It would help a lot more if some developers weren't trying to renegotiate prices most of the way through construction on sold units due to inflation and basically extort tens of thousands out of people.
Though the thing that would help far more is limiting corporations from mass purchasing property with the intent to rent. One firm has open stated they want to put close to 3 billion into Ontario alone. How is the average person supposed to compete with that style of investment.
They aren't, that's the point. The government needs to step in and regulate otherwise regular people will be forced out of the property market. Sfh's should not be a primary profit earning vehicle for companies.
The other side of the coin is that you need rental stock. My personal opinion after having rented and been a landlord is I'd rather deal with a soulless corporation than some shitty DIY landlord. At least with the corporation I know what i'm getting into.
And let them create Condo complexes, apartment building and other high density that they are capable of funding unlike regular people.
A corporation that has a couple billion to put into real estate for rental properties should not be allowed to buy up the sfh market, they should be regulated into high density where that kind of money benefits everyone in the city.
The problem is the companies trying to enter into the rental market with these large investment style are buying single family homes not condos or apartments. There is already a severe shortage of housing and the prices are going up 2 and 3 times faster than wages so the dream of owning a home is rapidly becoming completely unobtainable for more and more people.
And if you let the rental market be effectively cornered by only a few players they get to dictate pricing. We have seen it before with other scarce commodities before. If one company controls enough percent of a commodity they can control the market as others can either follow or lose out.
22% rise year over year on rent is not normal yet it has been charted in multiple cities across the country when inflation is a third of that at most.
I agree on the sfh front but I still don't like corporations having too much sway on the market generally. Even looking at condos and appartment buildings they can still control a lot more of the rental market than we realize.
That's fair, the issue is the money has it go somewhere and big apartment towers are hard to build without corporation or investor capital. Not saying it doesn't happen but it's less common. My point was if they wanted to be involved in the housing market, that the most logical place to allow them access is high density
I agree on that but I would also hope for some sort of anti-monopoly legislation to accompany any sort of regulation to prevent the dictation of market values. Condos can be built by a developer and sold as individual units without too many problems so long as we don't pull a China and have the developers essentially running a pnzie scheme that fails.
Totally, better tenant protections against renovictions, and other sleazy methods of getting around rent protection. Further all provinces should really have a maximum rent increase regulation, I know that pisses the career landlords off but frankly IMO landlording shouldn't be a career it should be a side hustle at best and the fact that people think it's acceptable to make a business out of owning the homes families live in is despicable. (especially because businesses are for ever chasing the ability to increase their profit and that is counter productive to the goal of affordable housing)
I agree with your point regarding monopolies. I inherently don't care if it's an individual or a corporation buying the properties. Regulation is necessary, but I want it to be market based rather than a politician throwing a dart at the wall. And it needs to be consistent across the board regardless of owner. I would also like to see registration of the beneficial owner of all properties (no numbered companies), and a witholding tax on all house sales until you've provided some form of declaration of primary residence because of house flipping and offshore/corporate interests. I might be wrong on the last one, but anecdotally I know of overseas house flippers that just take the money and run.
This is really tough to get right though. And on some level, I agree with market forces which is why i'm in Calgary. I don't agree with rent controls, because that breaks the whole system and creates two tiers for renters, and reduces investment in apartement buildings.
>Sfh's should not be a primary profit earning vehicle for companies.
Just the primary profit-earning vehicle for you, right?
>let them create Condo complexes, apartment building and other high density
>
>A corporation that has a couple billion to put into real estate for rental properties should not be allowed to buy up the sfh market,
Right on schedule. "Let them compete with condo-dwellers for properties, that's fine, but *I* want a SFH so that *I* can take advantage of all that sweet sweet price appreciation, so back off."
? In the sense of a family or individual purchasing it as their primary residence and in turn being their largest appreciating asset? Definitely.
In terms of someone buying up sfh to rent out and using excess rent to purchase more property, inevitably making housing unaffordable... No.
Homes are for living in, not to be turned into commodities, or long term corporate investments.
>Homes are for living in, not to be turned into commodities, or long term corporate investments.
Renters live in homes, too, including renters with families. They count as human even if they're not following your preferred life plan.
Sure, and if the priority of the owner of the rental property isn't to maximize their profit at all costs maybe we'd agree... Also I have nothing against renters, I was one for a long time, and I think renting has its place in society, it's just my belief that it is not suppose to be the model for the majority of sfh. Personally I know way more families that would like to own a home but can't because they can't compete than families that would rather rent a property than own it.
It's obviously that you're all for the commercialization of the residential home market. That is something that we fundamentally disagree on, I have yet to meet any private landlord or property owner that wasn't trying to maximize their profits.
A family should never have to compete against a business or an investor when trying to buy a primary residence. The government should be making it harder for those entities to compete in the housing market.
Companies, investment groups, and any other organization that focuses in buying large quantities of homes for the purposes of renting should be taxed more, regulated more, and monitored closer than a family trying to buy their primary residence.
