Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

https://twitter.com/AmandaMsteph/status/1090664609919381504

# ? Feb 1, 2019 18:33

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# ? May 27, 2024 12:44

Legit Businessman: Sep 2, 2007

leftist heap posted:

https://twitter.com/AmandaMsteph/status/1090664609919381504

So how long should I wait before buying a house once everyone overleverages the poo poo out themselves.

(for real though, how long should I wait for the market to actually crater out?)

# ? Feb 1, 2019 19:57

Majuju: Dec 30, 2006; I had a beer with Stephen Miller once and now I like him.

thread about year-over-year decline in prices, inventory for condos & detached

https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1091405298848346118

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:01

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Drewjitsu posted:

So how long should I wait before buying a house once everyone overleverages the poo poo out themselves.

(for real though, how long should I wait for the market to actually crater out?)

You must be new to the thread. Welcome!

All Canadian real estate is going to crash in a matter of weeks, as has been the case for years. If you purchase property in a large city now you are an idiot because you could save hundreds of thousands of dollars by waiting six months. You will definitely not see any gains on that property in your lifetime.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:02

Powershift: Nov 23, 2009

Drewjitsu posted:

So how long should I wait before buying a house once everyone overleverages the poo poo out themselves.

(for real though, how long should I wait for the market to actually crater out?)

Everything is so far gone, when the housing market craters, it will create a series of cascading failures, that will eventually lead to everything literally being on fire.

Your only chance for burnt-out husk equity is to buy now. Get on the flaming wreck ladder right now, or be priced out forever.

We're 2 weeks away from the 6th anniversary of calling the crash in this very thread.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:03

apatheticman: May 13, 2003; Wedge Regret

Powershift posted:

Everything is so far gone, when the housing market craters, it will create a series of cascading failures, that will eventually lead to everything literally being on fire.

Your only chance for burnt-out husk equity is to buy now. Get on the flaming wreck ladder right now, or be priced out forever.

We're 2 weeks away from the 6th anniversary of calling the crash in this very thread.

We are basically an apocalyptic death cult but with shelter.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:27

Legit Businessman: Sep 2, 2007

Got it. Buy as soon as possible then resort to mad max style home defence when everything goes to poo poo.

Got it. Maybe my crazy, libertarian, gun owning, fatalist, former housemate had it correct. :smith:

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:33

Powershift: Nov 23, 2009

apatheticman posted:

We are basically an apocalyptic death cult but with shelter.

praise heloc

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:33

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

Majuju posted:

thread about year-over-year decline in prices, inventory for condos & detached

https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1091405298848346118

This is actually pretty convincing. That condo price drop is bigger than 2008.

https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1091407882258571264

Then again, the first response:

https://twitter.com/TheFallingStar/status/1091405806187118592

Yeah, if you want to buy, make sure you can actually afford what you're buying. There is a very real chance you will not see any money back from it for a long time if ever, but you will at least have a roof over your head.

OTOH, if you're aiming leverage yourself to the limit in the hopes that interest rates will stay low and housing prices will increase by 10%/year forever, then you deserve what's coming to you.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:37

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Powershift posted:

praise heloc

As a lifelong renter, I consider this helocentric model of the universe blasphemy.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:40

mashed: Jul 27, 2004

You can't get bailed out by the Government in a crash if you don't own a home.

:thunk:

# ? Feb 1, 2019 20:57

ARACHTION: Mar 10, 2012

What would this hypothetical bailout look like? Helping people refinance at an artificially low rate? Loads of bonus cash for first time home buyers to keep prices up? Can�t believe that is the NDP�s strategy...

# ? Feb 2, 2019 00:06

Square Peg: Nov 11, 2008

The CMHC will bail out the banks, that's its purpose. Defaulted debt just gets shifted onto the public balance sheet, and taxpayers ensure the banks never have a bad quarter!

Homeowners will get exactly as much bailout as they got in 2008 in the states, or as they ever have in any housing downturn.

