The Effect of the Wonderful World of Unfettered Capitalistic Greed on the Housing Market

[SchlongConery]

I'm not pretending that it doesn't take time to build housing and associated infrastructure nor am I suggesting it doesn't require the efforts of a variety of professionals. However, not matter how long it takes, I don't think you are suggesting there is a baked in problem that prevents development from ever keeping pace with demand. My point is that we are placing too many roadblocks and delays to building on land in locations where there is demand at the price that the housing can be built. Why? It seems there are many, like Anabrandy, whose vision is simply higher urban density. Chicken coops in the sky for everyone! That's not the Canadian dream, and it isn't necessary. These political actors are trying to frustrate developers into building perma-ghettos within the city.

Sounds nice but, respectfully, you do not understand the fundamentals of it all nor where the actual speedbumps are. Politicians come and go. Planning and civil engineers endure from administration to adminsitration.

I'll respectfully disengage from this discussion with you as, while I am willing to educate people or engage in informed and reasonable discussion, you just want to make it political. Believe what you want to feel!

 

[Anbarandy]

I'm not pretending that it doesn't take time to build housing and associated infrastructure nor am I suggesting it doesn't require the efforts of a variety of professionals. However, not matter how long it takes, I don't think you are suggesting there is a baked in problem that prevents development from ever keeping pace with demand. My point is that we are placing too many roadblocks and delays to building on land in locations where there is demand at the price that the housing can be built. Why? It seems there are many, like Anabrandy, whose vision is simply higher urban density. Chicken coops in the sky for everyone! That's not the Canadian dream, and it isn't necessary. These political actors are trying to frustrate developers into building perma-ghettos within the city.

Developers are sitting on hundreds of thousands of residential unit, building permit-approved and shovel ready properties and guess what? They are not building!

Developers are sitting upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of already zoned for housing unit properties and not budging one inch from squatting on these zoned for housing lands.

Builders build only for the maximum profit. Investors and speculators devour units only when they maximize profits. One is not building, and the other is not devouring solely for these reasons.

Developers build not for end users, but for investors/speculators.

Who is housing for?

 

[Dutch Oven]

Sounds nice but, respectfully, you do not understand the fundamentals of it all nor where the actual speedbumps are. Politicians come and go. Planning and civil engineers endure from administration to adminsitration.

I'll respectfully disengage from this discussion with you as, while I am willing to educate people or engage in informed and reasonable discussion, you just want to make it political. Believe what you want to feel!

Believe what you want, but there is not one builder in Ontario who is saying the problem in meeting housing demand is a shortage of planners, architects, or engineers. Will you be educated by them?

 

[Frankfooter]

Developers are sitting on hundreds of thousands of residential unit, building permit-approved and shovel ready properties and guess what? They are not building!

Developers are sitting upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of already zoned for housing unit properties and not budging one inch from squatting on these zoned for housing lands.

Builders build only for the maximum profit. Investors and speculators devour units only when they maximize profits. One is not building, and the other is not devouring solely for these reasons.

Who is housing for?

DoFo cut development fees, which municipalities have to pay through raised property taxes.
Even with this new housing is down to 2018 levels.

Cutting fees and regulations did shit all.

 

[Skoob]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802437126505500990

 

[Frankfooter]

View attachment 335183

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802686754027114602

 

[Dutch Oven]

Developers are sitting on hundreds of thousands of residential unit, building permit-approved and shovel ready properties and guess what? They are not building!

Developers are sitting upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of already zoned for housing unit properties and not budging one inch from squatting on these zoned for housing lands.

Builders build only for the maximum profit. Investors and speculators devour units only when they maximize profits. One is not building, and the other is not devouring solely for these reasons.

Developers build not for end users, but for investors/speculators.

Who is housing for?

Your beliefs are absurd. Why would developers accrue carrying costs on land if their developments are approved and the market is there for what has been approved? Do you imagine this is some sort of housing genocide where developers are withholding housing to beat down the populace? Bizzare. If all that is approved would be unprofitable/insufficiently profitable in today's market, I could understand sitting on the property. If so, would you propose to force them to build at those unprofitable prices?

