Quote:
Originally Posted by belsarius
And I did point out that I was not considering rentals which I have no doubt is affected by immigration, but Azure's post was pretty pointed at cost of purchasing and how people have been buying and selling houses for years and the "real problem" was immigration.
I think Harry Lime just made a good point about simplifying. The cost of home purchases is caused more by interest rates and excess cash than immigration. Rental pricing probably has a large correlation to immigration (as I stated I didn't go into that), but also has the component of increased housing purchasing costs being passed along to renters. Its all part of a very complex interconnected system.
So yeah the points "we wouldn't be having all these housing problems if the Liberals wouldn't have blown the system apart with their immigration policies" and "the real problem, immigration" are not true and oversimplifies the housing market to one untrue soundbite.
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I agree with you on recent immigration. They're not driving the housing market and generally not coming here wealthy.
They effect rental and there's correlated impact on housing pricing, but it's not a main driver.
We did have a wealth class immigration program in Canada until 2014 which allowed a fast track to PR by investing over $800,000 with the government for 5 year IIRC.
There was tons of wealthy immigrants that came over from mostly Hong Kong and China under this program and bought up tons of Vancouver and Toronto.
I think the effects of that program are still heavily impacting our market; what a bad idea that was.
Then came foreign buyer bans which don't even effect these buyers, because they have PR or citizenship and bags of wealth made in different countries.
IMO, that program was the nail in the coffin for housing affordability.