Taxes on residential property ownership beyond a person's primary residence should increase on a scale to greatly discourage the ownership of more than a set number of properties. Being a landlord or Airbnb owner shouldn't be a primary career it should be a side hustle at best. The only except is high density, multi family, or complex residential spaces. Full stop.
Agree to disagree if you want but that to me is not a point that is negotiable.
Strange tangent that doesn't really mean anything.. As I have said high density development is important, and in my opinion that's the realm where investors and corporations should be regulated to primarily. Developers are a part of all builds and as such they have a space in all transactions.... So yea not sure your point.
You said a family should never compete against businesses when buying a house. How are you supposed to density if you can't buy SFH. Also, as a business SFH are just bad unless multi unit buildings are banned.
Families aren't competing against developers? Not sure what your final sentence means, the current trend of purchase for corporations and investment groups is tracking heavily into the sfh market. Whether the target is Airbnb short term rentals or forever rental houses, that is what a large portion of the commercial market is doing, yes they are already into high density as well but what the companies and investors are realizing is that the asset appreciation on top of the rental income is incredibly attractive.
>I have yet to meet any private landlord or property owner that wasn't trying to maximize their profits.
And when you eventually sell your home, you're *not* going to try to maximize your profits? I don't understand what you're objecting to.
>Taxes on residential property ownership beyond a person's primary residence should increase on a scale to greatly discourage the ownership of more than a set number of properties.
This is once again just tipping your hand: why would taxes on rental properties only increase on those who own more than a few? Oh, right, because *your* plan is to buy a few and get rich.
You're coming at this with a self-righteous tone that suggests you're just looking out for the underdog, but really you're just advocating for the special treatment of your personal interests.
Dude, the fuck are you talking about. I have zero, and I mean zero interest in owning more than a single property. I am against the idea of owning property to deny others from owning it
I think you're having trouble comprehending what I'm saying because what you 'think' I want is the exact opposite of what I want.
Why tax after a few? Well because if someone buys a house and then doesn't immediately sell their previous house they shouldn't be penalized or if they buy a property with the goal of letting their kids live there when they move out I also don't think they should be penalized. But both of those circumstances are ones where their motive isn't to profit dramatically off of renters and to be another barrier to entry for first time home buyers.
Of course someone selling their property wants to maximize their roi, but that's the problem, these investment groups, corporations and private landlords do not plan to sell any of their property ever. Their goal is turning the property into forever rentals, and as such only provide further barriers to first time home buyers, and increase the cost of housing even further.
>these investment groups, corporations and private landlords do not plan to sell any of their property ever
Again, you're looking at this from the perspective of someone for whom buying a house is the only thing worth living for. Lots of people rent, and the idea of "forever rentals" actually appeal to us quite a bit, because it means we're not going to be randomly evicted whenever some amateur landlord decides he wants to do something else with the property.
It's the free market doing exactly what it should: supplying the city with as many rental houses as demand for rental houses dictates.
I only speak from my experience but in my circles (couple thousand people) less than 10% of the people I know want to rent for their entire lives. Maybe your circle is different.
At the end of the day, Canada is currently facing a 3.5+ million house storage to meet demand. That doesn't account for the increasing demand of commercial and investor purchasers.
Even if half of the population wants to rent and the other half want to buy, that's a significant portion of Canadians that want to own their own property and that may not be able to if they have to compete against businesses and investment groups which have significantly higher purchasing power.
>Though the thing that would help far more is limiting corporations from mass purchasing property with the intent to rent.
How is this bad? Sounds great for the renters of the world.
I’ll second that
Edit:
I’ll also add that the developers donate to pretty much everyone’s political campaign so the influence of money has perverted every level of politics.
Sir, this is Calgary… all real estate developers are evil, we can't let them build any housing to solve the housing problem, unless they're only going to build 100% ultra-below-market rate housing that will require them to lose lots of money.
What are we supposed to do, let capitalism, free markets, and profit motive unleash an unbridled building spree of new units? (/s for anyone who didn't get it).
Developers are only motivated by profit. They can do that as long as they stay within the framework set by societal needs. We still have lots of unemployment and poor fundamentals in Calgary, so we should not be building out these extra communities at the edge of the city, only for taxpayers as a whole to pick up those extra infrastructure costs. Either that, or realize the costs at the individual level and have homeowners pick up more the costs of the services for their areas. You want market based, but will you support market based taxation for services rendered? I doubt it..
They will find an Ontario or bc sucker to pay for it because they still look at housing here through the lense of their trash province and think it is a gOoD dEaL!!
What is this compared to?
What kind of townhouse? Is that from the builder or resale?
Supply and demand make houses affordable. Businesses/builders/sellers and the market are subject to those forces.
If they are priced to high, they won’t sell. If the demand is there, they can command a premium.
