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[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by opendoor

To some extent, but it can take several years to get from purchasing land to selling a finished unit. I doubt developers will be clamouring to pay today's prices for land that might be worth less several years from now. It's basically just an indisputable historical fact that when property prices are declining (or even stagnant), there's less investment activity in building new units.

Maybe over a long enough period of time those kinds of things might have a positive effect. But based on the CMHC data, the scale of construction required to achieve significant effect isn't viable. There's much lower hanging fruit IMO.

I mean, the fact that you can make a big improvement with a 3 year lag isn't a reason not to do it.

And if you fixed the permitting/paperwork issues at the same time maybe you could even cut that timeline.

And builder margins are high right now, which is why housing starts are up. If land supply goes up and land prices go down, you will absolutely get new supply. Supply historically goes down when prices are declining because that compresses builder margins - but you can keep margins high enough to incentivize supply by lowering costs or by increasing prices. Lowering costs (cheaper land, less paperwork, etc) is better than ever-increasing house prices.

[Monahammer]

I think the base cost of servicing land is still too high. Unserviced land is worthless. Servicing land costs exorbitant amounts right now.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Speaking as someone who owns some unserviced land and has to pay property taxes on it it's unfortunately not worthless. In terms of getting it serviced, where my spot is, a well, septic and power hookup would be well north of $50k but south of $100k.

[Monahammer]

I mean municipal level servicing. I don't think most immigrants are looking to live off well water and on septic outside of major municipalities.

Worthless was meant relatively. An acre of unserviced land may go for 25 k where serviced it may go for 250k. It's an order of magnitude difference. Those numbers aren't exact just trying to give a scale difference.

[tvp2003]

I’m probably stereotyping, but immigrants might be more open to living in apartment style housing. In Calgary at least the median price is still lower than the peak and I’m assuming supply is still decent. Not everyone needs or wants a 3 br detached with double garage, no?

When it comes to servicing, there is also the cost of roads, emergency, and other infrastructure. Unless you want property taxes to significantly increase, you can’t just keep building further and further out (IMO).

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

When it comes to servicing, there is also the cost of roads, emergency, and other infrastructure. Unless you want property taxes to significantly increase, you can’t just keep building further and further out (IMO).

I mean, developers already pay like $500k per hectare in offsite levies for that stuff. IIRC Nenshi said when those got massively raised that they were covering the costs now?

https://www.calgary.ca/planning/land...y%20pays%20for.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I mean municipal level servicing. I don't think most immigrants are looking to live off well water and on septic outside of major municipalities.

Worthless was meant relatively. An acre of unserviced land may go for 25 k where serviced it may go for 250k. It's an order of magnitude difference. Those numbers aren't exact just trying to give a scale difference.

IMO, that has little to do with the pricing of new builds.

Quite simply, as long as private business is involved in house building, new builds will be insanely expensive due to the current pricing level - regardless of costs. They are out to maximize their profits, and have government officials (like Doug Ford, formerly Bronconnier) in their back pocket. I do recognize that material, labour, and municipal servicing costs have gone up, but to have “new build starting in the low $1ms” advertising, you’d think their costs were somewhere in the $800k per unit range. I highly doubt that. There is profit to be made and they won’t be under selling their units regardless of their total cost levels.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by calculoso

IMO, that has little to do with the pricing of new builds.

Quite simply, as long as private business is involved in house building, new builds will be insanely expensive due to the current pricing level - regardless of costs. They are out to maximize their profits, and have government officials (like Doug Ford, formerly Bronconnier) in their back pocket. I do recognize that material, labour, and municipal servicing costs have gone up, but to have “new build starting in the low $1ms” advertising, you’d think their costs were somewhere in the $800k per unit range. I highly doubt that. There is profit to be made and they won’t be under selling their units regardless of their total cost levels.

It might not be what's setting the high price, but it is what defines the floor price of new builds. If a plot of serviced land costs >100k to service and prepare, then building materials and labor for the style of house are >150k, you're already pretty close to unaffordable for a lot of Canadians.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

It might not be what's setting the high price, but it is what defines the floor price of new builds. If a plot of serviced land costs >100k to service and prepare, then building materials and labor for the style of house are >150k, you're already pretty close to unaffordable for a lot of Canadians.

