The Trudeau government was blamed for the sins of provincial and municipal governments. Robertson just admitted to one of these sins when he was mayor of Vancouver by confirming that he increased development charges because he (that is Vancouver city council) could get away with it.
It is sort of stunning that Robertson does not understand that in order for him to be successful as minister now, he has to be clear that he was wrong when he was mayor in the past. If he cannot do this, he will fail. We will fail.
Thank you for this. I printed it, highlighted sections, added my expressions of disappointment and dissatisfaction and mailed a copy to both Robertson and Carney. Appreciate your articulation.
Ok, I think there *is* some grumbling there… as someone who recently got out of the metro Vancouver market for the far more affordable east coast, I have to say the market in BC is challenging and has been for 40+ years.
Metro Vancouver is a beautiful place to live, temperate climate, mountains, ocean—it has it all. And with the Agricultural Land Reserve in place (for good reason, to protect some of the best arable land from development) there isn’t a lot of property to build housing.
The cost of the LAND is the problem more so than the house, and there isn’t much government can do about that. If you are a developer building houses on standard building lots that cost $500k (AND UP) it is very hard to build anything and make a profit under a million dollars. Development fees are at the margins and don’t make a difference in “affordability” if what you want is a single family home.
So, “densification” of neighbourhoods is a thing, with low rise condos taking the place of single family housing unless you go way outside of what would be considered “metro Vancouver”.
The only pathway to “affordable” housing in Vancouver is government built subsidized rental housing or co-ops. Build enough of it and rents start to come down.
The Vancouver market is not typical of the rest of Canada so you really need to cut Gregor some slack. He is going to do a good job.
I agree with you - we're geographically challenged. I moved to Vancouver 30 years ago as a teenager after I left home, and will stay here. I live in one of 'Gregor's co-ops' (funding was announced in 2017? Building completed in 2020). The City owns the land and we're on a 99 year lease and are managed by a land trust. It's a beautiful building and the neighbourhood is excellent. A common misconception is that our monthly member fees are subsidized. They're not (other than the fact we're on leased land, like the False Creek co-ops built decades ago are); we were required to meet a household minimum income amount to qualify to live here. My parents considered Vancouver expensive in the 1960s. The government can't do anything about land costs (that I know of). Still, we pay half the amount per month that condo owners pay for similar suites in the area.
Nope. Gregor always thought he was the smartest one in the room. Found him to be an arrogant, self-serving and egotistical mayor and I don't see that much has changed with him. This does not bode well for the new government. As I've said before, Robertson is the one fly in the liberal ointment that I'm having trouble with. I think his appointment is going to be problematic for Carney. Could've done better for a housing minister. Now I'm watching the NDP to see who they elect as leader.
If you increase supply, prices should fall, though I recognize that there are all kinds of imperfections in the housing market that make a direct correspondence between supply and prices less obvious.
This is true in the abstract but false in practice because it ignores an ironclad fact: the private market will not build so much prices come down. If prices fall, private development will slow until they recover.
Increasing supply CAN reduce prices but you have to ensure that the costs of inputs also decreases. For example, if you tell your labor that does the work on the houses that wages are going down, I don't expect jubilation to break out. If you tell property owners that you will pay less for land, I suspect that they won't immediately say "Thank you; here are more lots." If you tell drywall suppliers that you will pay less, I'm expecting that deliveries of drywall may take a loooooooot longer. If you tell the bank that you will only pay a lower rate of interest on interim financing then perhaps you want to shop for a new lender. And so forth.
Really, the only way that you can reliably expect prices to lower is a) input costs to decrease, and/or b) profit margins to reduce. I have demonstrated above that getting input costs to go down is tough. Except perhaps, municipal development charges, which is the subject that Evan is raising. As for decreasing profit margins, I think that the only way margins will reduce is if the volume increases which is, of course, the hope. But, but, but, no volume increase, don't expect margin decrease. And even if volume increases I'm not so certain about margin decreases.
So, is it possible that any decrease in overall price would be small or perhaps non-existent? I expect so. Perhaps that is the best that we can realistically hope for.
