this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 39 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Economists almost unanimously agree that rent control is a short term reprieve that causes long term problems.

Don't control rents, control land values with land value taxes (not the same as property taxes)

If you take away the profit motive for owning a home, the whole current system collapses and housing returns to the price it should be based on it's usefulness as a house not an investment.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yeah, without reading this I'm hella skeptical.

No amount of tenant rights will solve not enough houses, which is the problem we have here.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Not enough houses isn't really the problem, or rather there's no such thing as "enough houses" ever. If more housing were to become available, people would just inflate their expectations for what their housing should be (larger, more land, fancier, etc.)

There's enough bedrooms in this country for every single person to sleep in. They just aren't distributed properly (desirable locations, who owns them, etc.)

There will never be enough housing to meet people's desires.

The question then becomes, how can we get the right people in the right amount and location of house, and what does right mean for these things?

The current allocation system we are using simply doesn't achieve the optimal social outcome.

One big issue, is there are far too many older people that are over-housed. My parents live in a 4 bedroom home, by themselves. It was a great home for me and my brother to grow up in, but it hasn't been optimal in the 20 years since we moved out. They should have downsized and freed that home up for another family. Instead you have couples in their 20s who are either underhoused for their family size or who won't even have children because they don't have enough space.

The only solution I've seen that would work is significantly taxing land based on the desirability of the location and size of land, to incentivize people to leave too much housing for their needs and free it up to house more people (either more people in the same home, or through density development). Those taxes should be really high, like income tax level of high, and income taxes should be dropped. It would overnight reset home prices to affordable levels. Unfortunately it's never going to get voted in because it would also destroy the equity for every single current homeowner, and there's no way they would accept that.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (13 children)

To match other advanced countries for citizens per house, we'd need a few million more houses. I'd call that a shortage, even if in the very long term, you're right, we culturally adjust to whatever we have to. In a way we are already; multi-generational living is noticeably trendy.

The current allocation system we are using simply doesn’t achieve the optimal social outcome.

What you're talking about here is basically just inequality, with a little bit of gerontocracy. Yeah, it sucks, haha. What needs to happen to fix that is more redistribution, one way or another.

Those taxes should be really high, like income tax level of high, and income taxes should be dropped. It would overnight reset home prices to affordable levels.

I don't think so. The amount of privately held land is fixed, so somebody's going to pay the same amount no matter what. It's actually going to increase housing prices relative to other things, because the Zoomer family that buys your parent's place will have that tax to bear as well (meanwhile everything else just benefits from the income tax break).

You could make it 65+ only, I guess, but there's a high chance of unintended side effects on seniors not in that situation.

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

There’s enough bedrooms in this country for every single person to sleep in.

This would be a very useful stat for us all to have if you can back it up. I'd also be interested if it is still true of individual provinces.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, I don't think this exists as a discrete statistic, but here's some math to back it up.

Housing units in Canada https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230116/dq230116d-eng.htm Approximately 16.4 million units in 2021

Bedrooms per dwelling https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?LANG=E&GENDERlist=1%2C2%2C3&STATISTIClist=4&HEADERlist=20&SearchText=Canada&DGUIDlist=2021A000011124

This one is a bit harder because the stat only collects 0 (studios) 1, 2, 3, and 4 or more. If we average it out assuming a studio also counts as 1 bedroom (which seems reasonable to me) and only assume 4 or more equals 4 exactly (just being conservative here) then we get an average number of bedrooms per dwelling of 2.7 bedrooms.

16.4 million homes x 2.7 bedrooms per home = 44.28 million bedrooms

Even the latest Canadian population in 2023 is 40.1 million.

That's enough rooms for every single Canadian to have their own room, and doesn't even need to account for couples sleeping in the same room. That means every couple could have a spare bedroom for an office or guest room and there would still be enough rooms for everyone.

