/rbg/ - Real Estate Bubble General - Investment V Utility

So, I was speaking to a friend today who studies the real estate market in the GTA. He estimates the ~20% of properties being sold are not intended to be the residence of the owner, or in other words, they are investments properties. This seems odd when you consider that if the same thing were done with hydro, for instance, it would not be nearly as acceptable. For example, if some one was able to buy a neighborhoods water supply, in bulk, from the hydro company, then resell it at a massive profit that would be the analog of what we are seeing in the housing market. I realized that it boils down to a simple question - Should we treat real estate as an investment or a utility? It seems odd to me that we would treat something as essential as housing in this way. Am I wrong, Sup Forums?

TL;DR A significant percentage of real estate in the GTA is being purchased as an investment instead of as a place to live.

I imaging the situation is similar in Vancouver, Australia, New Zealand, UK etc.and in no small way has contributed to the record setting rise in prices.

Other urls found in this thread:

theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/21/homelessness-housing-problems-crisis-point-all-eu-countries-except-finland
youtube.com/watch?v=VUuhZsHLcrQ
greaterfool.ca/
twitter.com/AnonBabble

I smell a communist.

Question is what would it take for it to change?

People protesting on the streets? I doubt any politician would get any traction trying to change it without big lobbying support.

No, just an observation. I believe the free market can address these issues. It just seems odd to me that people aren't more concerned with this trend.

I dunno, man. It's very concerning to me. You'd think there would be more of a public discourse.

Maybe we will see more of that since the increase of homeless people keeps rising everywhere.

Another point - Why would politicians WANT to address these issue when when doing so would hurt the investor class? I mean there is plenty that could be done to make it easier for new homes to be built but that would hurt the real estate market. So, yeah, I doubt they want to do that.

> "GTA"

I suppose "GTA" means something. It would certainly help the OP make sense.

Too bad you couldn't be bothered to make sense.

I don't think the problem is more houses needed, rather there's plenty of homes just none able to afford it.

Fresh article about it in the EU:
theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/21/homelessness-housing-problems-crisis-point-all-eu-countries-except-finland

GTA: Greater Toronto Area
My bad.

I'm so tired, haven't slept well all week. You must be tired too, so much to worry about. Let's get some rest, close our eyes and sleep.

dude what the fuck?

Wow, I had no idea it was that bad in the EU, in general. So, if it's primarily not a supply issue then it reinforces the 'houses as an investment good' being at the root of the issue. That fact that people need to live somewhere doesn't help. For any other good people could wait out the market until the prices drop to something more reasonable but that's not an option when it comes to having a place to live. That's why I compared it to water supply in the OP since it's something we can't live without.
>Perfectly Inelastic Demand

GTA has real estate? I better get in touch with the best lawyer in town.

youtube.com/watch?v=VUuhZsHLcrQ

It's Friday - of course I'm tired. No rest for the weary.

lol, yeah, next time I'll just say Greater Toronto Area to avoid confusion.

Yeah exactly. Honestly I feel like a lot of problems we have in today's society stems from the same source, if the bulk of the masses doesn't rise up in time I expect a lot of people will die one way or another, starvation or suicide comes to mind.

No you're not wrong. But housing has a whole heap of white morons employed in it too. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, tradesmen. So the rest of us get fucked over just to keep these half wits in overpaid jobs. Not to mention what's at the heart of it, the mortgage Jew, rich white boys in banking and fiat money and all that stuff.

Suicide is already on the rise. Here a little story I heard today.
>be real estate friend
>run into realtor showing potential buyers a condo
>politely ask if they plan to live there
>they laugh as if it's a ridiculous question
>"OF COURSE NOT" they reply
>continue to laugh as they carry on
This guys gf is one of the only people that isn't renting in this building. I have to admit I pictured some intense hand wringing going on when he told me the story.

Yeah, it's really not in any of their interest to address this problem.

Was it a rich Asian couple? I heard they are buying up lots of estate especially in CA with their new wealth, especially the Chinese. Probably smart from them if the economy suddenly plummets, but horrible for the Canadians living there.

>I heard they are buying up lots of estate especially in CA with their new wealth
You heard correctly. This is not meme. Allot of them are not even Canadian residents. Legislation makes it possible for foreigners to buy real estate here. There are many instances of people with connections to the Chinese government and industry using it as a means to launder money. I don't know about the people in the story though.