Meanwhile, other developers are proposing projects that they actually want to build as soon as possible. And the purchasers of those homes will sell their existing homes, and so on, and so on, all the way down to the most affordable housing. However, you oppose that, because that doesn't increase the supply of perma-ghetto developments.

 

[JohnLarue]

Developers are sitting on hundreds of thousands of residential unit, building permit-approved and shovel ready properties and guess what? They are not building!

they need pre sales to fund the construction
are you going to lend them billions interest free ?

Developers are sitting upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of already zoned for housing unit properties and not budging one inch from squatting on these zoned for housing lands.

they need pre sales to fund the construction
are you going to lend them billions interest free ?

Builders build only for the maximum profit. Investors and speculators devour units only when they maximize profits. One is not building, and the other is not devouring solely for these reasons.

are you going to put hundreds of millions of dollars at risk without an expectation of making a profit ?

Developers build not for end users, but for investors/speculators.

Developers build to meet demand and to make a risk adjusted profit
these two conditions must be in place or no money gets put to work

Who is housing for?

build one yourself
after you failed at that I wonder who you will blame ?

you should take a finance course to learn how an economy functions
lord knows you have spent more time ignorantly complaining about capitalism than it would take for you to complete a finance course

go immigrate to a commie country, then you will most certainly have lots to complain about.... until they prevent you complaining...... one way or another

 

[SchlongConery]

Believe what you want, but there is not one builder in Ontario who is saying the problem in meeting housing demand is a shortage of planners, architects, or engineers. Will you be educated by them?

You still don't get it!

I'm saying that it is the municiple and Provincal Civil Service that actually drives the policies and implementations. They are limited by the realities of staffing for planning, both short term (ie-Subdivision Site Plan Approvals) and long term studies and recommendations for suppporting infrastructure projects etc. They are the ones who the Mayor and Council and Planning Committee rely on to make decisions. And I can tell you FIRST HAND that EVERY municipality WANTS new development!!!! But they are limited by availability of services like sewer, water, building and/or improving arterial roads, transit, schools etc. They can't approve tract housing on much of the lands north of the GTA because there are simply NO "Big Pipe" sewer mains and the capacity of current wastewater plants are already committed to projects that are already approved.

This means that if Aurora wants to expand towards the 400, they have to not only dig up Aurora Sideroad to install sewer forcemains and pumping stations, improve the road to handle the increased population, they have to check with Toronto to see if there is, or when new sewage treatment and maybe Lake simcoe or wells for fresh water supply etc. capacity will come online.

"Development Charges" go towards building new and or increasing capacity of these utilities so it's not the municipality that pays, it's the homeowners (through the developers) that pay for the new infrastructure. It wouldn't be fair for existing property taxpayers to fund new road and sewers for new homeowners and hope to make it up in property taxes over the next 50 years.

Greenbelt is a red herring in that there is already tens of thousands of shovel ready, fully approved building sites in the GTA that the developers are sitting on. When they think the market is ready to go and the costs to build are right, there is a long way to go until the Greenbelt lands need to be developed.

The Greenbelt landowners bought these lands for LONG, LONG term appreciation. It;s called Land Banking. Freeing these Grennbelt lands up only increases the appraised value of these lands. And most of the long term land banking is not financed by bank loans. They me used as collateral for operating lines of credit for other projects though so they have a short term interest in that.

If you don't recognize that I know a thing or two abput land developing, the planning process, infrastructure and how it's paid for, then, repsectfully, I am effectively speaking to a five year old on the subject. And a stubborn one at that.

And the bottom line is that about the only real role the Federal and Provincial Gov'ts du jour have is to try to direct their vision with tax breaks, regional grants etc.

 

[oil&gas]

Buying a condo in Toronto is just not good use of your money. Better just rent and build a house in the Caribbean or whatever lol.

