The Canadian Housing Crisis Explained
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- Опубликовано: 26 апр 2024
- 00:00 - Intro
01:51 - The Prelude
04:31 - How Did We Get Here?
10:27 - The Debt
16:10 - Where's The Crash?
19:33 - Closing thoughts
CMHC Home Buying Guide: www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/consumers...
Home School Series: globalnews.ca/tag/home-school...
Millennial Moron: / @millennialmoron
Canada's real estate market hosts some of the most expensive properties in the world - now, things are looking rickety. Let's dive into the problem.
This channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute financial advice - Richard is not responsible for investment actions taken by viewers. Please seek out a registered advisor if you require assistance (while Richard is a registered portfolio manager at WDS Investment Management, he does not provide advice through The Plain Bagel, which is not affiliated with his employer).
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Oh hi 👋 Thanks for the shoutout! I'll try to get more of my analytical videos uploaded here for my fellow nerds when I get a chance.
I hate that you don't upload the videos to RUclips
My pleasure, keep finding Canadians their retirement castles 👍
Puts up an image of 5 canadian banks that were "well-capitalized" in 2008, doesn't mention that 3 of the 5 were completely insolvent at that time and were bailed out by the federal government lol
Canada is just a very small market compared to the USA, much easier to contain the subprime crisis. Especially with a big assist from us fed res. USA was better regulated at that time and remains much better regulated now.
@jcgw2 I'm working on it but it's a low priority because nobody watches them here lol
@@user-le2hu1ct4t MFs don't know about the IMPP lol
When people talk about how the US real estate market is overvalued, Canada shows that there is a long way that prices can still rise
let's hope the US doesn't ever have to experience that. Here in Europe, we're getting there, too, and people aren't happy.
House prices to income ratio is off the chart.
US Americans like to invest their money in stocks and bonds. Europeans on the other side often know nothing else than real estate. Especially true for the german speaking countries. If you mention stocks in Austria for example, your average Austrian joe will think you are talking about some shady casino stuff.
@Harry_S._ yes ! This is another reason why worker productivity is so low in those countries, little investment into industry and most going to the roof over their head.
"YOU FOOL! THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!"
My parents and older relatives are celebrating how the money they have sitting in the bank is going up with that higher interest and is thinking of buying a bigger house closer to the golf course. Meanwhile my company just went on a hiring/pay freeze and I'm worried if by the end of the year my landlord is going to raise my rent again. It's really different worlds.
Trudeau. Is to blame.
If it makes you feel better their money is being inflated away. The number is getting bigger but the buying power is dropping faster. So in real terms they are losing money. You will make it through this but they have to live off only their savings if they can't work anymore.
@@louis6205 Wallstreet is to blame, housings should not be an investment.
It's a tricky situation it never hurts to prepare and plan ahead and look at the market to see if you can find a better deal in the worse case.
@louis6205 this is a decade+ problem that's been brewing long before he was on the scene... long before.
I am Canadian and bought a house by myself in 2019 with a fixed rate mortgage, before the pandemic craziness but still in the low rates time. My mortgage is up for renewal next year. The bank called me a year in advance to try to warn me that my mortgage is going to jump (though I was already well aware!). I live in one of the most affordable cities in Canada, and it's still going to jump about $900-1000 per month. I own a tiny 1950s bungalow. My utilities have gone up also $250ish per month, my insurance has jumped $100 per month, my groceries have gone up a ton too. My wage has stagnated, and I can't pick up a second job due to health reasons.
To try to offset that upcoming hike and current costs, I'm doing intermittent fasting to skip dinner to lower food costs, and I'm giving up half my already small house to rent out the basement.
What's scary about all that is that I am THRIVING compared to others, and lucky to have a house at all. I also did everything "right" - I started building my credit score from 18, got a fantastic career, saved for a decade for the down payment, never did anything like an expensive trip, have had the same car for over a decade... and even then I'm hanging on by a thread. It's so messed up. I don't know how people with kids afford anything.
Capitalism is starting to fail us. This has been known for decades. Sooner or later we are all in big trouble unless you are very wealthy.
I hope things get better for you.
@@toddlavigne6441this has nothing to do with capitalism and has everything to do with government over reach. Nice try.
the free market implemented zoning and density taxes and stunlocking developments by community input
Everyone is cash poor sad
@@toddlavigne6441capitalism has nothing to do with it, you can thank progressive ideologies for this whole mess. Capitalism is being able to sell the work you do for a wage. Up here in Chinada, the work you produce is owned by the governement due to massive taxes on your income plus your employer pays some taxes on your wages also. We live in a Borderline communist society wearing the skin of capitalism while espousing socialists ideologies that are only meant to strong-arm you into paying more taxes.
9 years ago I entered the workforce and started saving for a home, at the time I would keep an eye on the market and there was homes for 200-250k I could see my self in eventually.
Now that I'm in a better financial position and looking to buy that price is just the down payment.
Was not expecting to find the Getting Over It guy here
The "affordability rules" are a joke at this point. The goalposts have moved. Not only is the mortgage ridiculous, but fees/taxes/electricity/etc all have gone up. For a solo earner it's nearly impossible. Two income households it's very difficult. No foresight by our government to house our citizens or the millions of new immigrants. A failure and a betrayal.
Worst of all, it seems like Canada disproportionately brings in “educated” immigrants. So for the more highly skilled jobs that you’d want to fill in order to buy housing in a place like Toronto, you’re getting your wages driven down by an influx of foreign born labor.
While the crybabies that have owned homes are multi millionaires from the real estate. I guess nobody cares about home owners only for the broke people.That is the failure and betrayal.
@@kentclark9740Welcome to capitalism. You live as a serf and the closest thing to an escape offered to you is for you to maybe become an exploitative landlord yourself.
Organize with your fellow poors against this modern serfdom. It's your only real hope.
Artificially restricting your access to shelter as how your lords of land(landlords) make the most money out of suckers like you.
So if the government just house urchins like you that would drive down rent prices which is spooky communism.
@@Praisethesunson I already rent out four of our homes.
An entire generation of wealth, a full decade of nearly interest free debt that could've built infrastructure and provided service that could've been the envy of the world, squandered and left for future Canadians to sweep up
That sounds a lot like the UK too. We privatised everything and took on debt to raise quick money, and used it to support tax cuts. The good times are over now, and it looks like taxes will have to go up - a *lot* - to deal with the crisis that anyone could have seen coming.
Have you tried introducing UBI?
@@vylbird8014privatization has destroyed what the 21st century could've been
@@vylbird8014 ʇɐɥɔ ǝɥʇ pǝɹǝʇuǝ sɐɥ ɐılɐɹʇsn∀
I think Canada has had some very small experiments with UBI but I don't believe the programs were continued despite promising results.
We sold our house last year after it inflated almost 50% in 5 years. Saw the writing on the wall when the Bank of Canada printed 30% of the entire supply of Canadian dollars in 2020-11 "because covid". What did we expect? We sold, paid off all debt, and moved to another country and bought a house in cash for less than 1/4 of our Canadian house value.
Great! Where did you go?
My situation was a bit different money-wise but ended up moving out of Canada due to the insane real estate prices. I was making a very good salary, paying an insane amount in taxes and seeing zero benefit (health care, real estate…) being there. Fortunately I work remotely so I just relocated to Brazil, bought a huge condo for “change” in comparison to Canadian prices.
I miss Canada but not that much that I’m willing to just throw my life savings to the government when I’m even unable to buy a home. It’s super sad what Canada has become.
Where'd you move lol
@@AhhhSukeSuke We ended up in rural Japan. Even in this sparsely populated little town we happened to meet a couple other families who escaped Canada in late 2021. We had neighbours who packed up and left as well, over the past year. One couple went to Spain a few months ago, another to the rural Philippines. We know others who went to Mexico...
@@thisisnotpublic6569 Super sad. I wasn't doing too badly with my government salary. Not rich but a six figure income. Even with that, I could not live in my town on this salary any longer. I have a colleague, same salary as me, who had to sell all his investments in an attempt to pay down his townhouse because his mortgage doubled and is now paying almost all into interest and none into the principle. A bulk of his above-average salary is just going to straight into the bankers pockets and paying taxes. I refuse to live like that and couldn't let my children be trapped in such debt slavery.
I have a younger family member who has a great job as an engineer, his partner a phd with a high paying job. All their friends are professionals good jobs. I was told when they get together at party's the topic usually ends up being how difficult it is to save for a down payment and buy a house in GTA or Vancouver where some of them live. If it's hard for these people it must be even worse for most.
My friend buys cheap houses and renovates them. He has no degree, is 28 and currently owns 4 houses with a good amount of money in the bank. Over-educating is real.
@@yepyep266your friend is literally the reason why Canada has such problems rn, why in the world he needs that 4 houses for?
@@yepyep266 buys cheap houses.. so born with money then adds to the problem.. you are truly clueless
@@blahblahgdp he wasn’t born with money. He worked for it first
@@lucas3590he leverages the money. by renovating he. then selling 3 times more of the old one repaying renovation costs and buying another old one and all this goes on and off . or just renting
As an American, this is terrifying knowing our housing crisis could get so much worse.
The US is better situated to avoid the crisis though. The driver of the housing crisis is primarily caused by chronic underbuilding in both Canada and the US however recently in the US the state of California has started taking action to remove the abilities of cities to block new housing meanwhile in Texas it's always been very easy to build. Florida has also taken a lot of steps to make it easier to build. There are also still a number of relatively cheap large cities especially in the Midwest. While housing is likely going to keep going up in the US it's unlikely to be as bad as Canada.
