this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Canada wants to make homes affordable without crushing prices (www.bnnbloomberg.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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In a country with some of the world’s most expensive real estate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wants housing to become more affordable.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think personal ownership can go higher than just two properties without problems. The issue isn't everybody owning five properties, but a small handful owning thousands.

Following that, limiting corporations' ownership is definitely a top priority. Only owning housing with 30 units or more would probably help a lot. 10 units is just too little I think, as that's just a conjoined townhouse, which can easily be personally owned and operated. 30 is more like a really small low rise.

AirBnB is definitely an issue as well, and is probably the hardest to regulate. Though definitely not the hardest to pass (that's the corporations one). I'm not sure what can be done with it, as there's already laws in place regarding hotels. Maybe force the company to register all BnB locations to a government database in real time? Though with enough housing, I think this will be an insignificant issue. Especially combined with the other changes. BnBing a spare room is quite a different thing compared to an entire unit/house on a permanent basis.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like the idea of progressively higher taxes. Second house might have a modestly higher tax, but the third will be a steep increase and it only gets higher from there. Anyone who truly wants/needs multiple homes can have em, but they're gonna pay through the teeth for them (which we can invest into building more homes).

We have such a shortage that IMO any extra home ownership is a problem. But it's the kind of problem that I don't think is a concern if they pay sufficient taxes on it. It's the kind of problem that we can largely throw money at to fix.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Personally, I have no issues with things like summer homes, or having a second property you rent out for some money on the side.

The first is typically somewhere that having property is purely a luxury rather than a neccessity, so as long as it's not being done in another large city or something, it's not that much of a big deal. Especially so if the government isn't on the hook for utilities.

For the latter, as long as the number of properties being rent out, and that the renting is done properly, it's not a big deal either. The government already has regulations on rentals anyways, though I do wonder how well they're enforced. Either way, while I do agree that excesses here is an issue, one or two properties utilized like this isn't a problem, even if thousands of people do it in a single city.