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Comment by SketchySeaBeast | Hacker News Reader

Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction accounts for 8.21% of Canada's GDP. So, not so much, but let's all take a moment to stare at the horror show that is the 13% that is real estate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada

Edit: I realize that source is from 2020, which may be skewing those numbers, but it seems that statista still roughly agrees in 2024.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/594293/gross-domestic-pr...

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> let's all take a moment to stare at the horror show that is the 13% that is real estate.

12% in both USA (2023) and Mexico (2015). Other countries that use a similar classification seem to also be in the same range. Japan, for example, also sits at 12% (2022).

Is a single percentage point really that horrific?

This is the most interesting bit of information in this entire comments section:

Japan, which has a completely different view, model, and concept of real estate that does NOT treat it as an investment, ends up with the same portion of GDP locked/used/coming from real estate.

I feel like there's important information in that tidbit, but I am not equipped to grasp it.

One possible takeaway is that just maybe real estate isnt a parasitic zero-sum activity that some make it out to be.

That developing, renovating, bankrolling, managing, and maintaining physical infrastructure is real work and creates real value.

Real estate is 3-5% of GDP for construction of new homes. And 12-13% for housing. That includes rent, but also the owner's imputed rent that they would pay. I think sales are counted as capital gains and I think not included in GDP.

I'm not too surprised that countries have similar housing, there is percent of rent that can afforded. I'm surprised that higher home prices aren't reflected, but that may show up as higher overall GDP.

It is when real estate prices are massively inflated. If houses cost 50% more than they're worth, it would mean that 4% of the Canadian economy is completely imaginary and based solely on speculation.

And worth saying that not all of the petroleum industry in Canada is oil sands, wikipedia (I'm lazy) gave a figure of 64% for the oil sands, so 36% is still the conventional pumpjack crude that's not as polluting (albeit still polluting) as oil sands, and not as dependent on gas prices being high to be viable.

given the housing shortage in both US and Canada, I think we would want the portion of GDP coming from real-estate new home construction to be even higher.

Modern numbers at a provincial level show that it's much higher than 13% in 2024. Canada is slowly becoming a massive housing/real-estate bubble.

A healthy chunk of that real estate and construction GDP is the result of oil and gas extraction. Most of Canada's largest exporting companies are oil, mining, or derivatives related.

> A healthy chunk of that real estate and construction GDP is the result of oil and gas extraction.

Is it? I'd be interested in numbers to qualify that claim.

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