@ethank5059 I sure hope so. We could use some policies like that in the north eastern US
Our mortgages aren’t nearly this stupid. We just need more home building, more density in building by rezoning, and getting people to stop all trying to live in overpopulated areas by busting up monopolies.
@@ethank5059 The underbuilding is chronic because governments pile regulation and red tape onto home builders which make building homes quickly almost impossible. Cities blocking new housing projects is just one example of red tape. Zoning laws, building codes that are decades old, overly enviornmental protection laws, parking requirements, land use restrictions, affordable housing mandates, housing permit processes, historic preservation, rent control laws, etc.
Turns out when you make it really really hard to build housing, and you make it harder for housing developers to eke out a profit then they have less incentive to build houses fast enough to keep up with demand and rising cost of living.
Absolute shocker.
@@strngenchantedgirl "We just need more home building." How about this, go out and try to develop homes and see how easy it is. It's damn near impossible to build home in places like California due to the government red tape. Loosen the regulations that make it challenging or unprofitable to build, and the homes will flow like a waterfall. Until then, enjoy your skyrocketing prices and limited supply.
Gen X - Some are screwed
Millennial - Most are screwed
Gen Z - You're all screwed
tbh in a bubble pop its the best time to buy because prices get insanely low, I have just got my first house and am looking to acquire more. To be fair the majority of houses I am looking at are buy, repair, rent type of plans and I have my own crew of repairmen behind me. But I am by no means rich, just a broke guy with a bunch of broke friends and a plan. Not completely screwed for those who work together.
@@radomone You're in for a rude awakening. The govt has gone rogue, they'll do whatever they can to crush you. They're malevolent. You'll see.
@@radomonewhat degree do you have to make infrastructure changes ? You are civil engineer / architect?
@@mortalux I have studied architecture but with no degree. For the most part I will be hiring other people to make my vision a reality and most things with it dont actually need a degree. I have been taught carpentry by sealed carpenters, and have a vision that I think should be implemented reguardless of a degree or no degree
@@radomone wow, I’ve always thought you needed a degree to be an entrepreneur, so that you can supervise the work done and verify its legitimacy. I’m studying for civil engineering at the moment but once I will have my degree I would love to make my own business to innovate and have productive work done instead of simply being at someone else’s whims and ideas and help them make it a reality.
I love how I have to educate myself on this through RUclips rather than being taught in secondary curriculum.
I feel this
I'm in the list of Canadians that COULD afford a home in my home province 2 yrs ago (and still can but it's now closer to buying a dump vs an actual home), but because of housing issues in other provinces, they migrated here.
Meaning the poorest province in Canada is now no longer liveable
I'd also add that this entire situation has absolutely destroyed the rental market, meaning those who aren't in homes are totally screwed.
As a Canadian, the housing and health care crisis have me so disappointed and frustrated with all of our politicians. They do basically nothing, seeing these major problems develop over years. It's ridiculous.
The best description of the problem I’ve heard is that housing is a federal issue, but housing supply is mostly determined at the municipal and provincial level. So the incentive structure isn’t there to fix it.
status quo, and my job's secure for 4 years.
They have no interest in doing anything because a large number of them own multiple properties themselves so why would they want to kill their own investments. This is something never mentioned in media unfortunately.
They don't do anything because voters don't care. They're more worried about who called who a nazi and who is wearing the blackface than actual important economic and personal rights and freedoms.
They deserve it.
the corrupt government is profiting off of it. they dont give a single fuck if canadians suffer, they probably enjoy our suffering.
As a Canadian, I feel like I'm screwed when it comes to finding a house. I don't even care about living in Vancouver, but it would be nice to still have a job that brings in good income and allows me to have my own home.
I'm renting, all the houses here are over a million. I don't even know what to do. I'm a first time Buyer in the Housing Market, family can't afford to help me. All I'm doing right now is trying to save whatever I can every month.
Canadians are struggling and suffering.. So many people I know are working two Jobs just to put a roof over their head. I need guidance as well. I just graduated with a Robotics Degree and even finding work feels difficult. Wishing all the best of luck to other Canadians..
go to US, you will make it there
You're not going to get it. Certainly not a single-detached house, you may eventually be able to afford a condo. But every family having a single-detached house is just not sustainable.
You could leave that liberal "utopia" for the prairie provinces. Just don't vote for stupid shit when you do
@@agilemind6241it's actually super sustainable. Our government just hates us and doesn't want us to have nice things.
If you're a skilled worker/have strong educational background, locations across USA EUMEA SEA OCE are all better places to be
Loved the video! Urban planner here in Ontario, and can fully agree with the point made on lack of supply. A major contributing factor right now in addition to those mentioned, is the lack of infrastructure. There is insufficent sewer/water capacity in the plants, and insufficent funds being made available to upgrade those facilities. We can't build homes if they can't be serviced.
Sounds like communism
Where is Ontario? do you see this mostly in the suburban communities where density is low or also in denser cities, toronto, missisagua etc?
@@trevorwovz6614 To try and keep a much longer answer short, this is happening in both higher density cities and in suburban communities. It all comes down to how your municipality is serviced, how much of the development assigned servicing allocation has actually been developed, and how much funding there is being made available by various levels of government to fund expansions to infrastructure in addition to a few other factors.
In both bigger cities and suburban communities, we are receiving the message as planners that certain municipalities have extremely limited servicing allocation, or no servicing allocation to facilitate any further future development ,or to facilitate certain categories of development (i.e. freehold and/or low-rise development vs. high-rise or rental development).
The sad thing is, is that even in the very rural area's houses are starting to get quite expensive. My dad bought a house way out in the middle of nowhere for around 90k and at the time there were others for around that price, just 3 years later however and those same houses were going for 300,000k.
Where is that?
Yup, and in most rural areas there are no jobs to pay the mortgage
@@rbc4989 Not Canadian, are there even local facilities in these areas? How far are the closest grocery store, post office, fire station, hospital, elementary school..? Obviously if there’s no job, the community won’t grow, but on step further is not being able to fund basic public services.
As a 46 y.o. Canadian, the one thing I absolutely CANNOT get over is that to have a generic, boring, run-of-the-mill life in Canada, you have to be wealthy.
I've felt that way about my stupid country for almost 40 years now.
Same here bro, nobody has hobbies here, no extra money. Go south and everyone has a hobby, boats, RVs , bands, etc.,.... way more fun down there
@@huskavarnaband I always wanted to go to the USA but I'm much too poor. I was also tortured by corrupt police when I was a kid so I can't function worth a damn. The police have been waiting for me to kill myself for well over 30 years.
Yeah, Canadians seldom have hobbies and interests, they mostly work like dogs and have kids, that's a normal life here. Oh yeah, and buying consumer shit and having a MOUNTAIN of debt!
That is why we left 18 years ago. The income taxes alone were causing us to live paycheck to paycheck.
@@huskavarnaband It's true, all they talk about is housing. They are incredibly boring to converse with.
Since you were six years old!
Disillusioned from a young age.
As a torontonian, it was almost surreal when doug ford proposed developing our protected greenbelt. We have so many zoning problems here, that im still in shock no one is considering rezoning parts of downtown toronto to support more density. In addition, ive been staring at empty plots of land for decades, that are still not developed (again, due to zoning).
Nobody wants to live in a box surrounded by people
How big are these empty lots?
And the second issue is people need to start seeing ol' Doug for the POS he is and elect someone who will actually do something. Start pressuring for zoning amendments so these empty lots can be developed into livable spaces provided the area around them isn't surrounded by things like factories and industrial spaces that produce pollutants and noises that make living in the area not so practical. It's not right that people should have to work 3 jobs and have like 6 roommates just to be able to barely afford to live in a city
"Nobody" is several million people living in the core of the GTA? @@smoothbraindetainer
@@smoothbraindetainer I do
@@smoothbraindetainer most cities would beg to differ.
I bought my first house in Calgary 18 years ago. Since then prices have gone up $1640 on average every month. Incomes since 1980 have gone up 2.5x but the average new homes have gone up 13x. The traditional family is history as a result because one good income can’t afford a family. I bought my first house in Calgary 18 years ago, and if you average how much the same house today has gone up in price, it ends up being $1640 a month. My mortgage back then was $740. Now to buy the same starter home the monthly payment would be triple that. And there would be another 10 years of payments. Insanity.
Canada’s mortgage and financial markets are scary. Thanks for talking about it. I’m nervous for my family, my friends, and myself. I guess let’s see how it goes.
We'll all truly be equal in the bread lines.
Man, it really sucks how much something as immaterially important as housing is driven to be so volatile because of speculation. And I feel like it's become apparent that using property as a way to "build wealth" involves taking it from the next generation of homebuyers. If someone gets more out of a house than they put in, the person they're selling to must start in further debt than them.
@@swarmpope9608It’s parasitic
@@swarmpope9608 yeah, asset appreciation was pitched as this great way to ensure you have enough when you retire, but even investing in the stock market is more based on the assumption that there will be more people to buy your portfolio, otherwise again they're paying more money than you did for the same assets.
@@aeroandspace And that the companies selling those stocks continue to create new things of value e.g. new innovations. Housing does not create innovation and does nothing to improve long term economic output or living standards.
@@bradcomis1066 Even then, if you want to cash out your stocks that are, say, worth 1.2 times the amount you put in, and the next generation is putting in the same value you did, you need 1.2 people of the next generation in order to fully sell your stocks.
@@swarmpope9608 Building wealth (at least for regular Canadians) isn't about exploiting the housing inflation but rather getting to pay down a mortgage, having both a place to live and an actual chance to retire some day, rather than paying the same amount _just_ to subsist for one more month while owning nothing and having zero financial security.
