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Canadian Home Prices "Need" To Be High To Pay For Retirements: PM - Better Dwelling
(betterdwelling.com)
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I think what's being said is: if housing prices lower, you are going to ruin some people's retirement plan -- at least some of those people will have worked hard their entire life to purchase and pay off that house. There's been some incentive to save in this way as well (first time home buyer plan, tax deductions for more ecologically sound houses, that kind of thing).
I suspect he's probably right, that letting house prices drop would over all make things worse in Canada. My goto solution would be to subsidize housing by increasing taxes on corporations and people/corporations that own more than one house. but i'm not any kind of expert
If I stay in my house for my retirement, why would I care how much it is worth? I would only care about monthly costs like energy or insurance, what am I missing?
People have been told that their house is an investment first and a home second for years. This has caused some people to not be happy they own a home, they can only feel happy if that home is getting more valuable. It really is an unfair system but many people aren't intentionally being greedy, they are playing by the rules they were taught and many are thinking towards the future for their children. We can't blame poor policy and lack of housing investments/developments on the average owner.
Nearly every other physical asset will lose value with time and use, such as a car. Somehow houses can maintain value, and even go up as their condition worsens because we have been lacking in supply and increasing demand for at least a decade.
The value of houses are tied to the value of land, and you can't make (much) new land. That's why houses in economically advantaged cities are more expensive than houses in economically disadvantaged cities or out of the way places (unless those places are desirable for being out of the way).
That said, we can do things to get more people per square km in cities, even without going to high rise apartments. And certainly, not promoting more effective housing options hasn't helped the price of homes, either.
In many municipalities the majority of residential zoning only allows single family homes, sometimes with minimum lot sizes, set backs and parking minimums. We've made it legal and incentivized to only build spread out and inneffecient housing regardless if thats what the city or people really needs or not.