this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
44 points (95.8% liked)
Canada
7224 readers
312 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
π Meta
πΊοΈ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
ποΈ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
π Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- MontrΓ©al Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown - Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown - Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown - General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
π» Universities
π΅ Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
π£οΈ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
π Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The point is that landlords and speculators drive up costs - period. If you want to ease the housing crisis you could in theory build you're way out of it. You could also bale water out of a boat while it's sinking. Now what if you plug the hole while bailing out the water?
Speculators are the fucking hole. Want a second home? Cool. Make them pay 20%+ tax on it a la Singapore:
I am in support of any measures to make the lives of speculators and investors miserable but even the graphic you share endorses increasing housing supply! Singapore is famously super YIMBY and builds tons of public and market housing.
Frankly, whatever else we do, there is NO solution without significantly more supply. Yes, letβs change our tax code to stamp out speculation, but it will take years, if not decades, to catch up on building enough supply even if we make changes now.
Of course. Purely based on numbers we need more units. But again, if we build more it's going to help speculators more than FTHB unless you over build. So you're just growing the wealth divide.
There are already tax discounts on primary residence, there's a capital gains exemption. Doesn't matter because housing prices still go up too much. And why do they keep going up? Hmm... maybe something about a shortage of housing?
Speculators can't single handedly increase the price because they still need someone to buy or rent the property for a worthwhile price.
There are areas where housing prices stagnate and it's not like some speculators can just go in there and force prices to go up.
Not sure what point you are trying to make? What does capital gains exemption have to do with anything? If anything we should follow the US and only exempt a base amount.
I'm saying use taxes to disincentivize speculation.
There's a reason the market became detached from fundamentals when rates were lowered. I'm not saying we don't need to build more. Of course we do. But I'd rather not build homes that go to more investors than FTHB like is currently happening. Otherwise the situation only gets better if you over build.
Also yes, it only takes a small number of speculators to create unaffordable housing. Real estate is a market based on benchmarks. You should look into the history of the BC market and how a small number of speculators drove that market bananas.