Financial security is what's getting built and the very thing that _everyone_ deserves a fair chance at doing.
There is no incompatibility between that and fixing the market imbalance that's fleecing both buyers and renters, either. Housing prices could collapse and already having one would still be a far better alternative to destitution at the whims of landlords. If some economic relief were granted to single-property homeowners who end up with (remaining) mortgages larger than their home value there wouldn't really be a single _undeserving_ loser. Even if one could afford to both rent and build some savings instead, how is that actually better? It just trades real assets with actual utility for buying other people's debts and effectively profiting from inflation as a means to avoid losing to it. At least home ownership isn't _inherently_ exploitation of others backed by "it's them or me" motivation.
You can't fix inequality or runaway wealth consolidation by targeting the slightly-less-losers anyway. But eat the rich and suddenly there _is_ enough wealth to go around. You know the ones - they're the ones who can afford to pay taxes on extra property while they work on greasing the wheels of rezoning; the ones mass-harvesting public resources while reaping both tax cuts and development grants for "creating jobs;" the ones _really_ building wealth but probably not talking about it anywhere within your filthy labor-class earshot.
The root problem is unfortunately an inherently international one. We can never claw back the middle class as long as other nations are still willing to massively overbid for private investment/corporate presence. Other nations could perhaps, but even if we had the sense to de-privatize and help ourselves instead, we're already far too divested of what little public wealth we once had and it never really was enough from the start. I mean, that's how we got here in the first place.
Then again, most of _our_ overlords _aren't_ international, are they? Some of them don't even rule more than one province... 🤔
I think one of the big things missing from this conversation is just how much of the real estate in Canada is primarily built and sold for profit. Real estate is actually Canada's biggest and more lucrative industry so, when a new apartment building DOES finally get built, it's not designed for low-income affordable housing, it's designed as high-end condos meant for wealthy investors. Hell, Ford literally took a whole swath of affordable housing buildings and turned them INTO condos. And these investors are always shocked when, instead of college students or high-income couples, those condos are bought by families who literally just want a place to raise their children.
The REASON why Doug Ford was so slammed for converting the Greenbelt wasn't just because it was a campaign promise of his to NOT touch it, but also because he DIDN'T actually turn it over to be made into new homes for people, he gave it directly to his developer friends, handing them literally millions of dollars in free real estate which they could then do whatever they wanted with, most likely turning it into more condos that are built cheaply and shoddily and then are sold at ridiculous prices or rents because they can.
Because real estate is Canada's biggest industry, the government has absolutely no incentives to do things like allocate affordable housing or put in rent controls because those wealthy real estate corporations simply shove money into their pockets to NOT do any of those things.
Couple that with the increasing cost of living with things like electricity and food and you've got a recipe for homelessness on a grand scale because, in the end, most people DON'T actually want a house for an investment, they want it so they can NOT BE HOMELESS!
The problem is who owns the houses. You likely know and like more than one person who funds their life on the money from a real estate investment. The practice of accruing passive income is pervasive in canada.
Not to mention the many articles that pop up a week about developers willing to pay fines rather than make affordable housing because even with the fine its way more profitable than to make affordable housing
one thing i may add that goes under the radar is the divorce rate these days. 50 years ago the divorce rate was 20%, now its 50%. That means the demand for single home housing just went up by 30% from this reason alone.
This is absolutely spot on! The very fact that the government and media refer to a human being's shelter as a "market" is what is absolutely wrong with Canada! Shelters should have NEVER ever been seen as a lucrative market but now you have way way way too many scurrilous people in the "industry" who benefit from the hyped up sales of shelters. Right from the real estate agent who plies a whole cacophony of tricks to get you to part with your hard earned past, present and future monies to the banker who can't wait to lock you into a 40+ year mortgage that your grandkids may have a chance to pay off if interest rates stop increasing to home inspectors who can go back multiple times to the same address for different clients to tax collectors both provincially and federally who take a cut every time an ancient dwelling is sold to even lawyers who draft up the transfer papers. It is a veritable army of career scoundrels who stand to lose if the "market" drops to "fair value" meaning the home actually sells for a small markup from what it is truly worth which is rarely more than $60,000 for a condo or $150,000 for a townhouse or home. The rest of the "fat" of the price is speculated property value meaning if that box of wooden sticks that we like to fondly refer to as a home was placed in the middle of the forest in NWT it would barely get this amount. It's frustrating as F for those who need a shelter but great for boomers with extra money who don't want to support any businesses that contribute to GDP but instead want to fleece those who are desperate for shelters and colloquially call it a housing "market" but there is a grave end game. The rich can own ALL of the properties in the country and charge 10's of thousands of dollars to rent them or millions and millions of dollars to own them but that will only be by other rich people. None of whom actually work for a living. So what happens, in effect, is that there will be NO WORKERS and the rich will have NO GROGERY STORES, NO SCHOOLS, NO HOSPITALS, NO POLICE, NO FIREMEN, etc. It's already happening across the country where blue collared and even white collared workers cannot live near where they work. The only tiny glimmer of hope is something for the government to adopt a policy similar to that of Austria in the early 1900's. Yes, it's old but it worked. First, stop ALL ability for speculators to "buy" any new homes or condos being built. In other words, if you are buying there then you are living there period! No more "this is my fifth investment property" BS. One person, one shelter. Feel free to upgrade if you have the means but then you sell your previous property to get there. Secondly, property value can only list for as high as the average income of the citizen in that area. Thirdly, no investment speculation from anyone outside the country and we don't care who you are. Unfortunately this may never come to pass as the Austrians had the courage to take a hit on profits from housing in order to make the citizens of their country live a better life and look up where the best place is to live on earth!
Hong Kong
Richard is beyond amazing. How to create income flow
Making money is action, saving money is behavior and Growing money is knowIedge.
I am fortunate I made productive decisions that changed my life forever (accumuIated over a MiI) through my finance-mentor. I'm a single parent, bought my house in January and hoping to retire at 53 by next year.
get her
*Rebecca Martin Watson*
good to be here
Living somewhat near to Vancouver myself, having all of this explained to me (some guy in his early 20s with no hope of having a job good enough to give a living wage) is just. extremely depressing, really. I didn't know the true scope of it until this video.
I have friends older than me in fields like programming, comp sci and similar "stable" office jobs and are approaching their 30s, yet almost all of them still cannot afford to move out of their parents houses. It really does not inspire much hope for me and my younger friends, almost all of our "heart to hearts" are about how downright miserable the housing crisis is and how uncertain things look for all of us now as childhood friends who have been drifting away from each other physically *because* of housing prices increasing over the years. BC is beautiful, I grew up here as well, but I'd be lying if I said I wanted to continue living here in the future if things continue this way.
Born and raised in BC as well. No way could I continue to raise my own children there. I spent 20 years of my career in government and the military. I quit it all. We sold our beautiful house, packed up and left the country last year for a better future for our children.
There's better luck moving to Calgary.... immediately.
@@jordanw8382where'd you move!?
@@AhhhSukeSuke We ended up in rural Japan. Even in this sparsely populated little town we happened to meet a couple other families who escaped Canada in late 2021. We had neighbours who packed up and left as well, over the past year. One couple went to Spain a few months ago, another to the rural Philippines. We know others who went to Mexico...
Last young leaving vancouver please turn off the light!
A little back story on the first home listed at 5.5 million for those who are interested. I lived in Vancouver from 2009-2019. Incomprehensible rapid changes during this time. This home is located in the newly designated "Cambie Corridor" neighborhood in Vancouver. Very close to this home there used to be a large shopping centre known as Oakridge Mall. The neighborhood is also in close proximity to a Skytrain line that was completed for the 2010 Olympics. The mall has recently been demolished and massive high-rise projects at the site of the old mall and the surrounding area have been in constant motion. The reason this home is worth so much is the city of Vancouver changed the zoning laws for this area to allow high-rises and medium density apartments in the area. As a result residents in this neighborhood essentially won the lottery for a second time. Properties like the one mentioned at the start of video have actually sold for far more than 5.5 million over the past 3-5 years. The city has such strict zoning guidelines that render most neighborhoods as single family homes only; so in the rare instance when zoning does get changed you see the massive price jumps. Furthermore the past elites in the city have designated desirable neighborhoods that forbid even the possibility of changing zoning classifications because they have been classified as an "historical area". In particular the Shaughnessy neighborhood is a massive chunk of land that features extremely expensive real estate and a level of elitism that would blow you away. NIMBY is running rampant in Vancouver and a small group of elites have essentially chased away the 'undesirables' and have locked just about everyone else out of a chance of owning property in the city. Vancouver is a beautiful city, no doubt, but the housing crisis has been past the breaking point for some time now.,
Why do they keep allowing more immigrants then? I understand for moral reasons when it comes to refugees or to offset fertility declines, but I think we’re past both those points with the current level of immigration.
I agree though that the main culprit is zoning laws and housing seen as an investment. But you’d think they would scrap both if they really wanted to absorb more people.
@@jackjones4824I suppose because immigrants are wealthier than natives and whoever cares about scrapping stuff only gained from rising demand from wealthy people (see The Wealth of Immigrant Families in Canada
by René Morissette)
@@jackjones4824 I can't speak for Vancouver, but immigrants can be high skilled to provide a tax base, or low skilled but willing to live 4 to a bedroom and keep services cheap. So, while not universal, "elites" like immigration.
@@jackjones4824 New immigrants means new work force. Canada like many developed countries has aging population. And as the video mentioned, many job are unfilled.
