6073 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Hold at 2.75%.

First hold in months by the BoC, which has been dropping rates consecutively since mid-2024.

[Victoria Watcher]

Developers face ‘significant’ cost hike in capital region due to new seismic regulations

 

 

 

A new federal seismic analysis on the risk in the capital region is resulting in new regulations and subsequently increased costs that the building community says it can’t swallow and neither can consumers.

 

“It’s significant,” acknowledged B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon. “It has real impacts on housing going forward.”

 

The soil of the capital region has poor load bearing capacity. The unsteady footing, mixed with the region’s high risk for seismic activity, is now leading to new rules.

 

A cost impact report from the province found the new rules equate to a potentially “significant cost increase”.

 

 

[...]

 

 

When these seismic regulations come into effect March 10, Cooper says financially, something’s got to give.

 

“We need relief. We can’t bear all of these costs,” said Cooper.

 

Unless the province directly subsidizes building housing in the capital region, he says municipalities who have been mandated to build, need to lower developer charges (like amenity cost charges, developer charges, and the B.C. energy step code).

 

“These aren’t mandatory requirements. These are things the municipalities could turn the dials on,” said Cooper.

 

Instead, he says the capital region appears to be heading in the wrong direction, looking to add costs on developers like a new CRD charge for a new water filtration plant.

 

“That’s going to add $5,000 to the cost of every new home that’s built in every region in the multi-family format,” said Cooper.

 

 

 

https://cheknews.ca/...ations-1250160/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 18 April 2025 - 12:59 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Every single day under the Liberals, housing prices have gotten $43 more unaffordable

 

One of the Liberals’ most-touted campaign pledges in 2015 was to make housing more affordable. “Liberals will invest in the middle class and those working hard to join it by making it easier to find an affordable place to call home,” read a press release from the time.

 

At the time, the average house in Canada cost about $430,000. Adjusting to 2025 dollars, that’s $557,000.

 

As of February, the benchmark price was $713,700. Over the last decade of Liberal governance, the average Canadian house has risen in price by about $16,000 per year. In other words, for every single day since the Liberals were elected in 2015, the average home has gotten $43 more unaffordable every 24 hours.

 

 

https://nationalpost...-liberal-decade

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 April 2025 - 07:37 AM.

[Mike K.]

Isn’t it nuts, that Canada’s fiscal policies now require you to pay $557,000 for something that cost $430,000 ten years ago? My god.

[Tony]

No, $557,000 represents close to the average expectation after 10 years. Central Banks around the world average  long term inflation goal. 

 

$557,000 to $713,000 reflects the above inflation increase.

 

All the properties I have owned since the 1970s have over time increased in value more than the inflation rate. With all types of governments. Thank You!

 

As prices rise a 30% increase over 10 years becomes  a larger number.  A $30,000 home would cost about $39,000 ten years later considering 2-3% inflation

 

 A $9,000 increase or $2.46 a day.

[Mike K.]

So in other words, what you're saying is something that cost $430 when the Liberals got elected, now costs you $557?

[Tony]

What I said was no matter who the government is and in what country. ....those countries that have a central Bank target inflation rate mentioned above, ( as most countries do ),  anything that cost $4.30 will 10 years later cost about  $5.57 

 

When I was a child the lowest valued coin was 1/4 of a penny.

[Citified.ca]

This is a staggering average. I don't think anyone expected the market to go in this direction, during an election.

 

642 properties sold in April from Sooke to Sidney as single-family homes surged to $1.39M average

https://victoria.cit...illion-average/

[Citified.ca]

 

Buyers gain upper hand as downtown Victoria condo market challenged by inventory glut

https://victoria.cit...inventory-glut/

[Bambam]

Oof our property tax bill arrived today an additional $400 over and above last year. Between that and recent gas hikes this is shaping up as an expensive week we may have to shave a day or two off the Mexican vacation. In all seriousness I feel for seniors/retirees with no or minimal $ resources beyond federal pensions, and single income households; I have no idea how they manage in this region.

[LJ]

You're deferring your property tax aren't you?

[Victoria Watcher]

$6,280,000

 

 

3280 Ripon Rd
Oak Bay, British Columbia V8R6G7

 

https://www.realtor....oak-bay-uplands

 

 

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 May 2025 - 03:00 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Canadian government has to allow home prices to fall to make housing more affordable, experts say

 

 

Housing experts are pushing back against a federal cabinet minister’s recent claim that home prices don’t need to go down in order to restore housing affordability.

 

Gregor Robertson, the former mayor of Vancouver who was elected to the House of Commons in April, sparked the debate after he was sworn in as housing minister earlier this, when a reporter asked him whether he thinks home prices need to fall.

 

“No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable. It’s a huge part of our economy,” he said.

 

Robertson added that Canada lacks affordable housing and championed Ottawa’s efforts to build out the supply of homes priced below market rates.

 

Mike Moffatt, founding director of the Missing Middle Institute, had a different answer when asked whether housing can be made more affordable for the average Canadian without a drop in market values.

 

“The short answer is no. It’s simply not possible to restore broad-based affordability to the middle class without prices going down,” he said.

 

 

 

https://www.ctvnews...._source=twitter

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian government has to allow home prices to fall to make housing more affordable, experts say

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 May 2025 - 08:22 AM.

[Szeven]

Seems to me like we are going to switch from shoe boxes in the sky to shoe boxes on the ground as the method of trying to control prices.

[Victoria Watcher]

Seems to me like we are going to switch from shoe boxes in the sky to shoe boxes on the ground as the method of trying to control prices.

 

60% of the population owns their own homes.  Probably 85 to 95% of politicians do.   11% of Canadians own more than one home.

 

I do not think we'd expect them to implement policies to drive down their own home values.

 

 

And get this:

 

 

 

Although many young Canadians have yet to even purchase a home, real estate investors between the ages of 18 and 34 are the most likely cohort to have more than one residential property.

 

Forty-four per cent of investors in this age group own two or more investment properties, significantly higher than the 29 per cent of investors between the ages of 35 and 54 who own investment properties. A quarter of investors age 55 or older own two or more investment properties.

 

 

https://www.theglobe...y-total-set-to/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 May 2025 - 08:40 AM.

[Mike K.]

Nobody is so stupid to believe, that if a house costs $700k to build today, that politicians can make it cost $500k.

That ship has long since sailed. The best we can do is hope that prices stabilize over a longer term.

[LJ]

Canadian government has to allow home prices to fall to make housing more affordable, experts say

 

How are they going to allow this? If they had any ability to do this they would have done it by now.

 

This is along the line of paying a carbon tax to stop global warming, idiots.

[Matt R.]

I am wondering where they are going to find the people to build 500,000 homes a year, or find the people to train to build them. I guess they can retrain all the civil servants getting the boot, they will love those jobs.

[Barrister]

Assuming immigration level's are kept low (and possibly extremely low if unemployment seriously increases in Ontario due to tariffs) exactly how many housing units do we actually need?

 

If the total population remains stable, more or less, has anyone figured out how many units we are short or how many units of replacement we need to build every year? 

[Victoria Watcher]

Aren’t there thousands of condos empty now, in Vancouver and Toronto?

I don’t think we have a shortage anymore.


https://www.bnnbloom...e-level-expert/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 May 2025 - 05:07 AM.