Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
One of the tragedies of recent years is Canada managed to have a housing investment bubble and condo construction boom without actually building much usable housing.
Similarly the nonpermanent resident boom was misallocated with a huge bump in low value Uber drivers and Tim Horton's workers which largely suppressed unskilled youth employment instead of helping in key industries, like construction or health care.
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The US housing market crash sort of ended up as a good thing in the long run, at least for younger people looking to buy a home. States like Florida saw huge amounts of internal migrants arrive from other states, and all those vacant homes and McMansions in the suburbs have long since been occupied.
Canada’s condo bubble hasn’t resulted in similar situation, because the prices are still way too high, and people don’t think a 350 square foot box in the sky is worth the price tag + monthly condo fees. Some of these developments (like the one in the video from the link Molson posted are a joke) and should become affordable rental housing. Perhaps government could look at stepping in and buying some of these mostly empty condo buildings to be turned into affordable rental housing? Or perhaps we just need much stronger taxation instrument that deter condo owners from leaving their units unoccupied.
Either way, it’s quite frustrating that Canada has so many empty condos in the middle of a housing crisis.
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