The Canadian dream is to live with your family in a detached house
you own that comes with a garage and a backyard. Now imagine how
easy this dream can be realized if affordable rental housing units are
available to half of the population in GTA. In such scenario home ownership
of condos, townhouses and detached houses should be nowhere as
horrendously priced as they are now as demand for dwelling of more
than a minority is already met.

Majority of people prefer to drive their own cars. But without GO transit
and TTC, streets and highways would be so congested commuting would
be a nightmare for drivers as well as those relying on public transit.

Housing policy designed to provide affordable rental residential units
to the low and lower-middle income group would eventually pay off
because it will make housing accessible to all groups as well. Between
capitalism and socialism I believe there is leeway for policy makers
to help make our society more caring and humane.

 

[Skoob]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802686754027114602

 

[SchlongConery]

DoFo cut development fees, which municipalities have to pay through raised property taxes.
Even with this new housing is down to 2018 levels.

Cutting fees and regulations did shit all.

Development charges and Impost Fees" are passed right through to the home buyer.

Here is an excerpt from a case in Kingston that is a quick example of what is involved in making sure the City/municipality and Region/County has adequate infrastructure and how to pay for it.

"City enacted two by-laws imposing fees or charges related to development within Kingston. The first being the Impost By-law, which allowed the City to impose a fee, based on the capital cost of installing water and sanitary sewer services.

The Impost By-law was passed under s. 391(2) of the Municipal Act, S.O. 2001, c. 25 (the MA) which provides that a fee or charge for capital costs related to services or activities may be imposed on persons not receiving an immediate benefit but who will receive a benefit at some later point in time. For the City of Toronto, see corresponding provision in s. 259(2) of the City of Toronto Act, S.O. 2006, c. 11.

The second by-law was a Development Charges By-law, passed under the Development Charges Act, S.O. 1997, c. 27(the DCA), under which the City imposes charges to cover the anticipated capital costs related to specific services such as protection (fire and police), roads, parks and recreation, library, transit, affordable housing and administration. Section 2 of the DCA provides express authority for a municipality to impose development charges. "


Then there are the school boards who need to plan for and fund new schools and teachers etc

(BTW, all of thes Acts have since been superceded but the principles are the same.


Having had much experience in this process, ok I'll partially out myself, as a former (small to moderate sized) developer (and continuing to consult on projects at the early go/no-go stages., I am astonished as to how well all the various agecies across different levels of gov't actually work so well together and actually get shit done!

 

[SchlongConery]

Developers are sitting on hundreds of thousands of residential unit, building permit-approved and shovel ready properties and guess what? They are not building!

Developers are sitting upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of already zoned for housing unit properties and not budging one inch from squatting on these zoned for housing lands.

Builders build only for the maximum profit. Investors and speculators devour units only when they maximize profits. One is not building, and the other is not devouring solely for these reasons.

Developers build not for end users, but for investors/speculators.

Who is housing for?

Who is housing being built for indeed! That is the underlying problem. It's NOT that investors are buying ALL the stock and sequestering it. It's that they are buying enough to skew the market for everyone.

And fwiw, by the time a real raw land developer buys the raw land, carries it for many years while it ripens, decides on a predicted market that may or may not come into fashion, invests in concept development, market studies, utility feasability studies ,servicing cost projections, site civil engineering. site works, drainage, environmental and natural habitat and watershed considerations, gprepariing for and going through the Official Plan amendment, Zoning changes, variations to the zoning provisions, Site Plan Agreements, bonding, insyrance, designing, marketing, installing sewers, gas, hydro, internet, street lighting etc etc there is a SHIT TON of cash invested before a single house gets the concrete foundation poured. And another year or two untilit is finished and the developer/builder actually sees a dollar flow into their bank account.

Allof it accruing interest all those years.

You gottta be ver sharp and well managed to not get killed in this industry even if everything runs perfectly and on budget.