They flaunt it in our media. Gooks buying our shit. Hardly anyone gives a fuck and the left will come down on you like a tonne of bricks if you protest.

This is the main reason why I wanted Trump to win but he's looking cucked as hell by the rest of the republicans. Oh well at least we tried.

This may sound pretentious but I think allot of boomers have a 'post history' mindset. They see no need to ensure the next generation has opportunities they did, that their country remain prosperous. It's seem as long as their social security and "free" health care is there everything is just fine. Just keep piling up the debt (which is also fueling the housing bubble many of them benefit from). It's not like they're going to flip the bill since this is the end of history and everything will stay the same forever. #NotAll

Side note: This is not over. It's going to come to head one way or the other. Trump is just the beginning.

I thought you were referring to Los Santos (i.e., GTA = Grand Theft Auto).

I think they're just a bunch of yokel scum. They've been tested and it's clear that they haven't evolved one bit from when they left school at 15. If anything they've devolved.

I've given up trying to predict what will happen. There will certainly be no protests or violence.

It will simply crash or it won't, and any crash would have to be absolutely huge in Sydney to be worth while.

Free market will fix it. The last thing you want is the fucking government telling you how to own or rent housing.

Yeah, I figured. I can't imagine how ridiculous OP must have read if you assumed that. Gave a hearty chuckle though.

I agree. We must find a free market solution. However it may involve some nationalist policies that ensure foreign investors can't push out local buyers. There are plenty of other non-essential goods we can trade with the world.

A correction is coming. Count on it.

user, not everyone is a chink buying up half of Canada, I'm not esoteric enough, what is
>GTA
>Hydro


Also, real estate are goods, you should not have the government regulate goods. I bet if water were influenced by the free market we would not have fluoride or xeno-estrogens in the water. The housing bubbles only happen thanks to low interest rates, inflation and banks lending money to niggers who can't pay.

I actually thought for a second that OP's friend was selling Real estate in GTA online

CIA niggers go away. Also, Wtf, why are you shilling a non-issue shill-tier thread.

Ironic shilling is still shilling.

you have no idea user, no idea.

fucked up desu

>mfw straight, smart, white male knows what it feels like to be colonized

how about not letting commie gooks buy your country? eh?

GTA is Greater Toronto Area
Hydro = Electricity

Do you only have dams in Canada? Kek.

Pls explain how you would create an institution that would somehow regulate such a diverse market. I think it would be easier to create food lines and regulate food, shut down all restaurants and have the government provide all food than to regulate the housing market. How would you do this. Also full disclosure, I'm libertarian right, whatever you say will be trash because the government is inefficient and corrupt by nature.

>GTA: Greater Toronto Area
>Hydro: Electricity and Water

I agree. I'm not proposing we nationalize housing or anything. The interest rate and lax lending habits of the banks are perfect examples of where policy could be changed to improve the situations. Housing has a quintessentially inelastic demand so it's very sensitive to bad policy and market manipulation. My only goal with this thread is to stimulate a discussion on the matter. Those are good point you brought up, user.

>housing bubbles only happen thanks to low interest rates, inflation and banks lending money to niggers who can't pay.

this right here folks. this is why canadians are really about to get fucked.

>how about not letting commie gooks buy your country? eh?

I honestly don't know what fucking moron thought it was a good idea. I blame the boomers who were too blinded by their real estate appreciation.

Thanks Mom and Dad. Greedy Assholes

we have other sources of power, but yes there is a huge network of hydro electric dams across northern ontario and quebec and thats where the name comes from.

Oh fug, I thought that leaf I replied to was you.

The only way I see of eliminating or at least reducing the risk of a housing bubble is to protect the market from outside influence (specially for you, get the chinks out), remove retarded city planning regulations (you can't build a house taller than 4 floors in my town, yet rent here is 700 for a single room, ridiculous.) and don't give loans to retarded niggers, also remove all government from the market (Freddy Mac)

Plenty of affordable housing, if you are willing to put sweat-equity into repairs.

>A significant percentage of real estate in the GTA is being purchased as an investment instead of as a place to live.

