase in "greed" there
"Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto Real Estate Bubble: HSBC Bank Leaks
"People who romanticized rural life during the pandemic can't come back": A GTA mortgage broker on cottage buyers' remorse - "What advice would you give to urbanites still considering making the move to the country?
Find the area where you’d like to move and rent there for at least a year before purchasing a property. You’ll experience what life is like and what unexpected challenges crop up. Beyond those septic tank and weather-damaged dock examples from earlier, it’s important to figure out things like education and transportation for your kids as well as access to medical services in case of emergencies or for existing health issues. It’s also a good idea to get a sense of the local culture and community, because once you’ve made the commitment to move, it’s hard to reverse course. Renting will give you a perspective on all of these new things you’ll be adapting to—and help you decide whether you’re truly up for rural life."
Jon Love: The housing crisis has a simple solution — and it doesn't involve yet another government program - "We continually hear from various levels of government about the latest programs, subsidies and other plans to deal with the housing crisis, but they always target symptoms, not the cause. And the source cause of Canada’s housing issues is straightforward: excess taxation and intense regulation on construction, which limit supply and elevate cost. We tax and regulate the things we want to discourage: cigarettes, alcohol, gas and surprisingly, housing. In 1980, when I added a 10×10-foot breakfast addition to my 1940s home, a permit cost $25 and took one day. Today, one would be exposed to public hearings, thousands of dollars for architects, lawyers and consultants and a process of a year or more. Housing in Canada is in crisis because demand has simply outpaced the supply of new homes. Peak housing starts occurred in 1976, when 273,000 new homes were delivered — to a population of some 23.5 million people. Today, with 41.5 million Canadians, we are still below that peak. It is why Canada has the fewest homes per capita in the G7, 25th in the Organization of Economic Co-operation Development (OECD)... Today in Toronto, about one third of the cost of all forms of new housing is taxes, fees, levies, etc., from all three levels of government, while purpose-built apartment buildings get an HST exemption. If all these charges on construction were waived, required rental rates would drop by one third, making many stalled residential projects viable and adding new supply at a reduced cost. When new supply is added, the price of older rental stock also drops. The concept of waiving development fees, taxes and levies on construction has raised the concern of pressure on municipal finances, but this is largely a timing issue. The creation of resultant property tax income streams is more valuable to municipalities than one-time development charges. By waiving one-time taxes and fees on new housing, we can accelerate construction and expand our property tax base to generate far more tax income than with underdeveloped land. In many countries, municipalities will provide tax increment financing to incent construction to realize the resultant property tax benefit, which continues forever... Regulations also have a leading role in reducing supply and increasing cost. A typical project takes three or four years from land assembly to construction start, with entitlement costs in the millions and millions more for the delays. All of this adds cost borne by the homebuyer or renter. The federal election has brought a sharp contrast in approach by the Conservatives and Liberals. The Conservatives have focused on eliminating taxation and addressing regulation to unleash the private sector, which has the scale, skills and capital to execute... The Liberals have announced that they intend to get into the development business to build housing. Do we really want the federal government, with its regulatory overburden, becoming a developer? If one looks at the disastrous state of their housing initiatives on our military bases and Indigenous reserves, perhaps the federal government should focus on finishing that promise first."
Time for more environmental protection and community consultation!
To solve housing affordability, Canada must fix productivity - "Belatedly realizing the scale of the problem, officials are trying to incentivize new home construction in a long overdue recognition that decades of underbuilding has led to a supply shortage and high home prices. While this is a welcome move, it will take years of aggressive home construction to correct the imbalance — time that many Canadians cannot afford to take before purchasing. As a result, many homeowners have taken on a significant level of debt to buy a home. For example, the average size of a mortgage in Toronto has ballooned from just over $300,000 in 2012 to north of $500,000 at the end of 2023. Canadian households are now the most indebted in the developed world... What would a productivity-focused agenda look like? It would mean reinvesting in — or at least, getting out of the way of —Canada’s most productive industries, such as mining, natural gas and utilities. It also means promoting investment in productive industries such as technology to drive growth instead of relying largely on government spending. Programs to improve workers’ skills, making them more competitive in the global marketplace, would help greatly. So too would steps to curb excessive taxation and regulation on sectors with high growth potential, along with reducing long-standing inter-provincial trade barriers. Our immigration policies can be retooled to strengthen productivity as well. Right now, we are not adequately integrating the massive number of new immigrants into the workforce or attracting workers into value-adding industries... While Canada ranks among the top countries to live in, its productivity doesn’t even hit the top 10 compared to other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That productivity grade is also a proxy for how well Canada competes — which is poorly — where productivity is a measure of GDP per capita. Canada is ranked 18th, with a GDP per hour worked at 42.5 percent of No. 1-ranked Ireland. Compared to the United States, Canadian productivity diminished by nine percent between 2000 and 2022, falling to roughly 72 per cent of that of the U.S. This is a major reason why Canadian income levels are now much lower than average American income levels compared to being on par back in the 1960s and 1970s."
Why Canada is on the cusp of a housing construction crisis - "Housing is about to get a lot more expensive in the next decade if the federal government does not revamp its immigration program bringing in skilled workers, according to the construction industry. "We're really struggling with getting the right type of workers," said Sue Wastell, president of London, Ont.-based real estate developer Wastell Homes. Many construction organizations across the country say they don't have enough labourers doing jobs that don't require specialized training and the federal immigration system isn't bringing them in. Considering the number of people expected to retire in the next few years, along with an ambitious housing target to address affordability, homes will get a lot more expensive and out of reach for Canadians... According to industry organization BuildForce Canada, 22 per cent of the workforce is set to retire in residential construction in the next eight years. That's approximately 259,100 workers. However, retirements are expected to outpace new entrants into the industry, with 228,100 projected to enter the industry in the same time period. According to Wastell, the pandemic sped up the timeline, with an increase in the number of retirements during those years... McManus pointed to the last Canadian Infrastructure Report Card that said 30 per cent of water infrastructure are in fair, poor or very poor condition. Nearly 40 per cent of roads and bridges were in the same condition."
Time to bring in more Tim Hortons workers
Clearly Carney's Soviet housing plan is going to work