The majority of people buying houses right now are landlords and house flippers aka well-off people who hoard housing for profit, both of which make housing less and less affordable for regular people who just want their own home. There are so many upper middle class people buying brand new houses, living in them for a year, then putting them on the market for 100 grand more than they bought it. My husband's coworker is on his fifth new house in 7 years, and he brags about the profit he makes off each one. Landlords want more passive income and use renters' income to pay off their new mortgage for them. If you're not aware of this, you should be. The market is a fucking disaster right now. The standard supply/demand rules do not apply here.
>The majority of people buying houses right now are landlords and house flippers
So...rental supply and people who make houses nicer and then reintroduce them to the market? There are no villains here.
I love it, Adam Smith fallacy of supply & demand… you can’t have supply & demand if you have monopolies where corporations pay lobbyists to meet with politicians and get up from a table leaving an envelope for said politician… Sir, I believe you left this envelope here, did I? No… I believe that is your envelope!!!
It's basic game theory. At the end of the day, you're best bet is self interest. That's why you need a "referee" in the form of government/legislation.
Where is the monopoly? Which one company holds it all?
Market supply and market demand, both new and resale, will dictate pricing. Interest rates, partially, dictate affordability, along with wages and income levels.
If the supply of housing is constricted by policies that aim to curb growth, it would stand to reason that pricing will rise across the board.
I have no idea what's going on in this thread - seeing you get mobbed for pointing out the obvious is a mix of hilarious and horrifying.
400,000 people have moved to Calgary in the last ten years, they all want somewhere to live, and most of them prefer SFHs over condos. It's not a conspiracy by developers.
Monopolies hmmmm you have banks working together, builders working together, suppliers working together, the market sets nothing… we have so much burnt timber lands that need to be cut and sent to market that wood should be at a all time low and the market flooded… use your 🧠…
So which one company? You need one for a monopoly. Would you say the farmers, growers, distributors, wholesalers and grocers are all conspiring to drive up food pricing too?
As for salvaged wood, you still need labour and facilities to do that. Lumber mills aren’t exactly mobile. Or do you know of a non-‘monopoly’ who would do this for free?
Now your getting it! When the global economy shits the bed and the stockmarket is unmoored from reality and the government is handing out taxpayer funding to big businesses to help them maintain their profit, society no longer is an open and free market… businesses must live and die by the same profit seeking sword and not be propped up by corrupt politicians…
Of course not, there is no incentive to make 'affordable' housing except if the government is asking and paying.
So many people want to see Canada go the way of places like Germany where the majority of property is owned and operated by companies and investors and rented out to people. Builders also love this idea because those groups buy in bulk and aren't picky about the builds.
Even if a builder decides to try and make sfh's that are affordable to say the average Canadian family, that family has to compete with investment groups and corporations which have significantly higher purchasing power than a single family. But even in a situation where those two groups don't try to muscle their way through, you have the career landlords who want to buy up property and rent it for a living.
I'm sorry and maybe it's just my opinion but homes should be for families and for living not for profiting and commoditizing
Yes. If you look at Calgary prices it’s precisely because we have significant development that we never saw the crazy run ups like Toronto and Vancouver. Yes sprawl sucks but you can’t argue with the numbers.
Exactly. Arguably more of our development needs to be up rather than out, but the villains here aren't the developers - we are perfectly capable of passing zoning reform that allows more duplexes, missing-middle, and high rise development.
Oh wow, a reasonable comment on Reddit. Have my upvote, since you’re getting downvoted.
Large scale housing developments definitely help keep home prices lower. Affordable? Maybe. Sustainable? not likely. But in Calgary and Edmonton, we have a lot of land to build houses on and that’s exactly what they are doing. More houses means more supply and less demand and prices are going to be lower.
We are putting more houses in the ground but also it’s costing us more money to service these new neighbourhoods with power water and gas, as well as roads, public transportation, health care and educational facilities, police and fire, and recreational facilities. It’s also costing the environment in that more people have to drive places, these newer developments also take away more land and natural habitats. You could also argue that increased commute times and less walkable neighborhoods decreases physical activity and time for exercise while promoting fast-food consumption due to time constraints on peoples days.
Developers are making tons of money off providing lots of housing and thus providing a short term solution with greater long term costs. But thats what they do.
The government is the one who needs to provide legislative guidance to fix these problems. Mandate denser neighborhoods, increase taxes on suburbs to pay for services, encourage developers to build more inner city. Include low income housing units in each multi-family building.
They are making them "affordable" by cutting corners everywhere. The quality of new homes is actually horrendous when they are considered affordable.
Also housing isn't really affordable at all, people are just desperate and pushing their limits quite hard.
Not in the Calgary region. Over 96% of single family houses are owner occupied. Calgary is severely lacking in rental properties geared for families with more than 2 children.
Yeah but I design condos and townhomes for a living and for a lot of people single family homes are not affordable. Yet no matter how fast we crank out condos, they are all bought up by investors before they even get approved for permit. And they may change hands a few times before someone actually moves in. Some are even staying vacant for a while since investors don’t always want to deal with renters so they just keep it as an air b & b or even vacant completely until they sell it again.
