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

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Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Does rent control figure into a sustainable housing strategy plan, or is that sort of a band-aid on a gushing wound?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 23:14

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:25

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

This is related to the thread I think, and pretty interesting if we're actually starting to reclaim farmland (which we should be doing):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-farmland-became-canadas-hottest-real-estate-market/article14394176/

quote:

Buy land, advised Mark Twain, because, as the punch line goes, they ain�t making any more of it. Fast forward to 2013 and that advice, as a look at prices for farmland shows, seems as prescient as ever.

As any farmer will readily tell you, the agriculture business has had a tough run. Agriculture was once an economic mainstay. Turn back the clock to 1950 and the sector employed nearly a fifth of Canada�s work force. Today, agriculture accounts for less than 2 per cent of the country�s employed workers, while its share of gross domestic product is also a shadow of what it once was. Farm prices have languished for decades, as Canada�s population has shifted from rural to urban. By the 1990s, North America was losing two acres of productive farmland to development every minute.

How the world has changed for Canada�s farmers in 2013. The hottest sector of the country�s real estate market is, you guessed it, farmland. The price of farmland in Canada has outpaced both residential and commercial real estate, gaining an average of 12 per cent over the last five years. In some hotspots, such as southwestern Ontario, the price-per-acre has been going up by as much as 50 per cent a year. Even pension plans and hedge funds have become players in the pursuit of prime agricultural land, interest that is only sending prices that much higher.

If global food prices are any indication, such investments could be a solid bet. Over the last decade, global food prices have more than doubled, according to the United Nations FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in prices for international food commodities. The food riots stemming from that price inflation were part of the spark that set off the Arab Spring. So far this year prices have been falling, but they still remain within shouting distance of the record highs reached in 2011.

The strength in global food prices is no accident. The growth in global food demand is unrelenting. Part of the reason is due to population growth. The world is at 7-billion people and counting. But that�s not the only thing straining food supply. World grain demand has also soared, as households in fast-growing Asian countries trade in rice bowls for cheeseburgers. It takes seven pounds of grain to raise a pound of beef. That�s a whole lot more than it takes to make a loaf of bread. The newfound economic clout in emerging economies such as China and India, which between them have roughly 2.5 billion people, has allowed more people to diversify their diets. In turn, global meat consumption has bounded ahead at double the rate of population growth over the last two decades.

All that demand for protein bodes well for the world�s breadbaskets. That is if Mother Nature doesn�t get in the way first. A severe drought a few years ago forced Russia, the world�s third largest producer of wheat, barley and rye, to suspend grain exports for nearly a year. Before that a drought in China caused a spike in grain prices that affected everything from the price of pasta in Italy to the cost of tortillas in Mexico. Closer to home the US Midwest has been grinding through one of the worst droughts in more than half a century.

Climate change scientists warn that droughts and other agricultural shocks will be even more common in the future. Against a backdrop of climbing temperatures, Canada sits in an interesting spot. With a wealth of arable land and 7 per cent of the world�s fresh water, Canada�s agricultural potential is considerable. It�s also possible the amount of land under cultivation in Canada could actually increase as global temperatures continue to rise and the wheat belt climbs farther north.

Could it be that in the coming years we�ll also see farmers actually start reclaiming acres from far-flung suburbs? The idea is much more plausible now than it was only a few years ago. It was depressed farm prices that allowed prime agricultural land to be paved over in the first place. As food becomes more precious and more expensive, it will only add to the market forces that will push some of those farms to come back.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 16:17

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Paper Mac posted:

How much of this price increase is related to development demand, do you think? I'm wondering what effect a residential bubble pop would have on farmland prices. I vaguely remember you were interested in farmland protection in Ontario- how do you think this affects that concern? Generally I'm leery of the notion that increased farmland prices in the vicinity of major urban areas is good for anyone other than the farm owners. In particular, it seems to deny access to growing land to those other than the wealthy or those willing to sell themselves to a bank. This is problematic for those of us interested in moving away from industrial agriculture, ensuring eg recent immigrant communities have physical access to growing land, etc.

I think it's directly related, and I disagree with the G&M's conclusion that this is going to lead to a resurgence in local farming food growing. Climate change isn't going to open up the Canadian Shield to farming; a warmer climate isn't the only factor in growing plants and animals.

