"You don't get to line up for the buffet again, until everyone's got a plate." - Linus Sebastian. This needs to be the baseline of every conversation about this.
@@anonym3017 So, a builder who is building 200 houses in an area would only be able build one and sell one at a time :) Also lots of people uses trusts to hold assets for kids and other purposes. Need to to throw in a lot of exceptions, in the long run, knowing politicians the law will end up being the same, just more convoluted. Not that most politicians would go against the special interest groups.
@@vordax or you know sell the houses before they are completed. and if you want your kids to have something just give it to them. trusts ain't required. so exceptions ain't necessary
@vordax if the builder is building homes, then he owns no homes. So when the builder finishes the home, they can hold the home for x amount of time before they get hit with tax burden. Solved.
So, no, it's much higher than that in Canada, 40, even nearly 80 years ago (1948 90k houses for example). It's currently around 260k, it should be more though. It's way to low in BC and Ontario and Quebec especially (but BC is around that 40-50k number alone btw). Supply and nimbyism is still less of the problem than allowing residential units to be investment properties, especially by non-resident aliens and corporations. Ban single family, semi-detached and up to six unit projects from having any corporate ownership for rent (owning it for a perk for an employee is fine). Ban non-resident alien ownership of ordinary residential properties (ski condo, fine). Ban corporate ownership over 20% of a project for apartments/condos/townhomes or similar types of property. Exceptions can be made in the last instance for new construction for a period of 2 years until a sale can be made. Current owners can be grandfathered for a period of 3 years to prevent rapid price collapse issues.
@@benjaminhawkes6693 You could do all of those things all still have an affordability crisis. The reality is that population growth is greater than the capacity for homes, so you need to both decrease incentives to use it as an investment AND build more houses. NIMBYism is still a problem.
@@Igneusflama Property tax. HOA fees. Utilities cost. The only way this gets fixed is if inflation is minimized / stopped. Saving money becomes achievable again.
The UK is a nightmare too. The government sold off social housing in the 1980's, local government (councils) don't have the money to build/ buy new social housing and if you're on benefits you get "Housing Support" so the money goes straight to landlords.
yep! don't get me started on how 'Association' housing is financed for the purchase of new homes which have to be built as planning regulations state, its a great con! tax payer (by tenant's housing benefit) financed equity funds, but at least those equity funds pay their tax right??? Right?
The 'Right to Buy' for council (social) housing in the UK explicitly blocked the local councils from using the money from the sale of their council houses to build more council houses. So the available social housing stock naturally reduced but could not be replaced by the councils that had sold them. Then the government encouraged housing 'Associations' to be created to build any new social housing, so the local councils don't actually own them.
Then to keep the sacred economy number going up slightly they import city-sized populations of people every year _without fail_ and have been since the 90's. Even during lockdown they insisted on importing a Glasgow-sized number of immigrants. Our entire economy seems to exists simply as an immigrant pyramid scheme for the asset owning classes to exploit.
A while back Japan introduced an 'empty house' tax. I think that is something that the governments of Canada, the UK and Australia should consider copying. I don't know about the exact situation in Canada but here in the UK much of what would be low cost housing has been bought up by investment firms and the same goes for empty plots of land. A tax on properties that remain empty would at least encourage investors to make these houses fit to live in and available for the rental market rather than sitting empty until the price increases to the desired amount at which point it would probably go to some other investor who would leave it empty.
That's 100% the problem in most parts of the US too. Tons of homes empty either full time or most of the year due to "Investments" or they are vacation homes in very dense parts of the state taking away from the livable areas. I haven't looked it up in a while, but I know LA had a big empty home problem due to speculation which caused their housing market to just fucking implode.
Pretty sure Vancouver has a tax on empty homes based on a a percentage of the annual property tax. Looking it up --- "Properties deemed or declared empty in the 2023 reference year will be subject to a tax of 3% of the property’s 2023 assessed taxable value" (from the City of Vancouver website, the Empty Home Tax is what it is called).
Yeah, I'm usually quite a free-market advocate. But housing is different. People need homes, and they're in short supply. They should not just be passed around as financial assets. If you want to own more than one home, you should pay a lot of tax on it.
I am a 35-year-old guy down here in Florida. I just bought a house earlier this year, but I was only able to accomplish it through an extraordinary set of circumstances. Being able to own your own home shouldn't give you the same feeling as winning the lottery, but unfortunately that's exactly how I felt.
@italianbasegard For an amount that was actually meaningful? Once. If you must know, I "won the lottery" because I was able to purchase the home privately, off market, for a price that was under market value. In terms of real estate, that is winning the lottery.
@jorismak You're mostly thinking of South Florida, although we do have quite a bit of crime in Tampa and Jacksonville as well. I live in the suburbs of Orlando, and it's relatively safe. To be fair, most big cities in the country have really dangerous areas in them. Just go to Northern Milwaukee, East St Louis, or anywhere in Chicago to see what I mean.
@jorismak Oh, I follow you. That's really not true at all. The only thing I would tell you is that I wouldn't want to own Coastal Property here. A direct hit from a hurricane could be pretty devastating. Other than that, it's really not that big of a deal. You just have to make sure you do a good job maintaining your yard, like removing dead limbs from trees and making sure nothing is near your roof or home. It's also a good idea to keep some sandbags around and always have emergency supplies stocked up. Stuff like batteries, a first aid kit, a few cases of bottled water, canned food, and if you're lucky, a generator. I've been through pretty much every major hurricane in Florida in the last 30 years, and they are definitely frightening, but they're not as big a deal as you would think if you're educated and prepared. Growing up, the month of rain we got in the 2004 hurricane season knocked my power out for over a month. It was absolutely miserable. The only reason it happened is because we had the oldest electrical transformer in the county, and they ended up having to replace our entire electrical system for around a dozen households. I can genuinely say I don't know anyone who has died, been injured, or lost a loved one in a hurricane. The wildlife down here is a different conversation, but again, if you are prepared and educated, it's just not that big of a deal. A fun fact I'll leave you with is that Florida is the flattest state in the United States. It's even flatter than Kansas, Kentucky, Wyoming, or any of the other states that are generally considered to be really flat. The closest thing you're getting to a hill here is a man-made embankment off the highway.
As long as the land owning class and the regulation making class has a 1:1 overlap it's not going to change. Of course they will try to stuff their pockets with "rent subsidies". That's what they've been trying to achieve for decades.
And it's good that it is. Because all the "I don't like politics" folks are the reason why these things are a mess. They can't be bothered to look out for their own best interests - which means holding the wealthy accountable using **gasp** political means.
The land owning class only wants to have as many properties as they want, and the price always going up, and no controls on rent. Basically a legal assurance that their investments will make them money forever.
Said very well. In Australia it's actual fucked, between homeowners using their collateral as negative gearing on other houses to basically buy new homes with very little risk, over seas investors allowed to buy property even though they will never live in them, and corps buying property still. It's impossible for a normal person to get a house now.
@@guesswho2778 Sadly this is all too common. In my area the only people I know that aren't getting eaten alive by rent is if they were able to get a house from a deceased relative or if they just know someone that cuts them a deal on rent everyone else i know of is getting destroyed in rent and it seems every few months their rent is increasing a couple hundred dollars. Meanwhile Wages in the area are really stagnate and haven't went up all that much def not enough to compensate for rent. This isn't just min wage job its all jobs across the region haven't seen much if any growth.
@@sadmanh0 why? Linus is pretty rich and has a lot of assets bit he's not in a business or position that gives him any significant power in this matter.
Yk Tokyo doesn’t have a housing crisis, because they allow housing to be built basically almost anywhere. Arbitrary zoning red tape usually is the biggest hurdle to getting housing built
"My house is right next to a lot where they're building an industrial smelting operation that will run 24/7 at 90db. it will be noisy, but at least the mortgage is reasonable!" -- said no one ever
Food is for people not for profit. Clothes are for food not for profit. The free market is the best way to solve this. Get rid of some of the no-longer-necessary regulations and watch new home builds increase. Get government to intervene some more and watch home prices continue to increase.
My family got their apartment from my grandma. It's just 50 square meters. It cost like 150k when it was new. (about 230k accounting for inflation), It was a sum you could get in a 4-5 years of average-paying work. Now, even if I were to become a senior software developer, it would take me about 15 years to buy it. It now costs about 1.2 million. Even with a job that requires like 10 years of experience, I would have to work the next 15 years to afford a 50m apartment. What the actual fuck.
@@polymerizedrecordsgood chance it's either in LA, NY, SF, Seattle, or a different major city. All those cities are getting railed by the issues Linus brought up
So what? My parents bought house and paidoff in 20 years. No Landlords,owning House. Still better then pay to landlord and Problems that come with. Your mentallity is Problem.
When the waves of Boomers start dying, the housing market is going to go even higher. I got lucky, I got into my house before the bubble started, and I recently sold it. I was then gifted my mom's house when she passed away. I no longer have a mortgage, and in my mid thirties that is a huge step ahead of anybody else from my graduating class.
It's going to get worse before things reach critical mass. Boomers won't just drop all at once one day, they are going to desperately cling to life for as long as possible in a slow trickle towards oblivion, just so they can give two middle fingers to the younger generation on their way into the grave, Terminator-style. That means absurd assisted living and medical costs because we all know how much private equity loves investing in infrastructure. The Boomer parents will say "I'm not living in this house, so I'll just sell it to afford giving private equity even more of my life savings," and then a corporation will outbid literally everyone else by paying 50% over market rate and steal the home from a family that needs it. Things are going to get a lot uglier before they get better, and they will only get better because we need these chickens to vote for Col. Sanders so there can be no more chickens left, if you catch my drift.
zoning, red tape, and nimbys are the real cause of the housing crisis. near me, there are lots where you are legally not allowed to subdivide your lot below 20 acres per parcel. the HOA will sue you if you try to submit an appeal to subdivide to 10 acres. cheapest lot is 1 million, ridiculous stuff
Don't forget they enact policies that make residents' lives a living hell, like forcing home owners to keep their garage doors open during the day so they can check for homeless people living in garages...
I'm a home builder in Oregon. Actually used to build affordable housing about 14 years ago. Affordable housing nowadays is a thing of the past that can only be looked at in the history books. Progressive legislation at the local, state, and federal levels has pushed new construction prices into the stratosphere. The unintended consequences have been catastrophic. And it continues to get worse.
What type of legislation specifically drives up costs? My assumption would be costs driven up by new safety rules. I do know Oregon is more unique with urban sprawl restrictions.
here in canada builders only build expensive properties, no money to be made in low income/affordable units. Recently saw a 200-300 home development about 15 min out of town, 2 bedroom duplexes, but furnished and finished as super high end vacation homes/rentals. the whole place is like a ghost town since only about 1/10 of the places ever have someone home at any given time.
@@RainyDJ Here are a few from the standpoint of a Washington State USA resident: 1. Urban Growth Management laws (planning departments, restricts supply for little to no reason) 2. Restrictions on raw materials like wood (i.e. restrictive logging, so instead of making lumber it burns) 3. Rent control/subsidies (restricts supply) 4. Subsidized mortgages (drives up demand by people that couldn't afford it, and therefore drives up costs of housing) 5. Property tax rates (~1/3 of my mortgage payment goes towards taxes) 6. Crony capitalism (capitalism is not the problem, the problem is that rich private actors and government officials are in bed with eachother) Even in rural areas in WA where there are vast open areas and plenty of utility supply, there are laws that prevent property segregation unless property is zoned in a particular way (can't even split off 5 acre parcel off of a 20 acre parcel).
@@RainyDJ Fucking zoning codes and permit BS would be my guess. StrongTowns has went on many rants about how much malarkey is in building permit regulations. Construction agencies don't even know how screwed it is too, I have a relative in construction and he's under the delusion building permit crap that restricts what you can do on your own land needlessly ain't government regulation.
@@RainyDJ Safety is part of it , some of it is efficiency regulations, permitting is huge, land use restrictions, all kinds of stuff honestly. Pretty much every step in the process can or does have some legislation that can affect cost. Some of it is needed or useful, some probably not, just kinda depends on your views and risk tolerance.
As an American where it's not as bad AND I don't live in a city so it's even less relevant, I still want a crash myself. Been looking to buy a house for a while, but even here, it's hard. I have a hard time fathoming the prices my sister in Minneapolis has to deal with, let alone Canada.
@@mistertrackkit's rough even in Texas with relatively low housing because we not only have the federal government not enforcing the border but also have Californians flooding in after having sold million dollar homes buying houses they want at or above asking price driving the demand higher and the prices up across the board.
@@RonsCompVids it's not that I haven't been affected, it's just I'm aware it's a lot worse in Canada than in the USA. To my knowledge, a good reference is A house in urban USA that costs under 500K, will likely be over a million easy in urban Canada. Also, I live in a small town in Wisconsin, so it's even less expensive here due to the lower population and cheaper land.
