Housing shortfall, costs and affordability

[Acitta]

I have never even owned a house, so fuck you!

I'm not sure how you saw a research article about boomer homeowners that refuse to sell their homes being a huge contributor to the housing crisis and thought "this must be about me".

Well, I am a boomer and you were insulting boomers as a group.

[Acitta]

‘I want to be optimistic’: New film by UW prof explores solutions to housing crisis

A free screening of “Thinking Beyond the Market” will take place in Waterloo on Nov. 16.

At the heart of a new documentary film on housing lies a key question: What kind of housing are we building, and for whom?
“If we think of the dual roles that housing has in our society, it is shelter — and a basic human right — but it’s also a speculative commodity from which to make money,” said Brian Doucet, an associate professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.
“Simply put, it cannot succeed at both.”
Doucet’s new feature-length documentary, “Thinking Beyond the Market,” takes a cross-Canada look at solutions that can put housing in the hands of those who need it the most.

[MidTowner]

‘I want to be optimistic’: New film by UW prof explores solutions to housing crisis

A free screening of “Thinking Beyond the Market” will take place in Waterloo on Nov. 16.

At the heart of a new documentary film on housing lies a key question: What kind of housing are we building, and for whom?
“If we think of the dual roles that housing has in our society, it is shelter — and a basic human right — but it’s also a speculative commodity from which to make money,” said Brian Doucet, an associate professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.
“Simply put, it cannot succeed at both.”
Doucet’s new feature-length documentary, “Thinking Beyond the Market,” takes a cross-Canada look at solutions that can put housing in the hands of those who need it the most.

To some extent or another, this is true of all sorts of things. We have a market-driven economy with significant regulation. That means that food (also a human right under the UN Declaration of Human Rights) is mostly produced and distributed by the private sector, by actors motivated by profit. So too clothing (also a human right).

I think it would be fair to say that housing and real estate in many ways have been less market-driven in Canada than those things. Government in Canada has since the second world war been extremely involved in the real estate market, and in recent decades has mostly been interested in propping up prices. I really doubt that the answer is yet less market and more government intervention.

[plam]

I think it would be fair to say that housing and real estate in many ways have been less market-driven in Canada than those things. Government in Canada has since the second world war been extremely involved in the real estate market, and in recent decades has mostly been interested in propping up prices. I really doubt that the answer is yet less market and more government intervention.

What if the government intervened such that prices did not go up?

[bravado]

Then that government would be doing something pretty unpopular with the average Canadian home-owning voter...

[Acitta]

Vienna is the example to follow: (from Wikipedia)

Vienna today has some of the most affordable housing and cheapest rents in Europe.[47][48][58][59] In 2023, rent for a two-bedroom was €542 a month.[48] Approximately 80% of Vienna either privately or socially rents,[47][48][60] with two-thirds of rental housing being covered by rent controls.[48] Additionally renters have strong just-cause eviction protections.[48][59] 80% of residents in Vienna qualify for public housing.[48]

Vienna directly owns the most public housing stock of any city in Europe, at approximately 220,000 municipal units.[47][59][60] A quarter of Vienna's population lives in public housing.[47] According to Viennese law, rents in public housing can only be increased if a given years inflation exceeds 5 percent.[48] City-owned public housing makes up around half of Vienna's social housing stock.[48]

Another 200,000 dwellings[47] are limited-profit housing associations [de][note 4] (LPHAs). LPHAs are a type of social housing in Austria that can be formed as a private company or as a housing cooperative.[61] LPHAs are federally regulated, and only allowed to charge cost-covering rents.[57] LPHAs make up the remaining half of Vienna's social housing stock.[48]

60% of the city live in either city-owned public housing or in LPHAs.[47][59]
Additionally, in Austria, dwellings built before 1944 that are privately rented are subject to stricter rent controls than dwellings built from 1945 onwards.[57]

[MidTowner]

The fact that "Approximately 80% of Vienna either privately or socially rents" is an important difference between Austrian and Canadian society.

As Bravado notes, the two-thirds of Canadians who own homes are mostly quite opposed to government reducing their value. And most Canadians have a strong preference for owning over renting.

Our best bet is for the government to take a step back, not muddy things up even more.

[danbrotherston]

The fact that "Approximately 80% of Vienna either privately or socially rents" is an important difference between Austrian and Canadian society.

As Bravado notes, the two-thirds of Canadians who own homes are mostly quite opposed to government reducing their value. And most Canadians have a strong preference for owning over renting.

Our best bet is for the government to take a step back, not muddy things up even more.

Canadians are not a different species from Vienenes.

Vienese rent because their government policy makes renting a good and often better option to owning. Canadians seek to own because our government policy makes renting a worse option, and our media makes renters out to be losers.

