• BlameThePeacock
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    3 days ago

    I have a question for you.

    What percentage of Canadian homes are owned by a single person or family who has 3 or more properties?

    What if I told you that number is so small that your argument is great rage bait, but realistically useless?

    65% of residential properties in Canada are owned by the family that lives in them, another very large chunk is dedicated rental apartments, then there’s a ton of second properties like cottages, etc., then of course there are people who have a second property for rental, but the number left remaining for people with a third property (for themselves or rental) is less than a couple percent of the total housing market.

    Go ahead and implement that tax, it’s not going to hurt anyone I care about, but if you expect any noticeable effect on the housing market you’re not thinking logically about the situation.

    • atro_city@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      Show me the numbers. I only found numbers on multiple home owners, but not how many homes they have.

      Also, I wasn’t saying it should be the only measure. Nowhere did I say that.

      • twopi
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        2 days ago

        Awesome comment! Thanks for the links!

      • BlameThePeacock
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        2 days ago

        I mean, basic logic would dictate that if there are 1,918,990 properties in BC (2022 stats can data linked below) and 1,622,625 of them are owned by single owners, the number of 3rd properties is going to be a lot less than the remaining amount of 15.4% because a lot of that is going to be second homes only. This is backed up by a previous statscan release, also linked below which says:

        In the three selected provinces, the majority of multiple-property owners owned two properties. Just over three-quarters of multiple-property owners in British Columbia (76.7%) and Ontario (76.0%) owned two properties, as did 70.2% of multiple-property owners in Nova Scotia.

        So the number of properties owned by someone who has 3 or more is about 3.5% of the total properties in the province of BC, give or take a couple percentage points because the data and those percentages are from a few years ago (but still fairly recent)

        https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=4610003801 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/46-28-0001/2019001/article/00001-eng.htm

        Just for context, BC builds about 2.5% new housing each year, so it’s a little more than a year’s worth of inventory.

        • atro_city@fedia.io
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          2 days ago

          The first link you posted is the same as I posted and doesn’t reveal the percentage of 3+ home owners. Additionally, the second link you posted reveals that Vancouver has 53.6% of multiple home owners and Toronto 43.0%. If you have 3+ homes out in the sticks, its way less aggravating to the rest of the population that if you have it in a densely populated city.

          The data show that nearly half of multiple-property owners who lived in the Vancouver CSD (44.8%), Surrey CSD (45.8%), Richmond CSD (44.2%) and Toronto CSD (46.8%) also owned properties within the same CSD.

          Do you really think such a measure wouldn’t be important in such cities? The rich and wealthy thank you for your service as their defender. They definitely need it.

          • BlameThePeacock
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            2 days ago

            The first link was to give the total numbers of units and the separation between single and multi owners, the second link refined the multi owners into double or 3+

            So multiple property owners are already not a big group, then not even half of them have a rental in the same city they live in. This isn’t surprising, nor a huge problem given what I said early that only 3.5% of BC properties are third or more properties.

            Like I said at the start, go ahead and tax the shit out of this if you want, but do not expect such a tax to in any way change the overall market it simply isn’t a big enough problem to impact prices in any useful way because it doesn’t address the core issue which is that ALL home owners are profiting off land appreciation, even (and primarily) those who only own one property.

            I say this as a homeowner, my home has appreciated by as much as if my wife and I had an entire third income over the last 15 years. It’s money that I didn’t do anything to earn, and it’s money that will need to be earned by someone younger in order to buy my property when we sell it and downsize as we age.

    • deeferg@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      “It doesn’t effect people, even if people are upset about it, so why should we do anything” is not a good and effective way for a government to work.

      The same trust in self-governing is what made the Internet the shithole that we’re dealing with now. I’d rather the parties make an adjustment before something is abused, not after.

      • BellyPurpledGerbil@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Nobody in this goddamned world has ever heard the term “preventative” I swear to God.

        You don’t brush your teeth when you start getting cavities. You brush to prevent them.

        You don’t install seatbelts after you’ve been ejected from your car. You get a car that already has seatbelts and airbags.

        Vaccines, healthy foods, routine hardware maintenance (cars, computers, etc), exercise and stretches… You’re supposed to do and get things BEFORE you have the problems they solve.

        We really really need to get into the habit, as a species, of trying to prevent bad things before they happen.