Canada has very little private land ownership.The Federal Gov hoards land and creates a severe shortage of land for individuals to purchase. They need to open up the billions of acres of accessible land to 1st time buyers and then to existing property owners. Especially in the Province of Ontario.
They also intentionally keep interest rates low so existing house/property owners can leverage their properties to buy more. Never allowing a 1st time house shopper a chance. You can't save enough for a down payment because the rate that housing goes up outpaces the rate of your earnings.
In my opinion any house in the same city other than your primary residence should have property taxes that are significantly higher, perhaps 3-4 x the current rate. Interest rates for any house that is not your primary residence and considered an investment property should also be much higher. The only exception I would make is if you have cottage/recreational property outside of cities, this type of property like a cottage would fall under the Primary residence category.
There is also that fact that the majority of Canadians in the private industry, especially in Tech are severely under payed and underemployed.
I'm not sure of the unintended consequences of my proposals, but they couldn't be worse than what is happening now.
The federal government doesn't "hoard" land around areas where people would want to purchase a first home. The vast majority of crown land is not around any major urban centers.
Canadian tech workers make way above median income levels.
San Francisco tech salaries are not representative for the entire US tech industry. And on top of that, San Francisco salaries drive up housing prices, so i'm not sure if working in SF results in a higher discretionary income.
I just checked and in EU big cities like Munich, tech salaries are also around 1.0x-1.2x GPD per capita, making EU just as bad as Toronto. Man, the US is really in a league of its own for tech wages.
Well, if they live in a small town in some rural area they either inherit a house, or build their own, with substantial financial help from from their parents.
If they live in a city they are screwed, unless they are lucky enough to get a really well-paying job.
Bingo. Canada is empty. It has the second lowest population density in the world. Most land is owned by the crown and is simply parcelled out to the friends and family's of the ruling class.
Adding to that, you have some of the worst zoning and development practices in the modern world. Most of the country is simple a piggy bank for money laundering in the form of empty condo towers.
A great many people tried to use crown land in the past and gave up because it was useless bog too remote and not worth it. See: Haida Gwaii Naikoon. Cape Scott colony, and more.
When folks don't live somewhere, there's usually a reason, and it's usually "the land is terrible" not the government is forcing people to not use it.
>I'm not sure of the unintended consequences of my proposals, but they couldn't be worse than what is happening now.
I wonder how large the percentage of buyers would be who would buy on-behalf of someone -- e.g. person A is an existing homebuyer, their cousin person B is not, and to avoid the prohibitive tax rate, person A gets B to buy it on their behalf so that it is legally not an investment.
This practice is sadly already common in certain circles, and it will surely get a boost should your proposal (which I do like btw) come into effect -- the question is how big of an effect would that be.
They also intentionally keep interest rates low so existing house/property owners can leverage their properties to buy more. Never allowing a 1st time house shopper a chance. You can't save enough for a down payment because the rate that housing goes up outpaces the rate of your earnings.
In my opinion any house in the same city other than your primary residence should have property taxes that are significantly higher, perhaps 3-4 x the current rate. Interest rates for any house that is not your primary residence and considered an investment property should also be much higher. The only exception I would make is if you have cottage/recreational property outside of cities, this type of property like a cottage would fall under the Primary residence category.
There is also that fact that the majority of Canadians in the private industry, especially in Tech are severely under payed and underemployed.
I'm not sure of the unintended consequences of my proposals, but they couldn't be worse than what is happening now.