Because it seems like a stable growth sector especially in metropolitan cities that only get more demand with urbanization, these deals are in the million dollar range with growth potentials of 5%-10% YOY. Why would you turn that down?

The people doing this are likely guarded against a housing bubble too (this is not their only investment).

The only thing you could do is use government to interfere in this market by claiming it's a crucial resource and not something you can just toy with.

But for investors, having more people jump in and buy more realestate just pushes their own investments up. It's a Bitcoin style rush market but much more stable.

Essentially you have to wait until
1) State interference
2) Market crash
3) Fundamentals shift (working from home is so easy, living in the "wild" becomes an economic goldmine)

That's what I was getting at when I said "The solution may involve some nationalist policies that ensure foreign investors can't push out local buyers" but that is only a part of the problem. There are many more systemic reason for the prices rising so fast.

If Canada was NatSoc they should make a law where only people born in Canada can buy more than one house, or if you want, only native Canadians can buy any property, period, no more Pajeets, or Xuans, or Juans.

I wrote a large article about this a few weeks ago.

Governments need to put heavy taxes on people buying investment properties, and big tax breaks on investors who build new developments.

Sydney is one of, if not the worst place to live on this planet when it comes to housing affordability as a factor of median annual income. There are somewhere around 1.2x as many new homeowners (couples, families, individuals) entering the market per year for every new house being built. The competition for houses is out of control because when you used to have auctions with like 10 people, now there are 40. Think of a suburb with like 25 houses on the market. Year-on-year, 5 more people are bidding for those places. You can go from 10 to 40 in just 6 years.

There is a total correlation between the rate of new housing to match the rate of people entering the housing market, and the price of houses. Sydney has a growing population at an increasing rate but new housing is actually decreasing at an increasing rate (as in, its getting worse every year).

If you were to reduce city planning regulations you'd ease the bubble slowly since supply of housing would increase in the cities, you'll also make the city bigger. More taxpayers, more businesses. More money circulation. More GDP, more growth, more MAGA

I keep saying this all the time

The Chinks are using our housing market as an investment.

Those are all sensible proposals. See, we're making progress.

>Do you only have dams in Canada?
Yes, that and nuclear. Although we sell allot of it to you guys.

>R E G U L A T I O N S
cucks will buy up all the apartments and make triple deckers like in Boston. Incentivice building more houses/tearing down single families and building yuuge apartments.

It's almost like the government people never played Sim City

Good goy. Mr Goldberg will monopolize the market and resell to you at twice its worth

>The Chinks are using our housing market as an investment.

you do know why right? because its the best investment they'll ever make. its a path to citizenship for their kids, safe and nutricious food and it means fucking clean air and water. worth every penny to them.

>reduce city planning regulations

Yeah I should have put that in there.

The thing is, regulation and corruption go hand in hand. There's a next to zero chance of this happening, even though they talk about it all the time.

Contractors love regulation because it kills competition. Just the thought of someone being able to build their own house sends shivers down the entire market.

> More taxpayers, more businesses. More money circulation. More GDP

But this is not true. The biggest GDP growth going right now are things like housing market value increases. And it's entirely dependent on having those shitty regulations strangle development which pushes up prices.

This should be in a textbook as a counter example whenever someone wants to say competition is better for the market. This is a bubble, but so are most of our big market movers. You can talk about it popping but it's been growing out of control for almost a century.

Are you familiar with this blog?
greaterfool.ca/

People are scared of the stock market and perhaps rightfully so, people frown upon safe bond investments as they are not even keeping up with inflation. Wealthy boomers have flocked to real estate, younger generations have been sold the dream of a mortgage (two French words, mort for death and gage for chain) with easy cheap money. Compounded by lax foreign ownership rules they flock to "stable" economies and governments like Canada. The GTA is particularly prone to a correction and soon for sure, lower mainland and Van is slightly different as there really is limited space in that area and constant demand especially from China.

Country is fucking huge and if you really must be tied down to a mortgage there are better places to live with reasonable real estate prices and a better quality of life. Who even wants to live in the GTA or Van when you have all of Canada? Sheep!

That's good work, user. Gotta make people aware of this and make it clear that it doesn't have to be this way. There should to be a national debate on the issue, if only to make people aware.

