We Know Why Housing Is Expensive

[@PaigeMTL]

I also just did a thing for CBC: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5nXYXhsYteNb7c Let them know that it's not shit so that I can one day acquire property and enter the middle class.

[@martyfill9690]

Awesome page well done

[@simoneh4732]

Amazing. I love your accent. Never change. Also, I've never had trouble understanding you.

[@pebblepod30]

GREAT

[@sabiletrimm]

Nice vid too. I have no problem understanding your accent. Btw, Prof Charles Boberg at McGill is an expert at Canadian accents, just FYI.

[@harenterberge2632]

Here is a wild idea:prescribe medium density housing (for example terraced houses) for new neighborhoods.

[@brad4013]

These areas are the most liveable but they need to be mix use with access to excellent public transport otherwise they be a traffic nightmare.

[@JasonMcCarrell]

@@brad4013 Yup! They need metro... that isn't just a streamline from the suburbs to government worker hubs... Oooottttaaawwwwaaaa 😤

[@LucasFernandez-fk8se]

No. We need more suburban homes. They are the bomb. The real issue is that the NIMBYS stop freeway construction and subdivisions construction

[@annach109]

@@brad4013 terraces are not high density enough for public housing. Maybe 5 story buildings with first floor shops and 2-story apartments?

[@adanactnomew7085]

Land is so expensive in Vancouver this is already the case in areas like Surrey and Langley

[@gazzamuso]

So I'm a Kiwi listening to a Kiwi in Canada with a mostly Kiwi accent, but clearly influenced by Canada too, talk about a Kiwi housing policy he wants to see implemented in Canada. Normal internet stuff.

[@jackgibbons6013]

5:26 This is a great point. While people are anti developer all the time, the policies that end up "keeping the developer in check" / "preventing the developer making a profit in our neighborhood". End up just hurting the faceless people, those who's home wont be built now and who weren't sent the neighborhood survey. While it might not be popular, renters should be at council meetings demanding that more houses are easier to build.

[@PaigeMTL]

I think people forget developers are “builders of housing”, even when the government builds they usually leverage their expertise and contract them. It’s quite counterproductive targeting them. Metaphors are never perfect but it’s a bit like getting pissed off at nurses in a nurse shortage, nurses are well paid but they’re not creating the shortage.

[@Theincredibledrummer]

Woo! Go New Zealand. As a planner over here I am looking forward to these medium density and parking rules taking effect next year.

[@groundzero_-lm4md]

TL;DR Supply and demand apply to housing aswell. To reduce the price, increase the supply.

[@Dumathoinee]

Nope. Who will buy the new house? Those who can, the rich. They will not use it, they'll rent it. So now you have a lot of house and a tiny group of landlord, free to put whatever price they want.

[@BoricuaKelfa]

@@Dumathoinee when supply is higher than demand, their value and prices drop. Which means more people who are of lower income would be able to afford a home.

[@Dumathoinee]

@@BoricuaKelfa it's not likely to happen. The upper class will but them and rent them. It IS like it everywhere. It's sad but true

[@isawrooka4]

@@Dumathoinee it is though. If there’s nobody to rent to (because supply is greater than demand or at least closer to equilibrium) the price of rent must go down to encourage consumption. This reduces the NPV of a rental unit and consequently home prices. It really is basic economics. When you hear about cheap homes in old cities with disinvestment issues like Cleveland, you’re really seeing the effect of supply and demand in full force. To deny this is to deny basic economic reality. Home prices are insane, but the reasons for it are not.

[@sabiletrimm]

I love this video. You hit all the main arguments. We often hear "low supply" but you got down to the core reason. And, hey, you said "proportional representation" which was music to my ears.

[@RoseKudlac]

I agree with many of the positive comments posted. Great job on this video. One quibble - at 7:40 you smirk at the Vancouver policy of vacant property tax based on lower number of units nabbed than the estimate of vacant properties AS IF the policy had failed, but the objective wasn't to rake in tax, the objective was to promote renting the properties to occupants. Without more granular info on 'why the policy didn't apply', it looks like the policy succeeded in achieving what it was designed to do - reduce the number of vacant properties.

[@gagepreston8763]

Great video as per usual. Also nice to see you repping the urban development community on KZbin! I saw your patreon props on an Oh The Urbanity video and said "I wonder what my favorite Canadian tuber is up to!" Keep up the good work!

[@isac7579]

Haha "Every microphone-juggling lispy Canadian can do that." That's friggin gold!! Love both of your content!!

[@imnomit]

So glad this channel is still alive!

