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Ontario Implementing Measures to Cool Housing Market

Skeptic Bob said:
I have lived in countries where non-residents were prohibited from owning residential property. Seems like a reasonable rule to me. I'm fine with foreigners opening businesses in other countries but it seems residential property should be limited to actual residents of the country.
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why? cash sales of real estate increase property values and therefore increase property tax rolls.
 
Carjosse said:
It helped cooled down Vancouver's market because foreign buyers do play a significant part of it. We know what is causing it and these policies are to combat that. It is just the people buying them are not Canadians looks for a home but foreign speculators who will never use them.
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And Thank you for that Vancouver, because now these investors are buying property in the Puget Sound region, filling our local coffers and buying screaming cash deals from WA residents, I agree Vancouver's tax has been an astounding success as since it was enacted more Asian buyers are calling Washington realtors.
 
Carjosse said:
There is nothing entitled about wanting an affordable a place to live. Toronto has a housing bubble, it is undeniable. There is a housing bubble, 33% annual price growth is not healthy or natural. So you are calling financial experts and government institutions idiots, noted. You are completely detached from reality. Do you know why there are more buyers than houses, because of foreign speculators, shady flipping, vacancy rates, and other things these laws are trying to curb. YOu are doing this because you are petty and selfish. If Wynne said the sky was blue you would claim it was green.
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I'm willing to bet in 99% of Canada's landmass you can find an affordable place to live, this is about finding an affordable place to live in your preferred neighborhood. You would probably have little trouble living in Hope, or Kamloops, or Saskatoon or Calgary. this is about living at a price you dictate in the neighborhood you want.

Moving to downtown Seattle would cost me considerably more, instead I live on Puget Sound Waterfront for 600 a month. It's because I choose to live where my income can support me.

In fact In the general Vancouver area I quickly found 2BR apartments for less then 1000, you can live in Chilliwack (nice town) one bed in Mission (really nice town) for 750
two bed for 1050 in Langley (OK) and these are driving distance to Vancouver.

so the fact is, living near a metro is not unafforable, it may just mean not in downtown or the richest neighborhood.
 
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after working my magic in Toronto Craigslist,

West Brant, Apartment for 799 100km from Toronto

3 bed for 1450 (very affordable when divided three ways, or even two) in Hamilton. also in Hamilton 2 bed for 1299 in a very nice bulding, 650 a piece divided twice is affordable in my book 65 km to city center

like I'm finding deals I consider acceptable distance and price for my income if I had to earn in it Toronto, so to claim you can't live affordably is a crock, what these people are really saying is, they want rural mother in law prices on a luxury 1 or 2 bed in the city with view.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
And Thank you for that Vancouver, because now these investors are buying property in the Puget Sound region, filling our local coffers and buying screaming cash deals from WA residents, I agree Vancouver's tax has been an astounding success as since it was enacted more Asian buyers are calling Washington realtors.
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Have fun!
 
Carjosse said:
Have fun!
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I think I will I plan to be ready to buy in the next couple of years, I definitely want to see a massive return on investment
 
EMNofSeattle said:
I'm willing to bet in 99% of Canada's landmass you can find an affordable place to live, this is about finding an affordable place to live in your preferred neighborhood. You would probably have little trouble living in Hope, or Kamloops, or Saskatoon or Calgary. this is about living at a price you dictate in the neighborhood you want.

Moving to downtown Seattle would cost me considerably more, instead I live on Puget Sound Waterfront for 600 a month. It's because I choose to live where my income can support me.

In fact In the general Vancouver area I quickly found 2BR apartments for less then 1000, you can live in Chilliwack (nice town) one bed in Mission (really nice town) for 750
two bed for 1050 in Langley (OK) and these are driving distance to Vancouver.

so the fact is, living near a metro is not unafforable, it may just mean not in downtown or the richest neighborhood.
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Mission at least to me in not reasonable it quite a considerable commute downtown, it is 3hrs by public transit and 1h by driving at 1am, let alone rush hour. I don't call that a reasonable commute.
 