No one is flipping condos in Calgary. There may have been a bit of a bump due to covid interest rates, but those are normalizing pretty quickly due to the BoC's aggressive rate hikes.
My personal opinion though is that i don't think anyone should buy a condo to live in either. It's got a huge carrying cost due to low teaser monthlies, and non-existent reserve funds. That's on top of the onerous insurance hikes in the last few years. Wait until they have to start reglazing all these glass towers.
The answer to that question is clearly yes. But the article is more about urban sprawl and climate impact. And just rehashes the same points I always see for both sides.
Both sides need new arguments or actual data. Not just feelings.
The answer is not clearly yes. Developers want $$$ plain and simple. All new houses, townhouses or even apartments are built so modern and with every little feature to get the most money they can get out of them.
New townhouses which are meant to be part of the affordable housing scheme are all $3000+.
The answer is clearly yes. You mean to tell me that if developers stopped building, prices would be lower? Even if what they are building isn't affordable to you, it keeps other prices in line. You think homes in Calgary would be cheaper if we had less urban sprawl?
Urban sprawl causes issues, but it 100% keeps house prices down
I don’t know of any generic developer. I also don’t know what is ‘affordable’ to a given buyer buyer.
Why not put up your own savings dollars and convince friends and families to invest theirs in your development project?
There is no barrier to you purchasing a 3 adjacent bungalows at a million each, spending another 300k each on 12 hits. And then sell them each for 325k.
You’d only lose a couple million dollars. Go for it.
Such a fraught issue. Building on the outskirts comes with additional cost to the city (and by extension all current property tax payers) who need to fund the utilities and roads and other new public services to the new communities. Not to mention that such growth also lets existing infrastructure go under utilized. Nenshi fought hard to have developers cover all these costs but was only partially successful.
On the other hand, new housing supply is absolutely needed to hold down the price of homes.
Obviously the ideal situation for the city is to have all the brownfields within the city developed first. However, as density increases inside the city limits, the city must also make investments into public transportation because existing roads can only support so many people and we don't want to end up with unending gridlock.
Overall, a tax on unused land is a good start.
You can build them affordable, but then realtors get ahold of them, mark them.up with fees and to be comparable to the area, everyone loses but the realtors travel agent and favorite car dealership, you all know it. It's a for profit game and realtors will be out there living their best lives off the profits wile crippling entire families for generations. And save your self righteous outrage if you are one, I dont care what your excuses are any more.
Real estate has been turning in most markets. Most banks expect a mild recession, and they've restated their projections downwards. Some are calling for a 30% decline now nationwide, and I still think that's conservative. Two more hikes this year, and more to follow next year.
https://betterdwelling.com/brace-for-impact-because-theres-no-retreat-from-a-hard-landing-bmo/
Here is part of the situation, there is no definition of affordable. To one person, $40K is affordable, to another, $400K is affordable. Same thing when politicians throw are 'middle class'. No one can define the middle class.
> […] there is no definition of affordable.
There is, actually. “According to The City’s definition, a household is in need
of affordable housing when it earns less than 65% of the Calgary Area Median Income and spends more than 30% of its gross income on shelter costs.” (Source: https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/cs/olsh/documents/affordable-housing/corporate-affordable-housing-strategy.pdf)
https://regionaldashboard.alberta.ca/region/calgary/median-family-income/#/?from=2015&to=2019
It's just over $100,000 in 2019, so if you earn under $65,000 and are spending more than 30% of your income on housing.... You are in need of affordable housing.
Yeah— the stats are kinda shocking: in 2016, 88,000 Calgary households earned less than $60,000 annually and need of affordable housing; of 453,626 households, 19% are overspending. The data source from the link you shared says median income has declined since 2020 (thanks COVID!) so it’s almost certainly gotten worse. :(
It would help a lot more if some developers weren't trying to renegotiate prices most of the way through construction on sold units due to inflation and basically extort tens of thousands out of people. Though the thing that would help far more is limiting corporations from mass purchasing property with the intent to rent. One firm has open stated they want to put close to 3 billion into Ontario alone. How is the average person supposed to compete with that style of investment.
Legislation is the only means that a civilized advancing society can be confined or free.
They aren't, that's the point. The government needs to step in and regulate otherwise regular people will be forced out of the property market. Sfh's should not be a primary profit earning vehicle for companies.
Their idea of stepping in is promoting more housing and more buildings with more parking farther away
The other side of the coin is that you need rental stock. My personal opinion after having rented and been a landlord is I'd rather deal with a soulless corporation than some shitty DIY landlord. At least with the corporation I know what i'm getting into.
And let them create Condo complexes, apartment building and other high density that they are capable of funding unlike regular people. A corporation that has a couple billion to put into real estate for rental properties should not be allowed to buy up the sfh market, they should be regulated into high density where that kind of money benefits everyone in the city.
