Toronto
There is no 'silver bullet' to fix the housing affordability crisis in Toronto. However, here are five ways to alleviate pain (Star of Toronto)
The rock-bottom interest rates reported by the Bank of Canada will be with us for at least another year as one of the main factors in increasing domestic prices. The budget has made many consumers investing in property, buying second properties with their home equity and putting speculation into the housing market, said John Pasalis, chairman of the Toronto Realosophy Immobilien Brokerage. real estate agent
Vancouver, Toronto and Hamilton are North America's least affordable cities: (CBC)
With Toronto second and Hamilton third, Vancouver was the least affordable city. They are all three more costly places to live than New York and L.A. The report, published on Tuesday by Oxford Economics, said houses in Canada are 34 percent more expensive than medium-sized households could afford.
Leading economist says cool housing market measures won't work: 'If you believe Toronto is now inaccessible, just wait' (Paywall - The Star)
I think it'll speed up and I'm going to tell you why: Half a million Canadians live in Hong Kong. Some 60,000 to 70,000 have moved back to Canada since COVID-19. When I talk to Vancouver and Toronto developers, they see Hong Kong money coming in at a rate that we have not seen in a long time. You can tax investors, but they will come, regardless of their agendas and money.
Can Toronto certainly do better than block affordable housing and use force to expel homeless camps? (The Star) (The Star)
But we — ordinary Torontonians living in Toronto — also must do better. Toronto has a popular attitude that people without permanent homes are not neighboring materials. Check out a Toronto city planning and housing committee meeting if you don't believe me. This week, I did so, and the fear of the homeless and mental health challenges was rampant.
Canada
The Governor of the Bank of Canada warns that rapidly rising home prices are 'not normal' (Financial Post)
"The recent fast rises in home prices are important to understand," Macklem told reporters. "Some of the factors which lead to rapid price increases could later reverse even without a shock and that would leave some households with less equity." "
The second largest country in the world is landless (Bloomberg)
The second largest country in the world is effectively out of space, and Canada is on the way to calculation. In the spots where people want to live, soon a dream that generations of Canadians have accepted of a detached home and a piece of land that continues to charm new immigrants may be out of reach. This might force the idea of a home to include condos and rentals and possibly change how the middle class does all from raising households to saving people for retirement.
(Maclean's) Nothing to buy
In contrast to past surges, the more frenzied action in the epicenters of Toronto and Vancouver is no longer concentrated. Canada has become a nation of epicentres, with buyers from major cities hitting smaller cities where they could reasonably expect no pricing until recently. The transformative effect of the pandemic on jobs and homes has fuelled the trend. Freed from their traffic by the massive shift to remote work, urban centers look farther.
How parking destroys towns (The Atlantic )
There are two problems with parking requirements. Firstly, they don't do what they should do, to prevent congestion from curbing. Because parking at the curb is convenient and usually free, drivers first complete the curb, regardless of the amount of space off the road in the area. Second, and more important, parking needs attack the nature of the town itself, by subordinating density to the needs of the car.
The incentives that landlords can take section 8 (CityLab)
Although "Section 8" has been a dog whistle for racist social welfare opponents for a long time, recent studies have shown that unwilling landlords are not completely motivated. With some impetus, landlords might even be convinced that they will return to the program, which will give better opportunities to families with housing support, especially for children, as Harvard economist Raj Chetty's Opportunity Insights research shows. This theory is the foundation of a bipartisan bill before the Senate that would add new features to the voucher program to try to retract owners — including landlords' award bonuses.
When no landlord is going to rent to you, where are you going? (The New York Times)
The policy largely failed people with extremely low incomes and during approximately the same period, available public housing units declined from 1,4 million in 1990 to 958,000 in late 2020, according to HUD. "It's the part of the stock of housing that declines the most," says Andrew Aurand, the National Low Income Housing Coalition Research Vice President.
International
French people open their homes to immigrants with Official Housing Scant (NY Times - Paywall)
The government recognizes the slow pace of finding accommodation for asylum seekers and plans to add more places in the year ahead. But groups such as Utopia 56, Mr. Marre's non-profit company, say that the addition of accommodation isn't enough and that the government is tugging in to provide housing to prevent more people from coming to France when anti-immigrant sentiment is growing.
Hike Iceland Rate Western Europe's First Tightening (Bloomberg - Paywall)
The North Atlantic Island was exposed more to the pandemic than its Nordic peers with last year's major tourism industry. A string of rate cuts caused a house price rally. In April, Icelandic inflation, including real-estate costs, rose to 4.6%, well in excess of the Bank's 2,5% target.