Carjosse said:
Do you not understand what a housing bubble is? Toronto's property is massively overvalued and it is getting worse month after month, steps needed to be taken to cool it down. Every financial expert was saying it is needed. Do you feel that the Bank of Canada, real estate experts, investment firms, and other experts are all guilty of trying to perpetuate some kind of socialist utopia? Like I thought you only care about the return of your own house and not if your fellow Canadians can ever buy a home, this is why we hate your generation, it is selfish. Why do you hate your fellow Canadians so much? Your generation had these privileges and you deprive them from mine to fund your own selfishness. We are the future of this country, not you, and we need a place to live. There is nothing wrong with the Liberals desire to make housing more affordable, we aren't asking for luxury. People need affordable housing and Toronto definitely lacks it.

You are everything wrong with the boomer generation, you are selfish, narcissistic, and hateful.
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I don't get your logic Carjosse, if you feel Toronto is getting ready to bust you should be shoveling money in your savings account, because a buy with 35% to put down is getting a house at a screaming deal after the market tanks. I honestly to god wish I had been born 8 years earlier becase I with a stable in demand career could've swooped in and bought seattle real estate at a steal in 2008. what are you concerned about? do you work? if you have steady recession resistent income you should be praying for a crash in real estate prices.
 
Carjosse said:
Mission at least to me in not reasonable it quite a considerable commute downtown, it is 3hrs by public transit and 1h by driving at 1am, let alone rush hour. I don't call that a reasonable commute.
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I did an hour and a half commuting 70 miles to Seattle for almost two years. I saved a hefty bit of coin because the massively cheaper rent where I live easily exceeded whatever extra I spend to commute. You may have to drive, but this is a tradeoff of not having money, the less you have the more you have to put up with. also there is plenty of employment in Abbotsford, in Langley, even Mission has plenty of job oppurtunities in industrial careers.

If you can't make enough income to live close enough to the city you work, you need to get a better job or a job closer to home. you're not going to get a 3 bed craftsman 5 miles from downtown for the same price as a mother in law out in the country. unless you split costs with roomates or have connections to the owner. it doesn't work like that.

and this whole racialist "oh evil foreigners are taking our houses" well they bought them fair and square and I am not going to demand they pay anything more then the property taxes anyone else would pay because that's discrimination
 
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EMNofSeattle said:
I don't get your logic Carjosse, if you feel Toronto is getting ready to bust you should be shoveling money in your savings account, because a buy with 35% to put down is getting a house at a screaming deal after the market tanks. I honestly to god wish I had been born 8 years earlier becase I with a stable in demand career could've swooped in and bought seattle real estate at a steal in 2008. what are you concerned about? do you work? if you have steady recession resistent income you should be praying for a crash in real estate prices.
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I will be entering the job market in two years, I know I will not be bale to afford a house but I want to eventually. And if things kept going at the same pace, a small bungalow is going to cost well over $2 million anywhere close to Toronto. If the market crashes the economy is going to tank with it and not just Toronto. I am am probably going to try and stay here in Montreal because accommodation is cheap and I have connections.
 
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EMNofSeattle said:
I did an hour and a half commuting 70 miles to Seattle for almost two years. I saved a hefty bit of coin because the massively cheaper rent where I live easily exceeded whatever extra I spend to commute. You may have to drive, but this is a tradeoff of not having money, the less you have the more you have to put up with. also there is plenty of employment in Abbotsford, in Langley, even Mission has plenty of job oppurtunities in industrial careers.
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That is fine for you, but it would drive the average person into depression. Expect I do not work or have any desire to work in industrial careers, I will be working in tech and/or management because that is what my degree is in. I had to commute an hour and a half to work last semester and it drained every last bit of life and motivation I had, next semester will be better because my job is 10 minutes away.

To me reasonable is a an apartment within one and a half hours by public transit. You also have to apply scale to this. Foreigners do not contribute to society, they buy these homes just to sit on them as investments.
 