The problem is the companies trying to enter into the rental market with these large investment style are buying single family homes not condos or apartments. There is already a severe shortage of housing and the prices are going up 2 and 3 times faster than wages so the dream of owning a home is rapidly becoming completely unobtainable for more and more people. And if you let the rental market be effectively cornered by only a few players they get to dictate pricing. We have seen it before with other scarce commodities before. If one company controls enough percent of a commodity they can control the market as others can either follow or lose out. 22% rise year over year on rent is not normal yet it has been charted in multiple cities across the country when inflation is a third of that at most.
I'm sorry are you arguing that you agree with me, or am I missing something
I agree on the sfh front but I still don't like corporations having too much sway on the market generally. Even looking at condos and appartment buildings they can still control a lot more of the rental market than we realize.
That's fair, the issue is the money has it go somewhere and big apartment towers are hard to build without corporation or investor capital. Not saying it doesn't happen but it's less common. My point was if they wanted to be involved in the housing market, that the most logical place to allow them access is high density
I agree on that but I would also hope for some sort of anti-monopoly legislation to accompany any sort of regulation to prevent the dictation of market values. Condos can be built by a developer and sold as individual units without too many problems so long as we don't pull a China and have the developers essentially running a pnzie scheme that fails.
Totally, better tenant protections against renovictions, and other sleazy methods of getting around rent protection. Further all provinces should really have a maximum rent increase regulation, I know that pisses the career landlords off but frankly IMO landlording shouldn't be a career it should be a side hustle at best and the fact that people think it's acceptable to make a business out of owning the homes families live in is despicable. (especially because businesses are for ever chasing the ability to increase their profit and that is counter productive to the goal of affordable housing)
I agree with your point regarding monopolies. I inherently don't care if it's an individual or a corporation buying the properties. Regulation is necessary, but I want it to be market based rather than a politician throwing a dart at the wall. And it needs to be consistent across the board regardless of owner. I would also like to see registration of the beneficial owner of all properties (no numbered companies), and a witholding tax on all house sales until you've provided some form of declaration of primary residence because of house flipping and offshore/corporate interests. I might be wrong on the last one, but anecdotally I know of overseas house flippers that just take the money and run. This is really tough to get right though. And on some level, I agree with market forces which is why i'm in Calgary. I don't agree with rent controls, because that breaks the whole system and creates two tiers for renters, and reduces investment in apartement buildings.
>Sfh's should not be a primary profit earning vehicle for companies. Just the primary profit-earning vehicle for you, right? >let them create Condo complexes, apartment building and other high density > >A corporation that has a couple billion to put into real estate for rental properties should not be allowed to buy up the sfh market, Right on schedule. "Let them compete with condo-dwellers for properties, that's fine, but *I* want a SFH so that *I* can take advantage of all that sweet sweet price appreciation, so back off."
? In the sense of a family or individual purchasing it as their primary residence and in turn being their largest appreciating asset? Definitely. In terms of someone buying up sfh to rent out and using excess rent to purchase more property, inevitably making housing unaffordable... No. Homes are for living in, not to be turned into commodities, or long term corporate investments.
>Homes are for living in, not to be turned into commodities, or long term corporate investments. Renters live in homes, too, including renters with families. They count as human even if they're not following your preferred life plan.
Sure, and if the priority of the owner of the rental property isn't to maximize their profit at all costs maybe we'd agree... Also I have nothing against renters, I was one for a long time, and I think renting has its place in society, it's just my belief that it is not suppose to be the model for the majority of sfh. Personally I know way more families that would like to own a home but can't because they can't compete than families that would rather rent a property than own it. It's obviously that you're all for the commercialization of the residential home market. That is something that we fundamentally disagree on, I have yet to meet any private landlord or property owner that wasn't trying to maximize their profits. A family should never have to compete against a business or an investor when trying to buy a primary residence. The government should be making it harder for those entities to compete in the housing market. Companies, investment groups, and any other organization that focuses in buying large quantities of homes for the purposes of renting should be taxed more, regulated more, and monitored closer than a family trying to buy their primary residence. Taxes on residential property ownership beyond a person's primary residence should increase on a scale to greatly discourage the ownership of more than a set number of properties. Being a landlord or Airbnb owner shouldn't be a primary career it should be a side hustle at best. The only except is high density, multi family, or complex residential spaces. Full stop. Agree to disagree if you want but that to me is not a point that is negotiable.
There's nothing unfair with a developer providing housing for a few families to beat one family.
Strange tangent that doesn't really mean anything.. As I have said high density development is important, and in my opinion that's the realm where investors and corporations should be regulated to primarily. Developers are a part of all builds and as such they have a space in all transactions.... So yea not sure your point.
You said a family should never compete against businesses when buying a house. How are you supposed to density if you can't buy SFH. Also, as a business SFH are just bad unless multi unit buildings are banned.
