[mattmaroon]

If Canada is building plenty of housing, why the multi-decade crisis? Governments that wish to keep housing prices rising do so almost exclusively by limiting building housing.

I've read a lot by economists on this over the years and they all agree lack of new housing is the problem in the Canadian home market so if you've got an alternative take I'd love to hear it.

[Fervicus]

Immigration policies to keep wages low and prop up the housing market. Canada's population grew by a record 1 million in 2022 alone [0]. To give people an idea how much that is, Montreal's total population is 1.7 million.

[0] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-record-population-grow...

[Tiktaalik]

Immigration went up by a lot in 2022 it's true, but Vancouver's housing situation was already at crisis levels before 2015, before increased immigration, and before this federal government even.

What we've seen in the last few years is that the existing crisis that started in Vancouver has spread to the entire of the country, and it's no surprise because housing policy in the rest of the country is not really any different than Vancouver.

An example of the future is already here, just not evenly distributed I guess.

The problems of systemically not creating enough housing hit Vancouver first, but it was inevitable that they'd hit everywhere else eventually.

[Fervicus]

Not building enough housing and red tape around building housing is also a problem, but perhaps by design to achieve the same goals.

[mattmaroon]

Oh, it is definitely by design whatever the factors are.

It's a circular problem too. People buy an expensive house somewhere and it becomes a substantial part of their net worth. Home values decreasing would impoverish them. Home values increasing would enrich them. Homeowners vote a lot more than renters, especially in local elections. So you quickly end up with local governments full of people (most of whom are also local homeowners) incentivized to keep property values high.

The problem must be taken out of the hands of local governments, but even at the national level, there's never going to be political will to slash home values.

[Fervicus]

Sadly we are at a point where it doesn't matter who we vote for. They are all the same.

[xethos]

Provincial instead of federal (in this case), but it absolutely matters whom you vote for:

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/david-eby-housing-supply-mun...

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/bc-government-docum...

https://globalnews.ca/news/9979895/bc-municipal-housing-fund...

https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022PREM0092-001755

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> Governments that wish to keep housing prices rising do so almost exclusively by limiting building housing.

This is the case in the US - not Canada.

China peaked at ~25% of GDP coming from Real Estate Development. Canada has been in the high teens for the last decade.

The US and most non-housing bubble countries are around ~5%.

[mattmaroon]

I don't think these rates are new housing. You're looking at the real estate market as a whole. There's no way 25% of China's GDP is new housing, or Canada high teens. As real estate as a whole climbs as a percent of GDP you expect to see more NIMBYism because it means people have even more of their wealth tied into their homes, and more reason to not want competition. Which, economists seem to agree, is exactly what has happened in Canada.

Canada is only a country of 38 million and they are expected to take in 1 million migrants this year, all of whom don't bring a home with them. They took in half that last year. Their population is growing much faster than ours, but new housing starts are only around a quarter million per year.

I don't assume they are correct just because they are in wide agreement which is why I'm asking what you know that I (or they) don't. The total percent of GDP from the real estate market doesn't indicate much other than that houses are unsustainably expensive.

[betaby]

> Canada has been in the high teens for the last decade.

No. Canada in 'in the high teens' is mostly reselling the same stock over and over.

[mikerg87]

In Ontario where I live its municipal housing that's the problem. In Kitchner/Waterloo where I live local government is hung up on affordable housing in projects like apartment building construction. Ironically because of all the stalling and inaction no housing is afordable for anyone much less the so called poor and disadvantaged they think they are fighting for.

[voisin]

The affordable housing that politicians in K-W have focused on is neither sustainable nor sufficient. They are looking at inclusionary zoning which leads to 6-8 “affordable” units in a 300-400 unit development (I.e. drop in the bucket when thousands of units are needed), or they fund non-profits to do very small scale affordable retrofits and somehow manage to spend around $800k-1m per affordable unit brought to market (I.e. not sustainable and also not at a scale to make a dent). The Ontario government needs to create a housing group that does purely affordable developments at large scale, similar to BC.

Side note: K-W represent! :-)

[danlugo92]

Why are they artificially restricting housing while at the same time welcome population grow e.g. immigration?

[voisin]

Put simply: Housing restriction is largely at the municipal level, whereas immigration is at the federal level.

There are few if any common values or objectives that unite into coherent leadership across levels of government. Everyone for themselves, and the results are quite often ludicrous and to the severe negative for citizens.

[486sx33]

Soviet block style housing away from urban centers is the only option for affordable housing, and stop taking over 50% of everyone’s property tax payments to pay for the socialist housing projects

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Soviet block style housing away from urban centers is the only option for affordable housing,

Khrushchevka were a creation of socialist housing programs.

>stop taking over 50% of everyone’s property tax payments to pay for the socialist housing projects

Good news. Prop taxes are local and mostly go to pay for schools and other county owned infrastructure.

Socialism is happy to provide the housing you want and funding can come from the same non-municipal sources it always has.