The vet thing? In Germany, we have that happening to human doctors. Plus, you can by law only have so many practices in one area, so now I have to go to the ER for a cough.
Technically incorrect, afaik. You can have as many practices in an area as you want, just the number of practices that are allowed to treat statutory health insurance patients is limited in an area. Another one of those beautiful "you win even harder when you're rich" things, since you can take better care of your body when there's more doctors available to you.
@@BenMorganxD ah yes, you are right. Bound to the Kammer are only practices that want to treat gesetzlich insured people. However, if you're just your ordinary run-of-the-mill general doctor or dentist, a private-only practice is unlikely to be financially viable, as your theoretical patient basis shrinks to 10(!)%. That would be OK if you made 10 times as much off the privately insured, but you don't, instead you make only about 3 times as much. So opening a private-only practice is an option for a specialist like a jaw surgeon or an eye doctor. These are the only two I can think of, anyone else is either so specialised they rely on at least renting out operating rooms or outright working for a hospital or not specialised enough to be able to walk all over patients with gesetzliche health insurance. I am privately insured and the only practice that takes private only is the jaw surgeon I went to twice. Also note you need to have 0 morals to be able to say "sorry cant treat you, only private insurance allowed here" when some guy in pain walks in.
@@christianschmitt2409 Only thing I'll add to that is Psychologists. Overall, I'm very much in agreement with you though. Also " instead you make only about 3 times as much. " is a very damning criticism of the state of healthcare in Germany...
One of the main culprits behind why nothing ever gets done to address house affordability is that most politicians (66%) own property/multiple properties and are NEVER going to do anything that will lower the price of theirs investments. It’s horrible!
Multi-generational homes will simply have to become more popular if something doesn't change. I can't foresee my own kids being able to move out of the house in 5-10 years with the current state of things. We're already multi-generational with my MIL living with us; we did it due to other circumstances, but I can see it becoming a necessity for many families now.
Problem with that is American culture isn’t like that. I run my own business about to start a second business yet my parents are still bothering me to move out when I’m only 19 1/2
@@Brandon-jf9cv It will take a change in North American cultural thinking for sure. Multi-generational households isn't a new thing, for a number of cultures this is standard. I would love nothing more for my kids to be able to afford housing when they are ready to move out, but I'm not confident that will become a reality in 5-10 years.
Yea I took over my GrandParents house and I am already pretty much setting it up to where my daughter can live with use for the foreseeable future cause I dont know how she will every be able to move out my wife and I are both college educated and save and we still cant afford anything thats not run down in our area.
This week, we started to demolish an old 1970s waterfront house up top of a nice bluff over the water. They first submitted for permits over 2 years ago. The build will take another 1.5 years. TWO YEARS to get approval. But also this property will get used twice a year and will end up being around 10m$ after its done. Meanwhile I live in an RV during the week to work on it and go home to a rented 1100 sq ft townhouse that costs me 1500$ a month on the weekends. I spend 150$ a night on my weekend home.
Asking a real estate agent whether you should buy a home right now is like to asking an alcoholic whether they think you should have a drink lol. Homes in my neighborhood that cost around $450k in sales in 2019 are now going for $800 to $950k. Every seller in my neighborhood is currently making a $350k profit. Simply unreal. In all honesty, deflation is what we require. The only other option is for many people to go bankrupt, which would also be bad for the economy. That is the only way to return to normal.
I don't have enough time for investment analysis because of my busy work. My money has been handled by a fiduciary for seven years; they have adjusted to market situations to help me navigate successfully and make wise decisions. Think about a comparable strategy.
this is definitely considerable! think you could suggest any professional/advisors i can get on the phone with? i'm in dire need of proper portfolio allocation
Lynne marie stella is the licensed coach I use. Just research the name. You'd find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
That zoning regulation is a great change, imo. The number one problem - as you said - is that there is a shortage of housing supply and allowing multi-family homes to be built all over is a great step towards fixing that. The infrastructure will need to be improved, but at least people will have a place to live.
Georgism. Only one tax, and it is on the pure value of the land you own regardless of what you do with the land. Discourages: unused land, owning lots of homes, and so on. Encourages: selling land you aren’t using/making money from, developing land You can still do tax credits for farmers and other industries where we need them to exist but the income is low enough that owning the land for it isn’t feasible
3:40 we have this in the Netherlands. It does not work. It simply means the price of rent is 1 cent below the max it can be for the person renting the home to receive subsidies. Now this is not that much of a problem for the person renting the home (as they get subsidies which makes housing... somewhat... affordable) but it's a huge burden on the tax system as there's no hundreds of millions bleeding to already overly wealthy cooperations that still benefit from not building more houses.
in Finland you get rent support if you are under 27, so young people can afford rent no matter where they live and can save up to then join the owners market. Which is not the perfect solution but at least young people are not at such a huge disadvantage.
@@bobsemple9341 Not directly, I would imagine. If I understand it correctly, Denmark has something similar (just seemingly much worse and much less consequential), and I personally get around $50 USD a month in "home support" from the government, which is based on factors like the size of home and rent price.
There's also goverment-owned student housing so the money goes straight to the goverment, also there's a program where for young people if you save something like 15% the cost of your first house/apartment, they offer you a very low intrest and lenient loan for the rest of the cost@@bobsemple9341
@@bobsemple9341I'm Danish, live in Germany. You're right, yes. The money is only needed because the rents are so high, which means the money goes towards landlords. Funny thing is, Danmark is dirt cheap compared to Germany while having more purchasing power. It's a fraction of the cost to rent or buy in Danmark compared to Germany. Yet, both Danmark and Germany, seem content with paying landlords with public funds.
On the issue of density, it's entirely correct that the infrastructure in many of these formerly single-family home areas is equipped for dense development, however, that's generally because big swathes of SFM housing developments are incompatible with quality infrastructure. The cost of infrastructure like pipes, roads, electric and phone lines, all go up more with area covered than with number of customers. Low density just obliterates the operating revenues compared to operating costs. Yes, municipalities don't need to make a huge profit, but they need to at least be solvent to function. The key with increasing density is that it's most needed inside or at the edges of existing dense areas. Striking down existing SFM zoning allows for dense cities that have random suburbs inside them to move forward with more needed land use like apartments, townhomes, duplexes, etc. Suburban areas that don't have any of the existing appeal of a city might see a couple apartments spring up along a highway or near their local downtown spot, but that still nets the suburban town a benefit. Overall, density increases will help this crisis *in conjunction with* tax reform and sharp regulation, but you need all 3 of those to make it work. For anyone who's read this and is still interested in the topic, check out Strong Towns by Charles Marohn, it's an increasingly important topic and worth learning about
They're also zoning for even more density near transit stations. This is a no brainer. We can't limit zoning to only single family zones in this prime real estate. The government is spending billions building this infrastructure. And transit oriented development is key to building scalable cities. We'll have housing that isn't car dependent. And utilities can be efficiently procured for them.
Absolutely agree with this. I do think Linus would be way more educated if he learned some things from Strong Towns. Being against the removal of single family zoning is pretty silly to me.
@@Anna_Rae It's a classical argument: "where would I park my car???". Ideally, you wouldn't even need a car in a properly planned city, also, additional infrastructure can be built, Tokyo is an amazing example of this. But I would agree, that infrastructure should go hand in hand with development, however, temporary additional inconvenience is minuscule compared to benefits of additional housing supply.
3:27 you mention how rent subsidies would only result in money being handed to landowners and the affordability crisis becoming worse. This is literally what happened with post secondary education. Government student loans need to go too.
No, the private sector needs to go. Why are landlords, insurance companies, or private for-profit colleges even a thing? It’s useless drain on the economy
I am on the other coast in New Brunswick. I bought my house about a year and a half ago. It's a starter town house. Before we got our place we put in an offer on the unit 2 doors down. There was a better cash offer so we did not get it. I later found out that the new tenants there are renting. After a year it was sold again for a profit on the real estate listing it showed that it was being rented for $1200 a month. The new owner is now charging $1400 or $1500 a month for a small 3 bedroom townhouse.
My mother always tells me how it was in her past. Landlords did not want singles or unmarried couples without children. They always preferred couples with children over anything else. And the rents were cheaper because the landlords preferred a stable lower secure income over high income but high risk of having an empty place that is not rented out. We need to go back to this to be honest. It's fucking hard to get a place with family. They don't want that at all.
As a new landlord myself I prefer a secure, but lower, income. Ideal tenants are people who stick around for years, so I don't have to find someone new, which is a big job (it involves conducting job interviews with nearly a hundred applicants). I have heard stories of tenants in some higher-rent places not even lasting six months, which would be a big pain if one didn't have a property manager, but plenty profitable for those property managers. Also, contrary to Linus' assertion I don't fixate on long term property prices going up, I see property as a relatively low-risk store of value (as opposed to crypto and stonks), so I would obviously be unhappy if the prices crashed because you can bet council rates won't fall if they do, which would keep expenses high for me, on top of the new carpet, windows, toilet, water tank, and paint job I just got done last year. I see the government subsidies for rent is an obviously bad idea, but also find it unsurprising that high immigration is what is causing the squeeze. Seems to me that in order to combat the so called "labour shortage" (which sounds like a scam to me, why not increase wages if you want more workers, isn't that how the free market is supposed to work?), governments are willing to import cheap labour, but not willing to address the problems that occur as a result. Looking more objectively, the problem with this debate, and what makes it political, is that a whole lot of blame gets passed around: "it is the fault of the rent-seeking capitalists", "it is the fault of all the bureaucratic red tape", "it is the fault of local nimby associations", "it is the fault of the immigration policy", the latter of which I am guilty of blaming myself. There is always someone to point the finger at, because everyone is partly guilty, but the problem persists because no one wants to compromise.
The issue is that if you're going to tax the ever-beloving jeebus out of multi home owners, you also need to introduce some kind of rent control to stop the extra costs being passed on. As for the "extra benefits" you mentioned, we had a similar thing that was kick started by allowing people to purchase their council-rented houses in the 80s - basically removing public renting and now people on housing benefits have to pass that money onto a private landlord, instead of that person just being provided a free place to live and that money being saved and only being spent where needed.
I don't think rent would go up too much if the rent is appropriately progressive. A progressive tax would make people with only one or two properties to be able to rent homes with a massive advantage. This would make monopolization impossible. Rent could still go up a bit, but would be kept close to cost of operation due to market forces. Definitely would make a rocky transition if the new taxes are applied to suddenly. Also, I suspect apartment complexes would have some exceptions so that apartments can exist.
Rent control only results in higher rent prices for everyone else who isn’t privileged enough to live in the same apartment for 20 years. The problem is low, manipulated interest rates controlled by central bankers which only incentivizes speculators to buy up as much real estate as possible. Let interest rates rise to appropriate levels and watch all these speculators go bankrupt.
@@joshuacook2the multiple housing tax (or whatever you want to call it) should be tied to a plot of land. So if you own a 20 unit apartment building, you don’t pay an extra tax for each unit, you just pay the tax for owning the land. Each new parcel of land you own the more you are taxed. This also incentivizes the developer to build more units on the property they already own.
It’s not corporate land owners. That’s a very small percentage of ownership. It’s government restrictions on home construction. Allow builders to build! Allow ADUs. Allow construction of duplexes, triplexes, and quads!
Maybe until you look at specific towns like fort Worth where I thought I read somewhere like 26% of single family homes were owned by a corporation... These companies are buying large amounts of real estate and it should just be illegal.
As a Sydneysider (Sydney has had the worst of the housing affordability crisis in Aus since... as long as I've been old enough to be properly aware of the news), I'm so sorry that y'all have to live through this same shit. At least we're starting to put measures in place to address the "missing middle" density apartment blocks to improve the supply side, but that's still going to take _years_ to come online, and meanwhile I've had friends with high paying tech jobs move back in with their parents because rent is just too dang high 😞 Honestly, an alternative solution to building up Sydney is to invest in high speed rail to the nearby regions, to have multiple small hubs rather than continue to struggle with the one big one. But high speed rail is a running joke in Australian politics for a reason 😞
Even the regions around sydney are not affordable, so even if you got rail there it wouldn't help. Even in the country it isn't really affordable if you are single relative to the wages we get.
Supply alone can't bring prices down because prices coming down requires demand to fall and if demand falls there's no incentive to create new supply. Housing starts continue to fall off a cliff in Canada despite all the major zoning reforms undertaken in the past year and medium density housing isn't feasible on extremely expensive land. There won't be enough units to cover the cost + maintenance. We're doomed.