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Carjosse said:
Expect I do not work or have any desire to work in industrial careers, I will be working in tech and/or management because that is what my degree is in. I had to commute an hour and a half to work last semester and it drained very last bit of life and motivation I had, next semester will be better because my job is 10 minutes away.
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see, you're complaining to someone who has worked pretty much 60 hours a week every week for the last three years other then vacation, a break to finish school, and recently when I got laid off (because I'm smart and have money I decided to spend two weeks after my lay off sitting on my ass smoking cigars and drinking because WTH I'm going back to work soon) and have put in a lot of time driving to Portland for jobs, driving to Vancouver BC for work (legally, I didn't need a visa for what I was doing) commuting to seattle every day to drive to Blaine WA, then back to Seattle, then back home, I spent a year living like a gypsy roaming the US on a job working 70+ hours a week.

This is not an argument I empathize with. If your work cannot produce enough income to live where you want, you have the wrong job, or you want to live in the wrong town. all of those policies you posted in the OP will not make it easier for you to find housing, they will not. combined with existing government policy I'm sure, because look I'm looking at a sattelite view of Toronto right now and see massive plots of pasture seperating a town with an "affordable housing crisis" with no active developments happening, in a market economy they would be building houses everywhere because there is demand for them. it's probably your government forbidding or constricting the supply of housing, which piggy backs on to why foreign investors are buying, limited supply means they can sell later at a higher rate. so more government will not result in easier housing, in fact I'm willing to say the reason you can't live in Toronto cheaply is because of government policy in the first place.

but all that aside,
you are not entitled to your preferred arrangment in your preferred zip code. and if you're going to tell me how hard your life has been, go shadow someone who's done the jobs I've done for the number of hours I've done it and get back to me. My hour and a half commute drained my life, so I got a better job closer to home
 
Carjosse said:
That is fine for you, but it would drive the average person into depression. Expect I do not work or have any desire to work in industrial careers, I will be working in tech and/or management because that is what my degree is in. I had to commute an hour and a half to work last semester and it drained every last bit of life and motivation I had, next semester will be better because my job is 10 minutes away.

To me reasonable is a an apartment within one and a half hours by public transit. You also have to apply scale to this. Foreigners do not contribute to society, they buy these homes just to sit on them as investments.
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and that investment contributes to society, they have to pay property taxes or the property get forclosed by the county, unless you don't have that in Canada. the seller gets money they will spend in the economy, the increase in values increases property taxes and the amounts everyone else can sell their homes for.

you're applying your preferred situation and claiming the government needs to socially engineer it. that will make things worse for everyone, who's going to build houses or buy them to rent if they don't think they can make money at it, like the first thing on your govenrment policy list was rent control, that doesn't punish investors sitting on real estate, in fact it creates a greater incentive not to rent at all. and purely do real estate transactions.

and where is new housing construction? there should sprawl like 50 km out of toronto if the market is that hot! except no your government probably has policies to control suburban sprawl so instead of creating new housing at mid level price points the developers have to build it at a higher price point. if you have to shell out millions just to own the ground the housing units created will be expensive.

So it goes back to, if you can't make enough money to live in Toronto then you can't live in Toronto, end of story, and if enough people stop living in Toronto prices will go down, or if there becomes a severe shortage of labor because the laborers can't afford to live there and work, then wages will go up. this is market economics, these policies you advocate for will not create a cheaper place for you to live, in fact the government is probably the reason you can't in the first place.
 
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EMNofSeattle said:
see, you're complaining to someone who has worked pretty much 60 hours a week every week for the last three years other then vacation, a break to finish school, and recently when I got laid off (because I'm smart and have money I decided to spend two weeks after my lay off sitting on my ass smoking cigars and drinking because WTH I'm going back to work soon) and have put in a lot of time driving to Portland for jobs, driving to Vancouver BC for work (legally, I didn't need a visa for what I was doing) commuting to seattle every day to drive to Blaine WA, then back to Seattle, then back home, I spent a year living like a gypsy roaming the US on a job working 70+ hours a week.

