1) Our last house in a GTA suburb was hard to sell as it didn't have a main floor bathroom (22x24' outside dimensions so no room for one). It recently sold for 1.2M. Obviously at least some current buyers have moved on from that sentiment. No granite either but granite looking laminate.
2) Vacations and toys concurrent with house should have very little to do with house prices (if anything, they should drive them down)
3) Big issue. Intentionally hidden by the politicians as they benefit from crazy price appreciation (LTT, GDP bump etc). I would lump in domestic investors and corporate buying into this pool too. The numbers work differently if it is a pure investment play vs a place you can afford to live (eg. who cares if you never pay off the loan, spend to the moon, the appreciation will make you rich).
4) Building code is a mess. They keep mandating more insulation (higher cost to construct, less livable space as setback sets the outside of the walls but we have lost at least another 4" on each face to insulation since the mid 80's). They also mandate light into bedrooms which means bigger windows which means a ton of heat lost (far more than was saved by adding insulation to walls). As for smoke/CO detectors, I think cost/benefit for them is entirely reasonable (although they do add some cost).
5)Everybody wants development to stop once they own a home. Very few realize or are willing to acknowledge that their home was a field not that long ago and if people at that time had their way, the current homeowners wouldn't have been able to buy a place.
I'll add:
6) Development charges. Interesting concept (new dwellings foot the bill for the municipal services required to support the dwellings) but I suspect they have run away from reality. It is an easy source of money for the municipalities and well into six figures per dwelling in many municipalities. DC's alone eliminate the possibility of real affordable housing.
7)Architectural control. Lots of expensive to construct details that are expensive to maintain with little benefit other than an architectural wank. Most of the time the maintenance is neglected and they look like crap in short order. Boxouts, steep roofs, wall finishes, etc. Sure, they can look nice but they add a lot of money with zero impact on livable space. Hell, from inside the house, you can't even tell where that 100K went.
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