I see a lot of expensive houses being built in my area. A LOT. And the weird thing is that they’re being bought pretty quickly. Are these people just making more money than me? If so, what are they doing for a living? Or are they just living house poor? How exactly are they affording these places?
All this talk of foreign investors. But the reality is they represent a small proportion of single family homes[1]. It’s easy to blame foreigners, but the real problem is domestic. It’s corporations. Corporations are being all the housing. And they don’t mind sitting on their invest, even vacant, for years.
Foreign owners only account for a small share of the Canadian real estate market. According to Statistics Canada, a government website, non-residents owned 2.2 percent of residential properties in Ontario and 3.1 percent in British Columbia in 2020. The percentages were 2.7 and 4.2 in the Toronto and Vancouver metropolitan areas, respectively.
According to data reported by the PEW Trust and originally gathered by CoreLogic, as of 2022, investment companies take up about a quarter of the single-family home market.
So yeah, y’all keep the bigotery going and blame foreing investors, you’re playing right into capitalism’s hand.
Veraxus@kbin.social 1 year ago
They are not being bought by regular people like you - they are being bought by investment companies, hedge funds, and filthy rich investors... all for the the sole purpose of turning them into rentals.
By turning them into rentals, they keep supply low which increases prices... which also lets them charge exorbitant rental rates as well. They are gaming both sides of the system to ensure that us peasants can be milked dry over a fundamental human need.
marcos@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That does not add up.
Home rental and ownership are substitutes. If they are renting those homes, they are reducing the demand for ownership. And adding renting unities can not allow them to charge exorbitant rates.
What is keeping those prices high is something else.
Bookmeat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They are NOT reducing demand. People want to own because rental is not capital building. Demand is suppressed, but not reduced.
jmanjones@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Home rental and ownership are not substitutable to each other. The amount of tax exemptions of buying a, esp as first buyer, as incredible. Find out what a buyer’s vs seller’s market is. Look at what the avg. capital gains are for homeownership vs home rental (which are basically none). You still pay property tax on rentals such as apartments. Buying real estate is an investment, meaning you make returns on it.
Look, I’ll be straight up, you seem like you are coming from a place of someone who has closed on property - which is 100% okay. but you are wrong.
Tangent@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In my area the biggest factor is multiple families purchasing homes together. When you’re splitting the mortgage it’s a lot more affordable.
Zuberi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
DRS GME. They need collateral for their bad bet