The NDP has shared a video of B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad saying he regrets getting the "so-called vaccine" against COVID-19.
The video shows Rustad directly addressing a camera and saying vaccine mandates were "not so much" about achieving herd immunity or stopping the spread of the disease as they were about "shaping opinion and control of the population."
The video, shared by the NDP on Day 3 of British Columbia's provincial election campaign, is an edited version of longer footage posted online by the B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom, a group of former workers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who believe vaccination mandates in workplaces violated medical privacy and human rights.
The group says the conversation with Rustad took place on June 14 in an online meeting with its members.
This is a much better place to be focusing attention and resources. Really streamline making pre-fabs available, affordable and zoned quickly in municipalities should be an easy way to increase housing.
I couldn't agree more. The quality of pre-fab homes has gone up quite a bit. If we can find any way to make the building process less costly and bogged down by bureaucracy/admin costs, that's the way to go.
People really have a bad taste in their mouths with "pre-fab", because it reminds them of the "Vancouver Specials", which filled up neighbourhoods and were pretty unsightly. The technology and building techniques have changed a lot since then.
I think maybe the "interest" he is referring to is just the increase in value of the home when it sells? No actual interest on the government portion. You'd only be paying 60% of the mortgage payment, but then have to give up 40% of the sale price when you sell?
From this reading, it sounds like the government is just finding a way for people to qualify for much higher mortgages. Without more supply, this seems like its just going to increase prices.
I'm having Deja Vu here. The article is dated a couple of days ago, but didn't we already discuss this plan?
I know times are desperate, but I don't like the idea of any program where the government is an investment partner with you.
After vilifying landlords and individual investors all the time, they're basically saying we know pricing is only going up, so we're getting in on the investment/speculation instead.
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I think maybe the "interest" he is referring to is just the increase in value of the home when it sells? No actual interest on the government portion. You'd only be paying 60% of the mortgage payment, but then have to give up 40% of the sale price when you sell?
From this reading, it sounds like the government is just finding a way for people to qualify for much higher mortgages. Without more supply, this seems like its just going to increase prices.
I'm having Deja Vu here. The article is dated a couple of days ago, but didn't we already discuss this plan?
Here is the information on the FN plan which is used as a model for this funding program (https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024HOUS0044-001557). The 40% contribution is registered as a second mortgage with an interest rate of 1.5% compounded annually. No repayment of the contribution or interest is required monthly so the debt just ballons for potentially 25 years. A $400,000 loan ends up becoming $580,000 after 25 years which the home owner then has to refinance and start paying back to whichever lender is willing to take on that obligation.
Essentially, for a $1M purchase, the owner finances $600,000 for 25 years and pays that off and subsequently finances another $580,000 for, likely, 25 years and pays that off. I'm not entirely sure this makes financial sense but unfortunately some people may not have any other option.
This is a much better place to be focusing attention and resources. Really streamline making pre-fabs available, affordable and zoned quickly in municipalities should be an easy way to increase housing.
I know times are desperate, but I don't like the idea of any program where the government is an investment partner with you.
After vilifying landlords and individual investors all the time, they're basically saying we know pricing is only going up, so we're getting in on the investment/speculation instead.
Thank you. I'm not going crazy. I think we heavily discussed this when Christy Clark proposed it.
These people have no ####ing business running a government, let alone one responsible for the health of its people. #### like this should immediately DQ someone from running. Sorry, your too dumb for this job. Try Tim Hortons. NEXT!
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To add to the pre-fab debate. A lot of the suburbs in Calgary weren't pre-fab, but were built with a limited number of designs, and they look fine. The neighbourhood I grew up in, Lake Sundance, was built with that model. There were also rules in place about how often you could repeat the designs and enforcing small amounts of variability in the designs. If you get enough variability, you really don't get that repeated row home look.
I know times are desperate, but I don't like the idea of any program where the government is an investment partner with you.
After vilifying landlords and individual investors all the time, they're basically saying we know pricing is only going up, so we're getting in on the investment/speculation instead.
Eby didn't like that previous program but basically copied it and potentially made it worse.
Quote:
NDP housing critic David Eby said the province is encouraging buyers to go deeper into debt. He said it flies in the face of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s new stress tests, designed to gauge whether a buyer could still pay their mortgage if interest rates rose to the five-year standard rate of 4.64 per cent.
“The federal government is trying to rein this in with changes they’ve made, and the B.C. government is saying borrow more money,” said Eby. “It’s a huge risk to take.”
ugh.. I just moved from Alberta 3 months ago to get away from this kind of nonsense...
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ugh.. I just moved from Alberta 3 months ago to get away from this kind of nonsense...
Don't worry, I'd be shocked if they win after that.
British Columbians are getting a little frustrated with things like many others, but I think an anti-vax position goes too far.
Well played by the NDP politically to find this.
Seems pretty short-sighted, IMO. All that'll do is drive up demand without increasing supply, unless I'm missing something.
How do you figure? I think people in this thread are greatly misunderstanding how this works (or maybe I am, but I don't think so). This isn't a random free for all where the government just gives you 40% of the purchase price; it's targeted at making specific developments that aren't currently planned more viable. The idea being that it'll create marginal units that wouldn't otherwise exist by maximizing the existing capacity for housing construction.
Right now, housing starts in BC are on track to be about 4-5K lower than they were in 2023, largely because increased financing costs have slowed pre-construction sales. What this plan does is increase the buying power for 5,000 first-time homebuyers each year by having the government finance 40% of the cost, which allows them to purchase units in specific developments that were started as a result of this program.