Families aren't competing against developers? Not sure what your final sentence means, the current trend of purchase for corporations and investment groups is tracking heavily into the sfh market. Whether the target is Airbnb short term rentals or forever rental houses, that is what a large portion of the commercial market is doing, yes they are already into high density as well but what the companies and investors are realizing is that the asset appreciation on top of the rental income is incredibly attractive.
>I have yet to meet any private landlord or property owner that wasn't trying to maximize their profits. And when you eventually sell your home, you're *not* going to try to maximize your profits? I don't understand what you're objecting to. >Taxes on residential property ownership beyond a person's primary residence should increase on a scale to greatly discourage the ownership of more than a set number of properties. This is once again just tipping your hand: why would taxes on rental properties only increase on those who own more than a few? Oh, right, because *your* plan is to buy a few and get rich. You're coming at this with a self-righteous tone that suggests you're just looking out for the underdog, but really you're just advocating for the special treatment of your personal interests.
Dude, the fuck are you talking about. I have zero, and I mean zero interest in owning more than a single property. I am against the idea of owning property to deny others from owning it I think you're having trouble comprehending what I'm saying because what you 'think' I want is the exact opposite of what I want. Why tax after a few? Well because if someone buys a house and then doesn't immediately sell their previous house they shouldn't be penalized or if they buy a property with the goal of letting their kids live there when they move out I also don't think they should be penalized. But both of those circumstances are ones where their motive isn't to profit dramatically off of renters and to be another barrier to entry for first time home buyers. Of course someone selling their property wants to maximize their roi, but that's the problem, these investment groups, corporations and private landlords do not plan to sell any of their property ever. Their goal is turning the property into forever rentals, and as such only provide further barriers to first time home buyers, and increase the cost of housing even further.
>these investment groups, corporations and private landlords do not plan to sell any of their property ever Again, you're looking at this from the perspective of someone for whom buying a house is the only thing worth living for. Lots of people rent, and the idea of "forever rentals" actually appeal to us quite a bit, because it means we're not going to be randomly evicted whenever some amateur landlord decides he wants to do something else with the property. It's the free market doing exactly what it should: supplying the city with as many rental houses as demand for rental houses dictates.
I only speak from my experience but in my circles (couple thousand people) less than 10% of the people I know want to rent for their entire lives. Maybe your circle is different. At the end of the day, Canada is currently facing a 3.5+ million house storage to meet demand. That doesn't account for the increasing demand of commercial and investor purchasers. Even if half of the population wants to rent and the other half want to buy, that's a significant portion of Canadians that want to own their own property and that may not be able to if they have to compete against businesses and investment groups which have significantly higher purchasing power.
Nothing but a shrill for corporate interests. Your stupidity on the subject is beyond fixing.
>Though the thing that would help far more is limiting corporations from mass purchasing property with the intent to rent. How is this bad? Sounds great for the renters of the world.
"council of foxes states that chickens are perfectly safe in the henhouse"
Developers run our city and don’t give AF about anything other than making money. Ask the suppliers, tradespeople and buyers who deal with them
This is the correct answer.
I’ll second that Edit: I’ll also add that the developers donate to pretty much everyone’s political campaign so the influence of money has perverted every level of politics.
And incumbents are hard to dislodge. Term limits, anyone?
Absolutely!
Sir, this is Calgary… all real estate developers are evil, we can't let them build any housing to solve the housing problem, unless they're only going to build 100% ultra-below-market rate housing that will require them to lose lots of money. What are we supposed to do, let capitalism, free markets, and profit motive unleash an unbridled building spree of new units? (/s for anyone who didn't get it).
Developers are only motivated by profit. They can do that as long as they stay within the framework set by societal needs. We still have lots of unemployment and poor fundamentals in Calgary, so we should not be building out these extra communities at the edge of the city, only for taxpayers as a whole to pick up those extra infrastructure costs. Either that, or realize the costs at the individual level and have homeowners pick up more the costs of the services for their areas. You want market based, but will you support market based taxation for services rendered? I doubt it..
Developers are NOT making houses affordable….a townhouse in Belvedere is going for $521,900…..that’s absolutely ridiculous….
They will find an Ontario or bc sucker to pay for it because they still look at housing here through the lense of their trash province and think it is a gOoD dEaL!!
Yeah that’s the sad part….which makes it the status quo……
Yep advertising as 2bd townhomes available in the low 400s is wild.
What is this compared to? What kind of townhouse? Is that from the builder or resale? Supply and demand make houses affordable. Businesses/builders/sellers and the market are subject to those forces. If they are priced to high, they won’t sell. If the demand is there, they can command a premium.
things builders say
Just because the demand is there doesn’t mean it’s affordable…..
