How do you become homeless by the 'housing market collapsing'? If the price of housing goes down rapidly (which I guess it what's meant by 'collapse'), that makes it more affordable, not less.
What do you think happens mortgage lending in such a scenario?
What percentage of current renters have a 20% downpayment ready for even something as large as a 50% drop in home values? In Toronto, last I checked it as 1.1m for the average house and about 800k for a reasonable condo. How many current renters do you honestly think have $110k/$80 ready for a downpayment?
A housing market collapse only benefits those with great sums of capital on the sidelines waiting to deploy.
So 1.1m for a house is probably a problem. What is the alternative to fixing that?
The USA, Ireland and others have already been through housing busts in the last 10-15 years and it had no effect on home ownership.
>So 1.1m for a house is probably a problem. What is the alternative to fixing that?
Keep in mind we're talking about prices in some of the most attractive places to live in, in North America. Places that are also the target of skilled immigration and migrants with money also.
As you probably know, it might be $1m for a starter condo in NYC, but you can pick up a detached house in a decent area elsewhere for a quarter of that.
The unaffordability of the cities is a function of supply vs demand. If you want to bring down city property prices, simply reduce the need for cities.
That actually depends on where you live - here in Ontario, we have laws that give tenants the right to stay even if the landlord sells/loses the property. The new owner must allow the tenants to stay, with the same lease terms, even if the new owner is a bank.