Income-to-home prices are cheaper in Europe, but go on. We can be exactly like Europe, where people can’t have kids and middle aged people set stuff on fire in the streets because they’re frustrated.

Well, provincial and federal governments can take steps to combat money laundering in real estate. Governments can enact tax policies that discourage constant house flipping. Canada’s high incoming immigration numbers will only drive real estate prices higher in the GTA so it seems like the gov’t can do its part to send a significant portion of immigrants to places other than the GTA where prices are already absurd. The economy is so dependent on real estate that I don’t see that happening though. Already prices are rising again in the GTA, after a short downward blip.

Rents have skyrocketed thanks to the Trudeau government bringing in a million new residents a year into a society that is already suffering from an extreme lack of housing, and the housing correction that should have happened due to increased interest rates was a damp squib thanks to this healthy supply of new residents with enough foreign wealth to prop it up.

The mantra of the real estate investor class continues to be “more supply”, yet, it should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense, that we can’t keep up with housing demand for the current population, never mind providing for a million new faces a year.
Earlier this week, to great fanfare, BC announced a “historic” agreement to build 2,000 affordable homes over the next ten years in Metro Vancouver, or an average of 200 homes a year. Assuming that each will accommodate a family of four, we only need to find another 999,920 beds a year to house our newcomers. Forgive me for being underwhelmed.

20% interest rates should do the trick.