Freeland touts home savings account, notes limits to addressing housing crisis - Canada News
www.castanet.net
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the uptake of a new savings account for first-time homebuyers is exceeding expectation, though she acknowledged the limits of what it can do to address affordability.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the uptake of a new savings account for first-time homebuyers is exceeding expectation, though she acknowledged the limits of what it can do to address affordability.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    16·
    1 year ago

    Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. has forecast that the country needs 3.5 million more homes by 2030 than the country is currently on track to build.

    With the speed of homebuilding not matching population growth, economists at both National Bank and TD Bank warned last week that the high levels of newcomers to Canada threaten to make the housing affordability crisis worse.

    The federal government has a bunch of tools to lower demand or increase supply. And their response is to create a TFSA?

    • BedSharkPal
      12·
      1 year ago

      It’s embarrassing. We all know how to fix this issue, but they refuse to do it because people would lose their paper gains.

      The only was this gets solved is if renters become a voting block and demand that prices actually go down. How they get driven down is up to some limited debate. But the real hurdle is having people acknowledge that in order to improve affordability, prices have to actually go down.

    • knapsackinjury@programming.dev
      3·
      1 year ago

      It’s so stupid. The problem with the housing market isn’t that I don’t have a proper account to keep a $200k down payment that is needed.

      • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        The TFSA has a limit of $40k and you can “only” save $8k/year. So you wouldn’t be able to get an actual down payment in there anyway.

        But yeah, point taken. The TFSA is an insufficient response to a real problem.

    • psvrh
      3·
      1 year ago

      Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. has forecast that the country needs 3.5 million more homes by 2030 than the country is currently on track to build.

      So, and hear me out here, why the hell doesn’t the CMHC build public housing like they used to? You know, like before the late 1990s when every level of government just abdicated responsibility for anyone who wasn’t already rich.