The hippy in all of us would love to see all this farmland be used as foodland, but that's really not how the economics are playing out. Look at the Niagara peninsula as a great example: we get tons of fruits and vegetables from there, but you can drive down to Niagara-On-The-Lake and see all the former peach farmers transforming their fields into vineyards. I love wine as much as anyone else, but we can't eat those grapes.

It's going to require government intervention because I don't think the economics of growing food are going to neatly align themselves with encouraging local food growers. We need easements and environmental protection to keep agricultural land agricultural and not turned into acre estates with a horse ranch. That, I think, is the big disconnect right now: that agricultural land is an environmental issue. It's also a national security issue, but that's not the point. The current legislation doesn't reflect that, although the Ontario government has been pretty good in the past about trying to foster Ontario agriculture.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 19, 2013

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 20:20

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The problem is that none of these companies actually want to train people who go into the trades. They'd rather hire someone with full experience out of country than set up an apprenticeship program or provide the necessary training for a 20 year old welder with a college certificate.

There's no incentive for kids to get into the trades because no one will want to hire someone who has no experience. The government is starting to step in to provide that experience but these companies whining about the lack of Canadian tradespeople are part of the problem.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 15:46

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Lexicon posted:

Tangent - but why the gently caress is "pre tax income" such a commonly used metric? People can instantly quote their salary in "pre tax dollars" but rarely, in my opinion, can tell you what their yearly take is net of taxes. Same with affordability questions - why should anyone care about pre-tax dollars? This makes no sense to me. Surely the only relevant measure is a person's take-home pay?

I was talking about this with someone today, and it's largely because people are too lazy to figure out how much they're actually being taxed, and partly because it's the mentality that taxes are something you always pay next year, with next year's paycheque (ignoring deductions). It's short sighted, but it's psychological: it's a lot easier to talk about your $60k/year job than the $30k you take home. It also tends to justify spending beyond your means.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2013 17:15

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Canadian economic exceptionalism!

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 21:41

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Whiteycar posted:

The Nanaimo bars have done all their good will and marketing for them!

I was in Naniamo once for the BC Paralympics and the Nanaimo bars we got weren't even made in Nanaimo. What the hell!

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 20:17

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I assume there's no rent control or condo fee control in BC?

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 23:15

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Twiin posted:

Apple?

Amazon?

The article seems to be ignoring online retailers completely. And Canadian consumer debt is still stupidly high so there's another answer here, I think.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 22:32

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

Don't they say being on the same page about finances and housing being one of the most important things in a marriage?

In relationships in general. I think that's the number one reason why relationships crash and burn.

Hell, Gail Vaz-Oxlade has made a TV career out of that fact.

Personally I get why Saltin doesn't want to sell. Sometimes other life factors outweigh the economic advantages, as lucrative as they might be.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 16:46

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Planned government housing, hell planned cities don't really adhere to a particular political ideology. It was modernist-driven beliefs about how to best structure society that really drove a lot of government megaprojects, from hydro dams to state planned neighbourhoods. Private developments can fall into the same trap, and arguably a lot of suburban development comes with its own set of sustainability issues.

Governments can do better by talking to people whose housing they're trying to improve, and learning the neighbourhoods they seek to fix up from the neighbours rather than trying to impose a master plan from above.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 20:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Postwar development has always been prone to short-term thinking. Governments never thought to charge developers enough when they were building suburbs so the costs of maintain those suburbs would be sustainable over 40-50 years, and instead we've had to subsidize more and more development with tax dollars as older infrastructure breaks down.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 13:44

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Well as long as the mortgage brokers and real estate agents are happy! That's the important thing.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2014 14:11

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/25/are-you-betting-on-an-inheritance-to-solve-your-money-problems/

I like reading the comments on these articles where the commentators try to out-bootstraps one another and try to find holes in the other person's rags-to-riches story to prove that that guy over there is a fake but, I, I am the real thing.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 20:58

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Nothing fuels the fire of millennial angst better than watching their parents blow their grandparents' money on stuff and leave nothing for the next generation.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 22:07

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Every time I see a "1 acre estate" that's a giant rear end house surrounded by an acre of grass and nothing else I die a little on the inside, especially since that was once farmland.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2014 17:09

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The problem is CPP doesn't really pay on its own to support anything barely above the poverty line and I doubt OAS is going to be around by the time any of us retire. OAS is straight out of tax revenue, after all. Now if the government expanded CPP that would help. Otherwise it comes down to every province coming up with its own plan to help out its retirees like the OLP's proposed pension plan. Obviously CPP and OAS are pillars of what should be everyone's retirement savings, not the whole thing, but lots of Canadians are really dumb and retire with increasing amounts of debt instead of having savings.

