Housing shortfall, costs and affordability

[tomh009]

Why London is Filled with Empty Homes
https://www.alux.com/london-empty-homes/

A bit of a long read but worth it. I’m sure it’s relevant to Canada as well.

I have some issues with this, and it's mostly to do with their use of data (as Samuel Clemens said, there are lies, damned lies and statistics). First, they are highlighting 200,000 empty homes in England. The latest number is actually 237,340 long-term empty homes (same government data source) in 2022 -- but this is well down from 318,642 in 2004, when the data series starts. And the total number of homes in England is 22,693,802, which they don't mention. Rather than showing that lots of homes are sitting empty, this actually shows that the long-term vacancy rate is barely over 1% -- and well down in the last 20 years (the UK has severe zoning constraint issues as well). Total vacancies are at about 3%.

Then they go on to explain that rich people are buying homes and letting them sit vacant because it's an excellent investment, up 68% from 2008 to 2018. Well, I already explained that fewer homes are vacant now -- but that 68% increase translates to only 5.3% year -- the London stock index went up 4.3% during the same time. Stocks frequently also earn dividends, while empty homes will attract property/council taxes and maintenance costs.

After that, the article makes another U-turn, and explains how the property owners can actually earn massive rents: "Just to rent a 2 bedroom apartment here will cost you around 5500 pounds per week, that’s 30,000 dollars per month." Check rentcafe.com for Central London, and you will see plenty of very nice 2BR apartments for 2000-3000 UKP per month. This is just more hyperbole.

Finally, they talk about why billionaires choose to reside in another country: maybe true, but the number of billionaires is still very tiny so their homes being empty most of the year will not even register in the statistics when there are nearly 23M total homes in England.

And, all that said, over in this country, while Statistics Canada data says that while most recently-constructed condos are not owner-occupied, it also indicates that few of those condos are sitting vacant.

And, yeah, I should move this discussion into a more appropriate thread ...

[Ellensparky]

Yes please move the discussion elsewhere 😊. I though there was an actual update on the property.

[KevinL]

Toronto is allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes anywhere that is currently zoned single-family. Hopefully more cities follow suit.

[danbrotherston]

No, they benefitted from a time in life when housing was affordable.  Tell me how the guy who worked in a factory (And I dont mean Budds or Schnieders) back in the day benefitted from an exclusionary system yet managed to buy modest homes?  It was because you weren't taxed to death and your buying power of the dollar  was better.  Stop with the social injustice bs.

Yes, exactly they benefitted from housing being cheap but are now working to make housing expensive. They have their house and are preventing others from having theirs.

[tomh009]

Toronto is allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes anywhere that is currently zoned single-family. Hopefully more cities follow suit.

Super awesome! How can we push the Kitchener council to at least debate this?

[ac3r]

Not sure if you'll be able to read this without a New York Times subscription but they have a great article on how North America can learn from Vienna, Austria when it comes to rental housing. If you've ever lived, visited or just looked at housing there it's incredible how well they handle housing.

Lessons From a Renters’ Utopia: https://nyti.ms/45qtpt5

[danbrotherston]

Toronto is allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes anywhere that is currently zoned single-family. Hopefully more cities follow suit.

Super awesome! How can we push the Kitchener council to at least debate this?

Vote in a new council.

Like...honestly...many on council are strong NIMBYs and there seems to be little motivation to change this. I think the compromise they reached was laneway houses, which I understand are allowed now. But we've gone through zoning exercises and besides being highly esoteric and technical, my understanding was that they actually limited height even further (height was limited to the AVERAGE of surrounding buildings, which forces heights to trend down), and nobody was even willing to confront that.

[Bytor]

Why London is Filled with Empty Homes
https://www.alux.com/london-empty-homes/

A bit of a long read but worth it. I’m sure it’s relevant to Canada as well.

What we do know is that most articles in Canadian news media about  how many empty housing units drastically misinterpret the data from StatCan.

For example, most students just leave their address of record at their parent's place and the houses or apartments they are living in are not given by anybody as the address of record. As a result student areas often look like half the residences are empty, according to StatCan.

Same kind of thing goes for cottages.