There is not a lot of money made in each house, but added toggether you can get pretty rich just after building 300-500 subdivision homes.

 

[Frankfooter]

View attachment 335304

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802783002109653111

 

[Frankfooter]

Development charges and Impost Fees" are passed right through to the home buyer.

Here is an excerpt from a case in Kingston that is a quick example of what is involved in making sure the City/municipality and Region/County has adequate infrastructure and how to pay for it.

"City enacted two by-laws imposing fees or charges related to development within Kingston. The first being the Impost By-law, which allowed the City to impose a fee, based on the capital cost of installing water and sanitary sewer services.

The Impost By-law was passed under s. 391(2) of the Municipal Act, S.O. 2001, c. 25 (the MA) which provides that a fee or charge for capital costs related to services or activities may be imposed on persons not receiving an immediate benefit but who will receive a benefit at some later point in time. For the City of Toronto, see corresponding provision in s. 259(2) of the City of Toronto Act, S.O. 2006, c. 11.

The second by-law was a Development Charges By-law, passed under the Development Charges Act, S.O. 1997, c. 27(the DCA), under which the City imposes charges to cover the anticipated capital costs related to specific services such as protection (fire and police), roads, parks and recreation, library, transit, affordable housing and administration. Section 2 of the DCA provides express authority for a municipality to impose development charges. "


Then there are the school boards who need to plan for and fund new schools and teachers etc

(BTW, all of thes Acts have since been superceded but the principles are the same.


Having had much experience in this process, ok I'll partially out myself, as a former (small to moderate sized) developer (and continuing to consult on projects at the early go/no-go stages., I am astonished as to how well all the various agecies across different levels of gov't actually work so well together and actually get shit done!

DoFo cut development fees to try to get housing built, its failed and new starts are down to 2018 levels.
On top of that, this allowed developers to pick lots where service hookup costs would have been a big issue and made the towns pay for them, resulting in big property tax hits in quite a few towns in Ontario. If we was campaigning on a platform where he said, 'look folks, we need more housing so I'm forcing cities to raise property taxes to cover breaks for my wedding guest developer buddies', it would have been honest.

 

[Skoob]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802783002109653111

You must be very desperate spreading misleading information via a quote that was not from Jodie Foster. More Communist propaganda perhaps?






https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/attacking-the-rich/

 

[SchlongConery]

DoFo cut development fees to try to get housing built, its failed and new starts are down to 2018 levels.
On top of that, this allowed developers to pick lots where service hookup costs would have been a big issue and made the towns pay for them, resulting in big property tax hits in quite a few towns in Ontario. If we was campaigning on a platform where he said, 'look folks, we need more housing so I'm forcing cities to raise property taxes to cover breaks for my wedding guest developer buddies', it would have been honest.

I haven’t been following that closely the last couple years, so didn’t know that. Seems sort of outside of Fords authority to force cities to eat the development and impost charges without some sort of offset from the province.

But again, I don’t know enough to make a meaningful comment

 

[jalimon]

View attachment 335183

But both sides could still put a roof over their head. These comparisons go to shit when basic living needs are not met.

 

[jalimon]

This housing crisis will never be solved if we keep thinking in the same paradigm we always did.

House/condo developers are NOT the solution.

We need to do what our provinces did for electricity to the housing market.

Let's build Ontario Housing. Hire the best worker (who will leave the private sector for better overall conditions) and build many many many units (small 2-3 bedroom houses/condos, a bit like the army houses of the 1940's...). People can buy these houses at low cost and have to pay monthly fees. Reselling only to the government to kill the market.

I do not see any other solution perhaps except a complete exodus of our population...

 

[Frankfooter]

I haven’t been following that closely the last couple years, so didn’t know that. Seems sort of outside of Fords authority to force cities to eat the development and impost charges without some sort of offset from the province.

But again, I don’t know enough to make a meaningful comment

Ford keeps trying to deny it and the story has died down somewhat, but it happened.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/planners-ford-housing-bill-1.6665015