Barring legislative and legal fuckery, CPP will be around by the time we retire because the government can't touch that money.

Single-employer DC plans are fine up until your employer decides the good times are here and takes multi-year contribution holidays and lol whoops we're $1 billion in the hole I guess we should start slashing benefits and expected payouts sorry our bad guys. Or your province's pension legislation hasn't been turned into complicated legaelese by necessity and companies weasel their way out of paying out their pension to most of their employees when the next recession hits and the whole business collapses. And as much as I like unions, pension benefits shouldn't be up for negotiation from either the employer or the union -- you have representatives of both sit on a board that's managed by a separate entity that has to act in the best interests of the plan.

Go DB or go home. All the greater public service pensions in Ontario are managed by DB multi-employer plans and are some of the best pension plans in Canada. And of course, the whole idea that everyone pays tons of money to fund public service workers' pensions is silly: 7 cents of every dollar paid out to retirees in these plans is taxpayer money.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jun 11, 2014

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 01:15

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Kalenn Istarion posted:

Also, re DC vs DB, DC by definition means the corp only has their specific limited initial contribution obligation, and the comments you made about a contribution holiday and funding gap really apply to DB plans. There's also no weaselling out of the obligation, because there is none on an ongoing basis. In a DC plan your money is put in a segregated fund by whatever fund management company your employer had a deal with; they no longer have any access to it whatsoever once it's in there.

That's not true, though. Plenty of DC plans took contribution holidays during the oughts which led to near-catastropic defecits in their plans. See: almost every Ontario university, a bunch of corporations and public service pension in the US (U of T's pension is running a defecit of $1 billion!). Single-employer DB plans sometimes fell into the same trap, but any multi-employer plan in Ontario only runs contribution holidays if they're running a surplus over 120% or something.

It's true that corporations can't touch the money that goes into a plan anymore, that's true of most plans really regardless of whether they're DB or DC. The issue is if the employer decides that the investments are doing so well that they'll take some contribution holidays (or the union negotiates for it during collective bargaining), a recession hits, crushes the investments, the company goes belly up, and while employers are still bound by law to pay out their pensions, if they don't have enough money, people under a certain number of years of service get nothing. It's happened a few times in Ontario.

ChairMaster posted:

Wait you just said that CPP and OAS were gonna be around forever, but then you admitted that they'd be worthless by the time anybody posting in this thread would be able to collect from them anyways. In that case why should anyone give a poo poo if pensions are backed by mortgages or not?

What I said is CPP will exist when we're around because it's well managed and isn't tied to tax revenue. The government can't touch that money without compromising well entrenched laws and accepting that the party who did it would never get elected in Canada again. CPP is also internationally regarded as well managed, the issue is that even if you cap it out it's not enough to retire on alone without a serious drop in quality of life.

If CPP is expected to be the sole form of retirement income for a lot of people then it requires massive expansion. The Conservatives have, so far, refused to expand it, leading to things like the Ontario Liberal Party announcing their own provincial pension plan that would probably work like CPP and supplement retirees' income. In most countries with a national pension plan, that plan is expected to be one pillar of retirement income, along with a worker's pension (ha) and personal retirement savings. ~Fiscal Personal Responsibility~ and all that.

OAS is paid from tax revenue, so it's much easier to eliminate.

Part of the reason why certain people take aim at public sector pensions is that all that money isn't being invested with financial planners who have atrociously high management fees in our country. Of course there's always the story of some guy who manages to pull out his pension because surely he can do a better job than some corrupt socialist pension plan and then loses his entire retirement savings on the stock market.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jun 11, 2014

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 06:14

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Kalenn Istarion posted:

I'm sorry, but contribution holidays literally don't exist in DC plans. They can't run 'deficits' because they don't provide guaranteed income (unlike a DB plan) and so have no contractually defined compensation level to 'fall short' of. The company literally does not give a poo poo what the investments do because the investments are explicitly the responsibility of the employee once the contribution is made.