Not to mention all the jewified white assholes who look at buying houses as an investment for easy money rather than a place to live. Almost enough to make a person say to hell with it and let the white race die out.

not even investment.

borderline money laundering. when everything falls apart

i'm so glad there fellow leafs out there who get it.

All my IRL friends are so lost guys, and when I tell them they think i'm crazy

I swear to god they all believe we've reached the "end of history". Fucking retarded.

Well, you got me on GDP, GDP is fucking trash. India has the same GDP as England and the English don't walk on poo covered streets (yet!)

It's scary to think, but I believe a huge economic collapse is coming, and I don't think even Trump will be able to stop it. The only way we can survive the fall is if we do absolutely nothing and let the market fix itself. I think it was President Harding that encountered a huge recession and he decided to do absolutely nothing, Congress screamed and the people cried for him to do something, he did nothing other than let the market fix itself, right after we have the roaring 20s (also its the FEDs fault) then the FED fucked it up and the government tried to stop the collapse with social programs and taxpayer funded bullshit, boom! 1929

I think if Trump just burns 99% of all the regulations (except toxic waste and OSHA) the economy will immediately collapse but will return stronger than ever in a matter of years. At least that's what economists like Peter schif say, I believe him, I'm no economist so...

This is so true. Fucking everyone thinks the world is over after the next 10 minutes, everyone lives day to day and never think of the future, thats why 1/3 Americans have less than $500 saved. I think it's the fault of the media during the cold war, fear mongering with nuclear MAD, brainwashed everyone into thinking there is no reason to do anything. Nihilism will be the undoing of society.

The home values are increasing because more international investors are investing. More international investors are investing because the values are increasing. It's a feedback loop. Luckily, the only ones who will get screwed are the Chinese investors, instead of the average citizens like in 2008.

>Are you familiar with this blog?
I am now. Thanks. Probably the most frustrating part of this debacle is the fact that there are so many things we could do differently to improve the situation. For people who are pursuing careers in the city though it's a matter of being stuck between a rock and hard place though. The weak bonds are a symptom of high debt load. So, we're essentially offsetting a weak market by inflating a good with an inelastic demand, fueled by unreasonably low interest rates. It's bound to lead to long term problems. I just hope things aren't FUBAR already.

Yes, unfortunately.

Sydneys urban sprawl is massive because there are so few apartments. If you have a minimum wage job in the city, the closest you could afford a small unit is probably 30 miles away. There needs to be more apartments because when you have burnt out tin sheds on f a 800ft^2 land selling for $1M, there is a serious shortage in available land.

Sydney absolutely needs to go vertical. The problem is, investors don't want to. They want to keep as many houses as possible as this forces competition way up.

Well real estate being an investment wouldn't be too much of a problem if we didn't allow assholes from China with manipulated currencies to buy our properties without imposing heavy taxes or fees and if we increased interest rates and didn't allow truck drivers and janitors to be accepted for mortgages.

I think the number to watch now is the immigration rate, they're the only ones pushing up demand. According to our national birth rate we should be in population decline like Japan.

From what I've been able to suss out, they're taking our 1.8-1.9 birth rate and bumping it up to 2.4 by filling that gap with immigration. Thus 457 visa's, student visa's with work hour allocations etc.

If our immigration rate drops to zero, we'll be in population decline which suddenly wipes out the demand for new housing. Based on the anti immigration sentiment that's undeniable - Australia/EU/USA/Canada/NZ will have to accept a big fall in residential housing prices if populist anti immigration policy is enacted.

This is why, in my opinion, Trump is all about legal immigration much like what Australia does with the 457 program. If I moved to the US or Canada I'd have zero debt in my new country of residence, that means I'd be able to create a GDP surge by taking out a home loan and financing a new car.

I feel like this can go two ways no, currency resets like Argentina/all of South America, or even looser immigration in order to keep the engine running.

Strange times, what do you reckon?

Investors lobby for regulations, you need to get yourself some Ron Paul kinda guy to AnCap your shit.

>I believe a huge economic collapse is coming

Honestly I think so too. And I think this is the key to understanding why the elites want to sow discord and race and religious wars in the west. They don't want to end up getting their heads chopped off in the bread riots for ruining the economy. A nice distracting ethnic war is much better.

