Trudeau says feds aren't primarily responsible for housing, but how responsible are they?
Experts say Ottawa is playing more of a role in housing, which is mostly a provincial and territorial responsibility, but federal involvement hasn't brought much relief amid rising home prices.
To state it is not a federal problem is being incredibly obtuse. Passing the buck on this issue is cowardly and exemplifies a lot of the reasons Canada is struggling as a whole. Trudeau isn't the only guilty party, but he's in the big seat and we need some big answers fast.
I'd like to know why neither Trudeau or PP haven't said they'd restrict how many housing units a single entity can own ... because that's a huge part of this issue.
It really isn't.
65% of Residential properties in Canada are owned by the family that lives in them which is quite high for developed nations, that leaves 35% for rentals which are obviously not owned by the people residing in them and clearly necessary for a functioning housing market.
All limiting the number of owned properties per entity would do is spread the profit out to different landlords, it wouldn't end up helping the average citizen at all.
24% of Alberta's rentals are owned by real estate investment trusts, indicating a move to the financialization of housing as an investment strategy. And it is causing problems.
Housing is a fundamental need, the same as food and water are. Gov'ts have allowed the privatization of these things to the detriment of human survival and it MUST stop ... or only the rich will be alive.
Saying that 35% of housing is rental hides the fact of ownership.
This is my experience in BC we have foreign owned homes and owner moves back to China leaving house empty or only a single basement suite occupied to have hydro/gas still being billed at the residence. Two of my friends are suite renters in this type of situation. The one hasn't seen the landlord/family in 2 years, so you have a 3500 sqft home empty, causing upward pressure on the housing. I went to rent a house once and Chinese owner and their agent were in town so we did a tour and negotiation. We mentioned the place smelled a bit they said it was rented before but tenant moved out, and has been empty for 6 months because they live in China, so no airflow. When we talked about deposit and cheques and notice to end lease etc. The owner was like, try it out, if you don't think it suits you just move out and we will ignore terminarion of lease issues. The whole vibe was "we don't even care if it is rented, but we have to make a half assed effort to look like we are trying to tenant it. " It was listed well below market rent and empty, so they weren't in any hurry to get rent cheques or have it occupied. This may not be all across Canada, but it is definitely a problem in BC. One townhouse we rented the strata could not actually discerne who even owned the house, when the were digging for info for a conflict it was looking like a shell company purchasing realestate posing as individuals overseas.
Even if not directly responsible for housing they are directly responsible for immigration. Why would they approve a million immigrants a year if they know that provinces are only able to build 250k housing units a year?
It is not even immigration though, out in BC we have foreign owned homes and owner moves back to China leaving house empty or only a single basement suite occupied to have hydro/gas still being billed at the residence. Two of my friends are suite renters in this type of situation. The one hasn't seen the landlord/family in 2 years, so you have a 3500 sqft home empty, causing upward pressure on the housing. I went to rent a house once and Chinese owner and their agent were in town so we did a tour and negotiation. We mentioned the place smelled a bit they said it was rented before but tenant moved out, and has been empty for 6 months because they live in China, so no airflow. When we talked about deposit and cheques and notice to end lease etc. The owner was like, try it out, if you don't think it suits you just move out and we will ignore terminarion of lease issues. The whole vibe was "we don't even care if it is rented, but we have to make a half assed effort to look like we are trying to tenant it. " It was listed well below market rent and empty, so they weren't in any hurry to get rent cheques or have it occupied.
This is the third time this article has been posted here today
Historically, past housing crises have been resolved with massive input from the federal government. I hope this government acts with urgency, people are suffering out there, but given that the last housing minister was literally a housing investor I'm not very hopeful. I think only the NDP has the right alignment of interest and values.
By building medium density, transit oriented, neighborhoods; the feds can get after housing, environmental, and cost of living issues at the same time. Get three birds stoned at one.
If provinces fight it, give the housing to another province.
God I wish this would happen. The BCNDP are actually making substantial changes to our legislation but its not enough without major investments into transit infrastructure. Rail corridors need to be reopened/established and active transit projects need to be heavily subsidized.
But that's all municipal and to some degree, provincial.
What the feds need to do is curb immigration for a while until we figure this out and also create legislation for the realtor business/profession or just make it obsolete. Why the fuck do we need these dweebs when we can just simplify the process instead. There would be no more incentive from those bastards to blow up prices and give bad advice to people for a bigger commission.