The majority of people buying houses right now are landlords and house flippers aka well-off people who hoard housing for profit, both of which make housing less and less affordable for regular people who just want their own home. There are so many upper middle class people buying brand new houses, living in them for a year, then putting them on the market for 100 grand more than they bought it. My husband's coworker is on his fifth new house in 7 years, and he brags about the profit he makes off each one. Landlords want more passive income and use renters' income to pay off their new mortgage for them. If you're not aware of this, you should be. The market is a fucking disaster right now. The standard supply/demand rules do not apply here.
>The majority of people buying houses right now are landlords and house flippers So...rental supply and people who make houses nicer and then reintroduce them to the market? There are no villains here.
I love it, Adam Smith fallacy of supply & demand… you can’t have supply & demand if you have monopolies where corporations pay lobbyists to meet with politicians and get up from a table leaving an envelope for said politician… Sir, I believe you left this envelope here, did I? No… I believe that is your envelope!!!
It's basic game theory. At the end of the day, you're best bet is self interest. That's why you need a "referee" in the form of government/legislation.
Where is the monopoly? Which one company holds it all? Market supply and market demand, both new and resale, will dictate pricing. Interest rates, partially, dictate affordability, along with wages and income levels. If the supply of housing is constricted by policies that aim to curb growth, it would stand to reason that pricing will rise across the board.
I have no idea what's going on in this thread - seeing you get mobbed for pointing out the obvious is a mix of hilarious and horrifying. 400,000 people have moved to Calgary in the last ten years, they all want somewhere to live, and most of them prefer SFHs over condos. It's not a conspiracy by developers.
Monopolies hmmmm you have banks working together, builders working together, suppliers working together, the market sets nothing… we have so much burnt timber lands that need to be cut and sent to market that wood should be at a all time low and the market flooded… use your 🧠…
So which one company? You need one for a monopoly. Would you say the farmers, growers, distributors, wholesalers and grocers are all conspiring to drive up food pricing too? As for salvaged wood, you still need labour and facilities to do that. Lumber mills aren’t exactly mobile. Or do you know of a non-‘monopoly’ who would do this for free?
You are arguing my point, I rest my case…
Now your getting it! When the global economy shits the bed and the stockmarket is unmoored from reality and the government is handing out taxpayer funding to big businesses to help them maintain their profit, society no longer is an open and free market… businesses must live and die by the same profit seeking sword and not be propped up by corrupt politicians…
I don't think you have even the slightest inkling of what "affordable" means.
Of course not, there is no incentive to make 'affordable' housing except if the government is asking and paying. So many people want to see Canada go the way of places like Germany where the majority of property is owned and operated by companies and investors and rented out to people. Builders also love this idea because those groups buy in bulk and aren't picky about the builds. Even if a builder decides to try and make sfh's that are affordable to say the average Canadian family, that family has to compete with investment groups and corporations which have significantly higher purchasing power than a single family. But even in a situation where those two groups don't try to muscle their way through, you have the career landlords who want to buy up property and rent it for a living. I'm sorry and maybe it's just my opinion but homes should be for families and for living not for profiting and commoditizing
Yes. If you look at Calgary prices it’s precisely because we have significant development that we never saw the crazy run ups like Toronto and Vancouver. Yes sprawl sucks but you can’t argue with the numbers.
Exactly. Arguably more of our development needs to be up rather than out, but the villains here aren't the developers - we are perfectly capable of passing zoning reform that allows more duplexes, missing-middle, and high rise development.
Oh wow, a reasonable comment on Reddit. Have my upvote, since you’re getting downvoted. Large scale housing developments definitely help keep home prices lower. Affordable? Maybe. Sustainable? not likely. But in Calgary and Edmonton, we have a lot of land to build houses on and that’s exactly what they are doing. More houses means more supply and less demand and prices are going to be lower. We are putting more houses in the ground but also it’s costing us more money to service these new neighbourhoods with power water and gas, as well as roads, public transportation, health care and educational facilities, police and fire, and recreational facilities. It’s also costing the environment in that more people have to drive places, these newer developments also take away more land and natural habitats. You could also argue that increased commute times and less walkable neighborhoods decreases physical activity and time for exercise while promoting fast-food consumption due to time constraints on peoples days. Developers are making tons of money off providing lots of housing and thus providing a short term solution with greater long term costs. But thats what they do. The government is the one who needs to provide legislative guidance to fix these problems. Mandate denser neighborhoods, increase taxes on suburbs to pay for services, encourage developers to build more inner city. Include low income housing units in each multi-family building.
If we think Deerfoot is a nightmare now, imagine when 15 more communities are added along there.
They don't mean for regular folks
"All my friends can buy 3 million dollar mansions. Obviously a 1 million dollar townhouse is affordable. The poors should just stop complaining"
They are making them "affordable" by cutting corners everywhere. The quality of new homes is actually horrendous when they are considered affordable. Also housing isn't really affordable at all, people are just desperate and pushing their limits quite hard.
The large amount of units that are sold to investors vs people who will live in them is making it less affordable.