This is not an argument I empathize with. If your work cannot produce enough income to live where you want, you have the wrong job, or you want to live in the wrong town. all of those policies you posted in the OP will not make it easier for you to find housing, they will not. combined with existing government policy I'm sure, because look I'm looking at a sattelite view of Toronto right now and see massive plots of pasture seperating a town with an "affordable housing crisis" with no active developments happening, in a market economy they would be building houses everywhere because there is demand for them. it's probably your government forbidding or constricting the supply of housing, which piggy backs on to why foreign investors are buying, limited supply means they can sell later at a higher rate. so more government will not result in easier housing, in fact I'm willing to say the reason you can't live in Toronto cheaply is because of government policy in the first place.

but all that aside,
you are not entitled to your preferred arrangment in your preferred zip code. and if you're going to tell me how hard your life has been, go shadow someone who's done the jobs I've done for the number of hours I've done it and get back to me. My hour and a half commute drained my life, so I got a better job closer to home
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Like I said in my post, that is fine for you but in most people that would just be a quick spiral into depression. Because believe it or not work-life balance is needed by most people to live. If I hard to choose one word to describe the Toronto skyline it would be cranes. They are building, especially condos but the problem is that they are being sold to these speculators or being paper flipped, overvaluing them like crazy. A condo that should be $200,000 which is affordable are selling for $300,000 or $400,000 I don't expect you to know this but Toronto has amazingly bad infrastructure, that is what limiting building homes farther away from the city. These speculators are driving up costs by buying up property and using them as paper assets, not residences. The housing stock is not being used to house people, it is inflating some Chinese guy's assets.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
and that investment contributes to society, they have to pay property taxes or the property get forclosed by the county, unless you don't have that in Canada. the seller gets money they will spend in the economy, the increase in values increases property taxes and the amounts everyone else can sell their homes for.

you're applying your preferred situation and claiming the government needs to socially engineer it. that will make things worse for everyone, who's going to build houses or buy them to rent if they don't think they can make money at it, like the first thing on your govenrment policy list was rent control, that doesn't punish investors sitting on real estate, in fact it creates a greater incentive not to rent at all. and purely do real estate transactions.

and where is new housing construction? there should sprawl like 50 km out of toronto if the market is that hot! except no your government probably has policies to control suburban sprawl so instead of creating new housing at mid level price points the developers have to build it at a higher price point. if you have to shell out millions just to own the ground the housing units created will be expensive.
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Compared to the US property taxes in Canada are basically non-existent, income and sales taxes are where the money is made because municipalities are just an extension of the province and not a completely separate entity like in the US. And property taxes pale in comparison to having a person living in that dwelling, someone who can actually use it. Like I said in my other post the greatest limiting factor is infrastructure, which struggles to handle the current population. Public transit is insufficient so everyone must drive especially the further out you go, but the highways cannot handle the traffic.
 
Carjosse said:
Like I said in my post, that is fine for you but in most people that would just be a quick spiral into depression. Because believe it or not work-life balance is needed by most people to live. If I hard to choose one word to describe the Toronto skyline it would be cranes. They are building, especially condos but the problem is that they are being sold to these speculators or being paper flipped, overvaluing them like crazy. A condo that should be $200,000 which is affordable are selling for $300,000 or $400,000 I don't expect you to know this but Toronto has amazingly bad infrastructure, that is what limiting building homes farther away from the city. These speculators are driving up costs by buying up property and using them as paper assets, not residences. The housing stock is not being used to house people, it is inflating some Chinese guy's assets.
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then maybe if it's so easy you should just start real estate speculating yourself. forget this IT/management, get in on a real estate firm, because if you know how all this works you can find real good money working real estate.

the condos are only worth what people will pay for them. if nobody was waiting to buy them at 400,000 there would be no investors buying them at 2. there is no moral or ethical obligation to house people in your houses, if you want them to sit on your balance sheet there's nothing wrong with that. and if what you're saying is true, then at some point the house of cards falls and you get a luxury condo for 98K in a foreclosure auction.

If only I was born 8 years earlier I could've had the top level penthouse suite in a waterfront condo in Bremerton for 450K, now it's worth 2.5 million. but when the market crashes again, I got money and employment potential. so why buy a condo today at 200 if in a few years you think the market will collapse, because then you'll have it for 90K. You need to start thinking of how to adapt to the system instead of demanding your MP adapt it to you, that will always be more lucrative in the end.

and stop with this "Work-life stuff" you see the pictures I post on the member pics thread? does it look like I don't have any life ? having money is why I can take vacations to Missouri, and Montana, and Canada, and tour the coast, and do everything I like to do, I do not lack work life balance. I simply put more in the work column, because in 25 to 30 years I won't have my health, so actually burning down the work fuse early in life to stockpile money is the smart thing to do. if you don't have any children now's the time to work and work like sled dog.
 
