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[ElvisRamaj]

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/media-newsroom/news-releases/2019/analysis-of-new-data-residential-property-and-vacant-land-bc-ontario-nova-scotia



It is worth noting that a number of non-individual owners are at times just indirect ownership using a trust to hide the ownership. Even all of that put together its less than 10% in BC, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

This entire narrative that massive institutional buyers are gobling up real estate in Canada is patently false. Its nothing but Canadian being Canadians. They take out massive loans and are using real estate as some kind of retirement fund or get rich quick scheme.

Its never a good idea to just look at one or two instances but to look at over all picture. Its individual Canadian all along. The article is fairly new, from 2019. Highly doubt anything has changed in past 3 years or so.

It is further corroborated by my observation : When rate of interest goes up, house sales disappears and when it goes down people gobble up houses like it is some kind of ambrosia. This is not a behaviour of deep pocketed institutions. This is behaviour of debt-fueled individuals.

Look @GandiBaat if you don't see a problem that 10% of the residential properties belong to non-individuals, I don't think that any argument from my part will change the flow of the conversation. I'm for absolute zero ownership of residential properties to companies, institutions and foreign individuals for a healthy market to exist. If they enter the market, they will kill it long term and it can take decades for it to be fixed if left unchecked for very long.

The correlation between interest rates and home buying is basically the same in every country. Rates go down, debt and home prices go up (in fact everything goes up) and vice-versa.

Since I am a business administration major, I can go into detail of what a healthy real estate market would look like, but as it is impossible for it to ideally exist (due to political and other reasons), some simple straightforward rules should be applied for it to function properly:

Taxes being proportional to the real estate you own and limits on who can actually own them.

 

[GandiBaat]

Look @GandiBaat if you don't see a problem that 10% of the residential properties belong to non-individuals, I don't think that any argument from my part will change the flow of the conversation.

Well, actually, its LESS than 10% according to the source and many are NOT corporations but trusts. These are NOT businesses but entities used by individuals to hold property and hide ownership. This is a far cry from businesses owning houses.

My biggest gripe is this stupid affordability crisis in Canada which has a minuscule population. If you tell me that 10% of real estate held by non-individuals (NOT necessarily ALL institutional buyers like pension funds) is a significant reason for it, I think I will find it hard to believe. As they say the "Princess is in another castle". The issue is elsewhere.

One can take a position that NO residential property should ever be held by a business and thats perfectly good position, but that will not help in assigning the cause of housing affordability crisis in Canada and massive increase in price of housing.

Also, make no mistake. Commercial ownership of housing --atleast the rental properties, has been around for very long time. The REITs have held a number of rental properties commercially. The housing crisis of 2010s is a much newer phenomenon.

I believe the reason is simple : Canada has a history of holding vast amount of land as crown property -- basically public land. They do not want to release land to allow sufficient supply of real estate. It takes different forms.
Green Belt in Ontario.
BC Crown property.

Only alberta has released sufficient amount of land. No wonder the persistant housing affordability crisis is not really a big thing there.

 

[Simran00]

What's going on with OINP? Also, what do you guys think the new immigration program will be like, will it take quota from fsw program?

 

[DesiPikachu]

Kinda sad my previous post were deleted.

Anyway, what do you guys think of this article:
Moving to Canada was harder than I thought. I'm not sure I'd do it again

 

[cansha]

Kinda sad my previous post were deleted.

Anyway, what do you guys think of this article:
Moving to Canada was harder than I thought. I'm not sure I'd do it again

The crux of the matter is people who are not from IT background would have very different experience in Canada vs people coming in tech sector. Many people from tech sector who move from US to Canada already have substantial savings and even if they have a pay cut compared to their salaries in US; their salaries are still in top 2-5% of Canada.

Most of the struggle stories you will read or listen are primarily from people in a different sector. People who are bankers back home struggle a lot as banks here pay peanuts and banking jobs are so damn hard to get.

 

[GandiBaat]

The crux of the matter is people who are not from IT background would have very different experience in Canada vs people coming in tech sector. Many people from tech sector who move from US to Canada already have substantial savings and even if they have a pay cut compared to their salaries in US; their salaries are still in top 2-5% of Canada.

Most of the struggle stories you will read or listen are primarily from people in a different sector. People who are bankers back home struggle a lot as banks here pay peanuts and banking jobs are so damn hard to get.