You don't just get 40% of the cost covered by the government and then go outbid everyone else for random units. These are specific, targeted developments that are only part of this program. The government covers much of the pre-construction costs (and sometimes even the land), and then the builders can construct the units and sell them at 60% of their market value. And because of current financing rates for the government, even if the units' market value only rises with inflation, almost all of the costs of the program will be recovered when they're sold (or after 25 years) so there's little long-term cost to taxpayers (and potentially even a profit if they rise at their long-term trajectory).
The only real problem with the plan is it's too complicated. If the generally intelligent people here are confused by it, I can't imagine how confused the median voter would be. Dumbing things down is one thing conservatives are good at.
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The housing crisis is due to far higher demand for housing than we have supply. It’s beyond stupid for governments to try to address this by subsidizing demand even further. And they must know it’s stupid. It’s just populist pandering.
Edit: opendoor’s explanation makes somewhat less stupid than I assumed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I know times are desperate, but I don't like the idea of any program where the government is an investment partner with you.
After vilifying landlords and individual investors all the time, they're basically saying we know pricing is only going up, so we're getting in on the investment/speculation instead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Thank you. I'm not going crazy. I think we heavily discussed this when Christy Clark proposed it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Eby didn't like that previous program but basically copied it and potentially made it worse.
This program has little in common with either of those. Those plans just gave homebuyers a bigger loan to buy anything on the market, effectively introducing more money into the system without encouraging any construction.
The NDP plan is to finance specific developments/units of affordable housing. Based on declining housing starts, there is latent labor and capital supply to construct housing, so this program will use that to produce new units.
Basically, here's my understanding of how it works; imagine a 100-unit development that costs $100M to build (including builders' profits) with the following breakdown:
$10M land
$15M pre-construction
$60M construction
$15M builders' profits
Currently, the builder needs to be confident that they can sell enough units to make it viable, but there's only so much demand for $1M units. So unless they sell out pre-sales, construction doesn't go ahead, housing starts drop, and existing supply becomes more squeezed, raising prices.
So the government comes in and provides the land and $30M for pre-construction and construction costs. So now the builder has had much of the risk removed, and they just need to be able to sell $1M units for $600K to make it all viable, which shouldn't be a tall order. So the end result is, 100 units that wouldn't otherwise exist get built.
Now I doubt it'll be a strict 1:1 ratio where it simply adds 5,000 housing starts a year, but it'll definitely inflate them without introducing a whole lot of cost or risk to taxpayers.
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How do you figure? I think people in this thread are greatly misunderstanding how this works (or maybe I am, but I don't think so). This isn't a random free for all where the government just gives you 40% of the purchase price; it's targeted at making specific developments that aren't currently planned more viable. The idea being that it'll create marginal units that wouldn't otherwise exist by maximizing the existing capacity for housing construction.
Right now, housing starts in BC are on track to be about 4-5K lower than they were in 2023, largely because increased financing costs have slowed pre-construction sales. What this plan does is increase the buying power for 5,000 first-time homebuyers each year by having the government finance 40% of the cost, which allows them to purchase units in specific developments that were started as a result of this program.
You don't just get 40% of the cost covered by the government and then go outbid everyone else for random units. These are specific, targeted developments that are only part of this program. The government covers much of the pre-construction costs (and sometimes even the land), and then the builders can construct the units and sell them at 60% of their market value. And because of current financing rates for the government, even if the units' market value only rises with inflation, almost all of the costs of the program will be recovered when they're sold (or after 25 years) so there's little long-term cost to taxpayers (and potentially even a profit if they rise at their long-term trajectory).
The only real problem with the plan is it's too complicated. If the generally intelligent people here are confused by it, I can't imagine how confused the median voter would be. Dumbing things down is one thing conservatives are good at.
The news article didn't do a very good job of explaining the plan in any kind of sequential way. Even re-reading it, after having read your explanation, you really have to piece together what the actual plan is.
This program has little in common with either of those. Those plans just gave homebuyers a bigger loan to buy anything on the market, effectively introducing more money into the system without encouraging any construction.
The NDP plan is to finance specific developments/units of affordable housing. Based on declining housing starts, there is latent labor and capital supply to construct housing, so this program will use that to produce new units.
Basically, here's my understanding of how it works; imagine a 100-unit development that costs $100M to build (including builders' profits) with the following breakdown:
$10M land
$15M pre-construction
$60M construction
$15M builders' profits
Currently, the builder needs to be confident that they can sell enough units to make it viable, but there's only so much demand for $1M units. So unless they sell out pre-sales, construction doesn't go ahead, housing starts drop, and existing supply becomes more squeezed, raising prices.
So the government comes in and provides the land and $30M for pre-construction and construction costs. So now the builder has had much of the risk removed, and they just need to be able to sell $1M units for $600K to make it all viable, which shouldn't be a tall order. So the end result is, 100 units that wouldn't otherwise exist get built.
Now I doubt it'll be a strict 1:1 ratio where it simply adds 5,000 housing starts a year, but it'll definitely inflate them without introducing a whole lot of cost or risk to taxpayers.
These are the details that was lacking and now totally makes this whole concept make a lot more sense.
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These are the details that was lacking and now totally makes this whole concept make a lot more sense.
A concern I would have though is developers are developers, they want to make as much money as possible. So there’s nothing stopping them from still getting as much as possible AND taking government money. Any scheme seems to not guarantee lower prices but has a real chance of increased developer profits. Maybe if you could somehow spur more housing coops or something you’d gain some ground but I suspect in many places these policies will sound good and have zero impact on housing prices.
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