[@simon7762]

Love your video style, it is like it is a mix between Rob the Road Guy and Not Just Bikes :D

[@PaigeMTL]

God I love road guy rob, he’s really brings local news vibes to KZbin

[@pauliunknown8118]

criminally under-watched channel !

[@abcdefghijk8223]

Nice video as always. I was actually able to buy a place in Vancouver due to the empty home tax/airbnb council rules so I was happy with that. The guy had to sell or he was going to get a big tax bill. Not to say empty homes tax makes a big difference but it helps a bit. Obviously the biggest changes that would help would be those you suggested. It's actually not that hard to fix, people just don't want to do it. 1. Change zoning for RS1 or take it away from councils as new Zealand has done. 2. Increase interest rates to a reasonable level. It's actually funny in Vancouver because there's a lot of well placed medium density buildings that were built in the 70s and yet basically nothing like it has been built since. Don't even get me started on the lack of corner stores within walkable distance of places. Oh except for those that were grandfathered in from 100 years ago.

[@Hyperventilacion]

I the impact might be marginal helping those 600 people, you included, but for those 600 really made a big difference, also I think policies like those keep in check many forms of speculation which along the years can really affect a local market like housing, I think he is understimating that impact a bit - but in general more and denser housing is needed, and as you say mixed-used should be a part of that.

[@jackmccourt1541]

He didn't mention where the money from the tax is going, which is for building and or converting more affordable housing, increasing supply. I'm currently gathering signatures for an empty home tax initiative in my city, Santa Cruz. It is mostly modeled off of Vancouver's .

[@jackmccourt1541]

@@TohaBgood2 I can't speak for all communitys, but Santa Cruz is very tourist oriented, there are a lot of people with vacation homes that sit empty most of the year and hollow out our neighborhoods, in 2019 9.5% of all the units in Santa Cruz were vacant. The empty home tax does will provide revenue for years and years to come! So what will we do next year? Build more affordable housing with the revenue collected, thats the whole point, along with the bonus of a encouragement to rent out mostly vacant homes.

[@JasonMcCarrell]

I like Tokyo's model... essentially, none of the boroughs can really enforce anything and the citizens can't force anything out, however, all of the zones allow residential, while hinting at many other possible uses, like industrial and business. It also means uyou friend down the street might run a cafe! Unlike in ottawa... I so desperately want to open a cafe, but i can't afford tens of thousands of dollars of upkeep every month, because the fucking city would shut down my business if I opened it on the first floor of my house.

[@MichalisFamelis]

Sure. But let me tell you about Athens. In the 1950s a lot (I mean a lot) of Greek people moved from the countryside to the capital. The city ended up with something like half the country's population. To address the housing pressure, the government instituted the "antiparochi" system. Say I own a small one storey building. Rich property developer comes and says, we demolish the building and build an apparemment block. You get 1-2 appartements, I sell the rest. The city was practically rebuilt! That did solve the housing problem. BUT they really didn't build pretty buildings. They built really ugly buildings smooshed together with narrow roads, no green spaces, where one appartement's view is another appartement's balcony. The reason was that there was very little regulation and the profit motive was unchecked, especially in areas where poorer people lived. So, yes, let's build dense, yes, but let's also build pretty, and nice places to live for everyone.

[@Yuvraj.]

Agreed!

[@MichalisFamelis]

@Mystery NiBBa whoever told you that beauty is a luxury?

[@موسى_7]

Okay, but building housing is a priority over beauty. Only people who aren't struggling financially care about such superficial aesthetics.

[@MichalisFamelis]

@@موسى_7 Sorry no. If a building or an area looks like crap you know what is going to happen? People will not care about it. They will try to move away from it the first chance they get. People will be stigmatized for living there. So it will degrade over time, too quickly, it will be vandalized and left vandalized, because people will not love it. It will become another failed area of "project housing". Beauty is only considered luxury by those who can afford to take it for granted. Poor people deserve nice things too. Only rich entitled assholes would deny that.

[@have_you_seen_yacin6640]

Very well put video, and thank you for taking the time to cover this subject!

[@proposmontreal]

is that a Paige Saunders' video popping out in my feed. But yes it is!

[@rinam3324]

Yeah you’re back !!!!

[@atn_holdings]

Pretty funny that I watch this vid on a whim this morning then just now I learn that Ontario has adopted a NZ-style plan to streamline building permits and open up zoning. D'you have time to take a look at it?

[@JonGV79]

Dude, your content is always worth the wait! Keep em coming.