Canada has systematically eliminated all its manufacturing industry. Those that survive are directly linked with real estate. Manufacturing accounts only for 10% of GDP. Even the high tech manufacturing is absent in Canada. With the massive amount of fresh water, world class universities, highly educated population, widespread trade agreement and political acceptability world over with no sanctions you would expect it to have semiconductor fabrication industry but it is strangely missing. There are semiconductor design houses but then those have more in common with software than with manufacturing.

There is some oil and gas extraction industry but that is the extent of it.

 

[Impatient Dankaroo]

The crux of the matter is people who are not from IT background would have very different experience in Canada vs people coming in tech sector. Many people from tech sector who move from US to Canada already have substantial savings and even if they have a pay cut compared to their salaries in US; their salaries are still in top 2-5% of Canada.

Most of the struggle stories you will read or listen are primarily from people in a different sector. People who are bankers back home struggle a lot as banks here pay peanuts and banking jobs are so damn hard to get.

Corporate and I-Banking is already desirable for Canadians where there's plenty of talent. Why would banks require Mahmoud from Pakistan to do the job

 

[wonderbly]

The crux of the matter is people who are not from IT background would have very different experience in Canada vs people coming in tech sector. Many people from tech sector who move from US to Canada already have substantial savings and even if they have a pay cut compared to their salaries in US; their salaries are still in top 2-5% of Canada.

Most of the struggle stories you will read or listen are primarily from people in a different sector. People who are bankers back home struggle a lot as banks here pay peanuts and banking jobs are so damn hard to get.

100%. I never appreciated this until I saw my friends and family who are non-IT struggle to find employment. My husband and I had job options to choose from, from our first week of landing. Not so for my friends who are Lawyers, Pharmacists, Lecturers, Accountants etc and very successful where there came from.

 

[cansha]

Corporate and I-Banking is already desirable for Canadians where there's plenty of talent. Why would banks require Mahmoud from Pakistan to do the job

I was not even talking about those kind of jobs which as you said are highly sought after. Even the relatively low skilled jobs in banking like say a teller etc. are quite difficult to get as there are already a lot of people who can do those jobs. Plus Canada has an overflow of CPA / accountants.

 

[abhiram.kumar]

100%. I never appreciated this until I saw my friends and family who are non-IT struggle to find employment. My husband and I had job options to choose from, from our first week of landing. Not so for my friends who are Lawyers, Pharmacists, Lecturers, Accountants etc and very successful where there came from.

Tech isn't a regulated industry so it's easy to switch over from one country to another. For accountants working in audit, they'll throw out the red carpet because the accounting industry, specially in audit, is very hot in Canada right now and there aren't enough people to fill those jobs. I know this because I work for the industry. Pay has increased by almost 30% to 40%. For regulated professions like Lawyers and Doctors, from a nation's point of view, it doesn't make sense for them to recognise foreign credentials because each country has its own laws and regulations. If a lawyer from Canada went to Pakistan, it wouldn't make sense for Pakistan to recognise their law degree since it has nothing to do with the legal system of Pakistan. The same goes for Medicine as well. Medical practices and regulations vary from country to country. The medical standards in Pakistan aren't the same as those found in Canada. It works both ways. What the government could do is to not accept immigrants from these professions or find a way to enable them to access bridging programs. The new occupation specific draws could actually help alleviate this problem. They just need to replicate the Australian immigration system.

 

[dankboi]

aloh everyone

been away cus i was too lazy to plug my pc and log in here. now in London, ON. 2 weeks ago reached here.
thanks @Impatient Dankaroo reminding me to log back here

 

[seadrag0n]

Not so for my friends who are Lawyers, Pharmacists, Lecturers, Accountants etc and very successful where there came from.

Aren't all of these professions licensed and regulated up the ***?

 

[GandiBaat]

Corporate and I-Banking is already desirable for Canadians where there's plenty of talent. Why would banks require Mahmoud from Pakistan to do the job

Let me rephrase it or rather turn it around its head : Why will banks avoid Mahmoud from Pakistan just because he is from Pakistan?

 

[GandiBaat]

Aren't all of these professions licensed and regulated up the ***?

EGBC folks visited my employer as well. They were talking about P.Eng in Software Engineering and why should industry only employ P.Eng software engineers. Needless to say, we shoo'ed them away. It already takes about an year to replace and rehire a senior software engineer.

 

[seadrag0n]

EGBC folks visited my employer as well. They were talking about P.Eng in Software Engineering and why should industry only employ P.Eng software engineers. Needless to say, we shoo'ed them away. It already takes about an year to replace and rehire a senior software engineer.

What reason did they give?