That’s a much more detailed explanation of the very general caveat I made that the housing market has lots of imperfections and other factors that mitigate the perhaps simplistic point that greater supply means lower prices. In addition to that, it’s obviously true, I think, that there’s not really such a thing as “the housing market“. There are several different housing markets, even in the same geographic location. The condo market is not the same as the market for detached housing, or even the rental market. Etc.
I am by no means an expert in any of this stuff. These points just seem to me to be obviously true.
But having said all that, I still think the broad point holds that other things being equal (the economist’s dreaded phrase), increased supply should reduce prices. I suspect this is what Robertson was alluding to, and by doing so, implying that increasing supply is a better option than some sort of heavy-handed effort to keep prices down.
Increased supply was the mantra repeated by developers in Vancouver for decades. It didn’t work because they built for investors or the high end market. Prices just went up.
Robertson would be contradicting Carney if someone believes that Carney meant what he said about housing affordability. But Carney is a Liberal. They will say anything to get elected and will do everything to stay in government. Given half Carney's voters were Boomers whose #1 priority is protecting our house prices, he will never disrupt housing prices.
But Pierre has bad vibes, they said. And his vibes are much worse than, say, Mark Carney running on bribing cities to cut development fees and then lol lmao appointing a left NIMBY as housing minister.
Imagine 31,000 more units im MTL, then multiply for other urban centres.
Just make home rentals illegal, put in rent controls and go from there. No reason for Airbnb when the hospitality is languishing.
Oh, we had a multi-generational (one Boomer, one Gen X, one Silent Gen) get-together and patted ourselves on the back for an election job well done.
Mr..Moscrop thinks the Liberal psrty will fall in two years. I, rather, believe Canadians are largely change-averse and glorious minorities are in the offing.
All the best!
P.S. Not sure about the getting laid stuff, PET already spoke on that topic.
It is sort of ironic.
The Trudeau government was blamed for the sins of provincial and municipal governments. Robertson just admitted to one of these sins when he was mayor of Vancouver by confirming that he increased development charges because he (that is Vancouver city council) could get away with it.
It is sort of stunning that Robertson does not understand that in order for him to be successful as minister now, he has to be clear that he was wrong when he was mayor in the past. If he cannot do this, he will fail. We will fail.
Thank you for this. I printed it, highlighted sections, added my expressions of disappointment and dissatisfaction and mailed a copy to both Robertson and Carney. Appreciate your articulation.
Ok, I think there *is* some grumbling there… as someone who recently got out of the metro Vancouver market for the far more affordable east coast, I have to say the market in BC is challenging and has been for 40+ years.
Metro Vancouver is a beautiful place to live, temperate climate, mountains, ocean—it has it all. And with the Agricultural Land Reserve in place (for good reason, to protect some of the best arable land from development) there isn’t a lot of property to build housing.
The cost of the LAND is the problem more so than the house, and there isn’t much government can do about that. If you are a developer building houses on standard building lots that cost $500k (AND UP) it is very hard to build anything and make a profit under a million dollars. Development fees are at the margins and don’t make a difference in “affordability” if what you want is a single family home.
So, “densification” of neighbourhoods is a thing, with low rise condos taking the place of single family housing unless you go way outside of what would be considered “metro Vancouver”.
The only pathway to “affordable” housing in Vancouver is government built subsidized rental housing or co-ops. Build enough of it and rents start to come down.
The Vancouver market is not typical of the rest of Canada so you really need to cut Gregor some slack. He is going to do a good job.
I agree with you - we're geographically challenged. I moved to Vancouver 30 years ago as a teenager after I left home, and will stay here. I live in one of 'Gregor's co-ops' (funding was announced in 2017? Building completed in 2020). The City owns the land and we're on a 99 year lease and are managed by a land trust. It's a beautiful building and the neighbourhood is excellent. A common misconception is that our monthly member fees are subsidized. They're not (other than the fact we're on leased land, like the False Creek co-ops built decades ago are); we were required to meet a household minimum income amount to qualify to live here. My parents considered Vancouver expensive in the 1960s. The government can't do anything about land costs (that I know of). Still, we pay half the amount per month that condo owners pay for similar suites in the area.