# ? Feb 2, 2019 00:28

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Square Peg posted:

The CMHC will bail out the banks, that's its purpose. Defaulted debt just gets shifted onto the public balance sheet, and taxpayers ensure the banks never have a bad quarter!

Homeowners will get exactly as much bailout as they got in 2008 in the states, or as they ever have in any housing downturn.

You lose your house.

The bank gets paid to foreclose your house. Then they get compensated for the bad bet they made loaning you money. Then the government buys the house from the bank. Then raccoons move in to the house. The bank declares record profits.

I think it is called capitalism?

# ? Feb 2, 2019 03:50

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

This audio interview does a good job of explaining how the thousands of people who bought a presale condo in the last two-ish years in Vancouver are hosed. Mainly that you have to re-qualify for a mortgage based on your lower home value before completion, leaving you to come up with the $50,000+ value that disappeared.

https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1091735076277108738

# ? Feb 2, 2019 21:17

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

mashed_penguin posted:

You can't get bailed out by the Government in a crash if you don't own a home.

I think you mean hold a mortgage.

# ? Feb 2, 2019 21:24

Purgatory Glory: Feb 20, 2005

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

This audio interview does a good job of explaining how the thousands of people who bought a presale condo in the last two-ish years in Vancouver are hosed. Mainly that you have to re-qualify for a mortgage based on your lower home value before completion, leaving you to come up with the $50,000+ value that disappeared.

https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1091735076277108738

I wonder how many stories of people walking away from deposits till real panic if any starts to spread.

# ? Feb 3, 2019 00:04

Mantle: May 15, 2004

Purgatory Glory posted:

I wonder how many stories of people walking away from deposits till real panic if any starts to spread.

I remember people walking away from deposits at the bottom in 2009 and it's way deeper this time.

# ? Feb 3, 2019 00:35

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

quote:

Does Upzoning Boost the Housing Supply and Lower Prices? Maybe Not.

One of the most influential ideas in urbanism today is that the key to addressing the housing crisis is reforming zoning and building codes to allow for taller buildings and higher population densities.

A growing chorus of market urbanists and YIMBYs make the case: Restrict supply, and demand and therefore prices go up. So, it follows, liberalizing codes to make it easier to build�and to permit taller, denser structures�will increase supply and cause prices to fall, which will then make housing (and expensive cities) more affordable.

But a new study published in the journal Urban Affairs Review throws a bit of a proverbial wrench into the works. Its author, Yonah Freemark, a doctoral student in urban planning at MIT, has analyzed the effects of upzonings in Chicago neighborhoods. His study takes the form of a natural experiment (the �gold standard� of social-science research) by comparing an initial set of zoning reforms, undertaken in 2013 to encourage development around transit stops, with a more aggressive set of reforms from 2015, which expanded the upzoned areas and increased incentives for taller, denser development.

Prototypical rail-station-adjacent Chicago neighborhood, indicating illustrative distribution of analyzed parcels. (Yonah Freemark)
The study design allows Freemark to overcome the analytical problem of an endogenous relationship between upzoning and changes in prices and construction activity. He uses Chicago zoning files to determine the parcels of land affected by the two zoning changes, as well as data on building permits from the city and property values from the Illinois Department of Revenue. The study tracks the period 2010 to 2018, before and after the zoning changes.

Freemark reaches two startling conclusions that should at least temper our enthusiasm about the potential of zoning reform to solve the housing crisis�conclusions that, interestingly enough, he has said he did not set out to find. First, he finds no effect from zoning changes on housing supply�that is, on the construction of newly permitted units over five years. (As he acknowledges, the process of adding supply is arduous and may take longer than five years to register.) Caveats and all, this is an important finding that is very much at odds with the conventional wisdom.

Second, instead of falling prices, as the conventional wisdom predicts, the study finds the opposite. Housing prices rose on the parcels and in projects that were upzoned, notably those where building sizes increased.