[@mattmunn71]

Building codes that recognise some will live in a 25sqm apartment because thats all the space they need.

[@Pre-Omniscient]

Isn't it trivial why housing is expensive? If housing can be used as an asset, it's in the interest of nobody who owns real estate to allow for more housing to be built, to the end of creating a surplus of housing. Everyone who is powerful has access to this simple and relatively safe investment vehicle and it is in their interest to protect their investment.

[@موسى_7]

They want housing to be limited in supply, like gold. But unlike gold, houses aren't an asset which can be used as money, because they are necessary for life.

[@zinedinezethro9157]

We eventually need to do something like the Interstate project, but for Housing. Wait no, we need it NOW.

[@spacetoast7783]

Except to fix housing, we don't even need a big government investment. The government just needs to get out of the way.

[@upchuckles243]

A massive expansion of transit is required as well. High density is not compatible with car-only infrastructure.

[@isawrooka4]

@@upchuckles243 high density is kind of a prerequisite for transit. It’s pointless to build out a dense transit network without things like dense mixed use and walkability. Pick an area, make it denser and more walkable. Encourage mixed use. Do it to another area. Connect the two with transit. Repeat ad infinitum. Even in a city you want to be able to make it so that peoples entire world can exist within a 15 minute walk. That’s how you get dense cities and fewer traffic problems. That’s how it’s done in Germany (where I live) and what people in the US (where I’m from) go wrong when thinking about urban planning. Even in cities like Houston (where I’m from) there were neighborhoods where you could walk to a grocery store, a bunch of restaurants, a park, etc. those people mostly still need cars but once you have enough of those areas you can start convincing people to ditch them because it becomes viable to run frequent transit service and attain mobility without one. If you want a good book to read look up Human Transit by Jarret Walker. It really showed me how American urbanists are getting the order of operations wrong.

[@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102]

You should read Henry George's progress and poverty. His idea of a land value tax would reduce incentives for housing speculation while also reducing NIMBYism.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Eeeeeh calculating it at a reasonable rate is kinda a pain, too low it might as well not be there too but high and it isn't going to do what you want it to especially interacting with other taxes.

[@kanucks9]

@@ANTSEMUT1 as opposed to calculating the land value + the building value?

[@shday1]

One of your best videos, and on a very important subject!

[@leopoldleoleo]

Great video. I’m definitely one of those people who’s eyes light up when NZ is brought up

[@Lucasjamespetersen]

fantastic video and great production quality as always! best of luck acquiring property and entering the middle class :)

[@someguyontheinternet7856]

This is the best solution I have found so far.

[@spacetoast7783]

Who could have predicted that supply and demand exists in the housing market?

[@benjennium]

My new favourite creator! Looking forward to more 🙂

[@ransom182]

BC is considering using the New Zealand law as a guide going forward!

[@PokerStaples]

You are a treasure. Quality 👍

I really appreciate your videos. But, there is one thing that bothers me a bit. Even though properties appear to be owned by locals, whether in Canada or New Zealand, you don't think that these properties might be bought by foreign investors through proxies? Like properties being purchased by local companies owned by foreign investors? On paper these properties will appear like they are owned by a local. Another problem is the housin crisis is mostly in large urban areas where most employers will congregate to establish their offices. In the U.S. the problem isn't as bad as in Canada. But, the U.S. has MANY options when it comes to big cities where companies can establish themselves with lots of available human resources with required skill and knowledge. Canada has basically 3. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal. Toronto being the largest one, which has terrible zoning around the core of the city which is surrounded by single family homes instead of plexes like in Montreal. Of course you're going to have a high demand in that area.

[@mikelentz833]

Excellent points made, great video

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Hey what's that passage of classical music you used???

[@martyfill9690]

Awesome page well done

[@gabrielking1247]

Woo hoo let’s go New Zealand!!!

[@eddyfrank2097]

Being of age and how to manage the sequence of returns in those early periods is what seems quite scary in the current market. The market is never a loser in a twenty year cycle, but the 2000s decade scenario scares me and could really disrupt my retirement. When you are no longer accumulating but withdrawing its hard to be anything but cautious.

[@andrewjames7575]

Some investors look to their investments as a source of income while others use it is a means to grow or preserve their wealth.