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[–] SamuelRJankis@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The full context of this is economists don't think it's a long term solution but their other proposed solutions is even less accepted by politicians and the masses.

As such like many of the larger problems we have we're left with a temporary solution that's implemented long term.

When people criticize rent control at best what they're saying is if we bottom out on a problem the only way we could go is up. Ala electing Trump.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 weeks ago

Their other proposed solutions aren't accepted by politicians and the masses, because there's too many people benefitting from the system fucking the next generation to want to change it. We're literally living in the largest pyramid scheme ever constructed.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

Since I can't seem to read this, what are their other solutions?

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Montreal had rent control for a long time and renting only became a problem when the bubblification of real estate got imported to Quebec from the rest of Canada.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Renting only became a problem when it became a problem elsewhere... oh... well then it looks like it didn't work well did it.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The Canadian rental market, famously a victim of rent control.

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

Ah yes, the Anglos made you price up your own real estate. /s

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

While I don't support rent control, let's be real econmists are cheap regime whores who say whatever their owners need them to say so that plebs accept the fuckening.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If you're trying to imply that rent controls are good by your statement, can you show me anywhere that's implemented them that has affordable housing prices?

It's not like they haven't been tried, they just continually fail.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

No country needs rent controls. They need ownership controls. As in, nobody should be able to own more than 1x primary residence and 1x holiday house &/or investment property. Period. No company should ever be allowed to own residential land/property, except for the duration of a build (with hard limits for development/build/sale that prevent artificial price controls).

Neoliberalism/conservatism have failed humanity for housing security, financial & economic security, national security, employment security, mental and physical health, education, civil liberties; the list is endless. Continuing this several-decade failure any longer is insanity.

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[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

And what, exactly, are the long-term problems? The most common one I've seen sited is that they don't maintain properties, but there are solutions to that. Economists just don't seem to be willing to discuss anything that isn't some kind of private market solution.

"We can't do anything that reduces landlord or developer profits" is trying to solve the problem with both hands tied behind your back and a ball gag firmly in place.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Nobody builds new rental properties that aren't profitable. I dunno, would you, if you had that kind of money?

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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

First, it's Cited, not Sited.

Second, I think you misunderstood me. I'm advocating for removing their profits almost entirely, or at least the portion of profits attributed to the increase in land value that they had no part in improving.

I just think that rent controls are a stupid way to attempt to do it because they don't apply to new units and they often have loopholes. Rent controls can also exacerbate the problem where new units get rented for much higher prices, to try to compensate for the fact that they won't be able to increase them over time. There definitely isn't enough supply to stop that issue happening.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 25 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

We need:

-limit 1 house per family

-serious rent control

-4-storey apartments built owned by the public and cooperatives

-Stronger renter protections

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 27 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

-Aggressive tax on empty properties/units

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Vacant House Taxes have been tried throughout Canada and are generally ineffective. They are just a distraction.

The main reason why they don't work is fairly obvious: Why would someone own property to keep it vacant?

Sure, there are some people with vacation homes, or second homes where they frequently visit (heck, I might have to get an apartment where my office is located now we're being forced to return to the office). Oh the Urbanity has a great video where they point out the vast majority of "Vacant Homes" are either students who don't permanently live there, in the process of a move, under renovation, etc.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Thankfully, off of Lemmy people seem to get this, and we're all talking construction and rezoning now.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think people who think about housing critically get it, but unfortunately I don't think most Canadians get this, either on or off Lemmy. It's too easy to see "1.3 Million Vacant Houses" and think that's a solution for the Housing Crisis.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not used to having less political bullshit here, but I guess it could be regional.

At the federal level they're mostly doing tax breaks for potential owners, and subsidies for builders.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Aggressive and escalating.

The longer you leave a residential property vacant, the higher the tax rate becomes.

Speculating on residential housing needs to become costly - more expensive than making it livable and available for people to live there.