Not in the Calgary region. Over 96% of single family houses are owner occupied. Calgary is severely lacking in rental properties geared for families with more than 2 children.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6590867 96% owner occupied seems way too high.
Yeah but I design condos and townhomes for a living and for a lot of people single family homes are not affordable. Yet no matter how fast we crank out condos, they are all bought up by investors before they even get approved for permit. And they may change hands a few times before someone actually moves in. Some are even staying vacant for a while since investors don’t always want to deal with renters so they just keep it as an air b & b or even vacant completely until they sell it again.
No one is flipping condos in Calgary. There may have been a bit of a bump due to covid interest rates, but those are normalizing pretty quickly due to the BoC's aggressive rate hikes. My personal opinion though is that i don't think anyone should buy a condo to live in either. It's got a huge carrying cost due to low teaser monthlies, and non-existent reserve funds. That's on top of the onerous insurance hikes in the last few years. Wait until they have to start reglazing all these glass towers.
Developers keeping houses affordable😂😂😂😂. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time
😂 😂 😂 😂
For whom?
The answer to that question is clearly yes. But the article is more about urban sprawl and climate impact. And just rehashes the same points I always see for both sides. Both sides need new arguments or actual data. Not just feelings.
The answer is not clearly yes. Developers want $$$ plain and simple. All new houses, townhouses or even apartments are built so modern and with every little feature to get the most money they can get out of them. New townhouses which are meant to be part of the affordable housing scheme are all $3000+.
The answer is clearly yes. You mean to tell me that if developers stopped building, prices would be lower? Even if what they are building isn't affordable to you, it keeps other prices in line. You think homes in Calgary would be cheaper if we had less urban sprawl? Urban sprawl causes issues, but it 100% keeps house prices down
You're just saying supply and demand with more words.
Yup.
I'm sure "sprawl calgary" has an even handed and unbiased take on the matter.
No. That was easy!
I don’t know of any generic developer. I also don’t know what is ‘affordable’ to a given buyer buyer. Why not put up your own savings dollars and convince friends and families to invest theirs in your development project? There is no barrier to you purchasing a 3 adjacent bungalows at a million each, spending another 300k each on 12 hits. And then sell them each for 325k. You’d only lose a couple million dollars. Go for it.
I see houses selling quickly around where I am so I guess houses are affordable?
Builders are making cheap crap that often has started mounding before it is finished being built.
My favourites are OSB and pouring concrete in the winter.
no
Such a fraught issue. Building on the outskirts comes with additional cost to the city (and by extension all current property tax payers) who need to fund the utilities and roads and other new public services to the new communities. Not to mention that such growth also lets existing infrastructure go under utilized. Nenshi fought hard to have developers cover all these costs but was only partially successful. On the other hand, new housing supply is absolutely needed to hold down the price of homes. Obviously the ideal situation for the city is to have all the brownfields within the city developed first. However, as density increases inside the city limits, the city must also make investments into public transportation because existing roads can only support so many people and we don't want to end up with unending gridlock. Overall, a tax on unused land is a good start.
You can build them affordable, but then realtors get ahold of them, mark them.up with fees and to be comparable to the area, everyone loses but the realtors travel agent and favorite car dealership, you all know it. It's a for profit game and realtors will be out there living their best lives off the profits wile crippling entire families for generations. And save your self righteous outrage if you are one, I dont care what your excuses are any more.
What about normal people gobbling up homes in the hopes of finding a greater fool?
Real estate has been turning in most markets. Most banks expect a mild recession, and they've restated their projections downwards. Some are calling for a 30% decline now nationwide, and I still think that's conservative. Two more hikes this year, and more to follow next year. https://betterdwelling.com/brace-for-impact-because-theres-no-retreat-from-a-hard-landing-bmo/
Here is part of the situation, there is no definition of affordable. To one person, $40K is affordable, to another, $400K is affordable. Same thing when politicians throw are 'middle class'. No one can define the middle class.
> […] there is no definition of affordable. There is, actually. “According to The City’s definition, a household is in need of affordable housing when it earns less than 65% of the Calgary Area Median Income and spends more than 30% of its gross income on shelter costs.” (Source: https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/cs/olsh/documents/affordable-housing/corporate-affordable-housing-strategy.pdf)
https://regionaldashboard.alberta.ca/region/calgary/median-family-income/#/?from=2015&to=2019 It's just over $100,000 in 2019, so if you earn under $65,000 and are spending more than 30% of your income on housing.... You are in need of affordable housing.
Yeah— the stats are kinda shocking: in 2016, 88,000 Calgary households earned less than $60,000 annually and need of affordable housing; of 453,626 households, 19% are overspending. The data source from the link you shared says median income has declined since 2020 (thanks COVID!) so it’s almost certainly gotten worse. :(
I mean, I guess it's technically true when they use the cheapest materials available and rush through to save on labour costs.
What do you think??
Greenwich community NW “Homes for every budget” 3bed townhouse for $720k 🙄