According to a new report from Rentals, In July, the Canadian rental market hit a record high with an average asking rent of $2,078, marking an 8.9 per cent annual increase.
According to a new report from Rentals, In July, the Canadian rental market hit a record high with an average asking rent of $2,078, marking an 8.9 per cent annual increase.
As mad as I am, it’s genuinely not about revenge. It’s about making the prospect of home ownership a realistic and attainable goal for entire generations of people for whom, right now, it’s literally a joke.
Fact is there’s not really any way to both return housing prices to realistic levels and keep prices steady for current owners. I don’t pretend this is a simple problem, or that solving it won’t cause other problems as a result. But in my opinion the problem you’re suggesting is of a much lesser scale than what we’re facing today, and has less drastic solutions. Using the taxes collected from serial landleeches to compensate normal people who need to move during and following the market crash to offset the debt caused by a now-underwater mortgage could be a solution, for example. And fuck knows the banks aren’t innocent in this whole mess themselves, and could probably be forced to shoulder their share of the burden as well.
I agree with you about the pricing. Interest rate hikes should have provided the cooling off period to slowly bring prices down. But we don’t have the supply to allow for a buyers market to take over. I watch coworkers who are late twenties and early thirties signing $900,000 mortgages. They are desperate. So the small number of people who can actually afford homes are taking the small supply even at these interest rates. I made a post up earlier about a way to free up supply, which of course was met with more anger. This whole situation sucks.
Prices are already down over 20% and it IS a buyers market at the moment. The problem is that people don’t have the funds so even though prices are down significantly there are now fewer buyers because people can’t borrow. The elephant in the room is that wages need to come up.
The other way to make things more affordable is to raise wages for the lower 90% of earners.