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[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 weeks ago

I think we also need to discount and ease new construction - NIMBY bullshit shouldn't be allowed to prevent densification and we either need direct subsidies or material subsidies of construction materials.

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago

When new builds are all mcmansions from developers with deep, unethical, ties to politicians it doesn't really help much either.

Looking at you Doug Ford.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Can you explain what you mean by

-limit 1 house per family

Many of the times I've heard this sentiment, it's been to either ban Mom&Pop landlords, or ban rental houses completely. These options seem to benefit potential homeowners by screwing over renters. I'm not sure if you mean something different?

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"apartments built by thr public or coops" is right there. Don't look at a package proposal and treat each part of it as unrelated or judge it in a vacuum.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am fully supportive of public housing and coops, but that doesn't explain how a "limit 1 house per family" rule would work or what it's intending to achieve. If you or @Sunshine@lemmy.ca want to expand on that you can even explain it in the context of a whole system, I'm happy to hear it. I am a policy wonk and just want to understand this proposal.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You're probably just going to get flamed here. Most political people (and activists for that matter) are not policy wonks.

They're probably thinking a ban on landlords, as currently legally defined, basically.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's a lot of 4-story apartments, since that's the main thing that will actually get built under this scheme. I guess it worked okay in the USSR, but Soviet citizens definitely did complain about the lack of other options for living arrangement.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

as much as your typical canadian city subreddit complains about homeless encampments?

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[–] Someone@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think we need a rental tax credit. Whether it's partial or fully tax exempt, doesn't really matter. If every renter was reporting their rent payments on their taxes it would be impossible for landlords to dodge their own taxes, thereby shifting the tax burden where it belongs.

[–] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

A rental tax credit would likely result in money laundering schemes. For example you're a Mafia boss and you purchase a building with very expensive appartment rents and people that you pay to "pay" you the rent. Then that money is magically clean and tax free

[–] Someone@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I don't see how this would make money laundering for organized crime any easier than it is today, the tax would just be shifted to the landlord side (likely at a higher rate since they're probably in a higher tax bracket) and off the tenant.

Right now the tenant earns money, pays income tax on that money, pays rent, and the landlord pays taxes on that money (if they're honest and report it all) but can claim their mortgage interest as a tax deduction.

I think the tenant should be able to claim some portion of their rent as a tax deduction. It would require an official record of rent paid, which would keep the landlord honest. I'd say the mortgage interest on a rental property probably shouldn't be tax deductible either, but even still this would have the biggest impact on those large private landlords that are often what you'd call slumlords.

Edit: I'm obviously not an expert on taxation or housing policy so if I'm wildly out of touch I'll accept that, I just think it's kind of bullshit that the government subsidizes the mortgages we pay for our landlords with the money we paid the government when we worked for it.

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[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Fwiw, rent control is fully insufficient - what you need is a completely massive supply of affordable housing built, owned and operated by the public. Nothing short of this will make a dent

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Also prohibit the use of houses for ~~scalping~~ speculation and investment

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is only really a thing in a paradigm of housing scarcity. Can't speculate on houses if houses are not abnormally rising in prices year over year.

The housing scarcity is the root cause, and is most effectively addressed by the aforementioned method

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I'm actually shocked that the Financial Post said something positive on rent control. This is some alternate universe stuff. It's typically neolib drivel.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

They know it will never happen, so they get to play around with the topic and seem like team pleb.

[–] Someone@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

We have rent control in BC (I think, unless I misunderstand), but I'd be willing to ease the restrictions a bit in exchange for vacancy control. I've only been in my current place for 4 years, but if I had to move (renoviction or personal use) I'd be looking at almost a 150% increase for something comparable. I know I'm not alone in that. I could handle a 10% increase per year if it meant I had the flexibility to move if I needed an upgrade or my landlord was simply being an ass.

[–] asterism@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

im just sick of ppl listing rooms on craigslist for $800-1000 :/ esp when they title it misleadingly as a whole suite

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