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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.


Are you sure? GDP per Capita is 71k cad vs a developer salary of 87k cad. Seems pretty average.

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/toronto-software-developer...


GDP per capita isn’t the right figure to compare it to.

You want median individual income, since median is what was under discussion.


In Ontario the median hourly wage is $27 cad. It's not some huge difference. Probably on the level of other university graduates.

For comparison US GDP per capita is 71k usd and San Francisco salaries are 172k usd. That's a big difference.


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.


Toronto tech salaries are not representative for all of Ontario either.

Bay area tech salaries are 3x gdp per capita.

Toronto tech salaries are 1.2x gdp per capita.

Funnily enough, the 3x higher salaries in San Francisco actually make it more affordable than working tech in Toronto.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...


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.


Meanwhile, in Poland tech salaries are 3x-4x the GDP per capita, which is why many of software developers own more than one house/apartment.


What about the people who aren't devs?


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.


GDP per capita has nothing to do with salaries. I believe average salary for Canada is $59300 so that puts dev salaries well above average.



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.


Canada is empty for a good reason. Explore around and you'll see why. Sheer mountain, muskeg and tundra.

Where people live are the places where it's reasonable to live. Everywhere else is misery or impossibility.


The land is owned by the crown. In private hands it would be used productively. It has nothing to do with "misery or impossibility."


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.


> person A gets B to buy it on their behalf

B then owns the house. A has to have a pretty strong hold over B given they don't have a legal claim on it.


> They also intentionally keep interest rates low

I believe Canada, like most central banks since the 90s, uses interest rates primarily for inflation control. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/10/taylor-ru...




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