I don’t dispute that. A lot of Canadians can’t afford a $500k house price, let alone the $800k+ that new builds can go for. However the building costs are only a partial aspect to the entire picture, and one I think lately is becoming even more minimized when compared to the final all-in price.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

I’m probably stereotyping, but immigrants might be more open to living in apartment style housing. In Calgary at least the median price is still lower than the peak and I’m assuming supply is still decent. Not everyone needs or wants a 3 br detached with double garage, no?

When it comes to servicing, there is also the cost of roads, emergency, and other infrastructure. Unless you want property taxes to significantly increase, you can’t just keep building further and further out (IMO).

I would rather see huge apartment complexes built for immigrants on the edge of the city, like along the 407 in Toronto, instead of ruining neighborhoods with the current subdividing lots and putting in expensive infills that is going on in the name of densification.

[Jason14h]

In the name of profit you mean

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

I would rather see huge apartment complexes built for immigrants on the edge of the city, like along the 407 in Toronto, instead of ruining neighborhoods with the current subdividing lots and putting in expensive infills that is going on in the name of densification.

We could even have a special name for the high density neighborhoods we'd let the foreigners in. We could call them Ghettos maybe?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

I would rather see huge apartment complexes built for immigrants on the edge of the city, like along the 407 in Toronto, instead of ruining neighborhoods with the current subdividing lots and putting in expensive infills that is going on in the name of densification.

Well the original reason Toronto zoning exists the way it does was to prevent coloured people and poor people from living in Apartments. So at least you are following Torontos classist and racist past

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

We could even have a special name for the high density neighborhoods we'd let the foreigners in. We could call them Ghettos maybe?

No no no, they are much more ambitious, forward thinking projects than that!

Great idea though, let's build a bunch of housing in areas traditionally underserved by transit for people that can't easily afford cars.

Further to the edge is also better, spending less time commuting and more time with your family is a divine right of the rich.

[nik-]

It's worked so well in France!

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

I would rather see huge apartment complexes built for immigrants on the edge of the city, like along the 407 in Toronto, instead of ruining neighborhoods with the current subdividing lots and putting in expensive infills that is going on in the name of densification.

Better yet, just build labour camps and put them there.

[flamesfever]

How do you solve the housing crisis, with a million people added to our population each year? Maybe consider lowering immigration levels to take into account our effort to help the displaced Ukrainians?

How do you develop affordable housing for the immigrants? Certainly not expensive infills.

You guys are quick to throw out the old ideas regarding rich vs poor, discrimination, etc. but maybe try a different approach, and we can possibly come up with a solution or two.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I mean, developers already pay like $500k per hectare in offsite levies for that stuff. IIRC Nenshi said when those got massively raised that they were covering the costs now?

https://www.calgary.ca/planning/land...y%20pays%20for.

That covers the cost of direct capital infrastructure I believe. I don’t think it covers the increased opex from a more spread out community.

On the other hand the modern burbs aren’t terrible density wise. Relatively small lots and lots of town house / condo mixed in.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

How do you solve the housing crisis, with a million people added to our population each year? Maybe consider lowering immigration levels to take into account our effort to help the displaced Ukrainians?

How do you develop affordable housing for the immigrants? Certainly not expensive infills.

You guys are quick to throw out the old ideas regarding rich vs poor, discrimination, etc. but maybe try a different approach, and we can possibly come up with a solution or two.

Allow upzoning in all areas. 2-3 story townhouse with no yards should be permitted everywhere as part of base zoning. Tax base on best use rather than current property value. Kick old ladies out of there houses by making the the taxes unaffordable to allow for densification.

For Toronto in particular fix the missing middle problem by eliminating the multi family restrictions. https://99percentinvisible.org/episo...issing-middle/

Next you create a crown corp to build rental housing on a break even basis.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

How do you develop affordable housing for the immigrants? Certainly not expensive infills.

Expensive infills are part of the solution. This is semi-affluent people voluntarily moving to something more dense than a single family home.

The problem is we can't even build those fast enough to meet demand.

Developers will always build whatever is most profitable, and as long as there is a lineup of people dropping $800K on infills, there won't be as much effort going toward building more entry level housing options.