Freemark identifies two key mechanisms by which upzoning acts to increase prices. First, the fact that upzoning registered so quickly in higher prices is a signal that land prices respond rapidly to the ability to build more units, which translates into money in the pockets of incumbent landlords. Second, the large effect of reduced parking minimums on the value of vacant land means that the biggest impact of zoning liberalization is on land that is ripe for development anyway. As Freemark puts it bluntly: �[T]he short-term, local-level impacts of upzoning are higher property prices but no additional new housing construction.�

Freemark is aware of the limits of the study (for one thing, it looks at only one city, Chicago; for another, it does not include rent data). Last night, in a Twitter conversation about his research, he wrote:

In an email exchange with me, Freemark noted that the study does not �invalidate the basic laws of supply and demand. In no way is it suggesting that increases in the number of housing units won�t eventually lead to lower prices overall.� But what the study does show, he added, is what happens on specific lots and areas that are upzoned. And that�s �where we should be concerned,� he continued, because �those who worry that upzoning will increase prices in certain neighborhoods are likely being reasonable.� He added,

quote:
even if upzoning�in the medium or longer term�increases the number of housing units (though I do not find evidence for or against this in my study), we still have to contend with the potential that the short-term impacts of the change are higher home prices and likely higher rents for those directly affected by the change, especially since new development, as everyone knows, takes many years to get underway. The speculation will come first.

Freemark�s findings are in line with my own thinking, in my book The New Urban Crisis. There, I argued that although it is important to combat unnecessarily restrictive zoning and building codes (whose advocates I dubbed �New Urban Luddites�), easing these codes would do little to address housing affordability and might actually serve to increase housing prices in the neighborhoods in question, for the simple reason that developers would use the land not for affordable units but for luxury construction.

I noted that the markets�and neighborhoods�for luxury and affordable housing are very different, and it is unlikely that any increases in high-end supply would trickle down to less advantaged groups. Another economist who is more pro-market than I am, Tyler Cowen, has similarly argued that the result of liberalizing zoning codes to allow for taller buildings will likely be more luxury housing and more profits for landlords and developers.

In our email exchange, Freemark emphasized that simply liberalizing zoning for taller buildings and denser development will not address the critical need to provide affordable housing for less advantaged people. He pointed out the �need for other programs, like more affordable units and rent control, which should potentially come with upzoning. Upzoning isn�t a sufficient affordability program in itself.�

The notion that increasing housing supply will magically fix our problems is one of those things that is simply too good to be true. Zoning liberalization is at best one part of the answer. America�s housing and urban crises are thorny problems that we can only come to grips with using a broad mix of strategies and solutions.

This study proves something that anti-poverty activists have long claimed, which is that new developments simply displace existing occupants and replace them with higher earners that can pay higher rents. The problem is that land values can shift instantly, while creating buildings that would result in the demand/supply curve shifting is a longer term process.

Of course eventually some new housing needs to be built somewhere. The solution to this problem is something that people have pointed to for a long time, which is that there needs to be more ways for cities to capture land value lift and funnel it back into publicly owned housing. In Vancouver there are already Community Amenity Contributions where the city takes 75% of the land lift on a rezoning. One City has advocated for a Land Value Tax on land values gains when a property is sold.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 18:45

leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

quote:

Second, instead of falling prices, as the conventional wisdom predicts, the study finds the opposite. Housing prices rose on the parcels and in projects that were upzoned, notably those where building sizes increased.

Isn't conventional wisdom... the exact opposite. Up-zoning a lot very obviously increases the value and always has.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 19:54

apatheticman: May 13, 2003; Wedge Regret

leftist heap posted:

Isn't conventional wisdom... the exact opposite. Up-zoning a lot very obviously increases the value and always has.

Depends if you think conventional wisdom comes from the economists or the dumb rear end NIMBYs.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 20:04

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

New Vancouver desperate house selling strategy: a sealed bid auction for a "$10 million" house, with no minimum price:

"SELLER AGREES TO USE sealed bid AUCTION(not live auction), WITHOUT RESERVE MINIMUM PRICE TO START OFFER, ALL OFFERS WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE SELLER ON FEBRUARY 8,2019 at 11am."

https://www.point2homes.com/CA/Home-For-Sale/BC/Vancouver/Kerrisdale/6349-ELM-STREET/69744692.html

# ? Feb 4, 2019 22:35

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

20 bucks!