While that's technically true the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that unless a plan specifically prohibits contribution holidays, employers can take contribution holidays, especially in those weird DB-plans-but-with-DC-components. See: Nolan v. Kerry (Canada) Inc. (2009)

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 13:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

File this one under 'not surprising but explains a lot:'

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/01/12/firms_funding_905_campaigns.html

quote:

Firms funding '905' campaigns
Election campaigns in Toronto's satellite municipalities are overwhelmingly bankrolled by corporate money, most of it from the same developers responsible for cascading sprawl in the region, new research suggests.

By: Iain Marlow STAFF REPORTER, Published on Mon Jan 12 2009
Election campaigns in Toronto's satellite municipalities are overwhelmingly bankrolled by corporate money, most of it from the same developers responsible for cascading sprawl in the region, new research suggests.

No one thinks city councillors can be bought by a developer's $750 campaign contribution, the maximum allowed per donor under the Municipal Elections Act.

But Robert MacDermid, an associate professor of political science at York University who is publishing a paper on the subject today, says the sheer amount of cash flowing from developers to incumbents � as opposed to coming from citizens who believe in a candidate's platform � erodes the concept of democratic representation.

In the 905 in 2006, election winners got 54.3 per cent of their funding from developers, losers 35 per cent. In Toronto, the numbers are 12 per cent and 4 per cent.

Since there are no rules restricting the number of candidates to whom corporations can donate, they often do so multiple times. MacDermid contends all that money, combined with shortcomings in the Ontario Municipal Elections Act, puts new candidates at a disadvantage, especially those who oppose developers' interests. "It reduces the choice that citizens actually have," he says. "The difficulty with (a candidate) opposing development is that it's hard to find enough money."
There are several factors involved.

One is that abysmal voter turnout, and minuscule citizen interest in municipal politics, means few people bother to donate to candidates.

Municipal election rules also allow incumbents, who can raise funds more easily than new challengers, to save any surplus campaign cash until the next election.

As one of the few political scientists in Canada studying municipal election financing (he knows of two), MacDermid has made it his mission to lobby for reforms in the Municipal Elections Act. He's published 10 papers on the subject.

According to the figures, Pickering and Vaughan city councils are the most beholden to corporate interests. Collectively, corporate gifts accounted for 76.7 per cent and 62.8 per cent, respectively, of recorded campaign donations to candidates in those cities (counting donations of $100 or more, for which donors' names must be disclosed).

The highest percentage of union donations was in Oshawa, a bastion of organized labour, but even that amounted to just 4 per cent.

Just over two-thirds of Vaughan councillor Alan Shefman's donations (67 per cent) came from developers in 2006, the highest percentage of any Vaughan councillor.

Still, he raised only $24,068, the lowest of any Vaughan candidate and, he says, the bare minimum needed. "To be really honest I'd rather not take any money whatsoever from any developer or any business if that was possible," he says. But putting signs on the street "is an expensive proposition."

Shefman says most municipal voters see little reason to contribute to local councillors' campaigns. "There's so little interest in a ward councillor election, that it's really tough to get donations," he says. "And we don't have a tax incentive."

Provincial and federal governments offer tax breaks for political contributions, but only three municipalities offer equivalent rebates: Markham, Ajax and Toronto.

The lack of such rebates, which typically reimburse up to 75 per cent of contributions, partially explains the lack of interest.

Both Ajax and Toronto have actively discouraged corporate and union donations. Last week, Toronto's executive committee voted 7-4 to ban them, though the decision must still go before city council.

Long-serving Ajax mayor Steve Parish says he does not take money from developers. He believes that accepting corporate donations instills an "inherent bias" in councils toward development, regardless of the community's best interest.
"In the municipal business, especially in growth municipalities like in the 905, what we do is we consider and approve rezoning and official plan amendments and change land from wild land into developed land," Parish says. "To me, it's ethically a conflict of interest."

Ajax has a low ratio of corporate to citizen donations � 22.4 to 28.1 per cent, the lowest outside Toronto. It also has the highest percentage of candidates using their own money, which MacDermid says gives unfair advantage to the rich.

MacDermid says it's unlikely the province will ban corporate and union donations at the municipal level. "They don't want to reform their own system. The provincial parties allow corporate and trade union contributions and they don't want to give them up," he says.

"So if they did change the Municipal Act, they'd look awfully stupid, wouldn't they?"

# ¿ Jun 18, 2014 01:22

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Romeo Dallaire and Chris Hadfield are, in fact, just really nice people so theory destroyed I guess.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 16:24

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

What are all the glass walls in toronto now rated at, like 10 years before they all just start popping off?