Nope. Gregor always thought he was the smartest one in the room. Found him to be an arrogant, self-serving and egotistical mayor and I don't see that much has changed with him. This does not bode well for the new government. As I've said before, Robertson is the one fly in the liberal ointment that I'm having trouble with. I think his appointment is going to be problematic for Carney. Could've done better for a housing minister. Now I'm watching the NDP to see who they elect as leader.
If you increase supply, prices should fall, though I recognize that there are all kinds of imperfections in the housing market that make a direct correspondence between supply and prices less obvious.
This is true in the abstract but false in practice because it ignores an ironclad fact: the private market will not build so much prices come down. If prices fall, private development will slow until they recover.
TM, I disagree.
Actually, I kinda disagree.
Increasing supply CAN reduce prices but you have to ensure that the costs of inputs also decreases. For example, if you tell your labor that does the work on the houses that wages are going down, I don't expect jubilation to break out. If you tell property owners that you will pay less for land, I suspect that they won't immediately say "Thank you; here are more lots." If you tell drywall suppliers that you will pay less, I'm expecting that deliveries of drywall may take a loooooooot longer. If you tell the bank that you will only pay a lower rate of interest on interim financing then perhaps you want to shop for a new lender. And so forth.
Really, the only way that you can reliably expect prices to lower is a) input costs to decrease, and/or b) profit margins to reduce. I have demonstrated above that getting input costs to go down is tough. Except perhaps, municipal development charges, which is the subject that Evan is raising. As for decreasing profit margins, I think that the only way margins will reduce is if the volume increases which is, of course, the hope. But, but, but, no volume increase, don't expect margin decrease. And even if volume increases I'm not so certain about margin decreases.
So, is it possible that any decrease in overall price would be small or perhaps non-existent? I expect so. Perhaps that is the best that we can realistically hope for.
That’s a much more detailed explanation of the very general caveat I made that the housing market has lots of imperfections and other factors that mitigate the perhaps simplistic point that greater supply means lower prices. In addition to that, it’s obviously true, I think, that there’s not really such a thing as “the housing market“. There are several different housing markets, even in the same geographic location. The condo market is not the same as the market for detached housing, or even the rental market. Etc.
I am by no means an expert in any of this stuff. These points just seem to me to be obviously true.
But having said all that, I still think the broad point holds that other things being equal (the economist’s dreaded phrase), increased supply should reduce prices. I suspect this is what Robertson was alluding to, and by doing so, implying that increasing supply is a better option than some sort of heavy-handed effort to keep prices down.
Increased supply was the mantra repeated by developers in Vancouver for decades. It didn’t work because they built for investors or the high end market. Prices just went up.
What moderates rents is public housing, period.
Robertson would be contradicting Carney if someone believes that Carney meant what he said about housing affordability. But Carney is a Liberal. They will say anything to get elected and will do everything to stay in government. Given half Carney's voters were Boomers whose #1 priority is protecting our house prices, he will never disrupt housing prices.
"Yesterday, Mark Carney you’d be “hard pressed” to believe that he wasn’t committed to lower housing prices."
Cleanup on paragraph 3!
But Pierre has bad vibes, they said. And his vibes are much worse than, say, Mark Carney running on bribing cities to cut development fees and then lol lmao appointing a left NIMBY as housing minister.
https://thewalrus.ca/airbnbs-canadian-housing
Imagine 31,000 more units im MTL, then multiply for other urban centres.
Just make home rentals illegal, put in rent controls and go from there. No reason for Airbnb when the hospitality is languishing.
Oh, we had a multi-generational (one Boomer, one Gen X, one Silent Gen) get-together and patted ourselves on the back for an election job well done.
Mr..Moscrop thinks the Liberal psrty will fall in two years. I, rather, believe Canadians are largely change-averse and glorious minorities are in the offing.
All the best!
P.S. Not sure about the getting laid stuff, PET already spoke on that topic.