# ? Feb 5, 2019 16:21

Square Peg: Nov 11, 2008

What's next, penny bids? Buy a vancouver house for just $4.72! ($10 000 fee per bid)

# ? Feb 5, 2019 19:07

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

quote:

The top end of the market driven largely by foreign buyers, especially Chinese, has been the hardest hit. Prices in posh West Vancouver have plunged 14 percent in a year.

“These homes in West Van were selling for C$12 million, C$13 million two years ago,” says Adil Dinani, a realtor with Royal LePage, a unit of Brookfield Real Estate Services Inc. “Agents are asking me to throw them off for anything -- C$8 million, C$8.5 million, whatever it is.”

Dinani, who’s been in the business for 14 years, says there are fewer speculative investors, and foreign buyers have really pulled back. “And what local buyer has C$6 million, C$7 million to put towards a home?” he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/biggest-vancouver-home-price-fall-since-2013-is-tip-of-iceberg

buuuut I thought foreign money was insignificant???

# ? Feb 5, 2019 19:23

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/biggest-vancouver-home-price-fall-since-2013-is-tip-of-iceberg

buuuut I thought foreign money was insignificant???

insouciant

# ? Feb 5, 2019 20:26

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

Yessssss realtor and speculator tears :fap:

# ? Feb 5, 2019 21:15

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

New Vancouver desperate house selling strategy: a sealed bid auction for a "$10 million" house, with no minimum price:

"SELLER AGREES TO USE sealed bid AUCTION(not live auction), WITHOUT RESERVE MINIMUM PRICE TO START OFFER, ALL OFFERS WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE SELLER ON FEBRUARY 8,2019 at 11am."

https://www.point2homes.com/CA/Home-For-Sale/BC/Vancouver/Kerrisdale/6349-ELM-STREET/69744692.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilTG2r9q_G4

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:36

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

lol and Abundant Housing wonders why people say they're useful idiots for developers.

https://twitter.com/theBreakerNews/status/1092890804245258240

# ? Feb 6, 2019 07:01

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

honestly though, it owns how they pumped up all these loser candidates like 5kids1cup and Yes-man Hector. what were they thinking? this very likely saved Vancouver from a right-wing majority on council

# ? Feb 6, 2019 07:16

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

I hope all of you living in Goonview Goonlands are going to write to the City in support of the social housing / drug rehab centre being proposed at 1st and Clark.

https://www.straight.com/news/1197086/market-rates-social-housing-east-vancouver-project-take-high-income-renters
https://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/1636clark/index.htm

quote:

Anyone who considers themselves affected by the proposed by-law amendments may speak at the Public Hearing. Please register individually beginning at 8:30 am on February 8 until 5 pm on the day of the Public Hearing by emailing publichearing@vancouver.ca or by calling 604-829-4238. You may also register in person at the door between 5:30 and 6 pm on the day of the Public Hearing. You may submit your comments by email to publichearing@vancouver.ca, or by mail to: City of Vancouver, City Clerk�s Office, 453 West 12th Avenue, Third Floor, Vancouver, BC, V5Y 1V4. All submitted comments will be distributed to Council and posted on the City's website. Please visit vancouver.ca/publichearings for important details.

VPD, Vancouver Coastal Health and BC Housing are all pushing for this as being desperately needed, but there are some terrible NIMBYs trying to block it, so every email and speaker in support counts.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 07:38

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

THC posted:

honestly though, it owns how they pumped up all these loser candidates like 5kids1cup and Yes-man Hector. what were they thinking? this very likely saved Vancouver from a right-wing majority on council

Sadly I know of at least one overall left-leaning young person who voted for them, so they may actually have cut into the COPE candidates' votes. :smith:

# ? Feb 6, 2019 07:40

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Femtosecond posted:

This study proves something that anti-poverty activists have long claimed, which is that new developments simply displace existing occupants and replace them with higher earners that can pay higher rents. The problem is that land values can shift instantly, while creating buildings that would result in the demand/supply curve shifting is a longer term process.