Carjosse said:
Compared to the US property taxes in Canada are basically non-existent, income and sales taxes are where the money is made because municipalities are just an extension of the province and not a completely separate entity like in the US. And property taxes pale in comparison to having a person living in that dwelling, someone who can actually use it. Like I said in my other post the greatest limiting factor is infrastructure, which struggles to handle the current population. Public transit is insufficient so everyone must drive especially the further out you go, but the highways cannot handle the traffic.
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So let's step back, maybe Montreal is the better town for you than Toronto.
or depending upon what skills you have in IT when you're done with school, get a visa and move to the states, you could easily work and live in Austin Texas or North Carolina, or up here in Seattle, or in Portland, lots of tech jobs in areas you can afford down here. depending upon what it is you're actually studying.

but point is, you cannot defeat the market. further government mismanagment will only lead to no housing units for you at any price.

and if your government is not building highways to new developments shame on them, and they're probably doing it on purpose to appease the furtherst fringe of environmentalists. it was such a welcome sight in Phoenix AZ last time I was there, because in Arizona they have the radical idea that more people move somewhere you build new highways and transit lines to the new developments.
 
Fundamentally Toronto has a demand problem because there is far too much inflow from people who understandably want to park their money in an appreciating safe asset like Toronto real estate and get it away from their corrupt/autocratic governments.

Unfortunately the result of this is skyrocketing real estate prices that people native to the city can't afford.

Despite the fact that I derive a significant portion of my income from TO real estate, I don't think it's at all right that citizens and Toronto natives should be fundamentally priced out of their own real estate market for the sake of Chinese and Brazilian investor portfolios, which is what this is about.

Personally I don't agree with all of the proposed changes, and in particular think the legislation on expanding rent control to new developments is in balance counterproductive, but I am all about imposing damping taxes on foreign buyers/non-residents of residential real estate; this way we bolster government coffers while curbing a potentially dangerous bubble that is in the interim contrary to the interests of Toronto natives in such a way as to scale and tune the tax optimally; win/win. Torontonians owe nothing to wealthy foreign investors.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
The Canadian housing market in the Toronto region and Vancouver area have been seeing drastic increases in the prices of housing units sold. A significant amount of the purchases have been from foreign buyers, generally mainland Chinese seeking "investment" properties. Or more to the point a place to stash money outside of China and which is relatively safe. A large amount of said homes by the foreign buyers remain unoccupied for the most part, leaving a smaller pool for the rental market. This is causing the rents to increase as well.

A few policies changes are idiotic

Rent control is idiotic and should be done away with, it reduces the incentive to build more rental units, leading to a chronic undersupply leading to more rent control.

-Introducing a 15-per-cent “Non-Resident Speculation Tax” in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region This is also idiotic. If a foreigner wants to buy property in an overheated market let them, those in that region should take the money and run. Move about 2 hours to the south west around London Ont where the housing prices are a third of the Toronto region
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London? And what about their job that is in Toronto? Do you expect them to commute? And a commute at rush hour between London and T.O. maybe 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon. But on a Monday morning it would take 4 hours.
I had a friend that used to commute from Kitchener to T.O. every day (which is much closer to T.O. then London) and it took him 3+ hours each way. And I thought he was nuts to do that.
They could take a train - I assume VIA Rail does that route every morning - but that would cost more and still be at least 3+ hours.

Plus London, Ontario is light years from Toronto in terms of lifestyle.

NO ONE (in their right mind) is going to move to London if they work in Toronto.

And good jobs are not that easy to come by.


The subject of this thread is rents...not homeowners. And Chinese investment is driving rents through the roof. That hurts middle-lower income people the most. Stopping Chibese investment helps the middle-lower class.
The rich don't need help.

