The Decline of Vancouver.

The Vienna model could be the only sustainable solution long term for the housing crisis as there certainly aren't any free market solutions that would help. Cities should start buying up units and developing units that would be publicly owned and managed which would give private landlords some competition. Public apartments could get back to basics and forgoe the granite countertops, marble bathroom tiles and centralized climate control for linoleum and baseboard heaters to keep construction costs down.

I like this idea, but it will take a lot of government housing to take control of the market and I believe there are market solutions, they just haven't been tried. The skyrocketing price of housing is not all caused by greedy developers and private equity firms, it is also due to the lack of available land to build on and the ever increasing cost to develop that land and build. At the risk of repeating myself, the government should free up land for development, streamline development applications, and have a lot more pre-approved designs for homes so the average Joe/Jane can build their own houses again. BC needs transit to connect the smaller cities to Vancouver and Victoria and then build out those smaller cities with inexpensive land, quick application reviews, and a large catalogue free pre-approved designs complete with a bill of materials. Some subsidized modular options would be great as well.

Instead of the BC or Canadian governments becoming a builders, they should stick to their role and provide the infrastructure to allow for more building and growth in the places that have the room. It is so ridiculously hard to get around this province I haven't been to the Island in years.

Posted by: chupacabra

At the risk of repeating myself, the government should free up land for development,

What land?

Posted by: XXX_er

Posted by: Kenny

Posted by: Fast-Orange

The Vienna model could be the only sustainable solution long term for the housing crisis as there certainly aren't any free market solutions that would help. Cities should start buying up units and developing units that would be publicly owned and managed which would give private landlords some competition. Public apartments could get back to basics and forgoe the granite countertops, marble bathroom tiles and centralized climate control for linoleum and baseboard heaters to keep construction costs down.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city

There's this narrative that the government would never be able to run housing properly because it's inherently incompetent but we handed full control of housing to the free market 30 years ago and it's resulted in absolute society destroying clusterfuck. There's literally now way the government could do worse than the free market has.

https://betterdwelling.com/canadas-cmhc-internal-messages-show-housing-supply-narrative-is-bs/

Except that the exploding housing costs of the "free market" are a huge cash cow for the government and they've been completely complicit in perpetuating and encouraging the shit show the housing market is currently in. There's a lot they could do directly to reduce housing costs but they make too much money with the existing structure for there to be any incentive to do so.

you mean we should/ shouldn't let the people who caused the problem fix it ?

What I mean is that they already have plenty of opportunities to improve things, but choose not to do so.

Why? Currently, their priority is to maximize revenue, no different than the developers. Nothing will change until that changes.

Yes a total rework where they run housing might accomplish that, but the government is woefully under resourced and inefficient as it is. Adding a whole new arm of government to manage this? Why not fix the root problem and commit government resources to the infrastructure improvements that are a monumental undertaking, and required either way?

Put the government in charge of and accountable for the things they're meant to be in charge of and accountable for.

I don't believe in Santa either

Posted by: XXX_er

you mean we should/ shouldn't let the people who caused the problem fix it ?

Do you have a better idea? Or are we just screwed?

Posted by: chupacabra

I like this idea, but it will take a lot of government housing to take control of the market and I believe there are market solutions, they just haven't been tried. The skyrocketing price of housing is not all caused by greedy developers and private equity firms, it is also due to the lack of available land to build on and the ever increasing cost to develop that land and build. At the risk of repeating myself, the government should free up land for development, streamline development applications, and have a lot more pre-approved designs for homes so the average Joe/Jane can build their own houses again. BC needs transit to connect the smaller cities to Vancouver and Victoria and then build out those smaller cities with inexpensive land, quick application reviews, and a large catalogue free pre-approved designs complete with a bill of materials. Some subsidized modular options would be great as well.

Instead of the BC or Canadian governments becoming a builders, they should stick to their role and provide the infrastructure to allow for more building and growth in the places that have the room. It is so ridiculously hard to get around this province I haven't been to the Island in years.

Yeah it would involve thinking long term for once in our politician's lives but it's better than doing absolutely nothing which is the current approach.

I agree that there could be a lot of changes made to zoning and building requirements that would lower construction costs but sprawling ever further outward is a much worse idea than densifying while improving public transit. Basically you're implying you want the underclass to spend 4-5 hours in their cars every day commuting to the only place they can get steady work. Plus there's a much larger environmental impact. It's good that we have so much uninhabited land and we should keep it that way. Cities are more efficient and it's the people that have the money that don't have to do the daily 9-5 that should be moving out further not the other way around. We already bend over backwards for developers despite the narratives to the contrary. Doing what we've already been doing for decades but even harder isn't the answer.

If home prices were to actually drop due to an oversupply the developers would just stop breaking ground on new projects anyways until prices got out of control again. I think a good idea would be to find other outside the box ways to incentivize developers like not requiring them to build everything with luxury interiors and allowing fewer parking spaces. In return make it a requirement to transfer a few units per new tower over to public ownership.