1. make it illegal to kick out a tenant and then start charging more to a new tenant. the new tenant can only pay as much as the old tenant paid 2. make it illegal to raise rent more than a certain approved percentage per year, for all landlords, regardless of dwelling type or when the building was built 3. make it illegal for a newly constructed building to charge rent that is not comparable to the rent being charged at other nearby similar properties
It's definitely not as bad here in America but it's definitely getting close. Big corporations seem to also be buying new developments here and cranking up the prices. Sometimes I'll drive buy and I'll see like only 2 or 3 houses out of 20 with people actually living in them. The younger generations are getting screwed over in just about every way possible, and until we get some changes or a crash it will be hard to say when this madness will end.
The biggest mistake I made was being 14 when the housing market last crashed. Instead of buying up foreclosed properties I was living in one and had to move loool.
Yeah, this trend of investment banks buying up vast amounts of property and land is very sinister. Especially whilst much of it sits empty. At the same time that small businesses can't afford premises. And average people can't afford homes. It's all turning a bit feudal.
By removing R1 (Single-family residential) zoning, what cities are doing is increasing the ability for more housing supply to be built. So even if developers are developing the land, at some point, the supply of housing will be high enough compared to the demand for the prices to start dropping. In that case, developing might not be profitable anymore and may therefore require govt subsidies in order to encourage the increase of supply. Also the removal of R1 is also to allow some plots in areas to become mixed-use where they provide greater tax revenue to cities. Especially when compared to R1 zoning which basically puts cities in debt because the density is so low. R1 zoning removal also lets us build places that are more socioeconomically diverse (which is a good thing). Basically removing R1 gives more money over to the city which can then use it to build sustainable infrastructure.
I find there should be similar limits on increasing cost of basic necessities, like food, clothes, essential household items. But I imagine it would be really difficult to enforce. Still, they need to do something. If minimum wage goes up by 7% and within a month the average cost of groceries has gone up by 10%, the system is broken.
there is a reason why everything increases in price in direct proportion to minimum wage. this is basic business. if i have more expenses i have to charge more or i lose my business.
@@Jimothy-723 Right, but if minimum wage increases by 7%, that's only a 7% increase to your minimum wage employees. Your mortgage stays the same, same for incoming stock and the electricity bill and insurance. None of those should go up. Let's be generous and say your minimum wage employees make up half of your expenses. So the cost of your goods should only increase by 3.5% to make up the difference. That's a fair increase. If your goods actually go up by 10% to 12% you're not just adjusting to the market. You're being greedy. And all the supermarkets are doing this.
Most folks I know in Real Estate are telling me by end of 2024 to mid 2025 they expecting the market (at least where I am and possibly across the US) to drop back down to at least 2017-2018 prices (pre-covid).
@@Kwistenbiebel200 True, but the massive cost increases in the last few years has been insane. It is normally on par (or slightly above) that of the normal inflation rate.
Only problem with that is people with 2% interest rates just aren't going to take the hit, I mean, it's why my starter house probably isn't going to be a starter house
@@JollyGiant19 Not exactly, but take my area for example. Housing here has nearly doubled, depending on the neighborhood. Prices were actually reasonable when I moved back here in 2018. SO, if I were in the market next year for a house, yes I would have a higher interest rate, but once that rate were to come down, probably another 2 years, I would refinance. It is a viscious cycle however, and has gotten worse the last two bubbles. If prices dropped to the post 2008 bubble prices that would be great for buyers, but then we will see the same thing that happened then happen again. Folks who bought in the bubble will buy a far cheaper home nearby, move then foreclose on their existing house, pushing the banks to look for bailouts again. There is a better option but no government will step up to make it happen.
In that topic, a lil fun fact from the history: The nobility used to own land. We start to get back to that situation slowly with gigantic housing companies, pretty much just increasing pricing slowly. In germany, rent nowadays eats up half of what is left after taxes for the median income and that is without appliances paid
It's almost like there are inherent contradictions in the system that will inevitably lead to a conflict between the ownership class and working class i wonder if anyone has looked into this
Hopefully the conclusion won't be that there should be a continued and violent uprising, because that would be senseless extremism... Luckily people are smart enough to not buy into stuff like that, right?
What's crazy is that I'm seeing my area slowly build more houses (absurdly large, 4-bedroom suburban sprawled houses that take up too much land) that start at nearly 700k, but because no one can afford that... I also noticed they are now switching to "renting" out these newly built homes... starting at $3700 a month, which is insane (apartment prices are following suit). Without doxing myself, I live in a poor ass desert wasteland with only a subway and Starbucks nearby as entertainment, so to start at those prices is what seems to be a trend even in undesirable locations. This all being a "market" means if these dumb rich people f$%# up their "investment" strategy... they get to scrape it off and "try again next time" while everyone else deals with the consequences.
But with the "supply and demand" conversation at play here, we also have to consider the number of homes that go vacant due to multi-owners holding and unwilling to sell at a loss. Which, for most of California, is a ridiculous amount.
If it takes more than 2 month to get approval for EVERYTHING approved, if you have the plans made, then it takes too long to build a house or city block. Two houses should be affordable, not only one, but I agree that everything after that should go through the roof in taxes, and companies should have an even steeper increase in taxes, and those should include companies in which one company owns actions or part of the company. That way, if a company wants to buy a city block, they won't be able to buy each apartment with another company they own and pay taxes only with those companies, but they would have to pay taxes with both the smaller companies and the holdings company, even if they only own one action or 1% of the company, compounded with the actions and companies owned by the companies it owns or has actions of. For example, for companies, A owns 1% of B and one stock of C, B has one stock of C, then C would need to pay property taxes for the building it owns, B would need to pay property taxes for what properties B and C own, and I would need to pay property taxes for what A, B, C, and C own. Even if not in full, and only in addition (i.e. company B would pay for what it owns and for the percentage of ownership that it owns in the form of that action of company C; for example 1 action could be 2% then the state would get 100% of the rent for property of C from C, and another 2% from B). Would that be unfair? Maybe to the holdings companies owning other holdings companies which own other holdings companies and so on, but not for individuals and very small buildings.
I live in a college town in the Midwest us. The town is growing with other industries and home prices have skyrocketed in the last decade. Now developers have slowed down on building individual homes and jamming apartment buildings in every available square inch of space. The biggest problem is that all of these apartments cost the same amount of money, or more than a mortgage cost. Instead of being able to build equity and having ownership of anything, people are having to pay lots of money to the corporate o welds that are laughing all the way to the bank with people’s money and they get nothing to call their own for it. It’s despicable. If these apartments were more like condos that you can own, that would be good, but they’re all rentals.
Blame the “local control” of the government. If that was a state level thing instead and much more free, they could offer condos. But as it is now those lots are zoned for apartments so that’s all you get! Try anything else and they’ll stop you
In the US, the rental assistance programs lead to landlords rushing to increase the rent to the max the assistance would offer. It is similar to the EV tax credits where the $7500 credit lead to car makers increasing their prices by roughly the same amount as the tax credit. Anyway, I had to rush into home ownership since it was cheaper than renting in most states. The issue is that most landlords want to leverage properties that are not paid off. The end result is they mortgage a house, and then set the rental fee as 2+ times the mortgage rate in order to immediately turn it into an income generating property. Once a critical mass of people doing that was reached, then landlords who paid off their house 10+ year sago, also increased their rates to match the people who were using the rent to cover an existing mortgage and turn a profit. Given when many homes in my area were purchased by landlords, and their rent, they are effectively taking a ~$1500-$2000 mortgage payment, and turning it into a $5K per month rent when it comes to existing mortgages.
Same thing happens with Military towns. Apartments find out what the exact "Basic Allowance of Housing" is for their particular city, and just match it exactly.
Meh, it is a supply and demand issue. Blocking owning as investment lowers demand, especially if they sat empty. Allowing conversion of single-family homes into triplexes is a great way to add supply.
@@personzorzYou presuppose a perfectly rational system. Reality is most people own a single home not because they simply can’t afford it but because taking care of more than one sucks so much.
@@JollyGiant19 I am gonna need some stats about the fact that people can just afford more than one house, theyjust dont want to. Interesting assumption since the problem is that people dont have money for first house.
But the supply is for renters. So you'll never actually own property. Of course property ownership comes with its own costs (school and municipal taxes, repairs) but you have equity in that property. The whole point of wanting to own your property is for that equity aspect.
On one hand i get it,on the other hand doing something so drastic all of the sudden would feel like overreach into private property and tampering with markets That said something has to be done so its not this crazy
Part of that issue is the cost of permitting, back in the day a 1b/1b was easy to bang out. In most places you need to wait the same amount of time for a 1b/1b as that 3b/2.5b so why not build the more expensive one?
@@JollyGiant19 exactly, I use to swing a hammer years ago. Cousin had a business building houses in NW Arkansas years ago. 20 years ago the profit margins on a tri plex where less than a large home that had similar specs in footage and bed/bath. And I'm not meaning a small difference. And what went into them was almost identical in materials. Can't blame a business for wanting to make more money.
I'm taking one of my master's courses on social policy, and one of the topics is on affordable housing, which is my seminar lead topic later in the class. I'm going to use a segment of this video to kick off my discussion, so thanks for discussing this!
A few years back, there was a development of houses built that were made to be more affordable entry homes. An agency came to nnane bought them all just to turn around and rent them out instead. It's terrible.
Properties here have gone up so much, even if prices dropped 50%, it would only really correct it back to 2016 ish values, that is how insane it is. I agree, I want a correction. The other issue is landlords and building owners asking for crazy amounts of money on 30 year old properties.
Australia and New Zealand are both in the same situation as Canada. Huge amounts of immigration with no supply and tax laws that support multiple investment properties
I'm sort of ok with companies running apartment buildings ... kind of. My problem is single family housing being bought up for purposes other than living, by humans /or/ companies. Basically, as a landlord, your "value add" is that you are getting a plot to house multiple people/families. If that's not the case, as with single family houses, then ... you're not adding anything.
Yeah, purpose built rental apartments are not that bad. You can also have government regulation to ensure that renter's still have sufficient rights. You're also less likely to be evicted, with a mom and pop landlord, they could decide to evict you to move in. If rents are too high, the problem isn't corporate landowners but restrictive zoning not allowing enough apartments to be built.
@@jiecut I don't really mind the mom & pop stuff either, as long as there's value add via density. Even if they take up a unit themselves, it's still multiple things on one lot. I think mom & pop landlords are pretty light on evictions too, honestly, and more likely to have rent increases below market than a corporate one.
My neighbour was building his house last year, it cost him 25,000 just in permits and engineering to put in just his septic system. Ten years ago, all you had to do was be a distance away from water sources and you dig a hole pour a barrel of water in it and time how long it takes to drain. There's no need to have so much bureaucracy to build a single family home.
Thank you for pointing out Australia's problem. No one talks about it outside of us. You can find 2 bedroom houses in a moderately decent neighborhood for $800,000, and some apartments in Sydney sell for $2 MILLION And also this is probably the best I've heard it be explained
As someone who closely follows housing, this conversation is close but it misses. You're omitting the single biggest culprit, which is Exclusionary Zoning. Canadian cities have atrocious land-use policies where a small central district allows high rises and everywhere else bans everything except for Single Family houses. When it's illegal to build more housing on 95% of the land in your city, you can't be shocked there's a housing shortage. 4:15 Ending Single Family zoning is unequivocally a good thing. That 100% will and does lower housing costs. The reason the infrastructure is bad there is because there isn't enough density there yet to pay for good infrastructure. Linus, legalizing low-cost housing is going to allow for more low-cost housing. Don't do mental gymnastics to flip that on its head. Linus, more housing supply 100% means lower rent prices. The reason prices are high is because rental vacancy rates are so low. Historically the trend is that when the vacancy rate is over 5% rents go down and when the vacancy rate is under 5% rents go up. So it's no surprise rents have been shooting up in Vancouver and Toronto with 1.5% and 2.5% vacancy rates, respectively.
Don’t frame it as “ending single family zoning” because people will think you’re trying to shove them into a box and no one wants that if they can help it It’s better to say that the goal is to let the market forces work. TVs are cheap because they build so many of them and in so many different versions so anyone can get the best they can afford, housing is going to get that same great treatment! Just with a whole lot less motion blur 😂
@@superslash7254 You may not think property rights are important but I do. I support the freedom to build the type of housing that I want on the property that I own, and you do not. You want to restrict the type of home that people can build to some dead person's exact specification. You're a weird authoritarian, and I'm pro-freedom.