@@jackjones4824Basically because of skilled labor. The US is a black hole of skilled workers and Canada, due to its proximity and similarities to the US, loses most of its well educated and trained workforce to the US. The only way to replace the lost workforce is to import them from cheaper countries.
People need to start seeing houses first and foremost as place to live, not an investment. I couldnt imagine buying a home and being like, oh I need to upgrade it in this or thay way for when I sell it, so I get more money. Or trying to play the market to buy it for cheaper or get a better rate on my mortgage, because in 5 or however many years I'd want to sell it. What's wrong with buying a home you'd plan on living in for decades and making it a home that you enjoy living in.
You clearly don’t understand how capitalism works.
@@bryanboucher9669please explain Singapore's public housing to me. Last time I checked, it's fairly investor friendly too
@@bryanboucher9669me neither
@@bryanboucher9669 The securitisation of everything is slowly happening. One day every collectable, every business type, every asset will have a market that you can appraise it from and list it on. I'm not sure if that's a good future, but we're slowly moving in that direction.
I agree.
Houses were commodities in our grandparents' generation. Cars were more expensive than houses back then.
Seeing a house as an investment is what started the snowball effect and made housing unaffordable within only 2 generations.
As always, simple and plain bagel explaination. Thanks for covering this comprehensively.
Would be good to see a follow-up on this now that sentiment is changing.
Fantastic video! Thank you for the clear, unbiased explanation of the situation here in Canada.
I thought the UK was a bit hard with the fixed term. Then you started to explain Canada, and it got worse, and worse, and worse. Good luck to you guys!
I bought a 3 bedtoom townhouse in 2016 in a city an hour outside of Toronto. My monthly costs are less then a 1 bedroom apartment is going for right now.
Fixed term mortgages aren't the problem here, it's the variable rate mortgages that were given at 2020 near-zero interest rates that are causing all kinds of mayhem and systemic risk at this time.
@@erickpalacios8904I wonder how things will go when they need to renew in a couple years...
@@erickpalacios8904 close, but that isn't the root problem. People were encouraged to borrow amounts on the foolish notion that interest rates would stay low. This is a much harder problem to resolve.
@@erickpalacios8904 Five years is a very short fixed term mortgage. We are currently in a 30 year fixed loan.
Thank god I listened to my parents when I bought a house in 2020 and decided on a fixed rate. Sure .25% variable looked hella nicer than 2% fixed, but my parents had been through a few housing rises and crashes and warned that post pandemic those interest rates were going to shoot up. And boy howdy did they ever.
You should text your parents right now and tell them that they're absolute legends
Yah I mean inflation was at 6% then so those rates made no sense LOL good for you though :)!!!
But your fixed rate, is it valid for the whole mortgage time? I understand it's renegotiated anyway after some years, isn't?
I renewed my mortgage in December of 2020. I took a five year fixed at 1.79%. I figured interest rates would only go up....
So you're up in 2025? Going from 2% to 6%++? 😇
I was at 836 bi-weekly in 2021, I'm at 1385 now not breaking a sweat. No impact to amortization, just less disposable at the end of each month. 38 yrs old, 21+ yrs in the RCAF, 135K/yr and a mil pension... many people from my generation should have never bought. Needs over Wants.
wow, i needed that explanation. I didn't know any of this and im a 26 year old Canadian. Very well made
You have a RARE TALENT: the ability to explain in plain and simple words, in a most interesting manner, the entire housing affordability crisis, that we are facing in these troubling times.Thank you❣ Roland Singh, 🇨🇦
Hello Canadian here. I lived with my ex husband for 3 years because I couldn't afford to move out. I managed to get permission from my work to continue to work from home for at least the next year so I've been able to move out of Toronto and on my own. I am 47 years old with no kids. I cannot afford a down payment on a home and I have aged out of all government programs for first time home owners (yes there is an age limit). I rent, currently paying $1800 not including parking or electricity a month. I haven't missed a rent payment in over 10 years. I am fortunate in that my rent is only 55% of my take home pay. People I work with pay more than 65%+ of their take home income on housing. Full time employed people here have to choose between shelter and food. It's bad.
Dang, that's rough.
Watching from the Seattle area, where it's pretty bad but not quite that bad.
I remember when I visited Vancouver BC a few years ago there was a magazine sitting in my hotel room about Vancouver real estate, so I guess they were really encouraging or expecting visitors to invest their money there.
Governments have used immigration to stabilise financial markets by synthetically boosting GDP at the expense of destablising living standards. Same in Australia. Very bad for many people born here in recent decades. Not racism, just truth. On the other side we've seen obscene victors as a consequence of economic policy making, an absolute increase in the lucky few who don't flinch at the prospect of spending 5, 10, 20 million on a home in a desirable location. It's been tough to live through, but at least society is relatively stable and forgiving on other fronts. I think we've basically walked through the door of a type of neo-feudalism where it seems the only way out is to do incredible things and chase a level of wealth that few can obtain. It's difficult to envision a way in which it gets any easier beyond long term demographic decline combined with very intentional handling of the economy.
So.... Good Luck to All.
@@willi1397the house must be desirable not the location only to justify spending that much.
Take a hard look in the mirror. Your ex-husband is a saint, a complete saint, for letting you park yourself in his house for Three Years after you divorced his ass! Don't you think you made some poor choices there?
@@jvaneck8991 Excuse me, but you don't know her or her ex-husband, right? Maybe don't make assumptions about her choices and just be nice and sympathetic.
The terrible part is that renters are also very much exposed to this as rents track housing prices very closely. So you could have made all the right decisions and still be getting worked by this.
@@swarmpope9608 With how short on supply Canada is, even the middle class can't afford houses. So they shift to apartments, increasing demand and seeing rent blow up faster than the old renters could keep up with. So you're right that it's based on what renters can pay, it's just that these days the tax bracket of renters is rising.
@@swarmpope9608 In extension to what Kingofhearts mentioned, the rental market is also in short supply, so as long as people can "afford" to rent at 60% of their income, you dont have much of a choice. The only limitation is that landlords are typically restricted to a cap on how much they can increase their rent on an annual basis, which is why its becoming more common for renovictions or "family" moving in.
Rents track mortgage payments.
@@kyletrusler4565 Yeah those laws aren't very well enforced since you need to file paperwork and possible go to some sort of court, assuming you even have documented evidence that the eviction was a sham. Seen a few stories to that effect going around.
@@swarmpope9608 but mortgage payments didn't rise at all on a fixed loan, and likely fell as everyone with any equity refinanced. Rent went up 25% though.
I love that people view housing as a investment instead of a necessity makes it so great for us younger generations to get into the market thank you Mr Trudeau for telling us the housing market is not high on your priority list
Not enough people can't seemingly see how incredibly wrong it is to view housing like this. Words alone can't express how much it angers me when I see people buying up more and more land because they can leverage what they already own, meanwhile so many people who might have been right in that range of being able to afford something just a few years ago are left with paying absurd rental prices.
This is an excellent review of the Canadian real-estate market, financing, and the challenges Canadians face.
This happened with the 2004 housing boom - home prices were greatly inflated, meaning people couldn't sell later because they owed more on the house than they could sell for. I know quite a few people who bought then, thinking they were making a good investment to sell later, but it's taken until the COVID housing boom for the prices to come back to those original amounts.
To balance out your real estate holdings, I suggest investing in equities. If you're cautious, even the worst recessions can present fantastic buying opportunities. Additionally, volatility can produce fantastic short-term purchase and sell opportunities. This is not financial advise, but you should buy immediately away because money isn't king right now!
You're right. I was able to diversify my 450K portfolio across markets with the aid of an investment coach, and I was able to use high dividend yield stocks, ETFs, and bonds to generate a little over $830K in net profit.
Would you mind providing details on the advisor who helped you? saving for a pension through a corporate program since the age of 18. I hit greater tax along the road, so I increased my company pension with a SIPP (tax benefits). I'm now 50 and would love to expand my finances more aggressively; there are a few automobiles I still want to drive and a few mega-vacations that I still want to take.
It was run by Julie Anne Hoover, who I learned about and got in touch with thanks to a CNBC interview. Since then, it has served as the point of entry and departure for the games we have emphasized. A search on the internet can be done if tracking is necessary.
I located her, sent her an email, and scheduled a call; hopefully, she will reply because I want to start the new year off financially strong.
It’s unfortunate that so many Canadians treat their home as their retirement fund because from that perspective there’s a strong incentive to keep prices going up. But if you took that out of the equation, then there are just so many good reasons to keep housing prices low and the growth in the market slow and modest. Few can afford to buy today, let alone keep what they bought, and then never mind actually moving to a nicer home at some point. Everything just gets further and further out of reach for everyone. Wild how we can all just stand back and let it happen.
The problem with "my home as a retirement fund" is that the person still needs a place to live. If all housing goes up in value then when it's time to cash in they retiree will still struggle to find a place to live that's affordable.
It's not really covered in the video, but Canada used to have a social housing program and transit-oriented development which maintained housing prices affordable, especially in Quebec who leaned further into that direction. All of that was dismantled by right wing governments during the 1990s and Canada followed American policies which caused this to happen.
While it is unfortunate that Canadians treat their home as their retirement fund, this is ultimately caused by awful governmental policies following the American way of life's influence. Quebec even had a political party that advocated against this back in 1970, however the party failed to get elected and declined over time as the population leaned more to the right.
As of now, the part leading in the polls for the next federal elections is literally the party that caused this so we're likely to get a round 2.
It's sad that so many Chinese companies were able to buy all the affordable land. Weird how that works.
