Comment by brutus1213 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brutus1213 | Hacker News Reader

I think the housing situation in major Canadian cities is so bad, it is going to have clear detrimental outcomes to society. Starter homes in nice (not posh, subway access, good walk score) neighborhoods in Toronto are going for 2-2.5 million. The math on these are bad even if you made a profit on the condo you bought previously (which many people may not have made). The govt has made a series of very half hearted moves to try to quell the swell, but do they really care? Construction and the general housing sector is a major part of our economy now. This is not going to end well :(

I agree with posters who say that foreign buyers are the scapegoat. We need to start taxing real-estate gains on primary residences above a threshold (I thought the US did that). Also, the govt needs to take serious measures to break the assumption that housing always goes up double digits. Everyone I know thinks housing will go up .. this sounds like a recipe for collapse. People with little means are going all in on the most expensive real-estate they can find. Illegal suites (rooms for rent, basements) are rampant. The sort of side hustle I hear about are insane (someone boasted growing shrimp in their garage to supplement income).

Taxing gains on sales of primary homes just leads to fewer homes for sale and higher prices. The only thing that correlates with the price change is months of available inventory in the market.

There is no physical limit to the amount of houses. The best way to fix this in the long term is to flood the market with new housing inventory.

We need to remove restrictions and make it easy to build new high-density housing anywhere and everywhere.

The wealthy have the capital to find loopholes in any tax that is levied.

We need to punish the housing speculators with a supply surge.

In GTA, there is a limit for single family homes (with yards) that have access to proper public transit. I have no belief an entlightened govt can fix all these factors in my lifetime (wide spread efficient public transit, increased investments in recreational parks, etc.). We have a policy called the greenbelt, which was pitched as an environmental thing but has been at least one factor in this whole mess.

For any other Americans that were confused, GTA here is "Greater Toronto Area" and not "Grand Theft Auto"

Foreign buyers are a scapegoat in Canada. The real issue is that individuals/corporations with large capital bases are buying out many real estate properties, sitting on the properties for a few years for the value to appreciate, and then buying more properties with the additional capital gained by the real estate market going up. Real estate value is going up faster than mortgage rates which means you can expand you property holdings in perpetuity. It is basically a big game of monopoly which is unfolding in slow motion.

I firmly believe that housing is a social good first, and an investment vehicle second and so we should be taxing any property which is not the primary residence of the owner to equalize the playing field between those with a large capital base and middle class families who just want a stable place to live.

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