YES! THANK YOU! As a Canadian this is exactly what I try to tell everyone who will listen. Plus the fact that real estate agents are effectively just middle men that try to get sellers to sell even higher with blind bidding and other skeezy tactics! Because they get paid in percentages. Also one of the only ways for Canadian government officials to make money outside of their salarys is to "invest in" real estate. So they're not only buying up multiple homes but they also are inherently incentivized to never allow any laws to pass that'll punish the purchase of multiple homes. But thank you guys for saying this! Way too many people I work with agree with this silly idea that the right wing partys are pushing that immigrants are "the problem" even though due to our ageing population immigrants aren't only not "the problem" but are actually a necessity to our economy and are only going to become more and more of one. Fixing the housing crisis isn't going to be one simple thing and anyone who tells you that is lying to you or miss informed and will probably just be giving you a scapegoat to get mad at. 7:34
Of course the government should subsidize rent. There are two options: you use public funds to build public housing for people in need, creating ghettos and locking people to a certain area instead of giving them freedom to move where the jobs are, or you use public money to build houses, rent them on the market, then use the money of the rent to subsidize rent of vulnerable families. That lets people move to where the jobs are, eliminates ghetto formation, and allows the government to slowly ween people off the subsidy as they increase their wages, therefore aligning everyone's incentives. Make the government (us) the biggest landlord.
Linus is actually saying the thing I have been telling everyone around me. Also It should be actually illegal to own multiple properties in residential areas.
@@madaqqqaz How so? People dont need more than 1 house. Seasonal homes that you arent living in are wasteful as fuck. Someone else could be using that home full time. Private planes are also insanely wasteful and once again a tool of the rich because theyre too important to fly with the peasants.
@@renderedpixels4300 Sorry but i dont see the problem in people making money off of houses. But I see the problem when large companies buy hundreds or thousands of homes.
A housing crash isn't going to solve this issue, because no matter how you slice it we don't have enough homes for the people we already got. Developers and banks will sit on properties until prices normalize and companies will buy up huge swaths of homes because if its a buyers market right after a crash for the average person its the same for a company. The only solution is for us to massively increase housing development, which we can and have done in the past right after World War 2 homes were being built in less than 2 weeks and no power-tools. The Government made a crown corporation and had stack of cookie-cutter design for houses with pre-designated materials for a few dozen designs so every aspect of the build can be cranked out as fast as humanly possible. That is how you fix the situation we are in.
The problem is zoning. 80% of Vancouver is zoned for only single family homes, 80%. It’s been zoned this way since the 1970s even as the region has added nearly 2 million people Your not solving the housing crisis without building more townhomes, condo towers, and 5 over 1s. There just isn’t enough land to go around for everyone to live in a house in Vancouver
Prices are a nightmare in germany as well, even if we only talk about renting. Nowadays you pretty much need at least to people that earn pretty good to afford an apartment the size of like 75m²
Despite some problems with LTT, that are unavoidable when you grow, Linus still stands on very solid foundations as a person despite being VERY wealthy.
7:20 "The amount of housing isn't going up as fast as the amount of people. It doesn't matter why the source of the amount of people." The source is the thing that can be controlled. Failing to take available actions on both the supply and demand is consciously neglecting to act in the interest of the citizens.
For the rentals my friend's dad owns, he and his dad put in a lot of work fixing and upgrading them every time a tenant turns over, ensuring there isn't deferred maintenence. They also mow weekly do all the snow/ice removal. There is worked involved in maintaining and together they hit the limit of the properties they can do the work on themselves. I think combined they own 6 properties totaling about 20 units. It is work. Not Canadian, my understanding is that the market is worse/more speculative there than here in the USA, I live in Nebraska where cost of living is pretty decent and less speculative compared with even domestic markets.
@@gljames24 then go for it and form one. You can go through your county/state/province/cities GIS mapping lot value, and drive through all the neighborhoods and look for empty lots or run down house or 6 plex and form a co-op with some people to buy the lot, get a construction loan and build or renovate a place. The owner of the empty lot or place should have their contact info as that’s where the Gov sends the tax paperwork.
@@gljames24 again, your situation may be different and your landlord may be overcharging, but my “mortgage” on my townhome 50% of it is property taxes, the rest is the mortgage itself. Same goes for any landlord, as they have the mortgage to pay and property taxes.
I thought I was smart to not buy a condo 10 years ago when I arrived in BC. I looked at the numbers and the graphs, and the numbers all screamed 'bubble'. 10 fucking years later, and I could have doubled or tripled my money. It's absurd.
In nova scotia 20 years ago you could get a pretty nice house for 150k or less, my mom did it, her house is huge. that same house now costs close to 1 million dollars. Between fires that burned down many houses, and the government insisting on increasing canadas population as fast as possible, the housing crisis has no end. The answer we got was "increase interest rates" all that seemed to do was make it even more expensive to get a mortgage, prices never went down. It doesn't matter what the reasons are or what incentives are in place or what the interest rates are. So long as amount of people here is greater than the amount of houses, the prices won't go down.
If anyone is up for a little reading, the Henry George tax is at least an interesting idea. In theory it could help mitigate the housing and land problems but with any set of rules, there could be just as much exploitation anyways. Its like hacking in a way, there is always an exploit people will take advantage of.
The solution needs to include building more housing, adding density to our cities, and getting rid of tax incentives that make housing such a lucrative investment. Not everyone needs a single family home. We need more apartment and condo buildings that are built to accommodate families.
Linus's point about wanting a property crash is actually my similar way of thinking for energy, oil, and the environment. It's going to hurt. It will hurt me. But it needs to happen, and I've gone through enough hardship in my life to know that having to change something isn't going to kill me. I've had to start with basically nothing to my name twice before I was 18. Like learning a skill, a little bit of hardship goes a long way.
I think there is a case to be made that some landlords do provide a service. Lots of people don’t want to buy property because they don’t plan on living in a place for more than a few years, renting is good choice for them and so you need landlords with properties available for rent. Another potential benefit is giving people a place to learn independence away from parents before being given complete responsibility for a property, letting people ease into home ownership. I think there will always be space for landlords to exist and it’s possible for them to be responsible and beneficial to society. The issues come about when landlords are able to pass legislation limiting the creation of new buildings to form a monopoly on the housing market, allowing them to charge sky high prices while putting in the bare minimum work and hold the entire economy hostage because people still need somewhere to live.
Keep in mind there aren’t enough landlords to pass that kind of legislation like you’re thinking, it’s only done with the help of other homeowners in the area. The key is to take away local control of zoning and make a much more free market for building so many different lifestyles and construction can be supported.
In Australia we have "negative gearing" where you can lease out a home, and if the rent doesn't cover the interest on the mortgage, then you get that difference back as a tax break(this encourages loans where you only pay off the interest and not the principle). so If you're earning a reasonable amount of money and paying tax, you can essentially keep the rental property without it actually costing you anything. But as soon as you pay off the mortgage then you get taxed on the rental income
Interesting that Linus brought up ghost cities in China. From what I understand most ghost cities from ten years ago are functioning cities right now. This kind of centralized planning of the housing supply to meet their population growth is clearly a good idea.
I mean if you believe the propaganda yea they’ve also had massive problems with tofu construction building falling down and have crazy high land prices also there biggest real estate developers just folded and almost took out there economy so they arnt a good example of how to do things right
hey hey, i went to multiple charter public schools as a child. Woah woah, here in califonia, charter schools have CEO's. They are considered public and are funded by taxes. I remember a lot of marketing straight to families, for the children. Lots of laptop pushing, lavish 3rd party trips, and my family got particularly pushed to cancel their $1.5k already payed trip. No refunds. And all for my "poor performance" because i never did homework. But they explicitly mentioned how they "didnt know how I got straight A's on my tests, when no homework". Going back home was so fun.
Biggest investment for my future was in 2020 I bought a bass guitar. That was the beginning of an exodus to Calgary while I moved there from a smaller town nearby with no job. Rent went up 3x, groceries doubled and availability was decimated to nothing. Now the future is this, but with more ads promoting it as humane. And I think it's nice I can express this through a four string. When I was a kid my parents told me "you could live a happy life married on a combined income of $75k in Alberta." So be real, you believed that you'd put your head down and find something to escape that wasn't behind a paywall too.
@@personzorz Man wants failed ghost town where people working on the first floor can't afford the housing above it, so the wealthy push for public transit, but then when the taxes go up to pay for it, they move away.
In the US, most major cities have a huge portion of the apartment market being controlled by about 5 companies that constantly shuffle building around and are found to be price fixing multiple times a year- they don't care, they just pay the slap on the wrist fee and keep jacking up rents. In the DC area, some of these buildings sit at 1/3 open occupancy just to keep prices high even though the demand can't meet it.
You know, figuring out that Linus' political views translate to him being pretty liberal on the American spectrum has significantly increased my respect for the man.
Mixed use is a great idea for building actual communities (as opposed to soul-less suburbs), but I think it would only help the housing crises a small amount.
Here in Phoenix Arizona we have 2 companies buying up all of the apt complexes. 1 company is called Rise and the other is called Tides. The buy a apt complex and do a lipstick paint job on it and then raise the rent. My old apt, 600sqft, rented for 700 dollars. Now 3 yrs later it rents for 1300.
"You don't get to line up for the buffet again, until everyone's got a plate." - Linus Sebastian. This needs to be the baseline of every conversation about this.
So 1 for the husband, 1 for the wife then create a corporation for each additional property? I think this would be a nightmare to enforce.
@@vordax it'0s pretty easy. just bar any non natuiral entities from owning residential property.
@@anonym3017 So, a builder who is building 200 houses in an area would only be able build one and sell one at a time :) Also lots of people uses trusts to hold assets for kids and other purposes. Need to to throw in a lot of exceptions, in the long run, knowing politicians the law will end up being the same, just more convoluted. Not that most politicians would go against the special interest groups.
@@vordax or you know sell the houses before they are completed.
and if you want your kids to have something just give it to them. trusts ain't required.
so exceptions ain't necessary
@vordax if the builder is building homes, then he owns no homes. So when the builder finishes the home, they can hold the home for x amount of time before they get hit with tax burden. Solved.
fun fact, in Canada 40 years ago, 40 thousand homes were made a year. That number has halved... that's not how numbers are supposed to work.
Even we made 70k a year in the Netherlands. And that's a low number, and we have an active housing bubble as well. So that number is very very low.
😂 there are that many migrants if not more coming in a month. Yeah its low and its not on accident
So, no, it's much higher than that in Canada, 40, even nearly 80 years ago (1948 90k houses for example). It's currently around 260k, it should be more though. It's way to low in BC and Ontario and Quebec especially (but BC is around that 40-50k number alone btw). Supply and nimbyism is still less of the problem than allowing residential units to be investment properties, especially by non-resident aliens and corporations. Ban single family, semi-detached and up to six unit projects from having any corporate ownership for rent (owning it for a perk for an employee is fine). Ban non-resident alien ownership of ordinary residential properties (ski condo, fine). Ban corporate ownership over 20% of a project for apartments/condos/townhomes or similar types of property. Exceptions can be made in the last instance for new construction for a period of 2 years until a sale can be made. Current owners can be grandfathered for a period of 3 years to prevent rapid price collapse issues.
when the borders weren't flooded daily...
@@benjaminhawkes6693 You could do all of those things all still have an affordability crisis. The reality is that population growth is greater than the capacity for homes, so you need to both decrease incentives to use it as an investment AND build more houses. NIMBYism is still a problem.
The fact that my wife and I both realized the other day that we wont be able to buy a house unless we both make 6figures was a fun time.
Inflation is fun...
I just don't think about that I will not have a future. Life is more bearable that way.
Buy a house the way I did: wait for your parents to pass away and leave you a house. That's about the only reasonable way in nowadays.
@@Igneusflama Property tax. HOA fees. Utilities cost. The only way this gets fixed is if inflation is minimized / stopped. Saving money becomes achievable again.
if your living anywhere but cali or NY and not spending all your money on entertainment it does NOT take that much to buy a house
The UK is a nightmare too. The government sold off social housing in the 1980's, local government (councils) don't have the money to build/ buy new social housing and if you're on benefits you get "Housing Support" so the money goes straight to landlords.
yep! don't get me started on how 'Association' housing is financed for the purchase of new homes which have to be built as planning regulations state, its a great con! tax payer (by tenant's housing benefit) financed equity funds, but at least those equity funds pay their tax right??? Right?
We need rent control asap
@@DogWick and for governments to actually build social housing!
The 'Right to Buy' for council (social) housing in the UK explicitly blocked the local councils from using the money from the sale of their council houses to build more council houses. So the available social housing stock naturally reduced but could not be replaced by the councils that had sold them. Then the government encouraged housing 'Associations' to be created to build any new social housing, so the local councils don't actually own them.
Then to keep the sacred economy number going up slightly they import city-sized populations of people every year _without fail_ and have been since the 90's. Even during lockdown they insisted on importing a Glasgow-sized number of immigrants. Our entire economy seems to exists simply as an immigrant pyramid scheme for the asset owning classes to exploit.
A while back Japan introduced an 'empty house' tax. I think that is something that the governments of Canada, the UK and Australia should consider copying. I don't know about the exact situation in Canada but here in the UK much of what would be low cost housing has been bought up by investment firms and the same goes for empty plots of land. A tax on properties that remain empty would at least encourage investors to make these houses fit to live in and available for the rental market rather than sitting empty until the price increases to the desired amount at which point it would probably go to some other investor who would leave it empty.