Besides, if things change in China and these people suddenly yank their money out, the market will collapse...and that will hurt homeowners hugely...especially if they are heavily mortgaged. Could even cause a local recession.

No...taking steps to limit foreign ownership of housing - especially non-residents - is a good idea.

You are Chinese and you want to own property in T.O.? Fine...just make sure you live in it.
 
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Well with all this racialist scapegoating rhetoric I'm sure someone is happy

IMG_0284.jpg
 
Carjosse said:
There is nothing entitled about wanting an affordable a place to live. Toronto has a housing bubble, it is undeniable. There is a housing bubble, 33% annual price growth is not healthy or natural. So you are calling financial experts and government institutions idiots, noted. You are completely detached from reality. Do you know why there are more buyers than houses, because of foreign speculators, shady flipping, vacancy rates, and other things these laws are trying to curb. YOu are doing this because you are petty and selfish. If Wynne said the sky was blue you would claim it was green.
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Clearly, you haven't the slightest clue about what's going on in Toronto's housing market. And as a progressive/liberal, you believe that government control and taxation is the answer to all your woes. There is an annual growth in the price of housing in Toronto because a) there isn't enough housing for sale to meet demand and b) there is great growth in the number of people who want to move to Toronto. Add to that the federal government's move to increase immigration, most of which settles in big cities like Toronto, and you increase the demand for rental housing that was destroyed by rent controls put in place decades ago.

You want to make housing more available and affordable in Toronto? Firstly, reduce the red tape that makes new development virtually impossible within 3 years of applying for permits. Secondly, free up access to land around Toronto that is tied up in vast swaths of green belt protected areas - no land to build, no more housing to access. Thirdly, make investment in rental housing valuable to those who would build it. If you can't get market values for you investment, people won't invest in rental housing. The rental market in Toronto is being filled now by investors who buy condos to rent as investment income - with the government's new move to place rent control on these units, that will dry up now too.

As for foreign investment in Toronto, it represents less than 5% of all purchases in Toronto - not a relevant factor at all in the rise in prices. Prices rise because money is cheap to get from banks in mortgages and properties for sale are scarce.

As for Wynne, the lying, corrupt bitch would never claim the sky was blue and she'd do everything in her power to tax it if she could to fund her out of control spending. Just like you, Wynne has never seen a problem that can't be solved, in her mind, by a new form of taxation. I hope she gets trounced in the next election and moves to Quebec - you two deserve each other.
 
It should be noted that the industry provided numbers on foreign investment citing %s as low as 5 are bunk. Beyond that is the fact that the industry is _not_ impartial on this issue, doesn't want any kind of non-resident tax/rent control/etc, and has lobbied vigourously against them out of fear they'll reduce sale volumes and turnover... which is the point (the board having sent me several emails detailing the steps it's taking to combat or minimize government action on the problem).

I know this because I work in the industry and am familiar with the lack of disclosure requirements as cited here which kills the quality of their data:

Ontario?s lack of foreign-buyer data sparks concern about a Toronto housing crisis - The Globe and Mail

The best and latest data – provided by Toronto’s private real estate board last month – peg international citizens as representing almost 5 per cent of all home buyers last year. For years, B.C. relied on similar industry-provided data that showed foreign investment in the single digits, before it modified its land-transfer documents last spring to force buyers to disclose whether they are a citizen or a permanent resident of Canada and, if not, where they hail from.

Cameron Muir, the economist in charge of tracking B.C. housing prices for the province’s real estate industry, says until the government heeded his trade association’s call to begin collecting this information, realtors provided some of the best data. Still, surveys of real estate agents are not complete enough to inform official policy or assuage public anger over the murky role foreign money plays in a hot market, he said.
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EMNofSeattle said:
So let's step back, maybe Montreal is the better town for you than Toronto.
or depending upon what skills you have in IT when you're done with school, get a visa and move to the states, you could easily work and live in Austin Texas or North Carolina, or up here in Seattle, or in Portland, lots of tech jobs in areas you can afford down here. depending upon what it is you're actually studying.

but point is, you cannot defeat the market. further government mismanagment will only lead to no housing units for you at any price.

