Quote:
Originally Posted by casper
Population surge was over the last two years. Our housing problems date back two decades at least. The private sector has not flooded the market with suitable housing.
If anything the private sector in places like Vancouver and Toronto has been building airbnd and investor suites. I suspect part of the problem is there is a high margin to be made on building a building with small condos vrs a building of 3 bedroom condos.
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Imagine if the government made a new rule to fight climate change where they restrict meat sales to a certain amount and force grocery stores to sell a certain number of vegetables before they can sell any meat. What do you think would happen to the price of meat in this situation? And what do you think would happen to the quality of vegetables?
When the price of meat spirals upwards and the quality of vegetables goes down, is that thebprivate sector's fault? No of course not - it's the government that madethe rule's fault.
Now replace the word "meat" with "greenfield SFH" and replace "vegetable" with "infill condo" and you more or less have how housing policy works in the Golden Horseshoe.
Your solution is no different than saying "the private sector isn't supplying enough quality vegetables for everyone, so we need thr government to step in".
In reality there's nothing wrong with the private sector - it's just behaving the way it always does when the government places all kinds of restrictions on how it can operate - wonky and distorted.
The government - specifically the McGuinty government - is who caused this mess in Southern Ontario.
Artificially low rates just added fuel to the fire.
High immigration added more fuel.
But the fire was lit by idiotic land use policy.