@@dzelloYeah, you are an outright liar, who is clearly less than 30.
My wife and I have compared owning a house to renting an apartment --- we have kept track of our old apartment's numbers over the years since we bought a house 5 years ago. What we have found is that renting cost us in today's money about 2100 dollars a month (including electricity and insurance for home's contents), while owning costs us only about 450 a month (house insurance, property taxes, water and electricity). The house has also gone up in value about 350 thousand dollars in the five years. This means that we have a lot more money left over each month, an excellent investment (70 thousand per year! more than I ever made in income in a year) and perks like a garden where we grow a quarter of our food and a guest room for family (the space used to be an airbnb that made 14 thousand a year, but we got rid of this when we bought the house.) This is made much easier because we bought the house mortgage free. We avoided the mortgage through: selling a piece of raw land we improved, and by selling anything else that gave us cash. (We paid capital gains of 98 thousand on the land alone.) We also had the mixed luck of having our surviving parents pass on at about the same time we were retiring. (thus a tidy 300 k inheritance.) So luck, and a bit of investment in raw land and a willingness to move 15 miles outside town has us as mortgage free owners. If we had needed some degree of mortgage (say 200,000) we would have less money left over every month, but it would still have been worth doing financially. Obviously a bigger mortgage with higher interest rates would make this increasingly less viable. Still, the extra rooms that came with the house meant not only that we might have had the leeway to easily pay the mortgage every month but also could have allowed a family member and her child to move in with us to make it all more workable.
The system works beautifully when it works. A tautology. But it is true nonetheless. The trick is that we have to help everyone get these or better things in place. The house will be sold when we pass on and the kids will inherit roughly the amount they will need to buy something -- at least we hope it will be enough. As some of them already own their own homes (none are mortgage free yet) it means they will, with luck, repeat a version of what we have done. We hope for that anyway.
Great video! 10:14 I love the way where you worded it using the logic pathway to explain the current crisis.
I've been questioning myself after that video and did some search for about appartement/salary for Quebec. Found out that for a 2 1/2 it's ~1100$ while minimum wage (15.75$) with 8 hours per day gives you net salary of 1900$ for a month. 800$ left and that's without electricity (80 ~ 200$) or anything. I am also a mover and I know that there's a lot of residences and almost town sized residential area where almost nobody lives, mostly because it's too expensive.
This needs to be talked about more. That madness have been going on for too long
The problem is whenever this topic comes up people just like to talk about how it's the fault of "greedy landlords" or "foreigners buying properties and not living in them." The only way to significantly bring down housing prices (short of crashing the economy) is to add supply. If Canadian cities aren't willing to do that housing will just keep getting more out of reach.
biggest problem is immigrants aren't solving are skills crisis they make it worst. They make unskilled laboring pay drop off a cliff. Traditionally home building has been well paid. You'd start off being a laborer but you'd basically work get more skilled and work less hard for the same pay as you age. Now you have to work really hard for dirt wages, and because the wages are low no one ever wants to stick with it long enough to get skilled, it's just a gig job. The more immigration depresses wages the more things decline.
@@dixonhill1108If canada's issues are anything like america's then the decline in wages is due to the loss of union power and not immigration. unemployment is near an all-time low, yet real wages for skilled trades are far lower than they were 50-60 years ago when unions were near their peak
@@ethank5059 The real problem is people like you who want to put the blame on one single thing. When in reality, there's many factors involved. One of them being greedy landlords and foreign investors.
@@ethank5059😂 except that isn't true. While yes fundamentally supply must increase, not leveraging some blame of landlords is also not painting this issue properly. Landlords would be those investment group fyi. We actually see this and if we had higher transparency on bidding we would see that part of the issue is that generation with homes are leveraging them for real estate investments so new buyers aren't competing against us but landlords. Fyi rent outpaced even home prices. First time buyers don't have starter homes and for example the Dougie Ford thing tog et more builds just meant landlords now bid higher on new bids. Even for new developments, agents often get first past to have resale on units right away and cut tidy profit.
Canadian real estate is hanging on threads. To be clear, home prices just staying constant would be an issue to them.
The ban on foreign buyers is aimed at money laundering, which is a real issue here in Canada. Another factor pushing young people to the cities is the lack of services. My home town has no cell coverage or medical centre.
A ban on foreign buyers is only effective when we don't allow dual citizenship and don't give out citizenships like candy... there are plenty of """Canadians""" who are basically foreigners and they don't get included in the stats.
Excellent summary! Strong delivery too.
Great informative video! I’m amazed that 20% of the big bank mortgage portfolios consist of negative amortization loans… that truly is terrifying.
I moved to Toronto five years ago for a good job--making six figures. I can't afford to buy anything even though my income is fairly high by Canadian standards. If you are a newcomer to Canada or a young person, the only way you'll be able to buy something is if you have family money to help you. And not all of us have that. Sometimes I think I made a big mistake moving here.
If your goal was to own a home, then yes you did make a big mistake moving to Toronto. Try Winnipeg instead.
Maybe think about it in terms of experience and career building. Once you have the hours behind you, look for a similar job in another, cheaper city if it's possible. Often times people move to the GTA for jobs, it's kind of unavoidable for some industries, especially if you're new to said industry.
@@noseboop4354House prices usually reflect income levels in the area.
You will work like a slave your entire life, taking shit from every boss at these places till you die,,good luck take care
@@noseboop4354then he would not make six figures😅
As an Australian, this sounds eerily familiar...add in that our interest rates are less and no government wants to actively make housing affordable.
They want free market to solve it, just like how the free market solved climate change. This will be glorious.
As a New Zealander, your banks are bleeding us dry with the reserve banks blessing. But that's what we get for thowing everything into a bubble during the lowest interest rates we've ever seen.
Hopefully valuable lessons are learned from the turmoil ahead.
Similar in Europe. I actually feel that governments want to protect the housing scarcity. This makes sense if you consider that the housing market is the biggest debt bubble ever.
We aren't on the tables PB showed but I looked at some other ones and Aus slots in between Norway and Canada at number 2 from what I could tell :(
Yea. At least Canada is doing something to fix their situation.
This was very informative! If I may add just a small point to the discussion.
Another factor that makes cities more dense, hence the increase in demand, is due to companies revoking their remote policies. This restarted the trend of people flocking to cities again because the jobs are there. If companies are more open to remote options, this would help with the demand in certain areas and at least alleviate the problem even for a bit.
This does add other problems. A couple I can think about are the prices for homes in those rural areas outside of the cities. I have watched prices in Nova Scotia for many years and when people were allowed to work remotely starting back in 2020, prices there doubled or more overnight as they were getting offers to buy sight unseen from people moving from the large cities. This caused problems for the local population because they were now being forced out of the market. The second thing that I see as a problem is you now have the hollowing out of the cities. Think about the large US cities where you would never want to go into the down town area because it is run down and decaying, this would be the fate of large Canadian cities if people just picked up and moved out enmass. As it is, places like Toronto are having issues with transportation revenues dropping from lack of use, small businesses and restaurants are struggling from lack of traffic, etc. So yes the cost to the individual is better in a remote work situation but it causes problems as well. The other thing that I could see happening in the future is with remote work there is also a larger group of people competing for the same jobs, well with all this competition, does an employer really need to pay that $100k salary anymore, I mean people are living in the remote north of Ontario where things are cheaper and a good salary is $40k per year. I could see companies start to reduce the salary paid because people are living in much cheaper locations and there is a lot more competition for the roles. I have seen this where work was outsourced to cheaper areas around the world. One of the places where I worked outsourced their back office tasks such as accounts payable and accounts receivables to Hungary because they could find University educated people to do the jobs for less than half of what they were paying non university educated people to do the work here. Eventually they then outsourced it again to the Philippines because it was cheaper there than in Hungary. Just some thoughts, there are usually many sides to an issue.
@@paulmarshall4794 I agree with you up to a certain extent that there are other things to consider, but I would like to raise a couple of counterarguements:
1. Companies won't reduce salaries based on an employee's/candidate's current location. This would still be determined by the skillset and market rate for that specific role.
2. It is true that this may cause people to move out from the big cities. But then again, I believe that is the goal. The laws of supply and demand would kick in. Since there would be less demand for housing, market prices would start to go back down to more manageable levels in order to attract people to move back in. And attracting more people with the now more relatively affordable housing options would also allow businesses in the cities to thrive since people won't need to spend a big chunk of their cash to rent but instead spend them on local businesses.
I agree that remote work is the one-size-fits-all solution. But it is a start to at least help moving the needle back.
At Minute 4:50. answer is infrastructure. Same issue with lack of water in the summer when Canada holds the largest reserves of natural water.
about 6 months ago, I was looking at buying my first house. My real estate advisor told me: 'you can afford it, but all your calculation are based on the hypothesis that the rate will be lower soon. this is very risky' . I'm so glad she convinced me out of it
In other words you couldn’t afford it
Sounds like a good advisor. In the USA, realtors tell their customers to just buy and refinance later.
As a Canadian who's looking to buy his home. Thank you.
All the best
Trailer park life
A Chinese criminal laundering his money.
Actually he missed a bunch of info. I live in Vancouver and I am a real estate investor and I can tell you 2 years ago there was open houses where the buyers realtor only showed up and told his client over seas what to offer to get it.
There are more millionaires in Guangzhou China than all of Canada millionaires and 50 more Chinese cities of the same .
It ALL started with single family detached house rising in demand and price
Then those Canadians out bid by foreigners bought townhouses.
People who wanted townhouses bought condo's and all.prices went through the roof.
Not watch as condos saturate the market and condo buyers now go for townhouse that th go for house.