Another idea would be to expropriate units from the many sinking investor landlords who bought units with 5% down payments and are charging 3000 for a one bedroom because intrest rates went up. Every so often I'd see an article with the headline "this couple owns 99 properties and makes this much per month" so many of these scumbags had their scam blow up in their faces the instant interest rates went up.

Or we could just continue to do nothing and wait for the inevitable rioting, looting, destruction etc.. in a war between the haves and have-nots I know I would be lot more scared if I was on the have side.

Posted by: Fast-Orange

Do you have a better idea? Or are we just screwed?

In short yes, the average person is screwed. It's going to take a major economic event for house prices to come back to earth in Metro Van. We're at the point where prices need to fall 50-70% before they become reasonable for the avg family. We're in the unfortunate situation of living on a beautiful playground in a stable country where a lot of people also want to live. There are enough people with money who want to live here that I don't think we can reset the prices for the avg Vancouverite. We're definitely not going to build our way out of this. The only hope we have is that people stop coming here and there is a significant exodus out of Vancouver that results in the vacancy rate climbing by about 10% before things will stabilize. Or find yourself a sugar mommy/daddy. Or win the lottery. The odds are probably the same.

The benchmark price for a single family home in Vancouver is now at just over 2mil, up 3.5% over last year. So yeah, prices need to fall in the range of 60-70% to be considered affordable for the avg working stiff here. Considering what it's going to take for that to happen. There hasn't been collapse like that in this city before afaik, not even with the collapse in 1981 that saw prices fall about 40%. We are without a doubt in uncharted waters with a lot of factors existing today that didn't exist 45yrs ago. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/2531266/one-chart-shows-how-unprecedented-vancouvers-real-estate-situation-is/

Posted by: syncro

We're in the unfortunate situation of living on a beautiful playground in a stable country where a lot of people also want to live. There are enough people with money who want to live here that I don't think we can reset the prices for the avg Vancouverite. 

Well with these housing prices it won't be that stable for much longer. At this point the only thing keeping this shitshow somewhat together are the rent controls which disappear as people eventually get evicted from their long term rental. For disabled people pretty much the only thing offered when they lose their place is MAID. 

Is there no way to create cheaper housing options without a market crash? Huge public owned commie blocks might look depressing but they're less depressing than homelessness.

Posted by: Fast-Orange

Posted by: XXX_er

you mean we should/ shouldn't let the people who caused the problem fix it ?

Do you have a better idea? Or are we just screwed?

Possibly you are screwed but I am fine cuz I moved narth eh, but apparently vangroovy is in decline anyhow so just do what ever you wana do, thats what people do anyhow

Housing prices dropping 40% would screw a lot of people.  You recently paid a million for a new place and now it's worth 600K and you have to sell?  That's gonna hurt.  Government is never going to do anything that would cause that kind of drop to happen (other than maybe a massive BOC interest rate hike).

And there's not much the government can do to lower new  housing costs.  They really only add to the cost via taxation of goods and services for the building of the homes as well as other small items like permits.

A friend in a suburb of Seattle built a home for much less than having a builder do it.  It was a "group build" concept where some houses in a subdivision were built with a lot of the labour coming from the home buyers.  They bulk purchased a lot of the components as well.  It worked out really well.

Posted by: XXX_er

Posted by: Fast-Orange

Posted by: XXX_er

you mean we should/ shouldn't let the people who caused the problem fix it ?

Do you have a better idea? Or are we just screwed?

Possibly you are screwed but I am fine cuz I moved narth eh ... but apparently vangroovy is  in decline anyhow

It's not - it's the "narth" that is.

Posted by: Fast-Orange

Is there no way to create cheaper housing options without a market crash? Huge public owned commie blocks might look depressing but they're less depressing than homelessness.

The only real option available is social housing, but there's a huge shortage. There's also a labour shortage to build what's needed. Plus it's not like there is a lot of federally owned land available to build on in Metro Van. The feds own 329 parcels of land totaling 44,362ha in Metro Van. Most of that consists of properties that have already been developed or that can't be developed, so there's hardly any buildable land available. Look for yourself here.

https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/dfrp-rbif/query_question/summary-sommaire-eng.aspx?qid=29067269

I think we've jumped the shark and we're cooked.

Posted by: XXX_er

Posted by: Fast-Orange

Posted by: XXX_er

you mean we should/ shouldn't let the people who caused the problem fix it ?

Do you have a better idea? Or are we just screwed?

Possibly you are screwed but I am fine cuz I moved narth eh, but apparently vangroovy is in decline anyhow so just do what ever you wana do, thats what people do anyhow

Ideal scenario for me is the property we own doesn't massively devalue. My concerns are for society at large. I could very easily go the route of just continuing to build wealth not speaking about the massive problems that don't directly affect me.