Of course eventually some new housing needs to be built somewhere. The solution to this problem is something that people have pointed to for a long time, which is that there needs to be more ways for cities to capture land value lift and funnel it back into publicly owned housing. In Vancouver there are already Community Amenity Contributions where the city takes 75% of the land lift on a rezoning. One City has advocated for a Land Value Tax on land values gains when a property is sold.

The predictable reaction to this study is people saying upzoning doesn't work, but for affordable housing to be built upzoning has to happen anyway unless it's supposed to all be built Somewhere Else or municipalities run roughshod over their own zoning and planning to build it where it currently isn't allowed.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 19:43

Tasmantor: Aug 13, 2007; Horrid abomination

Would rent control help? Like if you can only get X per month rent then surely more apartments = more money? I don't know how to stop them building a million single room studios though.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 20:05

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

The only solution is to take the "they" out of the equation and bypass the private market altogether for a majority of housing going forward.

-Tax the poo poo out of real-estate and land-speculation, do everything you can to tank the value of land.
-Buy up properties from desperate "taxed to death" landlords and property dragons.
-Build new housing and protect existing stock.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 20:51

James Baud: May 24, 2015; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Baronjutter posted:

-Build new housing and protect existing stock.

Greenfield suburbs, woo!

And people made fun of China for building whole new highly urban "ghost cities" instead of tract housing with a 90 minute one-way commute.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 21:11

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

James Baud posted:

Greenfield suburbs, woo!

And people made fun of China for building whole new highly urban "ghost cities" instead of tract housing with a 90 minute one-way commute.

I sometimes don't think it's possible for you to interpret people's posts here more disingenuously but there you go.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 21:16

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

lmao lets re-inflate this poo poo :getin:

quote:

Morneau taking close look at return to 30-year insured mortgages, homebuilders� association says

The federal government appears to be considering a budget announcement that would allow first-time homebuyers to obtain 30-year insured mortgages, up from the 25-year limit now, according to the Canadian Homebuilders� Association.

Such a move would represent a change in direction after more than a decade of measures by federal Conservative and Liberal governments since the 2008 recession aimed at cooling housing markets and encouraging Canadians to take on smaller mortgages.

While the Bank of Canada continues to express concern about high household debt, politicians are also getting an earful from younger Canadians � a potentially key voting demographic � who can�t afford to enter the housing market.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau�s coming budget will be the government�s last before the scheduled October election. The minister recently said he is looking at home affordability issues for millennials, but he has not publicly speculated on potential policy options.

Over the past two weeks, top officials from the Prime Minister�s Office and Mr. Morneau�s office met with Kevin Lee, the chief executive of the Canadian Home Builders� Association, to discuss potential budget measures.

Association spokesman David Foster said there is clear interest from government in the request put forward by housing industry groups to bring back 30-year insured mortgages.

...

# ? Feb 7, 2019 05:29

Powershift: Nov 23, 2009

Why not a mortgage you can pass on to your grand kids. Call them century mortgages. Come on, let's see million dollar houses in Saskatoon!

The difference between a 25 year and 30 year mortgage on a $300,000 house is $153.98/month. In the first 5 years on a fixed rate mortgage at 3.74%, you pay $890.81 less interest and $10,089.41 less principle. Over the full amortization period of the mortgage, you pay $36,969 more in interest.

That's just on a $300,000 house, and only 3.74% interest.

30 year mortgages shouldn't be insured by the government, they should be outlawed by the government.

e: To keep the same payment as a 25 year/$300,000 mortgage at 3.74%, on a 30 year gets you a $333,263 house.

Powershift fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 7, 2019

# ? Feb 7, 2019 05:42

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# ? May 27, 2024 12:44

Mandibular Fiasco: Oct 14, 2012

Femtosecond posted:

lmao lets re-inflate this poo poo

This stupid country. We are so completely hosed.

# ? Feb 7, 2019 05:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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