Bell curve.
Houses in Canada are like exotic cars. If you can't afford two of them, then you can't afford one.
thank you for this well versed explanation good luck to Everyone as we all need a roof over our heads
Thanks for the video! I actually started watching financial videos with some US channels, but it is much better to hear from a Canadian perspective!
I lived in Vancouver, BC for 25 years, renting because I could never afford to buy.
When I turned 65, I was able to get approved for a very small mortgage and found a one bedroom house out in the boonies that was less than that. This was early in 2019, before Covid.
I opted for a fixed 5 year mortgage, and when that was up for renewal, I moved it to a local credit union. Again, a fixed mortgage, but I opted to pay $200 more per month, so $500.
I don't have the amenities of the big city and have to drive over an hour to get a good price on groceries, but my house will be paid off in 10 years. But I think I might just pay the whole thing off when it comes up for renewal again.
Jon in rural BC, Canada
my neighbor in Thailand is Canadian. Retired very comfortably without all that nonsense holding him down back home.
But you’re 70 now?
@@santeenl I'll be 72 in January. The good thing about living in the boonies is that there isn't much to spend your money on. I plan to pay my mortgage off in five years.
Congrats Jon I have no doubt the house will appreciate and it's always good to pay it off as fast as you can since interest is a real PITA.
@@whatthepick I bought it for $60,000 six years ago. It's now worth $130,000.
Allowing housing to be fully treated as a commodity is going great
it is a commodity, making it expensive and hard to build more is the part that is going great
@@_monti142 it's expensive because of the money you can make from renting: building a house in downtown LA is not more expensive nor more difficult than building it 200km from there
Not gonna sell for 500k a house I can rent for 50k per year
This is the best analysis on this matter on RUclips.....👏
Another issue adding to housing supply is the number of older (50-year-plus), well-built solid homes being demolished to construct poorly built "new homes" that will have to be torn down in a decade or two. Many "new" duplexes in my neighbourhood keep being sold every year or so because they were so badly built no one wants to live in them. (You can only have basement flooding and sewer back-up so many times before it's time to move.)
Extremely well put together info on a complex topic, well done. As a mortgage escalation officer and support specialist for a major Canadian bank, I have seen some pretty outlandish things in the past couple years, but it's easy to lose sight of the broader causes of our housing crisis when your job mainly focuses on helping with individual cases. Thanks for providing a much needed breakdown at a high level, in an easily digestible video length. I can't help but think that this will be of immense value for many Canadians
Banking is still a great institution and well done in Canada, the problem is government policy and the need for innovation/courage in improving things. Good luck in your work.
@@gameburn178Dead wrong you financial serf. Banking serves the rich not plebs like you.
Your government you are so keen to blame serves capital because it knows you aren't going to organize with your fellow poors to challenge that the rich literally control your access to basic shelter.
Simple solution kick out all of the Punjabs these indians are ruining the country they live 10 per house all save up and over bid on homes because they have the money from living ontop of each other for decades.
I really do wish that real estate investors, especially those with multiple properties do lose everything.
I don’t, my family lost everything during the 2008 crisis. Tbh wouldn’t wish it on anyone
@@jordijimenez2634 the people who diversified their investments and kept cash on hand did just fine. It was mostly the greedy, the overleveraged or the plain old uneducated that lost everything. Hope your family learnt from that experience and are doing better today. Nothing personal.
Rich people don't lose thier properties, in fact, they buy more if the prices are going down
well those people go away you wont even be able to rent a home, so eventhough there are bad actors in realestate market, good luck living in a tent in a street.
@@mrsmerilyand if those people go away, then BlackRock is coming in to buy up all of those distressed properties.
They aren’t the problem. They’re just a symptom of the problem
The other major difference is that up until the 90s people only bought houses they could actually afford. Down payments were usually 30% and interest rates were all 10%+ - 12%-15% weren't uncommon. There was very little in the way of people buying houses as investment vehicles, or buying more than they could afford and being dependent on renters to make up half their mortgage. We need to get back to that. Real estate should not be an investment, but a human right.
No more luxury condos only. Encourage apartment buildings, build up not out, and make them all 50/50 mixed use of market rates and rent geared to income. Government needs to regulate rent limits. And if developers won't develop in that market then government must step in and fulfill that role. This is what they do in places like Austria and Finland. Many European countries have high taxes on second homes and rentals, which is why they have plenty of stock and low prices. Canada just keeps going from bad to worse. I'm 10 years out from retirement now and I will be retiring abroad - most likely the EU, if not somewhere else. This country simply isn't worth the struggle and cost anymore.
Replace the snow with desert and everything is identical in Australia. Same problems
Hey Richard, great video!
I wanted to weigh in on the labour shortage, as I'm an tradesman (electrician) in Ontario, near Toronto. There is a huge shortage of workers overall, but I don't think it's because there are no people, or 'young people don't want to work!' or anything like that.
A huge part of the issue is that the construction industry is decades behind others in terms of employee treatment. A lot of us are expected to work in poor conditions for 10+ hour days, with the bare minimum sick days, vacation days, and benefits. Campers to my fiancee's office job, it's crazy: her pay is lower, but she has lots of vacation, plenty of sick days, and reasonable perks/benefits.
Pay has stagnated too: while I'm fortunate to make a pretty solid wage, the electrician rate at my company has only increased 4% over the past 3 years, so in real terms we're making a lot less.
All this said, I really like my job, and encourage other young people to get a trade if they're interested; you really can make 80-100+k, and have a fun, active job. But man, our culture is 20 years behind...
Your are valued. Have a couple of you guys in my family. And it is possible to get ahead -- especially for trades people: can exchange labor with each other, take time off in lieu of O.T. occasionally to get time to do your own stuff at home. The trick is to have a union and support it. My 2 cents worth.
I mean, the culture isn't about to change. Honestly the vendors are the main problem in my experience after a decade in electrical. These type people (career accountants or handymen) seem to think "everything is 8 hours and mcdonalds level if it isn't my job", and also want the installer to take on random side projects outside of the scope while you're there, submit 3 bids to your own office on change orders, literally be available tomorrow with parts in hand, while you have a multi hundred unit commercial building going on that you're constantly being asked to back up, lmaoooo it has added up to more money , shorter commutes, some interesting connections, but honestly I could have just as good of a time doing site work or gear rather than doing cracker jack remodels. If we intend to modernize this, vendors need to be automated to a certain degree.
I definitely agree. I'm an accountant and my partner is a carpenter. We make the same overall but I do feel like his job is more demanding. I feel super bad when I see him with cuts and can't even report
I’m from Canada, my dad worked in the trades. I now live in Sweden and it’s beautiful to see how respected the trades and trades people are here.
When they say there is a shortage of skilled workers that really mean there is a shortage of cheap labor with skills. If they really want to increase supply of houses, they should bring TFWs, and get them the job done. But let`s face it, most homeowners do not want abundance of houses. It is like doctors and RNs , they say we care about people but they have cartels called 'College of STH'' to keep them valuable. I come from a shithole where our dictator opened a lot of medical schools and number of MDs have increased substantially. Europe is also no different , doctors are a little better off than McDonalds workers. 60% of Canadians as homeowners do not want more houses, and it is logical.
100K for a so called highly skilled journeyman should be another factor for the high cost of housing.
Just found out Canadians can't get 30 year fixed interest rate mortgages. They can only get 5 years at a time which makes them suseptible to higher interest rates.. Total nightmare right now for people
Many countries don't offer fixed rates for the term of the loan.
@@shreyarao2106 yep and that screws the consumer when rates go up
The US is one of the few places where 30 year fixed rate is not only available but the standard. In the past this made lenders less willing to lend, but it was a better deal for those that could get financing. After all the programs that led up to 2008 and then low interest rates since though, since 2000 it's been trivially easy in most years for anyone to get a mortgage so the risk hasn't really been accounted for. Or at least that's how I had understood it.
a locked in 0% mortgage is basically free housing and should never have been allowed for banks to do. It is significantly inflationary@@phonyalias7574
@@phonyalias7574 It is absolutely not trivially easy to get a mortgage in the USA these days. The last one was a nightmare, they went into every aspect of credit usage, employment, etc (and my credit rating is very high). Back in the 2002-2008s it was basically anyone with a pulse.
Great video, thanks for posting!!
Love the comparison to the popcorn ceiling - very appropriate.
the biggest issue I see as a young adult around the homes being built are massive houses meant to house at least 2 full families that cost a massive amount. That and it all gets bought up instantly and rented out at uncharged prices with absurd costs. As someone just about to finish college this year I have absolutely no clue where the hell I'm supposed to live without being burdened with so much debt its ridiculous.
Where I live all the new custom built homes are all black fieldstone and at least 4,000 square feet in size.
This only happens because of the zoning laws. Lot sizes are nuts, and the setbacks eat most of a smaller lot for lawns/grass. If a developer can build a 800sqft home for $2.1m or a 4000sqft home for $2.5m (because land costs, permitting, holding costs while waiting to get started), then they're going to maximize value and shove the biggest physical thing that they can on that chunk of land. The problem is, putting a 800sqft starter home there won't drop the cost significantly, because the 4000sqft box is the symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself.
