What Housing Crisis?

14 Replies to “What Housing Crisis?”

1. This is a wrong assumption:

   “That’s why Governments may worry about losing votes from young people BUT don’t panic because Mayor’s and Cabinet Ministers know there are alot of votes available in maintaining the status quo”

   Lots/most of young voters are Marxist/eco-Marxist and they vote Left (Lib, NDP, Green). And lots of older folks – true, don’t have any debt but come from a time when hard work and strong will meant something and they don’t like what’s going on.

   1. Used to be that owning an apartment building or two was an excellent retirement vehicle.

      Of course it used to be that the people running things didn’t bring in millions of people with no housing available, print money without end and actually believed in math. Silly buggers.

      Today, you would have to be insane/Liberal to turn over your life savings to tenants with all the power, thanks to Librano Judges.

      Big Corps owning all the housing and all the politicians should work well in the long run.

2. How would that scenario change if the “vax” kills off a good percentage of peeps starting in 2024 as the experts I listen to are predicting?? If it comes to pass we will have more than enough housing. in fact we will have a crash in prices as supply exceeds demand.
   Nobody seems to be thinking outside the box. The rear view mirror is a dangerous predictor!!

   1. Oh, I think the Plandemic showed your Owners that they don’t even need a death vax.

      Canadians and most of the Western world showed they would happily walk off the nearest lemming cliff as long as the “Authorities” okayed it.

      Or push someone off. Either or.

3. Comrade Chowcescau is about to give these people a lesson in affordability

4. As there seem to be no simple solutions to the housing crisis,and no politician has a clue, let me put in my two cents worth, plus GST: the only realistic solution to lack of housing is government built apartment blocks,like those ones you see the Russians blowing up in Ukraine. Those things are massive! There must be a thousand apartments in some of those buildings. House the peasants and they will be more productive! It sure worked in the USSR!

   But every citizen of that good communist country had a place to live, unlike here in Little Democratic (LOL) Canader. Here in the Sunny Okanagan(TM reg’d) we have about a thousand homeless between the three main towns, Vancouver has lost count but I’ve seen estimates as high as 10 thousand, and probably similar in Toronto and every other major city.

   Sure,we’d all like to have a Homes and Garden magazine featured shack on a nice half acre lot, but even hockey players can barely afford them. And importing another half million per year isn’t going to help.
   The alternative is to invent winter tents and distribute them free. Maybe a good Liberal tent making company can be found.

   I anxiously await the day the current NDP government of B.C, or the next government of the B.C United Liberal Party to impose laws that if you have a spare room, you have to rent it our at a government approved rate. I can’t wait to rent my spare room in the basement for $300 a month to a deranged junkie who’ll murder me in my sleep.

   Or we can build apartments which sell for upwards of $600,000 with 10 % designated Low Cost Housing, at only $450,000 for a one bedroom. Or low cost rentals at $1500 per month for a one B/R. Everyone can afford that pittance!

   Of course my or anyone outsider’s ideas are not approved by the federal and provincial government’s Inner Circle of buddies and developers, so we’ll continue to third world status while the msm wrings their hands and shouts about Trump. Let’s face it,there’s nowhere else to go but downhill. Enjoy the slide.

5. If there isn’t a crisis or a wedge, you can be sure that the Liberals and their Media are busy creating one.

   Crisis are a Librano’s best friend. They require action.( ie money/vigorish)

   Next come wedges. Wedges create boogeymen and lots of squirrel sightings.

   It’s all been working but the impatience of the current Western Communist/Globalist/Totalitarian Liberals will be their downfall.

   Should have got the guns first.

6. Municipalities will never admit there is a crisis because they can’t stop drooling as they wait for the next round of property tax evaluations.
   Provinces will never admit it because they are the source of the many of the policies that restrict new housing.
   The Libs will never admit it because if the inflated real estate values are removed from the balance sheet it will show that we’ve passed recession a long time ago and have been languishing in a Depression. When housing costs double in such a short time and wages have sunk, there is no other description that I can think of.

7. Politicians parrot the meaningless mantra of “affordable housing” the way that beauty pageant intellectuals work for “world peace”. People with equity in million dollar homes aren’t interested in less restrictive zoning, ALR development, higher densities, more traffic, more trailer parks, no rent controls, etc and neither are the sociopaths that they vote for. But the mantra continues…..

   Don Morris, above, has just planted the seed for the next NDP “solution” – Soviet style, dull grey, concrete (projects). It’s a good bet.

   1. Can’t build with concrete. Concrete is made from cement, the manufacture of which generates lots of CO2.

      1. Heh.

         On a very long flight I shared an article from The Economist about “green concrete” with my friend who is in the concrete business (and yes, even the Economist is now Woke but still…long flight).

         He didn’t laugh out loud because while he thinks its stupid and won’t work, he knows that his bosses (he has few in his actual company, but that company is now owned by a Brazilian conglomerate) will be interested in it, and by interested, they mean “how to we get the taxpayers to pay for it”…

8. The author is correct. The people in charge won’t (or can’t) do anything because to make decent housing affordable would mean everyone’s existing house will have to fall in value. Try selling that one to the public.

9. The 11th commandment is this – Thou shalt not consolidate debt when re-mortgaging thy house.
   In 2006 the mortgage officer at my exe’s bank tried to get her to consolidate a 0% car loan by adding it to her mortgage. She was all for it as “we’ll have more money to spend”. I know a few people who zeroed their credit card balances every three or five years when refinancing their house. They can’t afford to retire and at least one of them will die still paying his mortgage.

   1. Al, we all die paying for housing one way or another. I had nine houses and mortgages over the years, never thought once about paying any of them off. Sold when I thought the profit was adequate for my needs. Been renting since I sold my last house. All one needs is adequate cash flow.