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Comment by aborsy | Hacker News Reader

What are the causes? The article doesn’t explain.

Immigration of 400,000 people annually. The Government has announced it will increase immigration levels:

https://www.cicnews.com/2020/10/canada-to-release-2021-2023-...

Drives down wages, drives up asset values. Great for the elite. Furthermore, the new arrivals (from 2nd/3rd world countries) don't complain: they're happy just to be there.

I don’t see how immigrants from 2nd/3rd world countries are directly affecting prices. You said yourself wages are down.

By increasing demand?

Three generations go into one house, if you're wealthy.

If you're poor, in Australia its not uncommon to have a 3-bedroom house with 20 migrant men, who hotbunk and rotate every 12 hours.

This is the dismal reality of mass immigration.

Immigrants is Australia are not the same as in Canada. Also most all Aussies (and evident with your tone) are rabidly anti-immigrant blaming everything and anything on immigrants.

>its not uncommon to have a 3-bedroom house with 20 migrant men

These are probably workers, not immigrants.

Also, if immigrants were the problem, house prices would be going up when immigration was at all time high not when immigration is nearly zero during the pandemic.

House prices are going up because interest rates are low. They will stagnate when interest rates go up regardless of what the immigration is.

I really despise reading thinly(?) veiled xenophobic comments on HN.

Canada doesn't generally admin immigrants who aren't coming with substantial investment or education. Many are coming here with enough $$ to at least field a downpayment.

People's debts have been going up, interest rates have been lowering, credit card debt is at all time high, gdp to household debt is at all time high, number of investment houses to person is at all time high, immigration has crashed for last two years.

But sure, the problem is immigration.

No, I actually agree with you. I don't think the cause of housing price inflation is immigration. I was just commenting on the parent's point implying that immigrants would be poor/lower income.

The housing statistics program shows that established immigrants on average own more expensive housing than Canadians (Toronto being the one exception). The newly immigrated on average own less expensive housing than Canadians.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210318/dq210...

Home ownership rates in Canada are among the highest in OECD countries. Home ownership rates in the 25-44 age range are higher now than 1999.[1]

The government has several programs to “make housing more affordable” which just increases prices. Latest is a special $40k tax exempt account to grow your down payment. Government will also take an equity stake for lower income buyers.

Parents are shoveling money at their kids for down payments because “housing only goes up” and “its now or never”. Average “gift” is $180k in Vancouver for first purchase and $340k for “upgrade purchases”.[2]. Canadians as a whole are shoving cash into real estate like coal into a locomotive.

[1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article... [2] https://biv.com/article/2021/10/vancouver-parents-give-first...

Not really, see https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-3-Housing-tenures.pdf Detailed picture is even less optimistic if one reads the details. Also grouping 25-44 is not very helpful. Like 25 years old is fresh from the university and 44 is a middle aged group.

My link goes in age groups 25-34 and 35-45. Both have higher home ownership levels.

And I’m not sure what your link shows? It looks at homeowners only?

Homeowners breakdown with paid/unpaid mortgages. Which is quite interesting. Ownership with a life long mortgage is not that good sounding thing. Regardless, it still shows what Canada is in fact not even in the first half for home ownership in OECD.

I’m about to refinance again (in the US) and while I can readily afford our current 15-year mortgage, I’m likely to take out a fresh 30-year-fixed. Why shouldn’t I? It’s almost sure that risk-free rates will rise over that time and may even exceed the mortgage rate during that period.

In such a situation, a lifelong mortgage is exactly what I want to have.

> Average “gift” is $180k in Vancouver for first purchase and $340k for “upgrade purchases”.

Am I miss-reading the article? It says, "Among the 30% of first-time homebuyers in Canada to get help from their folks on a down payment..."

For "upgraded purchases" it says, "The CIBC report found that the mover-uppers who received help — just under 9% of Canadians — got $340,000 from their parents in Vancouver on average."

The way the article is presenting it it seems that 70% of first time home buyers are not getting anything from their parents?

Edit: [1] is the CIBC report the article is based on. It says "family members" instead of parents as used in a some what loose manner in the BIV article.

[1] https://economics.cibccm.com/cds?id=9dc124d8-9764-4c1d-83b4-...

Demand is high. Way higher than supply. Canada has the fastest growing population (in %) in the developed world. Add here zoning and you get ... any Canadian city with the exception of Calgary and Edmonton.

Speaking for Montreal here: there is a lot of demand chasing a limited supply.

I’ve seen prices increase by ~30% in my neighborhood over the past 3 years.

And neither of the mayoral candidates propose anything actionable. Current elections are disappointing even before results are known.

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