In most of the USA, you can go from land acquisition to construction in under 2 years. Here it's 10 years... higher in some municipalities. There's some on Vancouver Island where a legit to-code addition to your property (like adding a Shed) can take 10+ years to get approval. Unless you know someone that works for the municipality, anyway, and probably contribute to them in some way. Locally I attended some meetings - a developer was able to get a property rezoned to allow height exemptions and multi-unit, but he was required to contribute to the city parking fund, as there was not enough space on the property itself (it was in a highly walkable area), to create 'in liu of' parking stalls in other places around the city. He was 40 stalls short, so just under a $400k contribution to their fund. The city then passed through approval for a ~10% inflation adjustment to their incomes a few months later. (At a time when BC capped inflation based rent increases to 0%) To an onlooker, it sure looks like corruption and palm greasing. The only thing is, it's all union rather than one on one backroom deals. I phoned the city a couple months later to ask some questions (near the end of November), but their planning department was on holidays until February...
City councils are living it up on the backs of the futures of young Canadians. We have extreme corruption in this country... the solution is to let developers and builders actually add to supply, but that is carefully restricted to keep prices high.
I am trying to figure why a family needs so much square footage. Smaller houses are cheaper, easier to clean and just makes more sense to me.
@@user-yj9gl3ur6c If you run the numbers on $2.5m properties, you'll find that at today's rates the mortgage could be as high as $15000/mo, $180k/yr. 4000sqft split between 10-12 people might only be $1100-1400 per person, but 800sqft split between two people would be ~$7000 per person - again, using Vancouver prices. It's not a question of needing the sqft - it's that $14000 per month spent on a mortgage is outside of nearly everyone's reach, while if a dozen people combine finances, they can make the family McMansion actually work. Even if there's not 10+ people in the family, they can rent out some spare rooms to students or single professionals, etc.
In the middle of nowhere this obviously would not be the case, but in Vancouver 80-90% of your purchase price is land, and only ~10% is the building. So you may as well go all out on the building.
You can buy a condo in Toronto one of Canada's most expensive cities for under 300k, as a first impression buyer you only have to put down 10%. That's 30k. Legal working age is 16 so you should have money saved with almost 10 years of working opportunities, The condo will not be the absolute best and it won't look good on Instagram, your generation does not like the idea of sacrifice and work though, you should not have no clue what to do, that is bad planning, you should of started planning in your late teens at least
My Canadian friend explained this to me a while back and I could not believe longer term fixed rate loans were not a thing in Canada. I assumed he was explaining wrong b/c no way people could still be gambling like this on their biggest asset after what we all saw can happen. It's the macro economic embodiment of "fool me once, shame on you..."
All by design so the banks win, the odds are in their favor instead of the consumer
It’s called: this country is more of a regime than anything. at this point I’ve lost hope for it and I’m leaving asap
Longer term fixed rate loans is rare atually. US bank take all the risk thanks for they can print more money for the world to bear. Other country don't have that choice.
Here fixed rate 20 to 30 years is the norm. Everybody does this. AND you can take your mortgage with you to the next house. :) with your low fixed rate hahehehehehe thats what i do
@@leoliu5017 Agreed. Outside of Islamic loans (which are based on interest - don't ask), I've not seen fixed interest house loans outside of the US. Typically it's five years fixed and then variable.
Bought a house on Vancouver Island about 8 years ago for 153,000. Three years later we sold it for 300,000. It is now worth 500,000. I appreciate your commentary. It brings clarity to the housing situation.
Mortgage rates are currently at an all time high since 2000(23 years) and based on statistics on inflation, we might see that number skyrocket further, a 30-year fixed rate was only 5% this time last year, so do I just keep waiting for a housing crash before buying or redirect my focus to the equity market
The stock market is no different, to maintain profit, you need to have some in-depth knowledge on the market.
in my opinion, it was much easier investing back in the 60s but it’s a lot trickier now, those making consistent profit in these times are professionals reason I’ve been using an advisor for the past 5 years to consistently build my portfolio in preparations for retirement.
@@TomD226 my partner’s been considering going the same route, could you share more info please on the advisor that guides you.
There are many financial coaches who excel in their profession, but for the time being, I employ Laurel Dell Sroufe because I adore her methods. You can make research and find out more.
@@TomD226 I greatly appreciate it. I'm fortunate to have come upon your message because investing greatly fascinates me. I'll look her up and send her a message. You've truly motivated me. God's blessings on you
I have searched some of the small, obscure little towns in Canada and the prices are not much less than the larger towns and small cities. This change occurred during the pandemic when people went remote and there was a lot of people go to smaller centres, which had fewer houses, and drove up prices. Then of course you are vulnerable to transportation costs because you will need supplies and amazon isn't going out there, neither is door Dash or Uber.
The healthcare in some of those towns is downright dangerous. Small hospitals closing down completely. Neatest ER 45min away. Some of the ERs have to schedule closures to give staff a break. If anything happens you will have to me medvacced on a helicopter hours away. Services are shoddy. Food expensive. There is a reason people aren't thronging to live in those small towns.
I live in a Hamlet of 24 people. Amazon delivers. I love my little part of the Earth. Cost = $93.5k. I'll be mortgage free next year.
@@evej865 Yah....You got a Hamlet that size in Canada and you can guarantee no snow clearing.....so no delivery...🤣🤣
@@AZ-zn9lg I wonder where you live. In Bc they tend to close the emergency rooms of small hospitals in rural areas because they cannot staff them. This has happened frequently.
@@AZ-zn9lg So a somewhat isolated, non city home almost quadrupled in price in 4 years. Has your salary quadrupled in that time? You proved my point that home in more rural areas have gone up dramatically since covid, beyond what many can afford.
Bought a house in Montreal in 2019, juste before the pandemic. About half-a-million, 5-years fixed, 2.79% rate. It's due for renewal in mid 2024, and we're in for a rough ride, probably north of 6%. I doubt the BoC will drop their prime rate (the opposite is more likely). We'll make it, yet we'll feel the pinch, and I consider we're the lucky ones: Montreal is not that much overvalued compared to Toronto and Vancouver, and it allows higher density in its core. And we can move around using bikes and transit most of the time, so we use only one car, as little as possible.
I can't even imagine what it will be for the many folks who bought in the last three years at rates below 2%, and have two car payments with unfavourable rates. The reckoning will be sad.
I love this guys ability to present unbiased data.
I bought a house in Northern Ontario midway through 2021 with a variable rate mortgage. The most frustrating part of this whole situation is that every piece of information or advice I was given from the realtors, brokers and even the Bank of Canada itself seems to have been wrong or just bad advice. I'm lucky that housing affordability up here is not as insane as anywhere near Toronto, but we definitely feel the pressure from the interest rates. It's really hard telling your partner to change their spending habits because we're losing close to 1,000$ in disposable income every month just on the payment increases. In a way I'm glad I got this hard lesson now because my debt is relatively small, and I feel for those who bought into more expensive markets with the same mindset I had at the time.
Just something I wanted to add: at least for me, the cost of a mortgage in 2021 was close to or cheaper than renting a place that is half the size. That played a big part in my decision to buy a house. The crazy thing is rent has also increased so much that while it would be cheaper nowadays to rent, it would still only be marginally cheaper.
Keep in mind: realtors and brokers are incentivized to convince you to buy a house. So their advice will ALWAYS be to buy, regardless of the circumstances. Subsequently, their advice will only be “right” when factors align to currently push prices up or accelerate supply.
Renting might be cheaper or similar in cost, but it nets you _nothing._ No equity, no assets, just nothing.
Lesson = buy things you can afford.
Everyone in those industries only wanted money so they all told buyers what they wanted to hear. Money over people every time.
What was the price of your house?
I'm watching this video from the US (as a former Canadian) because I didn't want to spend my life paying off a mortgage for a mediocre house so I decided to leave in my 20s. Best decision of my life.
You could have just used fixed rate.
@@Elemblue2 I think my comment still stands whether I would have had a fixed or variable mortgage 🙈
@@Elemblue2everyone uses a 30 year fixed these days dummy!
@Elemblue2 but, per the info provided in the video, even a fixed rate mortgage isn't truly a fixed rate. It's fixed for a MAX of 5 years and then 'resets' to current market value.
We will be leaving and taking our 3 future tax payers with us, but in our case it was the Canadian healthcare situation that motivated us to leave.
Hey you covered some great stuff. Also make sure to include how short term rentals have influenced housing prices. Additionally I’ve noticed there are quite a few vacant homes despite the empty home tax.
I picked a hell of a time to move to Canada 😅 Between rental rates and wage stagnation New Brunswick is in a tough spot. Even the rural hamlets are crazy expensive after the pandemic.
Just say NO to the inevitable real estate bailouts! Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for incredibly bad and short sighted decisions by wealthy individuals who can't / won't wheel in their greed. If you bought a million dollar home in the last two years, it's on you man.
I agree with you! I don’t sympathize with NIMBY, single home owners either. One shouldn’t see their homes value as a way to make money.
Canadian banks are already backed by the taxpayers so they're doomed either way.
Never hold Canadian dollars they will just print more to bail out homeowners.
That's not how politics work, you don't get to make a simple choice as refuse or accept. It usually goes something like this: pick one, either
A) make the wealthy wealthier, more secure and powerful (including bailouts).
B) Start world war 3.
Ok
Sorry for that
Taxpayers will pay it 😢
It’s not our decision
TLDR:
as of today, in Canada, 3/4 of variable-rate mortgages have fixed payments
out of these, more than 3/4 of the mortgages reached the trigger rate - all payment goes to interest and nothing goes to the principal
out of these, 20% are in negative amortization - some lenders enforced additional payments or applied the interest to the principal (this is called negative amortization)
key takeaway:
Canadian homeowners are paying rent and property taxes in their own houses
worse, if you rent, at least you don't have to pay for repairing the broken stuff in the house :D and you are not in risk for losing your wealth if you cann't pay your rent.
