[Azure]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The same math holds true for the last 30-40 years. The number of housing unit completions has exceeded the increase in the number of households over the last 10, 20, 30, and 40 years. And even if that wasn't true, housing was pretty affordable 20 years ago; if lack of existing units is driving high prices now, then why didn't it then?

There's plenty of data out of the US that shows that there isn't a whole lot of correlation between an increase in per capita housing units and lower increases in rental prices in metro areas. That's not to say that we don't need more supply. But trying to incentivize home builders to build more supply in order to reduce the amount of money they're making per unit is a difficult proposition, and a long-term one. Particularly in comparison to potentially bringing supply into the market by restricting residential units being used for short-term rentals or speculation.

Well for one there is a big labor shortage. Hard not to talk to a single person working in the industry who isn't dealing with some issue relating to either hiring, or finding sub-contractors to do work for them.

The government has promised to build about 400,000 homes annually for the next decade.

There’s just one problem: It’s not clear there are enough workers to build them.

“The reality is, they’re dealing with labour shortages, they’re dealing with material shortages, they’re dealing with all kinds of challenges in obtaining the material that they need to build homes,” said Jean-François Perrault, chief economist at Scotiabank.

“So it’s not even clear that you’d be able to increase the (construction) pace significantly, given how challenging a labour and a material situation is facing the industry…right now.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/8752010/h...ge-cost-homes/