The End of Self-regulation: Government’s Involvement in Canadian Real Estate
Recently, with the growth of the Canadian real estate market, housing affordability has become a nationwide major concern. As Micheal McCullough says, “The Teranet–National Bank House Price Index found that prices increased 9.7% in Vancouver and 8.7% in Toronto last month compared with a year earlier, whereas the rest of the country averaged just 0.2%. Affordability is worsening, too” (McCullough 1). However, to date, according to Kerry Gold, “The Canadian government has not intervened---we are the only G7 country without a national housing policy” (Gold 9).
In facing of such a crazy real estate market, self-regulation is not adequate anymore for this billion dollar
Americans across the United States search for the perfect home, location and square footage of course a great price to pay for their castle. Finding an affordable place to live is ideal, and necessary for survival in this day of age. As the years go by the cost of living increases but Americans do not receive a cost of living raise. The demand for affordable housing is on a all time high, but so is the cost of housing in the metropolitan areas across the United States. America must take care of its citizens and should provide affordable housing programs, to assist Americans to either purchase or rent a home.
This policy brief is prepared to give some insights of the housing affordability problem in Australia. In addition, the paper also suggests some approaches in which the Government should consider in tackling the issue in the Australian context. Housing affordability always
b) Lack of supply- Along with the presence of higher demand in the housing market of the country already, the lack of supply of affordable housing in Canada has aggravated the crisis even more. Due to the presence of excess demand in the market, the quantities of housing, especially the private sector profit-maximizing ones have increased the price of their housing facilities, which in turn has contributed significantly to the already existing problems of homelessness in the country.
Canada, is well known for being immigration friendly over the course of history and it is an ideology that Canadians value. Immigration offers an opportunity for Canadians to seal in crevasses within the Canadian economy and stabilizes it from leaks which causes inflations and recessions. However, as opportunity presents itself, trade-offs are likely to follow. Today, Canadians are facing challenges regarding unemployment rates as well as increases in the cost of living. According to Collacott Martin, a senior at Fraser Institute who represented Canada in the department of external affairs, the housing prices are rising due to an increase in population among large cities in Canada. Collacott, predicted that newcomers of Canada cost between
Canada 's housing market is at an all-time high, they are known in Vancouver for having the most expensive housing market. This expensive market is not just a Vancouver problem, it is an issue growing throughout the nation and is depriving the average citizen to be able to purchase a house in their lifetime. There is a major issue with the state of the market and how it affects the current citizens. Issues have been rising where the average wage in Vancouver is estimated at seventy-one thousand per family household, according to the Vancouver Sun (2014), yet the average costing home as reached between five hundred thousand in the municipality to over one million within Vancouver, according to articles by Beth Lindsay (2015) of the Vancouver Sun, and Troy Landereville (2015) of The Maple Ridge Times.
Canada’s housing market was one of the best for the recent years, but even with all the concern of household debt home prices will still have risen by 5.5 per cent in 2016. Their House prices have nearly doubled in the past decade to keep up with the costs of oil. They continue to have troubles selling houses but continue to build more, as well as condominiums and apartments. Their “New Government” continues to watch housing closely
Every night there are at least 35,000 people who go without homes in Canada, yet, the Canadian government has little to show for prevention. The “social assistance” (welfare, disability support payments, old age security and employment insurance) provided does not begin to cover for basic living expenses. Today in Victoria, one month's rent in a studio apartment is anywhere from 800-1200 dollars, yet a single recipient of “social assistance” in BC will receive a total of 610 dollars to cover all of their basic needs. Many lower and middle-class Canadians live one day at a time having to make tough decisions whether to pay the hydro bill or fix their car. With the cost of living rising and minimum wage at 10.85 an hour, it makes it almost impossible to be above the poverty line, especially with single income
This is more concerning as many say that unemployment rate in Canada has reached 12% or higher. Canada's government withdrawal from housing area has made the situation worse by increasing housing cost with minimum low-wages and
There is a lot of discrimination and wide separation of those owning housing and those who are homeless to try and get housing. The article states, “The supply of affordable housing has not kept pace with the needs of the population. There has also been a decline in the amount of affordable rental housing in many cities. Combine that with declining incomes and a widespread reduction in social benefits for low-income Canadians, and you get a population that has to spend a greater percentage of its income on housing.” This is a huge imbalance of those owning the house and having the money to own versus those renting the
Something I would like to see changed in the Canadian public policy is to implement ways for all Canadians to have sustainable housing. The government is for the people. Our country has more than enough resources that none of its citizens should be without a home and homeless people should not be viewed at or treated in another way than others. We are all human. Looking back at chapter 1 in “Staying Alive”, epidemiologists were trying to convey the overall message that inequality is bad for our health and that each individual must have the basic needs to survive. This relates back to the issue of homelessness, as they are ones who do not have the basic needs to survive. “The most commonly used measure of inequality is that of income differences” (Raphael, 2014, p.24).
To begin, a brief history recap of the financial crises in 2008 will be given. Following that will be a breakdown of how the financial systems were set up in Canada and the U.S. We will then, in detail, discuss the Canadian and the U.S financial markets, in particular, the housing market and how each country was affected by the 2008 financial crisis. Lastly, we will proceed to evaluate the overwhelming differences between Canada and the U.S; from their core financial system to mortgages that allowed the Canadian market to remain excluded from the dire consequences of the US market recession, which followed shortly after the financial crisis.
The employment rate in Canada has been going up over the years. The economy is improving as Canada building more trading connections with foreign nations. One improvement I would like to suggest is to make housing situation more affordable for people who live here. In the upcoming years, many more people will be coming to Canada to make it their home. Housing is already somewhat unaffordable and it is likely that the housing prices would continue to rise. This situation will be difficult for Canadians such as young adults and newcomers.
Between 1960 and 2006 real house prices increased at an average of 2.7 percent annually, ahead of a 1.9 percent per annum growth in per household real incomes (Yates, 2008). Therefore, over the past half century, there has been an underlying structural affordability problem in Australia due to house price and household income.
Multiple reasons exist for the the lack of affordable housing. On the demand side these include population growth and increased migration to urban areas, easily accessible housing finance, tax incentives and a “strong cultural preference for owner-occupied detached houses”. On the supply side, affordability problems are exacerbated by inflexible and slow responses to the need for new housing stock, lack of infrastructure and generally inefficient planning processes and development assessment by local governments.
After researching the foreign markets, our department proposes that Canada would be our direction to go with to expand our business. The selection that we made is due to many factors. One of the factors involved is that Canada’s housing starts for 2012 is down by only percentage points. (Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2012) This allows us to believe that the economy is still strong in the Canadian foreign market. There is new construction going on in Canada and there is potential for the market to go back up.