[@JustinJamesJeep]

As a citizen of the Woodstock/ Tillsonburg area, housing has been particularly expensive here. In the town that I live in, the median house price went from $250,000 to $1,500,000 in the last 2.5 years. And those $1,500,000 homes are old often dilapidated homes built in the post war era. Rising interest rates is helping just like everywhere else but homeowners are still playing the "I know what I have" card. Fine keep your house lol I'll just stay living in my parents basement I guess 🤦🏽‍♂️ one thing to note is that the clip in the video mentions that we don't have Russian oligarchs buying up land here and of course not but we do have torontarian investors buying land to speculate. 2 parcels in our downtown core came on the market and we're instantly bought up by an investor group that now demands an impossible lease price. Those lots have been gated and left empty for 3 years...in our downtown core!

[@berlinorama]

Here in Berlin no new social housing has been built since the IBA in 1987 and much of the publicly-financed housing stock was privatized by a near-bankrupt city-state government. The population has risen by nearly 400,000 since 2000 and almost the only new housing has been built in the upper-middle-class to luxury sector. Hence 200+ people show up to view even the crappiest remotely affordable apartment, and housing prices in surrounding Brandenburg are almost as high as the city, so this is not a solution either for people priced out of the urban market. There is some NIMBY-ism around densification, but the main problem is that developers have a stranglehold over the federal government and squash any attempts at pushing the construction of low-income housing.

[@PaigeMTL]

Welcome to the endless price increases until you increase supply club. When you under build all housing is luxury. One crusty piece of bread is gourmet cuisine to starving people. There might be a lack of labour, it might be over regulation, but given everything they make is selling it’s not developers. Obviously they are pricing what they do make what it is worth (tons given vacancy is super low)

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Same problems here in US. And what don't municipal govts tax at the top?? Top of businesses , big biz, to start with! Instant money! It's so easy. Or they can stay near broke because these assholes won't tax where the money is. Morons. The middle class CANNOT afford to pay for everything! But large businesses can! Aka corporations.

[@MrMjb1998]

It's unfortunate that housing stock, especially in capitalist western nations, continues to be viewed as an asset. This mindset on housing needs to change, and it needs to change radically and quickly. Unfortunately , that comes at a cost to developers and property owners, who also happen to be those in power or those with the financial means to lobby against more progressive zoning. It's crazy to me that a land constrained city such as Vancouver has as much as 63% of its land zoned for Single Family Residential. Community specific zoning amendments like First Shawnessy are a perfect example of the fact that power is concentrated into the hands of the elites... Hopefully we can change! Great video!

[@PaigeMTL]

Developers are really not the enemy here, when you’re at the meetings to add more supply they’re always the ones wanting their job to be easier. Their ownership of property is mostly transitory so they’d rather get things done and sold ASAP.

[@sfasr32t432tfg43etfg]

Ahh yes, the failed Marxist ideal of changing humanity instead of changing incentives to align human nature and desired outcome.

[@sfasr32t432tfg43etfg]

@@sythe77 it is an attractive idea not supported by reality. It lets you externalize the hard part of change to others and leaves you able to believe whatever is most attractive to you rather than what is actually happening.

[@pebblepod30]

I reckon people who want housing as a home need to politically organize and camp out in tents (in a clean & tidy way!!) in public areas as protest for a housing system which is stacked against them. A significant % of pop has a very strong self-interest to join in or support it; and this number will grow as the young grow up & cannot afford the "NO CHOICE exploitation Housing" Model.

[@menguardingtheirownwallets6791]

Find a graph of Canada's M1 money supply, and overlay housing prices on top of that graph, you will see that they line up pretty closely. The Canadian government is spending like a drunken sailor so they need to pump up the money supply more and more each year, this results in house prices rising in step even though Canadians cannot afford those houses.

[@WildWestTrail]

I can't wait to live in a pod - I mean an apartment in a 3 story building where I can't park a car - I mean a "house"

[@mohdodat2]

I love you bro (no homo)

[@99certain45]

3:11 Friendly fire!

[@acuriousape]

Montrealer living in the zoning-free wild west of Houston. You missed one sad reality in Montreal. The renters vote against their own interests by primarily voting for the « all Montreal must be bikeable on electric recycling bin » politicians who have no understanding of basic economics. All under the banner of « developer bad ». It’s sad for the average household.

[@موسى_7]

??? How does bicycle affect housing supply? Some poor people can't afford houses, but some can't afford cars.

[@polint3689]

12:06 Robert Bourassa n'était pas un politicien municipal. Sinon excellente vidéo!

[@PaigeMTL]

He’s the gifter

[@Globalurb]

Ontario pushed a Greenbelt around the GTA. It limited land supply and made it impossible for new developers to build new neighborhoods. Looking at politics pushed by upper governments in the past decades, they might still push for policies advantaging existing suburban homeowners.