@@tomo1168 it is indeed the worst situation you want to be in. pay rent, property tax and change the roof :)
😢
I agree. Its time to get more NDP and Liberal governments and spend more Rothschild bank money of subsidized housing and electric cars.
@@rustystove8410 Try again with more transit and less anti-Semitic remarks.
I genuinely cannot believe so many people took variable rates, that so many people sincerely believed rates would stay at 1% for a long time?? Absurd.
Love the video and your unbiased style.
We bought a condo in 2020 and locked in a fixed rate of 2.97% for 10 years. It was the best financial decision we have ever made. I hope the interest rate lowers by renewal time.
Damnn, that's so clutch bro
Love to see it, well done !
You have to pay It in this 10 year... i would not Gamble the interest rate from 10 years the way everything is going now...
There's no 10 year mortgage. Max is 5 years legally. This guy is lying.
Pay it off in 10
Excellent description and well...its not gonna improved until we make better choices ...
Hello from Australia. The title of this video could easily be changed to "The Australian Housing crisis Explained" . I was surprised by how the causes for this problem are exactly the same in Australia.
Agreed. Noting the tax incentives for real estate 'speculation' and a culture centered around housing. 'Ey!
Yep even brisbane you need one million to buy somthing decent
What a joke Australia is literally a continent
@@mistermood4164 with a population of 26 million and most of the land arid sand...
@@LukeB83 so? Saudi Arabia doesn't have a housing crisis.
At 26 in 1998 I saw the writing on the wall. I just landed a decent job and decided to look at buying a house. I had been renting basement apartments and was getting tired of being underground. So I looked around . Didn't find anything I liked so decided to take a break then looked again about 6 months later. I had noticed the prices went up around $5000 during that time. So I thought to myself if I keep waiting the prices will just keep going up so I better get with it. I purchased a 1500 Sq ft home with a couple of upgrades for $162,000 with only 5% down.
That same house 20 years later was around $800,000.
Also 20 years later I make around the same pay.
Homes 👏 should 👏 not 👏 be 👏 traditional 👏 investments. Sing it with me now
They should be for individuals(up to a small number of course), not to investment firms gobbling up all inventory and owning most people's lives.
Amen to that. When you normalize for Canada's uncontrolled housing sector, you soon realize how paltry our economy really is. It is nowhere near as impressive as the gdp numbers suggest.
@@chosenundead3174I disagree with you on individuals, with the exception of empty lots. Any ownership of houses not occupied by the owner will drive up prices. I do think apartments and townhomes are fine however because they use less land, and there still needs to be entry level housing.
Prob true but how many complain or agree when they sell for far more then they bought for?
@chosenundead3174 owning any more than two places of residence per person should be taxed so heavily it's not worth being held as an investment. Homes that are not being lived in or are unoccupied for a given amount of time should also be taxed so heavily that corporations cannot justify buying up homes and sitting on them. Speculating on housing is the main problem here. I don't care if you're a corporation or an individual
I live in Canada and its crazy. Variable rate mortgage payments have nearly doubled the last year...
Well done ...you hit many angles
You gave renters a small shout out near the end, but I wish this video had a section on how costs are being passed down to renters. Real estate investors have been spoiled by the lowest interest rates in the history of banking, and are now realizing that being a landlord isn't always a cashflow positive situation. Sometimes you actually have to pay some of the mortgage you borrowed to buy a rental property, or you won't get any tenants who are willing to, or can actually afford to pay for your $800,000 500sqft 1b1b in a major urban centre.
This is the real problem. We all have to live here.
Thank you for making this video. Canada is often hidden in the shadows globally in news when it comes to whats going on here. Living as a mid 20's year old guy here is sickening. Working ourselves into graves every minute we can all for nothing. Without household income of $200k+ it is impossible to buy even the worst starter home anywhere within an hour and a half (with no traffic lol) drive from major cities. I don't know where it all went wrong but it feels like our country has completely fallen apart in the last 10 years. EVERYBODY I know feels so hopeless now. The stress of this unaffordability crisis is driving mental health problems sky high. This needs to be shared and talked about more, and we need to take action against incompetent government members who allow this to happen, and profit off of it.
I’m with you on that buddy. Get your p.a.l. and spend wisely for the future.
As a nurse, I can’t afford to buy in the major city where I work and live. It has all turned to shite.
That would be the liberal government in charge for the past 10 years 😁👍
im 40 years old and i cannot get out of my moms basement cuz of prices fkk drives me nutt
Canada is the money laundering capital of the world. So many criminal gangs and cartel members own property in Canada driving up the prices since more than 15 years.
At renewal it's important that you don't have a large gap between the balance owing and the estimated resale price.
Variable rate mortgage must increase their payment even though often it is not required.
Try to narrow the value gap, it is a liability, a hazard, at renewal. The lender can refuse to renew and the entire balance owing becomes payable.
On this topic, the government creating maximum of 5 year terms helped nobody, only banks.
In the US 1 term can last the entire amortization.
This is why when I married my Canadian wife we decided to move to the USA (my country.) I am an accountant so that was part of it, but after looking at the housing market and practices, salaries, and taxes it made 0 sense to even consider moving to Canada even though I loved the time I’ve spent there. The way loans are set up there is fucking terrifying.
In New Zealand our housing supply is only 379 per 1000 people, take that Canada! It can always become worse.
Your winters are nothing compared to ours...try living outside in -30c
yall allergic to building housing or what?
@@Cdplayr69 nah, they like to live with their parents and grandparents together :D
@@Cdplayr69Slaves to NIMBYS. Can't afford to destroy the little amount of farmland we have to cover it in houses, and NIMBYS won't let us densify existing neighbourhoods.
But you have no land.
When I first moved to Halifax pre covid, everthing was affordable, we used to stay in a beautiful 3 bedroom place for $1200 utilities included. After covid today that same place is $2500. That is more than %100 increase in less than 4 years. Considering Nova Scotia has the highest taxes and lowest wages in Canada, most locals are struggling beyond measure.
8-9 hour wait times to visit a doctor is the norm, if you make less than $25/h you are going to bed hungry a least once a week. It is just horrible seeing a province deteriote this bad in less than 5 years...
They voted for it, unfortunately.
Great video, helpful context for sure. Question - why are Canadian salaries so low?
i bought a house in AB last fall thinking i could lock in a decent rate before everything went nuts. Now i have to move to BC for work and have no idea how i'm suppose to port a mortgage from small town AB to literally anywhere in BC. That and the trade off for a little house with a garage and yard to a small 1bdr condo is so hard to justify. But i also love what i do for work. It's such a hard trade-off to bring myself to make. Add the fact that I live paycheque to paycheque, AND my industry is going into a possible recession and hiring freeze and its just like, you can't win.
Thank you for being one of the few/only channels that really addresses how Canadians got to this point: ZIRP environment since 2008 with minimal housing correction.
Recency bias makes everyone prone to blaming: governments, immigration, investors, political parties, developers, etc etc etc
ZIRP?
@@weatheranddarkness Zero interest rate policy
No one forgets this, one is the initial push and those other things are other reasons for a lack of correction. If you bring in 500k immigrants a year (basically Hamilton) you are really straining demand. With high demand already, there’s no corrective force.
Immigration 100% plays a part. *One hundred percent.*
@@Aiphiaeeveryone knows that we also can’t just cut immigration to zero either
*I'm Canadian and NOTHING makes sense here. The only thing I DO know is that corporations are doing perfectly well here.*
You sue are the problem.
Ask yourself why Canada which is supper socialist compared to say Florida has a housing price crisis even with a much more desirable climate plus millions moving their ever year.
It’s your frame of thinking, corporations do extremely well in Florida how does that hurt you or house prices!?
It doesn’t, what does is your leftist government restricting the supply and trying to take a huge cut out of anything that gets built.
California is almost as bad I’m super blue areas.
There is no reason to build there because the government is completely against you as a builder.
Ehhh not really banks actually suffer when inflation is high
@@connorpope7277 Not as much as we do. In the 80s when inflation was high, interest was high on savings and bonds since the bank had to keep a nominal amount of money in reserve. Now, they don't and can effectively print money (1991 Bank Act, with liabilities reduced to 0% in 1994), so the consumer gets both high interest on loans and low interest on savings :)
@@connorpope7277
Not big banks they usually get more customers because their competitors, the smaller banks are crushed.
Or in the case of a huge one like Silicon Bank they were in bed with the leftists politicians so they just pass a new regulation forcing regular people to bail out those super wealthy bankers and tech moguls because they made risky investments.
oh noooooo not their billions of dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@@connorpope7277
Thank you for this video. ❤
Man you are totally helping my on my essay, thank you.
We need a crash. People need to learn, houses are for living not investment.
Yes, I’m a Canadian in my 20’s and I agree with this sentiment
amen. Our real issue is non-profit housing essentially doesn't exist.
Water is non-profit, so the issue of "who would maintain / build it" doesn't exist when the government sees it's a need for the people.
Who would build with less profit is some a sham issue, roads are built at a loss too. Housing should be considered public infrastructure up to the apartment
If this Buble pops... the 08 wazoo will seem like a walk in the park. And guess who's getting fucked. People who rent
If this Buble pops... the 08 wazoo will seem like a walk in the park. And guess who's getting fucked. People who rent
I agree to a certain extent. But home ownership is one of the most traditional forms of long-term investments and more flexible than your average mutual fund. You gain equity through rental income or home appreciation. What is rarely discussed are companies that buy massive amounts of real estate because of their financial size, they'll scoop up properties in a crash since they're getting it at a discount, they also get better interest rates than your average Canadian.