> Trump just burns 99% of all the regulations

But the president doesn't have this power, and as we discussed, big business love regulation because it strangles competition. They're the ones with lobbyists and they're in every senator and congressman's pocket.

>At least that's what economists like Peter schif say, I believe him, I'm no economist so...

After spending a lot of time studying economics and economic schools I think the sad truth about the subject is that it's great at creating neat little models where everything makes sense and they have no fucking relevance to real life. It's just idealized little statistical charts or universal truisms and once you question anything in it or point out it doesn't match reality you get canned responses like "oh well in a TRUE FREE MARKET" or "real communism has never been tried" or "the government just isn't manipulating the markets just right".. as if, if they just changed things into this perfect utopia that fits my personal economic theory, then everything would work out for the best. AKA what will never happen.

>The home values are increasing because more international investors are investing. More international investors are investing because the values are increasing. It's a feedback loop.

In the case of Vancouver and Toronto and London (and more) cities yes it's napalm on an already burning fire, the foreign money. But on the small scale we see it all over. I'm from a smaller city in Sweden and the housing market is just as fucked.

I could get an apartment in Amsterdam for what they want for a slightly bigger apartment here in bumfuck Sweden.

>but the president doesn't have this power
This is LARP, but... Say we collapse. It gets so bad we fall into martial law, Trump locks up all the pedos and traitors, night of the long knives and everything. Trump becomes the temporary dictator and creates a libertarian, low regulation, low tax, economy. Basically Pinochet. I'd be completely OK with God Emperor Trump so long as he remains libertarian, or at least NatSoc.

I honestly believe in the power of the free market. It's not just some magical force that makes things better, it's the existence of voluntary (as in, two people want X so they do X) trade of goods and services without any exertion of force. If people do what they want when they want to nobody fights and there is hardly any corruption (other than monopolies, which should be regulated)

Immigration is pushing up the rate, but the supply of houses is being pushed down by investors.

If immigration was halted entirely and our population started to decline to reduce pressure on housing, that actually wouldnt be enough to offset the reduction in available houses by investors turning everything into a rental. Like I mentioned earlier, its around 1.2x new homeowners per new property. Immigration is not responsible for 20% increase in new homeowners. Maybe like 1%.

I wrote that wrong I meant 20% increase in competition for new houses.

By investment he means bought by rich Chinese to serve as either

>a way to get money out of China amd sidestep capital controls
>a bug-out where the rich Chinaman can sit out the Second Cultural Revolution when the US finally adopts a rational and, yes, winning trade policy

The Liberals know this. They simply don't care.

>The Chinese bankroll the Liberal Party on the DL
>The white people who can't afford to live in Toronto didn't vote for Justin so fuck them

My bad, I was implying that populist anti immigration laws would also bring about serious reforms on foreign investment in residential housing, because I think everyone kinda feels that this is strange demand increase is becoming a big burden of living conditions here.

I feel that's why Pauline Hanson is being elevated by our MSM, she's intended to hoover up all of that sentiment into a power bloc that can ridiculed and manipulated. So it's considered racist and un-Australian to be opposed to foreign investment, among the pile of other things like negative gearing that's causing our house prices to continue to climb in spite of wage stagnation (50k + super is STILL a decent salary!!)

I'm wondering if we're going to see a surge in people squatting in the investment houses and apartments soon, if the owners are overseas it'd be damn near impossible to get rid of the fucking squatters.

What's your prediction with the housing situation here? I'm totally at a loss as to what to make of it it all, I feel like I can see a few of the big influences (like immigration, lax foreign investment laws etc) but I can't connect it into a big picture that I'm certain about.

M8 this is why even Pauline only pipes up about Muslims. Even she knows that mass immigration is the reason why we've not had a recession.

It's just not going to happen. No government will wilfully hurt the housing market, I reckon labour is even lying about their negative gearing thing.

It's just going to have to crash by itself somehow.

Hrmm, you're right.. Nature needs to deal with this, there's no amount of law adjustments to get the pricing just right. Labor are globalst, Kevin did a speech at the council FR, it's on youtube, kinda scary.

Suddenly explains why he was pushing so hard to be sec gen of the U N

>The Chinese bankroll the Liberal Party on the DL
This would not surprise me in the slightest. We need proof before 2019.