Government "stepping back" isn't a thing...government exists physically and metaphorically between us all as Canadians. They never step back, they only step towards one group or another, and away from one group or another (and practically many many different groups with the same step). But it is also often very hard to know what group any step will take the government towards or from.

[creative]

Can you share an example as to how the media makes renters out to be losers.

[MidTowner]

The fact that "Approximately 80% of Vienna either privately or socially rents" is an important difference between Austrian and Canadian society.

As Bravado notes, the two-thirds of Canadians who own homes are mostly quite opposed to government reducing their value. And most Canadians have a strong preference for owning over renting.

Our best bet is for the government to take a step back, not muddy things up even more.

Canadians are not a different species from Vienenes.

Vienese rent because their government policy makes renting a good and often better option to owning. Canadians seek to own because our government policy makes renting a worse option, and our media makes renters out to be losers.

Government "stepping back" isn't a thing...government exists physically and metaphorically between us all as Canadians. They never step back, they only step towards one group or another, and away from one group or another (and practically many many different groups with the same step). But it is also often very hard to know what group any step will take the government towards or from.

I'm sure that Viennese rent for all kinds of reasons. Germans also rent in high proportion, and I think that's at least in part because of cultural reasons, and the historical and social impact of the Second World War. And other reasons.

Government could stop providing insurance for residential mortgages; it could get rid of HST rebates designed to incentivize first-time home ownership and so juice the market; it could get rid of tax-advantaged savings accounts that must be spent on bidding up the price of houses. It's not likely to do that, but it could. At least it could refrain more yet more measures to increase house prices.

[kzurell]

Vienna is the example to follow: (from Wikipedia)

[...]Vienna directly owns the most public housing stock of any city in Europe, at approximately 220,000 municipal units.[47][59][60] A quarter of Vienna's population lives in public housing.[47] According to Viennese law, rents in public housing can only be increased if a given years inflation exceeds 5 percent.[48] City-owned public housing makes up around half of Vienna's social housing stock.[48]

Another 200,000 dwellings[47] are limited-profit housing associations [de][note 4] (LPHAs). LPHAs are a type of social housing in Austria that can be formed as a private company or as a housing cooperative.[61] [...]

When the Carshare de-co-op-ized (demutualized?) I started to wonder if non-profits and co-ops are really at "thermodynamic parity" with speculative share capital corporations. Can people take part in profit if they choose, and not if not, and, all other things being equal, experience equal economic effects? It's almost, kinda, true in a few contexts, like Credit Unions. 

Let's say the wind changes and we do build a New Vienna of public and co-op housing: there's always the risk of sliding back downhill to liquidity under some future reactionary administration, obliging all of us to become speculators again as we pretty much are right now. Legal protections for owner-occupancy and tenancy are lightweight measures of social self-control, we see how fragile they are today watching "trial balloons" go up.

Tax tinkering, or heavy-handed policy, or ginning up "incentives", or even UBI, won't root out the dysfunctions of incomplete structural expressions of values. UBI and housing first are probably our best emergency interventions, but I think our finance system is objectively, value-neutrally, lossy.

creative's point is taken: the media doesn't call renters "losers". It's more insidious than that: it sorts us by our speculation status (rather than naming us all "residents"), and farms adrenaline off of the precarious position of non-owners.

[creative]

I’ve read your post several times and I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

[kzurell]

I’ve read your post several times and I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Fair enough.

Building public or co-op housing will always be an uphill battle because the "rules"--at the deepest, most obscure levels--are slanted in favour of private, for-profit, speculative, share capital practices.

If we build public or co-op housing, the next conservative government will sell it off to their friends. No amount of legal protection is enough: just days past we watched Ford et al. launch trial balloons about weakening tenant protections to see what they can get away with.

We might build huge blocks of public flats, we might tinker superficially with taxes or funding for public or co-op housing, we might even give people free rent money. None of it will work in the long run if the money itself has, at the deepest, most obscure levels, leaks in value. Leaks that don't isolate people who want to profit and people who don't from one another.

The media does not call renters "losers", but it doesn't have to when it amplifies renters' vulnerability.

[creative]

And your alternative solution is… try nothing?

[kzurell]

And your alternative solution is… try nothing?

Didn't say I had a packaged solution. It's enough to contribute to the discussion. 

I stand by rethinking modes of ownership in quasi-physics or complexity terms. I'm not the only person reviewing the axioms of "incentives". It's valuable to avoid repeating the public-private churn of the past that we can't afford anymore.

I did suggest UBI and 'housing first' as emergency actions, but know they are not sustainable in the broader context. The reasons why interest me.