Hacker News Reader

Comment by josho | Hacker News Reader

I don’t necessarily see a problem with point 2. Renting a house often creates supply. The owner will create a basement suite or a nanny suite over the garage.

If housing shortage was solved then that also kills the profit motive of renting out all but the most ideal houses for renting.

The root cause in Canada is the neoliberal policy that started in the 90s that ended government building low income housing. They left the free market to do its thing. And this is the end result of decades of free enterprise. We’ve built lots of housing for upper middle class because that’s profitable for builders and largely left the poor/young to be screwed.

View on HN

>They left the free market to do its thing. And this is the end result of decades of free enterprise. We’ve built lots of housing for upper middle class because that’s profitable for builders and largely left the poor/young to be screwed.

Is that true? I'd imagine building a big block of, say, 100 units to be far more capital efficient than building a few freestanding homes, if zoning laws allowed it.

The plethera of shoebox condos in Toronto attest to this fact. Then people wonder why birth rates are so low when the only options are having a baby while living in a 1 bdrm condo with a galley kitchen, or moving hours away from your job.

I honestly donno a lot about the US and it’s “projects”, but my understanding is large blocks of units in the US or the west tend to be built and left to rot.

Other than Singapore are there any blocks of units that don’t get run down over time and left to rot? (Seriously question as I’m curious)

Cooperative housing where the tenants are the owners.

Every city in Europe?

Oh 100 units are still built. But they are sold as condos targeting upper middle class as those are more profitable for builders to sell. And these are not affordable for many.

We need policy that requires mixed units. Some for the affluent, some for service workers, etc.

this misses the point. The root of the housing shortage problem in Canada, Australia and New Zealand is zoning. Zoning plus NIMBYs make housing wasteful by allowing only single family houses in vast areas of prime land.

This is a simple supply-demand problem, not anything complicated. The solution is equally simple - make zoning laws basic and limited in scope.

NIMBYs and zoning preceded the housing shortage by decades. To attribute it solely to those two factors is oversimplifying the problem

Is this meant to argue against a limit on the quantity of properties that one individual can own? If corporations were not permitted to own property, and other individuals were allowed only two properties (what real need would there be for more), the quantity of available property for purchase would skyrocket. The prices would plummet, and far more people would be capable of owning their home.

I don't disagree that there is disincentive for developers to build mid-level properties. They want huge expensive homes or the ability to cram many people into one space. I think this is a problem, but is not the only reason for the lack of availability, as described by the grandparent and in my former paragraph.

Did the free market set the prevailing risk free interest rate in CAN ?

Did the free market supply the homeowner and title insurance ?

Did the free market determine the rules for zoning that plague most large metro areas and adjoining suburbs?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com