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You tell us, Pierre..
The correct answer: because people with real estate investments are into politics.
We need to enforce conflict of interest rules on politicians, and keep people with CoIs from running, holding cabinet positions or otherwise making decisions.
How about if you want more than 1 house it comes with a huge tax bill every year to deter people from gobbling up all the real estate
Yes, but also no conflicts of interests.
Such a bill would never pass if it means people writing and voting on the bill have a versed interest in neutering the bill or voting against it.
Tax brackets also need to be fixed, loop holes need to be closed, but it won't happen either because we have millionaires holding cabinet positions, or politicians who have millionaire friends they'd like to help out in exchange for funding.
I for one would love to have a vacation home. The market out there doesn't allow for it though, but those that have no home come first.
Yes, the people in control of the decision are the ones with the conflict of interests.... I can see this going nowhere :)....:(
People with conflicts should recuse themselves to keep their spot and their integrity.
I'd accept a politician who had property and recused around housing votes, same as I'd respect a conservative who recused around oil, housing, religion, abortion, sovereignty and welfare. And vaccinations too, I guess, after the Karen convoy.
This seems perfectly acceptable to me, so long as they don't try to influence others.
Typical conservative behaviour. Blame your counterpart as loudly as possible, and then do nothing to help the situation.
CPC: "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"
Liberals did that too. Nobody knows what to do apparently.
They know what to do, but they're all protecting their personal investments.
It's not about fixing anything, it's about appearing like they will fix something. Promises to the conservatives are even more empty that promises by the liberals, which is saying something (looking at Trudeau's election overhaul....)
Does Canada have any rule\law against private sales, say directly from homeoower to homeowner? Or is it so bad that that there's virtually nothing to buy?
Another question. What is making properties so locked up within investors; are they exploiting a benefit or loophole; are they the only game in town?
(btw i live in the US)
No, Canada has no restrictions on purely private transactions. In fact, if you accept that the standard method of using realtors is still fundamentally a private transaction, then the majority of transactions are private.
There is a lot of reasonable analysis on the cause of unaffordable housing, despite some of it being contradictory. That tells me that we have no more than a general understanding of the problems.
My own personal opinion is that there are 3 major factors that have combined to create a perfect storm.
Taken together, we are forced to operate within a financial market (ie one in which money itself is the product) instead of the goods and services market. In other words, housing is now merely another way to participate in the stock market.
Based on what I can see around me, there are houses and apartments for sale or rent, but not at prices anyone other than an investor or high earner can afford.
You are from the US, so it's also important to note that we have no such thing as a mortgage that stays at a fixed rate over the full term. The mortgage is either variable rate or must be remortgaged at current rates every few years. Nor do we get to claim any part of our mortgage as a deduction on our income taxes.
I am hazarding a guess that it is 99.99% of people of whom are buying and selling are doing so are attempting to make a profit and must participate in the housing stock market?
And others outside the scope of profit - just those seeking the tangible asset of getting housing - are difficult to keep statistics on.
A media headline can only speak\quote about what numbers statistics it readily knows.