and if your government is not building highways to new developments shame on them, and they're probably doing it on purpose to appease the furtherst fringe of environmentalists. it was such a welcome sight in Phoenix AZ last time I was there, because in Arizona they have the radical idea that more people move somewhere you build new highways and transit lines to the new developments.
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Have you tried ever building a highway, the highways exist, they just cannot the massive amount of traffic, it is not the infrastructure far out form Toronto, it is the internal Toronto highways which are restricted by the fact there are homes and other things in the way. Most people do not want a highway going through the middle of their suburb, especially rich people. Toronto needs affordable housing, it is a national issue. The biggest problem Toronto has is massive overvaluation of homes, it is a bubble or a ticking timebomb, when it crashes it is going to take the national economy with it.
 
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CanadaJohn said:
Clearly, you haven't the slightest clue about what's going on in Toronto's housing market. And as a progressive/liberal, you believe that government control and taxation is the answer to all your woes. There is an annual growth in the price of housing in Toronto because a) there isn't enough housing for sale to meet demand and b) there is great growth in the number of people who want to move to Toronto. Add to that the federal government's move to increase immigration, most of which settles in big cities like Toronto, and you increase the demand for rental housing that was destroyed by rent controls put in place decades ago.

You want to make housing more available and affordable in Toronto? Firstly, reduce the red tape that makes new development virtually impossible within 3 years of applying for permits. Secondly, free up access to land around Toronto that is tied up in vast swaths of green belt protected areas - no land to build, no more housing to access. Thirdly, make investment in rental housing valuable to those who would build it. If you can't get market values for you investment, people won't invest in rental housing. The rental market in Toronto is being filled now by investors who buy condos to rent as investment income - with the government's new move to place rent control on these units, that will dry up now too.

As for foreign investment in Toronto, it represents less than 5% of all purchases in Toronto - not a relevant factor at all in the rise in prices. Prices rise because money is cheap to get from banks in mortgages and properties for sale are scarce.

As for Wynne, the lying, corrupt bitch would never claim the sky was blue and she'd do everything in her power to tax it if she could to fund her out of control spending. Just like you, Wynne has never seen a problem that can't be solved, in her mind, by a new form of taxation. I hope she gets trounced in the next election and moves to Quebec - you two deserve each other.
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I believe in government and financial experts that say Toronto has a massive overvalued housing bubble that is not sustainable in anyway. It is all going to come tumbling down at some point, it is a time bomb. Toronto does not seem to have a problem with building, the skyline is almost entirely cranes. That 5% number comes from realtors, who as we learned from BC do not keep accurate information and also lie, most experts place the real number around 15%, the rest are Canadians being suckered and forced into it. DO you not see the massive problem a housing bubble causes?
 
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DA60 said:
London? And what about their job that is in Toronto? Do you expect them to commute? And a commute at rush hour between London and T.O. maybe 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon. But on a Monday morning it would take 4 hours.
I had a friend that used to commute from Kitchener to T.O. every day (which is much closer to T.O. then London) and it took him 3+ hours each way. And I thought he was nuts to do that.
They could take a train - I assume VIA Rail does that route every morning - but that would cost more and still be at least 3+ hours.

Plus London, Ontario is light years from Toronto in terms of lifestyle.

NO ONE (in their right mind) is going to move to London if they work in Toronto.

And good jobs are not that easy to come by.


The subject of this thread is rents...not homeowners. And Chinese investment is driving rents through the roof. That hurts middle-lower income people the most. Stopping Chibese investment helps the middle-lower class.
The rich don't need help.

Besides, if things change in China and these people suddenly yank their money out, the market will collapse...and that will hurt homeowners hugely...especially if they are heavily mortgaged. Could even cause a local recession.

No...taking steps to limit foreign ownership of housing - especially non-residents - is a good idea.

You are Chinese and you want to own property in T.O.? Fine...just make sure you live in it.
Click to expand...

Don't bother he does not understand that a 3+ hour commute is not normal and taxing on the life of a normal person. It is about both ownership and rent, prices for both are massively overvalued, there is a housing bubble.
 
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