That's 100% the problem in most parts of the US too. Tons of homes empty either full time or most of the year due to "Investments" or they are vacation homes in very dense parts of the state taking away from the livable areas. I haven't looked it up in a while, but I know LA had a big empty home problem due to speculation which caused their housing market to just fucking implode.
We have an empty homes tax in BC. The problem is multi-faceted.
Pretty sure Vancouver has a tax on empty homes based on a a percentage of the annual property tax.
Looking it up --- "Properties deemed or declared empty in the 2023 reference year will be subject to a tax of 3% of the property’s 2023 assessed taxable value" (from the City of Vancouver website, the Empty Home Tax is what it is called).
they have done this over here in australia just recently did something like this but exclusively for overseas investors.
Yeah, I'm usually quite a free-market advocate. But housing is different. People need homes, and they're in short supply. They should not just be passed around as financial assets. If you want to own more than one home, you should pay a lot of tax on it.
I am a 35-year-old guy down here in Florida. I just bought a house earlier this year, but I was only able to accomplish it through an extraordinary set of circumstances. Being able to own your own home shouldn't give you the same feeling as winning the lottery, but unfortunately that's exactly how I felt.
@italianbasegard For an amount that was actually meaningful? Once. If you must know, I "won the lottery" because I was able to purchase the home privately, off market, for a price that was under market value. In terms of real estate, that is winning the lottery.
Isn't Florida a dangerous place to live in like 20 to 30 years ? Or is that only Miami and not the whole of Florida?
@jorismak You're mostly thinking of South Florida, although we do have quite a bit of crime in Tampa and Jacksonville as well. I live in the suburbs of Orlando, and it's relatively safe. To be fair, most big cities in the country have really dangerous areas in them. Just go to Northern Milwaukee, East St Louis, or anywhere in Chicago to see what I mean.
@@jameslwjtolerWas mostly thinking about water, floods and weather related. Crime is everywhere in the world unfortunately.
@jorismak Oh, I follow you. That's really not true at all. The only thing I would tell you is that I wouldn't want to own Coastal Property here. A direct hit from a hurricane could be pretty devastating. Other than that, it's really not that big of a deal. You just have to make sure you do a good job maintaining your yard, like removing dead limbs from trees and making sure nothing is near your roof or home. It's also a good idea to keep some sandbags around and always have emergency supplies stocked up. Stuff like batteries, a first aid kit, a few cases of bottled water, canned food, and if you're lucky, a generator. I've been through pretty much every major hurricane in Florida in the last 30 years, and they are definitely frightening, but they're not as big a deal as you would think if you're educated and prepared.
Growing up, the month of rain we got in the 2004 hurricane season knocked my power out for over a month. It was absolutely miserable. The only reason it happened is because we had the oldest electrical transformer in the county, and they ended up having to replace our entire electrical system for around a dozen households. I can genuinely say I don't know anyone who has died, been injured, or lost a loved one in a hurricane.
The wildlife down here is a different conversation, but again, if you are prepared and educated, it's just not that big of a deal.
A fun fact I'll leave you with is that Florida is the flattest state in the United States. It's even flatter than Kansas, Kentucky, Wyoming, or any of the other states that are generally considered to be really flat. The closest thing you're getting to a hill here is a man-made embankment off the highway.
As long as the land owning class and the regulation making class has a 1:1 overlap it's not going to change. Of course they will try to stuff their pockets with "rent subsidies". That's what they've been trying to achieve for decades.
Government is the problem. They started it, they can stop it. Canada is screwed with current leadership.
Exactly... and this is why this conversation is political.
And it's good that it is. Because all the "I don't like politics" folks are the reason why these things are a mess. They can't be bothered to look out for their own best interests - which means holding the wealthy accountable using **gasp** political means.
Unfortunately true.
The land owning class only wants to have as many properties as they want, and the price always going up, and no controls on rent. Basically a legal assurance that their investments will make them money forever.
Said very well. In Australia it's actual fucked, between homeowners using their collateral as negative gearing on other houses to basically buy new homes with very little risk, over seas investors allowed to buy property even though they will never live in them, and corps buying property still. It's impossible for a normal person to get a house now.
yep, ive been living in my grans front room for the last few months as i cant find anywhere to live.
there are so few houses and so many people.
@@guesswho2778 Sadly this is all too common. In my area the only people I know that aren't getting eaten alive by rent is if they were able to get a house from a deceased relative or if they just know someone that cuts them a deal on rent everyone else i know of is getting destroyed in rent and it seems every few months their rent is increasing a couple hundred dollars. Meanwhile Wages in the area are really stagnate and haven't went up all that much def not enough to compensate for rent. This isn't just min wage job its all jobs across the region haven't seen much if any growth.
All I'm saying is, Rome had the same issue and they overthrew the republic and installed ceaser who promised and delivered land reform
Rome had a slavery problem
@@unknowncsd They also had a stabbing problem that Ceaser failed to solve.
@@scrawnyclownsnatch9656one guy can’t fix everything
@@unknowncsdwhole world had that problem back then. Your comment adds nothing
@@unknowncsd"some of you may die but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
I’m so happy someone with a big audience like Linus is talking about this.
not only that, he's a millionaire the politicians need to give a shit about.
@@sadmanh0 why? Linus is pretty rich and has a lot of assets bit he's not in a business or position that gives him any significant power in this matter.
In the past he talked about people scalping PS5s, talked about people scalping GPUs, so now he's talking about people scalping houses and apartments.
@@SyntheticFuture what businesses and positions do you think have power? Everything boils down to money, more money more power.
@@sadmanh0 anything involving oil, precious metals, silicone manufacturers, arms manufacturers, real estate titans.
Definitely not some lonely tech tuber.
Yk Tokyo doesn’t have a housing crisis, because they allow housing to be built basically almost anywhere. Arbitrary zoning red tape usually is the biggest hurdle to getting housing built
Japan also treats homes as disposable instead of investments. That plays into that immensely and that's something that will never happen in the US
Government is the problem. They started it, they can stop it. Canada is screwed with current leadership.
@@HH-le1viWhy are homes profitable as investments?
@@michaelhutchings6602 because of speculation
"My house is right next to a lot where they're building an industrial smelting operation that will run 24/7 at 90db. it will be noisy, but at least the mortgage is reasonable!" -- said no one ever
Same problem in Holland. Housing is crazy expensive. Houses are for people not for profit.
I had a friend move there for a bit. It was insanely hard and expensive to find a small apartment.
Food is for people not for profit. Clothes are for food not for profit.
The free market is the best way to solve this. Get rid of some of the no-longer-necessary regulations and watch new home builds increase. Get government to intervene some more and watch home prices continue to increase.
My family got their apartment from my grandma. It's just 50 square meters. It cost like 150k when it was new. (about 230k accounting for inflation), It was a sum you could get in a 4-5 years of average-paying work. Now, even if I were to become a senior software developer, it would take me about 15 years to buy it. It now costs about 1.2 million. Even with a job that requires like 10 years of experience, I would have to work the next 15 years to afford a 50m apartment. What the actual fuck.
Whoa. That's insane. In which city is this?
@@polymerizedrecordsgood chance it's either in LA, NY, SF, Seattle, or a different major city.
All those cities are getting railed by the issues Linus brought up
So what? My parents bought house and paidoff in 20 years. No Landlords,owning House. Still better then pay to landlord and Problems that come with. Your mentallity is Problem.
@@QuikK4FUN can't find where anybody asked
@@0008loser hahahahahahh poor
When the waves of Boomers start dying, the housing market is going to go even higher. I got lucky, I got into my house before the bubble started, and I recently sold it. I was then gifted my mom's house when she passed away. I no longer have a mortgage, and in my mid thirties that is a huge step ahead of anybody else from my graduating class.
Aye, it's going to increase wealth inequality between social classes, not just generations.
It's going to get worse before things reach critical mass. Boomers won't just drop all at once one day, they are going to desperately cling to life for as long as possible in a slow trickle towards oblivion, just so they can give two middle fingers to the younger generation on their way into the grave, Terminator-style. That means absurd assisted living and medical costs because we all know how much private equity loves investing in infrastructure. The Boomer parents will say "I'm not living in this house, so I'll just sell it to afford giving private equity even more of my life savings," and then a corporation will outbid literally everyone else by paying 50% over market rate and steal the home from a family that needs it. Things are going to get a lot uglier before they get better, and they will only get better because we need these chickens to vote for Col. Sanders so there can be no more chickens left, if you catch my drift.
Reverse Mortgage has entered the chat.
zoning, red tape, and nimbys are the real cause of the housing crisis. near me, there are lots where you are legally not allowed to subdivide your lot below 20 acres per parcel. the HOA will sue you if you try to submit an appeal to subdivide to 10 acres. cheapest lot is 1 million, ridiculous stuff
i'm glad HOA like associations were outlawed where i live in the 90s, they suck, don't do what they should, and squeeze people for all their money
Don't forget they enact policies that make residents' lives a living hell, like forcing home owners to keep their garage doors open during the day so they can check for homeless people living in garages...
@@gamechannel1271 lol what? Land of the free ☕
Mass immigration
@@gamechannel1271that is so ass backwards where i live keeping the garage door closed is how to keep homeless OUT
I'm a home builder in Oregon. Actually used to build affordable housing about 14 years ago. Affordable housing nowadays is a thing of the past that can only be looked at in the history books.
Progressive legislation at the local, state, and federal levels has pushed new construction prices into the stratosphere.
The unintended consequences have been catastrophic. And it continues to get worse.
What type of legislation specifically drives up costs? My assumption would be costs driven up by new safety rules. I do know Oregon is more unique with urban sprawl restrictions.
here in canada builders only build expensive properties, no money to be made in low income/affordable units. Recently saw a 200-300 home development about 15 min out of town, 2 bedroom duplexes, but furnished and finished as super high end vacation homes/rentals. the whole place is like a ghost town since only about 1/10 of the places ever have someone home at any given time.
@@RainyDJ Here are a few from the standpoint of a Washington State USA resident:
1. Urban Growth Management laws (planning departments, restricts supply for little to no reason)
2. Restrictions on raw materials like wood (i.e. restrictive logging, so instead of making lumber it burns)
3. Rent control/subsidies (restricts supply)
4. Subsidized mortgages (drives up demand by people that couldn't afford it, and therefore drives up costs of housing)
5. Property tax rates (~1/3 of my mortgage payment goes towards taxes)
6. Crony capitalism (capitalism is not the problem, the problem is that rich private actors and government officials are in bed with eachother)
Even in rural areas in WA where there are vast open areas and plenty of utility supply, there are laws that prevent property segregation unless property is zoned in a particular way (can't even split off 5 acre parcel off of a 20 acre parcel).
@@RainyDJ Fucking zoning codes and permit BS would be my guess. StrongTowns has went on many rants about how much malarkey is in building permit regulations. Construction agencies don't even know how screwed it is too, I have a relative in construction and he's under the delusion building permit crap that restricts what you can do on your own land needlessly ain't government regulation.
@@RainyDJ Safety is part of it , some of it is efficiency regulations, permitting is huge, land use restrictions, all kinds of stuff honestly.
Pretty much every step in the process can or does have some legislation that can affect cost. Some of it is needed or useful, some probably not, just kinda depends on your views and risk tolerance.
As an American where it's not as bad AND I don't live in a city so it's even less relevant, I still want a crash myself. Been looking to buy a house for a while, but even here, it's hard. I have a hard time fathoming the prices my sister in Minneapolis has to deal with, let alone Canada.
"As an American where it's not as bad..." Where could you possibly live in the US that hasn't been affected by this issue?
@@RonsCompVids Not on either coast lol
@@mistertrackkit's rough even in Texas with relatively low housing because we not only have the federal government not enforcing the border but also have Californians flooding in after having sold million dollar homes buying houses they want at or above asking price driving the demand higher and the prices up across the board.
I moved away from Minnesota a couple of years ago and I really feel for anyone trying to get even a basic house there. Its insanity.
@@RonsCompVids it's not that I haven't been affected, it's just I'm aware it's a lot worse in Canada than in the USA.
To my knowledge, a good reference is A house in urban USA that costs under 500K, will likely be over a million easy in urban Canada.
Also, I live in a small town in Wisconsin, so it's even less expensive here due to the lower population and cheaper land.
This is the single most based conversation I've ever witnessed
The vet thing? In Germany, we have that happening to human doctors. Plus, you can by law only have so many practices in one area, so now I have to go to the ER for a cough.
Technically incorrect, afaik.
You can have as many practices in an area as you want, just the number of practices that are allowed to treat statutory health insurance patients is limited in an area.
Another one of those beautiful "you win even harder when you're rich" things, since you can take better care of your body when there's more doctors available to you.
