[belsarius]

Originally Posted by wireframe

This is a national disaster that half the population ignores because they are making free money. It cannot be good that the best way to make money is to borrow enough from the bank to buy a house and then sit on it. Those who are already rich enough to get a housing loan make money off of each other and speculative investors while working people get further away from affording housing. A friend of mine saw someone buy four new-build townhouses with suitcases full of cash on behalf of an investor. Good luck competing with that by having a job and T4 income.



I don't think the government caused this directly and it's going to be very hard for the government to fix without upsetting every home owner. My guess is that the first step needs to be massive tax on capital gains in homes, even larger for non-primary residence. That policy would be suicide for any government, especially because young people don't vote. Millennials just bought into a high market and would be underwater on their houses in a crash and older people are relying on their home value to carry them into retirement

Good post. I agree that the only viable fix without a burst bubble is going to be devaluing inventorship in homes. Which means huge changes to the capital gains tax, and even the elimination of the primary residence exemption (if they can determine how much it is being abused). And I agree that I don't believe any government would commit the suicide required for it. Which leaves the bubble to burst. Unbridled capitalism in action, and while I think the Liberals have failed in dealing with it, largely leaving neoliberal policies in place, I think the CPC will actually make matters worse.