Even when you point out that problem with the data, the same people still want to claim there's no housing crisis.

[Acitta]

This Australian article says that using the term "NIMBY" as an insult is misguided and that "The real reason for the housing affordability crisis is the “NIMPS” — “Not into my profits”. These are the property developers and multiple property-owning landlords and politicians who won't allow a cent to be spent on public housing and quality public infrastructure, lest it eat into their profits and generous tax breaks."

[tomh009]

This Australian article says that using the term "NIMBY" as an insult is misguided and that "The real reason for the housing affordability crisis is the “NIMPS” — “Not into my profits”. These are the property developers and multiple property-owning landlords and politicians who won't allow a cent to be spent on public housing and quality public infrastructure, lest it eat into their profits and generous tax breaks."

I don't think that's as much the case here. I don't see a pushback on Kitchener Housing or similar organizations, but then their presence (and housing portfolio) is also only a fraction of what it might be in a similar-sized city in Europe or the UK. (The one part that might apply is the general fear by local politicians of property tax increases in general.)

I don't know whether the (voting) public here would have an appetite for building public housing on a significant scale. So far, I don't see anyone even proposing that.

[plam]

This Australian article says that using the term "NIMBY" as an insult is misguided and that "The real reason for the housing affordability crisis is the “NIMPS” — “Not into my profits”. These are the property developers and multiple property-owning landlords and politicians who won't allow a cent to be spent on public housing and quality public infrastructure, lest it eat into their profits and generous tax breaks."

I don't think that's as much the case here. I don't see a pushback on Kitchener Housing or similar organizations, but then their presence (and housing portfolio) is also only a fraction of what it might be in a similar-sized city in Europe or the UK. (The one part that might apply is the general fear by local politicians of property tax increases in general.)

I don't know whether the (voting) public here would have an appetite for building public housing on a significant scale. So far, I don't see anyone even proposing that.

NZ Labour did ("build 100k affordable homes" promised in 2017). Implementation is hard. There is a history of state housing in NZ as well, which the conservative government went and sold off.

[danbrotherston]

I certainly have no idea what the political situation looks like in AUS, but I do think that in Canada it was a very common tactic used by NIMBYs to complain about some capitalist boogieman developer getting fat off profits from housing developments. And yes, there absolutely are bad capitalist actors, but when it comes to building housing, this was a boogieman and nothing more. So I can totally believe an article like this would get written here and by the same organisations.

[danbrotherston]

Here are Cllr Chapmans comments against the development at Highland and Spadina, she was the sole vote against it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/qLN01XR3JWY...are&t=7372

Honestly, it's so tiring...the idea that there shouldn't be a building overlooking a park and playground is fundamentally ignorant, insular, and distrustful of people.

I *WANT* buildings overlooking parks where my little one plays because I WANT eyes on, I want foot traffic. Not because I worry about some nefarious behaviour, but because the most likely thing to happen is bullying or an injury, both of which are improved by eyes on. And this is borne out by the data.

[ac3r]

Lmao...she's just scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses to oppose housing these days isn't she? I refuse to accept that she is attempting to make a genuine argument that there may be pedophiles or something living in the building and will stare at children playing baseball because that's just an absurd and insane premise to suggest. Zero chance she actually believes what she stated there, it's just a random excuse she brainstormed to vote against this.

She's just an awful person who needs to retire. Hard to believe that this dumb broad will be running as an NDP candidate when she represents the antithesis of progressive democratic socialist political philosophy.

[KevinL]

Here are Cllr Chapmans comments against the development at Highland and Spadina, she was the sole vote against it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/qLN01XR3JWY...are&t=7372

Honestly, it's so tiring...the idea that there shouldn't be a building overlooking a park and playground is fundamentally ignorant, insular, and distrustful of people.

I *WANT* buildings overlooking parks where my little one plays because I WANT eyes on, I want foot traffic. Not because I worry about some nefarious behaviour, but because the most likely thing to happen is bullying or an injury, both of which are improved by eyes on. And this is borne out by the data.

Exactly this. Jane Jacobs' 'eyes on the street' has been a well understood concept for half a century now, let's get with it.