@@BenMorganxD ah yes, you are right. Bound to the Kammer are only practices that want to treat gesetzlich insured people. However, if you're just your ordinary run-of-the-mill general doctor or dentist, a private-only practice is unlikely to be financially viable, as your theoretical patient basis shrinks to 10(!)%. That would be OK if you made 10 times as much off the privately insured, but you don't, instead you make only about 3 times as much.
So opening a private-only practice is an option for a specialist like a jaw surgeon or an eye doctor. These are the only two I can think of, anyone else is either so specialised they rely on at least renting out operating rooms or outright working for a hospital or not specialised enough to be able to walk all over patients with gesetzliche health insurance. I am privately insured and the only practice that takes private only is the jaw surgeon I went to twice. Also note you need to have 0 morals to be able to say "sorry cant treat you, only private insurance allowed here" when some guy in pain walks in.
@@christianschmitt2409 Only thing I'll add to that is Psychologists. Overall, I'm very much in agreement with you though.
Also " instead you make only about 3 times as much. " is a very damning criticism of the state of healthcare in Germany...
One of the main culprits behind why nothing ever gets done to address house affordability is that most politicians (66%) own property/multiple properties and are NEVER going to do anything that will lower the price of theirs investments. It’s horrible!
Multi-generational homes will simply have to become more popular if something doesn't change. I can't foresee my own kids being able to move out of the house in 5-10 years with the current state of things. We're already multi-generational with my MIL living with us; we did it due to other circumstances, but I can see it becoming a necessity for many families now.
Problem with that is American culture isn’t like that. I run my own business about to start a second business yet my parents are still bothering me to move out when I’m only 19 1/2
@@Brandon-jf9cvits changing quickly. Here in cali living with your parents till 30 is normal, or at least not uncommon.
@@Brandon-jf9cv It will take a change in North American cultural thinking for sure. Multi-generational households isn't a new thing, for a number of cultures this is standard. I would love nothing more for my kids to be able to afford housing when they are ready to move out, but I'm not confident that will become a reality in 5-10 years.
Yea I took over my GrandParents house and I am already pretty much setting it up to where my daughter can live with use for the foreseeable future cause I dont know how she will every be able to move out my wife and I are both college educated and save and we still cant afford anything thats not run down in our area.
That's great and all for the children of land barons, but it doesn't help anyone who is affected by the current state of affairs.
This week, we started to demolish an old 1970s waterfront house up top of a nice bluff over the water. They first submitted for permits over 2 years ago. The build will take another 1.5 years. TWO YEARS to get approval. But also this property will get used twice a year and will end up being around 10m$ after its done. Meanwhile I live in an RV during the week to work on it and go home to a rented 1100 sq ft townhouse that costs me 1500$ a month on the weekends. I spend 150$ a night on my weekend home.
Asking a real estate agent whether you should buy a home right now is like to asking an alcoholic whether they think you should have a drink lol. Homes in my neighborhood that cost around $450k in sales in 2019 are now going for $800 to $950k. Every seller in my neighborhood is currently making a $350k profit. Simply unreal. In all honesty, deflation is what we require. The only other option is for many people to go bankrupt, which would also be bad for the economy. That is the only way to return to normal.
I don't have enough time for investment analysis because of my busy work. My money has been handled by a fiduciary for seven years; they have adjusted to market situations to help me navigate successfully and make wise decisions. Think about a comparable strategy.
this is definitely considerable! think you could suggest any professional/advisors i can get on the phone with? i'm in dire need of proper portfolio allocation
Lynne marie stella is the licensed coach I use. Just research the name. You'd find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
I copied her whole name and pasted it into my browser; her website appeared immediately, and her qualifications are excellent; thank you for sharing.
I did not expect LTT to be offering viewers free copies of "The State and Revolution" - BUT I AM HERE FOR IT.
Let's gooooooo Comrade!!!
w comment comrade!!!
you can't unironically be a communist in 2024. this is ridiculous
@@the.monologue you can't unironically be a liberal in 2024. Free market is destroying our planet
Yeah man, capitalism, the economic model that created this problem, is definitely better. You are very smart unironically@@the.monologue
I think the biggest thing is how slow we build nowadays. In the past they would put up huge subdivisions in just a few months.
That’s thanks to zoning, governments make it slow.
That zoning regulation is a great change, imo. The number one problem - as you said - is that there is a shortage of housing supply and allowing multi-family homes to be built all over is a great step towards fixing that. The infrastructure will need to be improved, but at least people will have a place to live.
Georgism. Only one tax, and it is on the pure value of the land you own regardless of what you do with the land.
Discourages: unused land, owning lots of homes, and so on. Encourages: selling land you aren’t using/making money from, developing land
You can still do tax credits for farmers and other industries where we need them to exist but the income is low enough that owning the land for it isn’t feasible
3:40 we have this in the Netherlands. It does not work. It simply means the price of rent is 1 cent below the max it can be for the person renting the home to receive subsidies.
Now this is not that much of a problem for the person renting the home (as they get subsidies which makes housing... somewhat... affordable) but it's a huge burden on the tax system as there's no hundreds of millions bleeding to already overly wealthy cooperations that still benefit from not building more houses.
in Finland you get rent support if you are under 27, so young people can afford rent no matter where they live and can save up to then join the owners market. Which is not the perfect solution but at least young people are not at such a huge disadvantage.
So government pays landlords?
@@bobsemple9341 Not directly, I would imagine. If I understand it correctly, Denmark has something similar (just seemingly much worse and much less consequential), and I personally get around $50 USD a month in "home support" from the government, which is based on factors like the size of home and rent price.
@@OLBastholm so the government is paying landlords to raise rent?
You don't think much do u?
There's also goverment-owned student housing so the money goes straight to the goverment, also there's a program where for young people if you save something like 15% the cost of your first house/apartment, they offer you a very low intrest and lenient loan for the rest of the cost@@bobsemple9341
@@bobsemple9341I'm Danish, live in Germany. You're right, yes. The money is only needed because the rents are so high, which means the money goes towards landlords. Funny thing is, Danmark is dirt cheap compared to Germany while having more purchasing power. It's a fraction of the cost to rent or buy in Danmark compared to Germany. Yet, both Danmark and Germany, seem content with paying landlords with public funds.
On the issue of density, it's entirely correct that the infrastructure in many of these formerly single-family home areas is equipped for dense development, however, that's generally because big swathes of SFM housing developments are incompatible with quality infrastructure. The cost of infrastructure like pipes, roads, electric and phone lines, all go up more with area covered than with number of customers. Low density just obliterates the operating revenues compared to operating costs. Yes, municipalities don't need to make a huge profit, but they need to at least be solvent to function.
The key with increasing density is that it's most needed inside or at the edges of existing dense areas. Striking down existing SFM zoning allows for dense cities that have random suburbs inside them to move forward with more needed land use like apartments, townhomes, duplexes, etc. Suburban areas that don't have any of the existing appeal of a city might see a couple apartments spring up along a highway or near their local downtown spot, but that still nets the suburban town a benefit.
Overall, density increases will help this crisis *in conjunction with* tax reform and sharp regulation, but you need all 3 of those to make it work.
For anyone who's read this and is still interested in the topic, check out Strong Towns by Charles Marohn, it's an increasingly important topic and worth learning about
They're also zoning for even more density near transit stations. This is a no brainer. We can't limit zoning to only single family zones in this prime real estate. The government is spending billions building this infrastructure. And transit oriented development is key to building scalable cities. We'll have housing that isn't car dependent. And utilities can be efficiently procured for them.
Absolutely agree with this. I do think Linus would be way more educated if he learned some things from Strong Towns. Being against the removal of single family zoning is pretty silly to me.
@@Anna_Rae It's a classical argument: "where would I park my car???". Ideally, you wouldn't even need a car in a properly planned city, also, additional infrastructure can be built, Tokyo is an amazing example of this. But I would agree, that infrastructure should go hand in hand with development, however, temporary additional inconvenience is minuscule compared to benefits of additional housing supply.
Where I live, houses are being built, and people aren't buying them. I know whole neighborhoods that only have 2 houses sold in them
3:27 you mention how rent subsidies would only result in money being handed to landowners and the affordability crisis becoming worse. This is literally what happened with post secondary education. Government student loans need to go too.
No, the private sector needs to go. Why are landlords, insurance companies, or private for-profit colleges even a thing? It’s useless drain on the economy
I am on the other coast in New Brunswick. I bought my house about a year and a half ago. It's a starter town house. Before we got our place we put in an offer on the unit 2 doors down. There was a better cash offer so we did not get it. I later found out that the new tenants there are renting. After a year it was sold again for a profit on the real estate listing it showed that it was being rented for $1200 a month. The new owner is now charging $1400 or $1500 a month for a small 3 bedroom townhouse.
In New Zealand we measure rent as weekly, because 2000+ a month is too scary
My mother always tells me how it was in her past. Landlords did not want singles or unmarried couples without children. They always preferred couples with children over anything else. And the rents were cheaper because the landlords preferred a stable lower secure income over high income but high risk of having an empty place that is not rented out.
We need to go back to this to be honest. It's fucking hard to get a place with family. They don't want that at all.
As a new landlord myself I prefer a secure, but lower, income. Ideal tenants are people who stick around for years, so I don't have to find someone new, which is a big job (it involves conducting job interviews with nearly a hundred applicants). I have heard stories of tenants in some higher-rent places not even lasting six months, which would be a big pain if one didn't have a property manager, but plenty profitable for those property managers.
Also, contrary to Linus' assertion I don't fixate on long term property prices going up, I see property as a relatively low-risk store of value (as opposed to crypto and stonks), so I would obviously be unhappy if the prices crashed because you can bet council rates won't fall if they do, which would keep expenses high for me, on top of the new carpet, windows, toilet, water tank, and paint job I just got done last year.
I see the government subsidies for rent is an obviously bad idea, but also find it unsurprising that high immigration is what is causing the squeeze. Seems to me that in order to combat the so called "labour shortage" (which sounds like a scam to me, why not increase wages if you want more workers, isn't that how the free market is supposed to work?), governments are willing to import cheap labour, but not willing to address the problems that occur as a result.
Looking more objectively, the problem with this debate, and what makes it political, is that a whole lot of blame gets passed around: "it is the fault of the rent-seeking capitalists", "it is the fault of all the bureaucratic red tape", "it is the fault of local nimby associations", "it is the fault of the immigration policy", the latter of which I am guilty of blaming myself. There is always someone to point the finger at, because everyone is partly guilty, but the problem persists because no one wants to compromise.
@MichaelHsieh I have solution - dont be a landlord, let people buy their apartaments and you will never have to deal with that.
The issue is that if you're going to tax the ever-beloving jeebus out of multi home owners, you also need to introduce some kind of rent control to stop the extra costs being passed on.
As for the "extra benefits" you mentioned, we had a similar thing that was kick started by allowing people to purchase their council-rented houses in the 80s - basically removing public renting and now people on housing benefits have to pass that money onto a private landlord, instead of that person just being provided a free place to live and that money being saved and only being spent where needed.
I don't think rent would go up too much if the rent is appropriately progressive. A progressive tax would make people with only one or two properties to be able to rent homes with a massive advantage. This would make monopolization impossible. Rent could still go up a bit, but would be kept close to cost of operation due to market forces.
Definitely would make a rocky transition if the new taxes are applied to suddenly.
Also, I suspect apartment complexes would have some exceptions so that apartments can exist.
Rent control only results in higher rent prices for everyone else who isn’t privileged enough to live in the same apartment for 20 years. The problem is low, manipulated interest rates controlled by central bankers which only incentivizes speculators to buy up as much real estate as possible. Let interest rates rise to appropriate levels and watch all these speculators go bankrupt.
@@joshuacook2the multiple housing tax (or whatever you want to call it) should be tied to a plot of land. So if you own a 20 unit apartment building, you don’t pay an extra tax for each unit, you just pay the tax for owning the land. Each new parcel of land you own the more you are taxed. This also incentivizes the developer to build more units on the property they already own.
It’s not corporate land owners. That’s a very small percentage of ownership. It’s government restrictions on home construction. Allow builders to build! Allow ADUs. Allow construction of duplexes, triplexes, and quads!
Maybe until you look at specific towns like fort Worth where I thought I read somewhere like 26% of single family homes were owned by a corporation... These companies are buying large amounts of real estate and it should just be illegal.
As a Sydneysider (Sydney has had the worst of the housing affordability crisis in Aus since... as long as I've been old enough to be properly aware of the news), I'm so sorry that y'all have to live through this same shit. At least we're starting to put measures in place to address the "missing middle" density apartment blocks to improve the supply side, but that's still going to take _years_ to come online, and meanwhile I've had friends with high paying tech jobs move back in with their parents because rent is just too dang high 😞
Honestly, an alternative solution to building up Sydney is to invest in high speed rail to the nearby regions, to have multiple small hubs rather than continue to struggle with the one big one. But high speed rail is a running joke in Australian politics for a reason 😞
Even the regions around sydney are not affordable, so even if you got rail there it wouldn't help. Even in the country it isn't really affordable if you are single relative to the wages we get.