Something like that. My girlfriend works in that big building attached to the Eaton centre and says the same thing as Rime: even when they turn on the AC in the morning the office doesn't cool down until 11 AM-12 PM. This is part of some green initiative or something.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 16:05

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Suddenly the bungalow my aunt and uncle bought 10 years ago that was built by a stonemason in the 60s is looking like a pretty good buy!

(downside is it's in Kingston, but I'm ~~white~~ weird and like Kingston)

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 16:11

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

peter banana posted:

Livestock or hilariously misguided "horse farms", which I see everywhere in Ontario, are a much better option.

There are so many horse farms north-east of Toronto the only laundromat in Uxbridge specializes in washing horse blankets.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 22:04

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Yeah, agricultural land use needs to be given serious teeth and probably needs to be merged with environmental protections with the understanding that farmers need flexibility on managing their land.

Or we just need to straight up creating agricultural preserves. The only thing that might stop the paving of farmland would probably be for the housing bubble to finally pop.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 22:14

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Cultural Imperial posted:

�Developing and marketing land in the Interior of B.C. is so cost-prohibitive now that you cannot make a buck.�

How outrageous!

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 22:36

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Yeah I can't see any way all these condo buildings with 1-2 bedrooms turning out well once everyone living there decides to move out to start a family and there aren't nearly enough people to fill the vacancies and/or the buildings are so poorly made they're already starting to fall apart.

But build build build guys, there's no tomorrow.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2014 17:17

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

God drat I wish I was smart enough to figure out self-directed investment. My stupid investments run by a dude who takes a huge percent have been doing pretty ok though. Last time we talked I told him I'd like to minimize my exposure to Canadian banks and dollar and he told me a banking/housing crash in canada wouldn't be bad and might even send stocks up but at least told me I'm only holding about 30% Canadian investments.

Managerial fees in this country are loving criminal.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 02:48

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Between the long histories of the mistreatment of our respective aboriginal poples, the moral panics about the Yellow Invasion, and the constant pining for developing our northern frontiers, Australia and Canada really do have a lot in common.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2014 16:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

triplexpac posted:

Haha yeah when I told my wife she said "700k isn't too expensive for Toronto!"

This is why I think that even when there's a market correction for Canadian housing, Toronto isn't going to be affected too much. Unless Toronto's economy collapses from focusing too much on Alberta resource extraction or something.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 15:13

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I started reading Strong Towns earlier this year and a lot of what he talks about applies to Canada as well, especially the GTA.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 15:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Do you think if we hold businessowners hostage long enough they'll get stockholm syndrom and sympathize with their captor?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 02:36

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Pixelboy posted:

Despite my hobby of liking to tease and bait millennials, I'm actually having chest pains after reading this article.

Was I trolled? Please say I fell for something....

I don't think I could handle having that much debt; I'm never going to be rich.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 01:20

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Just gotta keep the balls in the air until the election.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 15:16

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

Canadian Housing Bubble: real estate human centipede

Quoting this for accuracy.

Also the attitudes in that article holy poo poo. Societal expectations are a hell of a thing.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2014 17:10

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Throatwarbler posted:

Isn't Montreal a center of government corruption and organized crime? Or is that just more Anglo propaganda.

That's pretty accurate yeah.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 02:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

Yeah, I've heard the entire purpose of "reclamation" is for quick photo ops. It's a nice optic to point towards, and for a lot of people as long as it looks "green" it's a-ok.

This is why I get frustrated when people talk about reclamation and farmland. No, once you scrape off the topsoil for the next subdivision it can't be shipped to the Canadian shield to produce a new food belt.

How many decades before we start remembering that farmland - good farmland - in this country is a precious, precarious resource.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2014 03:38

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

Bubble or crash, cyberpunk capitalist dystopia or maxist paradise, living on a boat is always going to be a pretty dumb move. That said I'm looking forward to your post-collapse floating commune made up of lashed together abandoned yachts.

Nil problem, chummer.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2014 21:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

peter banana posted:

Toronto is okay, we're just always run by assholes and only assholes live here.

It took some getting used to moving from Montreal, but it's not a bad place to live.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2014 16:30

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:25

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

"We carried the whole Canadian economy and employed workers from every province for a decade, the rest of Canada owes us!" will be the attitude.

And so the cycle will begin anew.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 21:22

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