[@cyborgsheep6077]

Poutine fried Kentucky dam sick burn XD

[@owen_nx]

I can't help but think Paige lived in South Africa for a while.

[@keithtonkin6959]

New Zealander

[@athan54]

Unpopular opinion, how about a policy that limits home ownership to one each household. I guess this helps to control the demand from greedy home buyers.

[@PaigeMTL]

Demand also drives construction though, but a capital gains tax on real estate that funds social housing construction would be good. That way the more housing goes up in price, the more low income supply is built.

[@sfasr32t432tfg43etfg]

@@PaigeMTL Partially correct in that demand does drive construction. Earmarking the capital gains tax on a home for social housing is extremely questionable. Social housing is built within the same production and regulatory confines as regular housing so can make the problem worse since it isn't necessarily increasing total supply if it stops a similar amount of private housing from being built. There is also the problem of capital gains tax being primarily collected federally while social housing is primarily built locally. It's a bad idea to limit home ownership because, if it is still a good investment, (primarily wealthy) people will figure out how to get around the regulation creating an even more bifurcated society, and there are plenty of good reasons to own more than one residence and part of being a free society is letting people decide on their own if they need more than one residence. Making that decision for them just causes deadweight loss and distracts from dealing with the actual problem which is unreasonably restricted supply and some bad demand juicing government policies.

[@موسى_7]

In China, couples divorced on paper but stayed together in reality to own two buildings.

[@Matthew-dd6kp]

Zero zoning, no regulations (use lawsuits to create incentives for self regulation), and let people build what they want. The market will solve the problem

[@voluntarism335]

People should not be able to sue others for what they build on their own land, they should be told to go kick rocks

[@JasonMcCarrell]

Currently in ottawa we don't build ANY middle/mixed-use housing. It's ALL towers. If we suddenly lifted the height restrictions, wouldn't developers build nothing but towers? Aren't they a massively greater return on investment, while being terrible for residents? I feel like your trusting the market far too much here. I agree with everything, except removing the height restriction. Downtown... fine, but outside of the small dense core, I think height restrictions would be necessary, until the market learns the demand for middle housing. Once that demand is established in the city, THEN you can remove all height restrictions, because condos won't be nearly as valuable outside of the core.

[@cmbakerxx]

You answered your own question. Land values and market demand for high rise condos outside of core urban areas is not sufficient to justify building the high rise. Tall buildings cost more per sqm to build than midrise. If the developer cant sell them at a premium due to location then they wont be built. Because of current zoning limitations and housing demand, developers build towers to maximize profits on those rare properties that can be developed.

[@voluntarism335]

boohoo you have no right to tell land owners what they can do with their land

[@BritainRitten]

"Microphone juggling lispy Canadian couple" Really? Was that necessary? I liked the video besides that, but "lispy" was really uncalled for.

[@kanucks9]

Absolutely it was. C'mon man, let the funniest line in the video stand.

[@Xachremos]

I found it hilarious and I'm subbed to that channel and enjoy their content

[@thaiter]

Canada need to reduce the number of illegal and legal immigrants. Canada get around 250,000 legal immigrants a year.

[@PaigeMTL]

If you cut immigrants, I wouldn't be here working on this issue. What if we prioritized immigrants with construction industry experience? In the end immigrants just aren't the problem, our growth rate is currently a measly 1.5%, many times in our own history it's been twice that without housing affordability being a "defining issue" of the times. We can have a powerful, growing Canada and also build enough housing for people.

[@rhythmandacoustics]

I agree specially those white immigrants.

[@spacetoast7783]

Are you here by accident? It sounds like you meant to reply to a different video.

[@LucasFernandez-fk8se]

The issue is NIMBYs make zoning farmland into mcmansions a difficult process. We need to pave out more freeways, widen the current freeways and essentially unlock more land so developers can pop up vast tracts of new homes quickly

[@موسى_7]

Or densify existing areas. Two solutions.

[@greenmachine5600]

Hell no

[@upchuckles243]

More car-dependent suburban sprawl is NOT the solution. It's unsustainable environmentally and fiscally. Transit and density all the way.

[@a_name_a]

Zoning is a small part of the issue. The big issue is investors and money laundering. It takes 10 mins to set up a shell corporation in Canada with no identity. You build more houses, they’ll just be bought up as quickly by these investors/criminal.

[@leopoldleoleo]

Did you even watch the video

[@MrRiotingPacifist]

@@leopoldleoleo The video doesn't address the point, if you build more housing and Landlords/Investors buy it all, that doesn't bring house prices down