Supply alone can't bring prices down because prices coming down requires demand to fall and if demand falls there's no incentive to create new supply. Housing starts continue to fall off a cliff in Canada despite all the major zoning reforms undertaken in the past year and medium density housing isn't feasible on extremely expensive land. There won't be enough units to cover the cost + maintenance. We're doomed.
1. make it illegal to kick out a tenant and then start charging more to a new tenant. the new tenant can only pay as much as the old tenant paid
2. make it illegal to raise rent more than a certain approved percentage per year, for all landlords, regardless of dwelling type or when the building was built
3. make it illegal for a newly constructed building to charge rent that is not comparable to the rent being charged at other nearby similar properties
It's definitely not as bad here in America but it's definitely getting close. Big corporations seem to also be buying new developments here and cranking up the prices. Sometimes I'll drive buy and I'll see like only 2 or 3 houses out of 20 with people actually living in them. The younger generations are getting screwed over in just about every way possible, and until we get some changes or a crash it will be hard to say when this madness will end.
The biggest mistake I made was being 14 when the housing market last crashed. Instead of buying up foreclosed properties I was living in one and had to move loool.
"Not as bad"
Buddy you clearly forgot about California
Yeah, this trend of investment banks buying up vast amounts of property and land is very sinister. Especially whilst much of it sits empty. At the same time that small businesses can't afford premises. And average people can't afford homes. It's all turning a bit feudal.
By removing R1 (Single-family residential) zoning, what cities are doing is increasing the ability for more housing supply to be built. So even if developers are developing the land, at some point, the supply of housing will be high enough compared to the demand for the prices to start dropping.
In that case, developing might not be profitable anymore and may therefore require govt subsidies in order to encourage the increase of supply.
Also the removal of R1 is also to allow some plots in areas to become mixed-use where they provide greater tax revenue to cities. Especially when compared to R1 zoning which basically puts cities in debt because the density is so low.
R1 zoning removal also lets us build places that are more socioeconomically diverse (which is a good thing).
Basically removing R1 gives more money over to the city which can then use it to build sustainable infrastructure.
congrats to Linus to discovering the real Inspiration for Monopoly
I find there should be similar limits on increasing cost of basic necessities, like food, clothes, essential household items. But I imagine it would be really difficult to enforce.
Still, they need to do something. If minimum wage goes up by 7% and within a month the average cost of groceries has gone up by 10%, the system is broken.
there is a reason why everything increases in price in direct proportion to minimum wage. this is basic business. if i have more expenses i have to charge more or i lose my business.
@@Jimothy-723 Right, but if minimum wage increases by 7%, that's only a 7% increase to your minimum wage employees. Your mortgage stays the same, same for incoming stock and the electricity bill and insurance. None of those should go up. Let's be generous and say your minimum wage employees make up half of your expenses. So the cost of your goods should only increase by 3.5% to make up the difference. That's a fair increase.
If your goods actually go up by 10% to 12% you're not just adjusting to the market. You're being greedy. And all the supermarkets are doing this.
Most folks I know in Real Estate are telling me by end of 2024 to mid 2025 they expecting the market (at least where I am and possibly across the US) to drop back down to at least 2017-2018 prices (pre-covid).
I feel like I've been hearing news like that for years, the classic "it'll happen next year" over the course of many many years, lol.
@@Kwistenbiebel200 True, but the massive cost increases in the last few years has been insane. It is normally on par (or slightly above) that of the normal inflation rate.
Only problem with that is people with 2% interest rates just aren't going to take the hit, I mean, it's why my starter house probably isn't going to be a starter house
So our kids will get 2018 prices at 2025 interest rates?
Sounds like a raw deal that’s done nothing to help!
@@JollyGiant19 Not exactly, but take my area for example. Housing here has nearly doubled, depending on the neighborhood. Prices were actually reasonable when I moved back here in 2018. SO, if I were in the market next year for a house, yes I would have a higher interest rate, but once that rate were to come down, probably another 2 years, I would refinance. It is a viscious cycle however, and has gotten worse the last two bubbles. If prices dropped to the post 2008 bubble prices that would be great for buyers, but then we will see the same thing that happened then happen again. Folks who bought in the bubble will buy a far cheaper home nearby, move then foreclose on their existing house, pushing the banks to look for bailouts again. There is a better option but no government will step up to make it happen.
In that topic, a lil fun fact from the history: The nobility used to own land. We start to get back to that situation slowly with gigantic housing companies, pretty much just increasing pricing slowly.
In germany, rent nowadays eats up half of what is left after taxes for the median income and that is without appliances paid
It's almost like there are inherent contradictions in the system that will inevitably lead to a conflict between the ownership class and working class i wonder if anyone has looked into this
Hopefully the conclusion won't be that there should be a continued and violent uprising, because that would be senseless extremism...
Luckily people are smart enough to not buy into stuff like that, right?
What's crazy is that I'm seeing my area slowly build more houses (absurdly large, 4-bedroom suburban sprawled houses that take up too much land) that start at nearly 700k, but because no one can afford that... I also noticed they are now switching to "renting" out these newly built homes... starting at $3700 a month, which is insane (apartment prices are following suit). Without doxing myself, I live in a poor ass desert wasteland with only a subway and Starbucks nearby as entertainment, so to start at those prices is what seems to be a trend even in undesirable locations. This all being a "market" means if these dumb rich people f$%# up their "investment" strategy... they get to scrape it off and "try again next time" while everyone else deals with the consequences.
But with the "supply and demand" conversation at play here, we also have to consider the number of homes that go vacant due to multi-owners holding and unwilling to sell at a loss. Which, for most of California, is a ridiculous amount.
If it takes more than 2 month to get approval for EVERYTHING approved, if you have the plans made, then it takes too long to build a house or city block. Two houses should be affordable, not only one, but I agree that everything after that should go through the roof in taxes, and companies should have an even steeper increase in taxes, and those should include companies in which one company owns actions or part of the company. That way, if a company wants to buy a city block, they won't be able to buy each apartment with another company they own and pay taxes only with those companies, but they would have to pay taxes with both the smaller companies and the holdings company, even if they only own one action or 1% of the company, compounded with the actions and companies owned by the companies it owns or has actions of. For example, for companies, A owns 1% of B and one stock of C, B has one stock of C, then C would need to pay property taxes for the building it owns, B would need to pay property taxes for what properties B and C own, and I would need to pay property taxes for what A, B, C, and C own. Even if not in full, and only in addition (i.e. company B would pay for what it owns and for the percentage of ownership that it owns in the form of that action of company C; for example 1 action could be 2% then the state would get 100% of the rent for property of C from C, and another 2% from B). Would that be unfair? Maybe to the holdings companies owning other holdings companies which own other holdings companies and so on, but not for individuals and very small buildings.
I live in a college town in the Midwest us.
The town is growing with other industries and home prices have skyrocketed in the last decade.
Now developers have slowed down on building individual homes and jamming apartment buildings in every available square inch of space. The biggest problem is that all of these apartments cost the same amount of money, or more than a mortgage cost. Instead of being able to build equity and having ownership of anything, people are having to pay lots of money to the corporate o welds that are laughing all the way to the bank with people’s money and they get nothing to call their own for it.
It’s despicable.
If these apartments were more like condos that you can own, that would be good, but they’re all rentals.
Blame the “local control” of the government. If that was a state level thing instead and much more free, they could offer condos.
But as it is now those lots are zoned for apartments so that’s all you get! Try anything else and they’ll stop you
In the US, the rental assistance programs lead to landlords rushing to increase the rent to the max the assistance would offer. It is similar to the EV tax credits where the $7500 credit lead to car makers increasing their prices by roughly the same amount as the tax credit.
Anyway, I had to rush into home ownership since it was cheaper than renting in most states. The issue is that most landlords want to leverage properties that are not paid off. The end result is they mortgage a house, and then set the rental fee as 2+ times the mortgage rate in order to immediately turn it into an income generating property. Once a critical mass of people doing that was reached, then landlords who paid off their house 10+ year sago, also increased their rates to match the people who were using the rent to cover an existing mortgage and turn a profit.
Given when many homes in my area were purchased by landlords, and their rent, they are effectively taking a ~$1500-$2000 mortgage payment, and turning it into a $5K per month rent when it comes to existing mortgages.
Same thing happened to college tuition with federal student aid
@@thecianinatora good idea (more college educated people) ruined by dumb ideas (economic stimulus)
Same thing happens with Military towns. Apartments find out what the exact "Basic Allowance of Housing" is for their particular city, and just match it exactly.
Meh, it is a supply and demand issue. Blocking owning as investment lowers demand, especially if they sat empty. Allowing conversion of single-family homes into triplexes is a great way to add supply.
Demand is effectively infinite because people buy property with money that has just been loaned into existence and didn't exist before the loan
@@personzorzYou presuppose a perfectly rational system. Reality is most people own a single home not because they simply can’t afford it but because taking care of more than one sucks so much.
@@JollyGiant19 I am gonna need some stats about the fact that people can just afford more than one house, theyjust dont want to.
Interesting assumption since the problem is that people dont have money for first house.
But the supply is for renters. So you'll never actually own property. Of course property ownership comes with its own costs (school and municipal taxes, repairs) but you have equity in that property. The whole point of wanting to own your property is for that equity aspect.
Those investors rent the housing out, the demand from would-be renters is still there if you banned investors.
On one hand i get it,on the other hand doing something so drastic all of the sudden would feel like overreach into private property and tampering with markets
That said something has to be done so its not this crazy
Another issue is the cost from building an older style 2 bed/1 Bath entry home that use to be common to todays "entry" level 3 bed/2.5 bath.
Part of that issue is the cost of permitting, back in the day a 1b/1b was easy to bang out. In most places you need to wait the same amount of time for a 1b/1b as that 3b/2.5b so why not build the more expensive one?
@@JollyGiant19 exactly, I use to swing a hammer years ago. Cousin had a business building houses in NW Arkansas years ago. 20 years ago the profit margins on a tri plex where less than a large home that had similar specs in footage and bed/bath. And I'm not meaning a small difference. And what went into them was almost identical in materials. Can't blame a business for wanting to make more money.
yeah, rent subsidies is a terrible idea, great for landlords though. just like student loans made the cost of college go up.
I'm taking one of my master's courses on social policy, and one of the topics is on affordable housing, which is my seminar lead topic later in the class. I'm going to use a segment of this video to kick off my discussion, so thanks for discussing this!
I want LTT mech with the famous quote:
"Don't quote me on that"
Please
A few years back, there was a development of houses built that were made to be more affordable entry homes. An agency came to nnane bought them all just to turn around and rent them out instead. It's terrible.
Properties here have gone up so much, even if prices dropped 50%, it would only really correct it back to 2016 ish values, that is how insane it is. I agree, I want a correction. The other issue is landlords and building owners asking for crazy amounts of money on 30 year old properties.
Australia and New Zealand are both in the same situation as Canada. Huge amounts of immigration with no supply and tax laws that support multiple investment properties
I'm sort of ok with companies running apartment buildings ... kind of. My problem is single family housing being bought up for purposes other than living, by humans /or/ companies. Basically, as a landlord, your "value add" is that you are getting a plot to house multiple people/families. If that's not the case, as with single family houses, then ... you're not adding anything.
Yeah, purpose built rental apartments are not that bad. You can also have government regulation to ensure that renter's still have sufficient rights. You're also less likely to be evicted, with a mom and pop landlord, they could decide to evict you to move in. If rents are too high, the problem isn't corporate landowners but restrictive zoning not allowing enough apartments to be built.
@@jiecut I don't really mind the mom & pop stuff either, as long as there's value add via density. Even if they take up a unit themselves, it's still multiple things on one lot. I think mom & pop landlords are pretty light on evictions too, honestly, and more likely to have rent increases below market than a corporate one.
I love that Luke and Linus have this position in the issue, most rich people I know are usually "Fuck you, got mine" about this.
as a 28 year old in the US, im not sure ill ever be able to own a home and im not even sure ill be able to rent a place in the foreseeable future.
Canada is 10x worse than the us.
If you have no moral/ethical reservations about it the national guard would net you a 400k @2.5% home loan at the end of a contract
My neighbour was building his house last year, it cost him 25,000 just in permits and engineering to put in just his septic system. Ten years ago, all you had to do was be a distance away from water sources and you dig a hole pour a barrel of water in it and time how long it takes to drain. There's no need to have so much bureaucracy to build a single family home.
Thank you for pointing out Australia's problem. No one talks about it outside of us. You can find 2 bedroom houses in a moderately decent neighborhood for $800,000, and some apartments in Sydney sell for $2 MILLION
And also this is probably the best I've heard it be explained
Rent subsidies "Will probably just result in rents going up" - yes, and UBI will do the same thing - it will all go straight to landlords.
