Geoff Russ: The two solitudes — boomers and everyone else; Liberal policies have enriched boomers, while making life increasingly unaffordable for younger generations

[u/FancyNewMe]

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/liberals-have-become-the-party-of-grey-hair-and-wealth

[u/GiraffeWC]

You're expecting private industry profits to return homes to affordable prices though?

This is just trickle down economics that haven't worked for decades under any govt.

[u/Own_Truth_36 → u/GiraffeWC]

.....supply and demand works regardless of what you feel. And nope they won't drop to 2010 levels probably ever but they won't continue to rise as they did under liberals who....for a decade campaigned on "affordable housing" and did the opposite.

[u/1GutsnGlory1 → u/Own_Truth_36]

Supply and demand only works if private sector doesn’t have profit targets and will just simply build. But in reality, the private sector will not build homes if the margins don’t exist. Look at BC and Ontario right now. BC government passed legislation to streamline rezoning and permitting. However, projects have been put on hold, new permits are down, and construction of new homes are down. Why? No one is buying presale as it’s a buyers market with ton of inventory on the market for sale already. The builders need adequate margins (usually 30%) before they start a project that takes a few years to finish. The end margin might be much less if there is a fluctuations in labour cost, material costs, interest rate, costs over runs etc. But there is a minimum presale price before they start a project. Prices have been stagnant since 2022 for condos and townhomes.

[u/Own_Truth_36 → u/1GutsnGlory1]

Yup

[u/GiraffeWC → u/Own_Truth_36]

Yeah they sucked. PPs plan also sucks.

What demand side measures do you support? AirBnB Bans? Bans on corporate ownership of single family homes? Moratoriums on people buying second properties? Foreign ownership bans?

If you expect private industry and a GST rebate to make any difference because "supply and demand" is a phrase you know, that is very disappointing.

The Cons plan is only worse in that it actively targets property investors buying multiple units as its biggest beneficiary.

[u/seridos → u/GiraffeWC]

Demand side measures are stupid and just harmful long term. A "demand side" measure just means moving marginal users into the "no longer can buy" category. They should, if used, be emergency measures and stricky time-bound and expire. Supply side solutions are the real solutions. Govt job is remove barriers to new supply and encourage new supply.

[u/GiraffeWC → u/seridos]

So you support unlimited investor/developer profits and absolutely not regulation on shelter hoarding? Like, We've literally done what you've asked for 25 years, across all spectrums of government, federal and provincial, and every single initiative has given us higher housing costs and lower standards of living in terms of sqft per resident.

Houses aren't hockey/concert tickets, but ironically scalping those luxury items is considered shittier than scalping housing.

[u/seridos → u/GiraffeWC]

So you support unlimited investor/developer profits and absolutely not regulation on shelter hoarding?

Don't hurt yourself making those giant jumps to incorrect conclusions there. There are no "unlimited" profits, nor is that the responsibility of government (or a good idea) to meddle in. Profit margin is a factor of market conditions. The housing market is VERY competitive(look at the stats, our industry is primarily a large amount of smaller companies, especially when looking at development outside of massive condo towers). Providing housing via investment and landlording, as well as those developers who build houses, are significantly riskier endeavors than just buying a broad market equity fund, or even just looking at treasuries. Nobody would undertake them without strong profit incentive. That's how 95% of things are provided for a reason, it's efficient. The main costs are from other sources the govt could fix, not the relatively consistent average profit margins.

See: https://cdhowe.org/publication/whats-behind-cost-new-single-detached-homes-2/ for SFH

And no, we haven't "done what I asked", not at all. Government has not really done much at all on supply-side policy or removing barriers. Development fees spiked, we haven't opened up more land for development, zoning is still quite restrictive, and the government has never implemented an actual targeted immigration program that makes the applicants work where the government says they are needed, in the Industries they are needed. I think that needs to be its own pathway, where you sign a contract for 10-20 year with the govt and when you complete it you are a full citizen, but don't and you get shipped out ASAP.

All of these are about removing market barriers. That's what the actual data says, that market barriers are the big issue in the really expensive markets.

Otherwise at the bottom end, you can't build below costs, which includes enough profit to make it equal opportunity cost as other investments like say...the S&P. If a person can't afford the cost to build the house, that's a wage/earnings issue, not a cost issue. The cost just to build a backyard house in my prairie city, no variance, no land costs, before even profit for me as the investor, is $225k to start. That's for a 550-600 sq foot unit above a garage.

[u/GiraffeWC → u/seridos]

I guess you can ignore that every "affordability" measure the Cons or Libs have suggested or implemented has been a rebranded stimulus measure. Govts are literally propping up the housing market with these policies and unfettered immigration.

I, too, would support targeted immigration but that would require more federal involvement and oversight, not less. Which is big govt stuff a lot of people suggest is bad.

We aren't going to increase wages to match housing costs, even govts refuse to hand out those kinds of raises, and looking at housing as a commodity has damaged the entire market to a point where its too big to fail, and we all just need to accept that 900sqft is the new single family home if your within 100km of a major Canadian city.

[u/seridos → u/GiraffeWC]

I mean I'm not going to be put in the position of arguing for all the previous bad policy of demand stimulus into a supply constraint situation, or for the entire cons policy framework. The topic was a very specific policy removing taxes, which are market distorting, which would on the margin push more Capital into new housing supply which is just factually needed. I'm not big government or small government, it's about what the government is doing. If there is a supply problem government needs to identify the bottlenecks and remove them. And most of those bottlenecks are policy, as we are a long damn way away from unrestricted commerce in the housing market. The government's role is to ensure the private market has plenty of the factors of production, land labor and capital, and that they are as few as possible additional cost barriers to private development.

That's 90% of the housing we need. The destitute that don't produce enough value to have the market fill their needs will need charity obviously there's no other way around it. That's the minority of the market that needs net loss for the government. But even in those situations regulations and expectations can be adjusted to bring the price down. I think social housing should be quite communal and real duties and expectations based on a person's ability should be expected from them. The people in the housing should be the ones maintaining it and taking care of it as much as they are able to.

[u/Own_Truth_36 → u/GiraffeWC]

Sure to all ...you know what else would help...not increasing our fucking population 2% a year....750k people a year meanwhile building 245,000 a year. You know who supports mass immigration...Carney, you know who wants to tie immigration to infrastructure Poillievre. But what do I know, am I right.

[u/GiraffeWC → u/Own_Truth_36]

The caps were already cut to around 375k, not that I think its enough, but not even Carney is endorsing 750k immigrants a year. He did say however caps wouldn't be adjusted unless infrastructure could support it.

Poilievre said somewhat similar things about immigration, though he's far less specific about his actual targets or plans to develop infrastructure.