| This isn't because of climate change. It's because of bad laws combined with the housing chickens coming home to roost. On the legislation front, a series of court cases and legislation combined with weak oversight meant that something like 70% of the nation's roof insurance claims were in Florida. There was clear fraud in many cases. Because of this legislation was introduced that made it difficult for any homeowner to file a legitimate claim. Combine this with under-capitalization by insurers and weak oversight and it's just a mess. But the big one is housing. It's too expensive. And this is another inevitable consequence. It used to be that housing depreciated. That no longer seems to be the case. The replacement value is only going up. This is the foreseeable outcome of years of government policy designed to increase home values. Ultimately we need to stop treating housing as an investment, as your retirement nest egg. All this does is steal from the next generation. That's it. Withholding shelter (ie housing) either by limiting supply through regulation and legislation or simply by pricing people out is state violence. Housing prices need to come down. Hoarding housing needs to be massively disincentivized. We need to stop giving massive tax breaks to homeowners. None of this is popular but without major reform we're headed down a bad road. Canada is heading towards crisis at the moment and many of its problems can be tied directly back to soaring house prices. The consequences of high house prices are everywhere too. More expensive commercial real estate means businesses need to recoup that cost through higher prices. |