As someone who closely follows housing, this conversation is close but it misses. You're omitting the single biggest culprit, which is Exclusionary Zoning. Canadian cities have atrocious land-use policies where a small central district allows high rises and everywhere else bans everything except for Single Family houses. When it's illegal to build more housing on 95% of the land in your city, you can't be shocked there's a housing shortage.
4:15 Ending Single Family zoning is unequivocally a good thing. That 100% will and does lower housing costs. The reason the infrastructure is bad there is because there isn't enough density there yet to pay for good infrastructure. Linus, legalizing low-cost housing is going to allow for more low-cost housing. Don't do mental gymnastics to flip that on its head.
Linus, more housing supply 100% means lower rent prices. The reason prices are high is because rental vacancy rates are so low. Historically the trend is that when the vacancy rate is over 5% rents go down and when the vacancy rate is under 5% rents go up. So it's no surprise rents have been shooting up in Vancouver and Toronto with 1.5% and 2.5% vacancy rates, respectively.
Don’t frame it as “ending single family zoning” because people will think you’re trying to shove them into a box and no one wants that if they can help it
It’s better to say that the goal is to let the market forces work. TVs are cheap because they build so many of them and in so many different versions so anyone can get the best they can afford, housing is going to get that same great treatment! Just with a whole lot less motion blur 😂
"Ending Single Family Zoning" is a euphemism for "Peasants will live in pods while the nobility's children still get to have a back yard".
@@superslash7254 You may not think property rights are important but I do. I support the freedom to build the type of housing that I want on the property that I own, and you do not. You want to restrict the type of home that people can build to some dead person's exact specification. You're a weird authoritarian, and I'm pro-freedom.
Wonder how long the description for this will be swapped with the 2024 plans video
YES! THANK YOU! As a Canadian this is exactly what I try to tell everyone who will listen. Plus the fact that real estate agents are effectively just middle men that try to get sellers to sell even higher with blind bidding and other skeezy tactics! Because they get paid in percentages. Also one of the only ways for Canadian government officials to make money outside of their salarys is to "invest in" real estate. So they're not only buying up multiple homes but they also are inherently incentivized to never allow any laws to pass that'll punish the purchase of multiple homes. But thank you guys for saying this! Way too many people I work with agree with this silly idea that the right wing partys are pushing that immigrants are "the problem" even though due to our ageing population immigrants aren't only not "the problem" but are actually a necessity to our economy and are only going to become more and more of one. Fixing the housing crisis isn't going to be one simple thing and anyone who tells you that is lying to you or miss informed and will probably just be giving you a scapegoat to get mad at. 7:34
Of course the government should subsidize rent. There are two options: you use public funds to build public housing for people in need, creating ghettos and locking people to a certain area instead of giving them freedom to move where the jobs are, or you use public money to build houses, rent them on the market, then use the money of the rent to subsidize rent of vulnerable families. That lets people move to where the jobs are, eliminates ghetto formation, and allows the government to slowly ween people off the subsidy as they increase their wages, therefore aligning everyone's incentives.
Make the government (us) the biggest landlord.
Linus is actually saying the thing I have been telling everyone around me. Also It should be actually illegal to own multiple properties in residential areas.
I personaly feel like that is a bit restrictive.
Illegal? Yeah no that's too far wtf
@@madaqqqaz How so? People dont need more than 1 house. Seasonal homes that you arent living in are wasteful as fuck. Someone else could be using that home full time. Private planes are also insanely wasteful and once again a tool of the rich because theyre too important to fly with the peasants.
@@renderedpixels4300 Sorry but i dont see the problem in people making money off of houses. But I see the problem when large companies buy hundreds or thousands of homes.
@@madaqqqaz its the same exact thing, the only difference is who gets the money.
A housing crash isn't going to solve this issue, because no matter how you slice it we don't have enough homes for the people we already got. Developers and banks will sit on properties until prices normalize and companies will buy up huge swaths of homes because if its a buyers market right after a crash for the average person its the same for a company.
The only solution is for us to massively increase housing development, which we can and have done in the past right after World War 2 homes were being built in less than 2 weeks and no power-tools. The Government made a crown corporation and had stack of cookie-cutter design for houses with pre-designated materials for a few dozen designs so every aspect of the build can be cranked out as fast as humanly possible.
That is how you fix the situation we are in.
The problem is zoning. 80% of Vancouver is zoned for only single family homes, 80%. It’s been zoned this way since the 1970s even as the region has added nearly 2 million people
Your not solving the housing crisis without building more townhomes, condo towers, and 5 over 1s. There just isn’t enough land to go around for everyone to live in a house in Vancouver
Prices are a nightmare in germany as well, even if we only talk about renting. Nowadays you pretty much need at least to people that earn pretty good to afford an apartment the size of like 75m²
Agreed if you can afford more than a house and rental vacation home your out you need nothing more you can leave the housing market
You've reinvented Georgism
Despite some problems with LTT, that are unavoidable when you grow, Linus still stands on very solid foundations as a person despite being VERY wealthy.
7:20 "The amount of housing isn't going up as fast as the amount of people. It doesn't matter why the source of the amount of people." The source is the thing that can be controlled. Failing to take available actions on both the supply and demand is consciously neglecting to act in the interest of the citizens.
For the rentals my friend's dad owns, he and his dad put in a lot of work fixing and upgrading them every time a tenant turns over, ensuring there isn't deferred maintenence. They also mow weekly do all the snow/ice removal. There is worked involved in maintaining and together they hit the limit of the properties they can do the work on themselves. I think combined they own 6 properties totaling about 20 units. It is work.
Not Canadian, my understanding is that the market is worse/more speculative there than here in the USA, I live in Nebraska where cost of living is pretty decent and less speculative compared with even domestic markets.
Property taxes are directly passed on to the Tennant, this tax policy wouldn't work. Half of my mortgage is just the property taxes
I would prefer housing cooperatives where the tenant's rent goes directly to maintenance rather than a landlord.
@@gljames24 then go for it and form one. You can go through your county/state/province/cities GIS mapping lot value, and drive through all the neighborhoods and look for empty lots or run down house or 6 plex and form a co-op with some people to buy the lot, get a construction loan and build or renovate a place. The owner of the empty lot or place should have their contact info as that’s where the Gov sends the tax paperwork.
@@gljames24 again, your situation may be different and your landlord may be overcharging, but my “mortgage” on my townhome 50% of it is property taxes, the rest is the mortgage itself. Same goes for any landlord, as they have the mortgage to pay and property taxes.
I thought I was smart to not buy a condo 10 years ago when I arrived in BC. I looked at the numbers and the graphs, and the numbers all screamed 'bubble'. 10 fucking years later, and I could have doubled or tripled my money. It's absurd.
Remove parking minimums, change zoning laws, and financially encourage denser & more walkable neighbourhoods. BUILD THE HOMES!
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
In Australia, if a given household income is a hair under 400k a year it's impossible to purchase any real estate anywhere. This is ludicrous.
In nova scotia 20 years ago you could get a pretty nice house for 150k or less, my mom did it, her house is huge. that same house now costs close to 1 million dollars. Between fires that burned down many houses, and the government insisting on increasing canadas population as fast as possible, the housing crisis has no end. The answer we got was "increase interest rates" all that seemed to do was make it even more expensive to get a mortgage, prices never went down.
It doesn't matter what the reasons are or what incentives are in place or what the interest rates are. So long as amount of people here is greater than the amount of houses, the prices won't go down.
If anyone is up for a little reading, the Henry George tax is at least an interesting idea. In theory it could help mitigate the housing and land problems but with any set of rules, there could be just as much exploitation anyways. Its like hacking in a way, there is always an exploit people will take advantage of.
The solution needs to include building more housing, adding density to our cities, and getting rid of tax incentives that make housing such a lucrative investment. Not everyone needs a single family home. We need more apartment and condo buildings that are built to accommodate families.
Linus runs a huge business, has said his kids will never want for anything, and he still thinks like this about the housing market..... Great values
Linus's point about wanting a property crash is actually my similar way of thinking for energy, oil, and the environment. It's going to hurt. It will hurt me. But it needs to happen, and I've gone through enough hardship in my life to know that having to change something isn't going to kill me. I've had to start with basically nothing to my name twice before I was 18. Like learning a skill, a little bit of hardship goes a long way.
The link for podcast gear is broken. What mic arms are those?
I think there is a case to be made that some landlords do provide a service. Lots of people don’t want to buy property because they don’t plan on living in a place for more than a few years, renting is good choice for them and so you need landlords with properties available for rent. Another potential benefit is giving people a place to learn independence away from parents before being given complete responsibility for a property, letting people ease into home ownership. I think there will always be space for landlords to exist and it’s possible for them to be responsible and beneficial to society. The issues come about when landlords are able to pass legislation limiting the creation of new buildings to form a monopoly on the housing market, allowing them to charge sky high prices while putting in the bare minimum work and hold the entire economy hostage because people still need somewhere to live.
I think a housing cooperative would provide a better benefit for that than rent seeking landlords.
Keep in mind there aren’t enough landlords to pass that kind of legislation like you’re thinking, it’s only done with the help of other homeowners in the area.
The key is to take away local control of zoning and make a much more free market for building so many different lifestyles and construction can be supported.
In Australia we have "negative gearing" where you can lease out a home, and if the rent doesn't cover the interest on the mortgage, then you get that difference back as a tax break(this encourages loans where you only pay off the interest and not the principle). so If you're earning a reasonable amount of money and paying tax, you can essentially keep the rental property without it actually costing you anything. But as soon as you pay off the mortgage then you get taxed on the rental income
Interesting that Linus brought up ghost cities in China. From what I understand most ghost cities from ten years ago are functioning cities right now.
This kind of centralized planning of the housing supply to meet their population growth is clearly a good idea.
yes they are, same with ghost subways and railways, now are all used
I mean if you believe the propaganda yea they’ve also had massive problems with tofu construction building falling down and have crazy high land prices also there biggest real estate developers just folded and almost took out there economy so they arnt a good example of how to do things right
hey hey, i went to multiple charter public schools as a child. Woah woah, here in califonia, charter schools have CEO's. They are considered public and are funded by taxes. I remember a lot of marketing straight to families, for the children. Lots of laptop pushing, lavish 3rd party trips, and my family got particularly pushed to cancel their $1.5k already payed trip. No refunds. And all for my "poor performance" because i never did homework. But they explicitly mentioned how they "didnt know how I got straight A's on my tests, when no homework".
Going back home was so fun.
I older I get, the more I agree with the georgism tax theory, of ONLY taxing property/land.
And tax capital not labor
Biggest investment for my future was in 2020 I bought a bass guitar. That was the beginning of an exodus to Calgary while I moved there from a smaller town nearby with no job. Rent went up 3x, groceries doubled and availability was decimated to nothing. Now the future is this, but with more ads promoting it as humane.
And I think it's nice I can express this through a four string. When I was a kid my parents told me "you could live a happy life married on a combined income of $75k in Alberta." So be real, you believed that you'd put your head down and find something to escape that wasn't behind a paywall too.
We need dense mixed used residential towers with the lower floors as commercial
Man wants cyberpunk dystopia
@@TheForeigner001Man wants ordinary normal human city
@@personzorz Man wants failed ghost town where people working on the first floor can't afford the housing above it, so the wealthy push for public transit, but then when the taxes go up to pay for it, they move away.
@@TheForeigner001Bruh that’s just historical Pennsylvania
In the US, most major cities have a huge portion of the apartment market being controlled by about 5 companies that constantly shuffle building around and are found to be price fixing multiple times a year- they don't care, they just pay the slap on the wrist fee and keep jacking up rents. In the DC area, some of these buildings sit at 1/3 open occupancy just to keep prices high even though the demand can't meet it.
You know, figuring out that Linus' political views translate to him being pretty liberal on the American spectrum has significantly increased my respect for the man.
Permitting, licensing, zoning, and low supply of construction workers all lower supply. Build more houses, and the investors will lose money.
why not just change the zoning so you can actually build affordable housing? you know like more Mixed-use development.
Europe has that and we don't have housing either.
Because money
Government is the problem. They started it, they can stop it. Canada is screwed with current leadership.
Mixed use is a great idea for building actual communities (as opposed to soul-less suburbs), but I think it would only help the housing crises a small amount.
Thank god you are a Tech reviewer and not an economist
Just build more housing and abolish zoning
Didn't watch the video so?
"Just put in more lanes and remove all the speed limit signs. Surely that will solve our traffic issues!" :|
Here in Phoenix Arizona we have 2 companies buying up all of the apt complexes. 1 company is called Rise and the other is called Tides. The buy a apt complex and do a lipstick paint job on it and then raise the rent. My old apt, 600sqft, rented for 700 dollars. Now 3 yrs later it rents for 1300.