COVID and the housing market

[mimico_polak]

I'd like to see more social housing include relocatable camp-style dorm units. They have private rooms, shared restrooms, showers, and social areas. They are quick and easy to build, rugged, can be located and relocated anywhere you can find utility connections. It wouldn't be hard to put a few hundred under the Gardiner as well as vacant lands scheduled for future development.

I would love that, but I don’t see it happening. Too many issues, and they basically become homeless shelters and bring those issues with them.

I’ve only lived in 1 camp, and everyone said it was the cleanest, safest, and best camp they’ve been at (foods another issue).

But…zero tolerance of drugs or alcohol, and effectively any troublemakers were kicked out fairly quick.

Can’t control it to that level for the homeless.

 

[Jampy00]

I would love that, but I don’t see it happening. Too many issues, and they basically become homeless shelters and bring those issues with them.

I’ve only lived in 1 camp, and everyone said it was the cleanest, safest, and best camp they’ve been at (foods another issue).

But…zero tolerance of drugs or alcohol, and effectively any troublemakers were kicked out fairly quick.

Can’t control it to that level for the homeless.

Agreed, The successful ones that I have seen have strict policies to ensure the right people get the right assistance, break the rules and you're out.
Clean, safe housing as a privilege seems the best but also the most controversial of approaches. When I was younger we lived in a co-op (housing geared to income) it was a good opportunity for my parents to save money but we also saw the quality of people that were provided housing, drunks, drug users, many many trashed houses, crime etc... It was a shame..

 

[GreyGhost]

I'd like to see more social housing include relocatable camp-style dorm units. They have private rooms, shared restrooms, showers, and social areas. They are quick and easy to build, rugged, can be located and relocated anywhere you can find utility connections. It wouldn't be hard to put a few hundred under the Gardiner as well as vacant lands scheduled for future development.

As with most public projects good in theory, dumpster fire in execution. Barrie put in 50 beds in containers on a redevelopment site. Upfront cost was 1.2M. Land was already owned. Operating cost was paid for through busby centre. I can't find out how much that cost. It was open for about 180 days at full capacity and 60 days at reduced capacity. Site redevelopment is moving forward so it is decommisioned. Assuming they don't find anywhere to move it (why move when you can just buy again), that is $100/night/bed in capital costs alone not including land and I expect operating costs would be at least that much again.

The sad part is how rost that financial picture is compared to the replacement. 178 units of "affordable" housing to be constructed for 215M. Well, that's the budget anyway, expect costs to balloon. Including land and overruns cost will be 1.5-2M per apartment. Loser politicians. Private sector needs all costs combined to be under 500k before they'll take a swing at affordable housing.

 

[crankcall]

I knew a guy doing maintenance on subsidized housing rentals . No money for work, everything done a cheap as possible and no sense of pride like home ownership or nice rental could instill . Just very sad folks in sad circumstances.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com

 

[GreyGhost]

I knew a guy doing maintenance on subsidized housing rentals . No money for work, everything done a cheap as possible and no sense of pride like home ownership or nice rental could instill . Just very sad folks in sad circumstances.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com

Sadly, prisons are built the way they are for a reason. Concrete apartments, metal fixture and floor drain are pretty durable, don't give bugs or drugs a place to hide and a pressure washer and paint resets the maintenance clock. I doubt any project goes this route. They will make something nice looking for day one that will be destroyed by day two and there will never be enough money to keep it in good shape.

 

[Mad Mike]

I knew a guy doing maintenance on subsidized housing rentals . No money for work, everything done a cheap as possible and no sense of pride like home ownership or nice rental could instill . Just very sad folks in sad circumstances.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com

In my younger days, I tagged along with a buddy who had maintenance contracts with Toronto Housing. Never saw much happy in those places.

Yes there were a lot of sad people, but I'd say there were a lot of able-bodied deadbeats too -- those who refused responsibility and accepted the meager public offer of food and shelter as an entitlement.

 

[backmarkerducati]

Public housing, a friend was doing a ride-along with a cable technician for work. There was a complaint that "water was coming out of the cable and into her TV". When they get there water was actually running down the wall (her only concern was the TV...). They get the manager/super and head upstairs....

The dude upstairs had filled the living room wall to wall with a foot or more of soil right on the floor and had a full garden growing with a sprinkler (southern exposure), the super/manager was flipping out, they guy could not fathom what he was doing wrong.

 

[Priller]

I'd like to see more social housing include relocatable camp-style dorm units. They have private rooms, shared restrooms, showers, and social areas. They are quick and easy to build, rugged, can be located and relocated anywhere you can find utility connections. It wouldn't be hard to put a few hundred under the Gardiner as well as vacant lands scheduled for future development.

Anyone who wants to be re-elected in Hamilton is going to have to figure something out stat. The legal camping in parks approach has (surprise!) been a total disaster, and my normally very passive neighbourhood is in a full-on uproar. Nearby Gage Park is a beautiful community asset that is slowly being choked to public access as more and more tents pop up, and a wedge of land next to a Dollarama in the Delta has become a hub for increasing theft. Petty porch thefts are now turning into more brazen things like tool thefts from garages. We've mostly been spared the car theft insanity of the GTA, but that's changing too.

There's quite a few empty lots in the north end, and I agree with this approach. Let the city pay for some private security for the businesses there, and otherwise appropriate any empty lots for encampments and eventually temporary housing. Don't like the smell or the view? That's okay, consider it an incentive. Ruining the nicest park in the city so that a hundred odd folks can sleep in it at the expense of the hundreds of thousands who would otherwise enjoy it is total insanity.

 

[nobbie48]

I'd like to see more social housing include relocatable camp-style dorm units. They have private rooms, shared restrooms, showers, and social areas. They are quick and easy to build, rugged, can be located and relocated anywhere you can find utility connections. It wouldn't be hard to put a few hundred under the Gardiner as well as vacant lands scheduled for future development.

NIMBY. They intensified temporary housing near the CNE and the locals didn't like what happened to the crime rate.

Temporary housing is for natural disasters. We need permanent housing that is affordable. The CPI for 1965 to 2024 is about 10X for goods and services. Wages are in the same ballpark. For houses it's more like 100X.

Who is going to discount their land 90% to appease the homeless masses? Would the lucky recipient pass on the deal when they moved on?

The problem keeps coming back to affordable. Someone has to pick up the tab. Government assistance is actually taxpayer assistance. Taxpayer A contributes to the housing costs of taxpayer B. Then taxpayer A, saddled with the extra financial burden in essence becomes a taxpayer B.

 

[GreyGhost]

NIMBY. They intensified temporary housing near the CNE and the locals didn't like what happened to the crime rate.

Temporary housing is for natural disasters. We need permanent housing that is affordable. The CPI for 1965 to 2024 is about 10X for goods and services. Wages are in the same ballpark. For houses it's more like 100X.

Who is going to discount their land 90% to appease the homeless masses? Would the lucky recipient pass on the deal when they moved on?

The problem keeps coming back to affordable. Someone has to pick up the tab. Government assistance is actually taxpayer assistance. Taxpayer A contributes to the housing costs of taxpayer B. Then taxpayer A, saddled with the extra financial burden in essence becomes a taxpayer B.

Remove the land value from housing and financial viability is much improved (especially if private sector controls construction process). Government owns a lot of land. Start building tons of units. Maybe PPP with government contributing land, private building and operating tower and rent split between them (municipal portion rolling into future developments). If the units are sold, lock prices to inflation and only owner-occupied allowed. Still widens the wealth gap but gives people a hedge against inflation and stable housing. Making the builder operate helps minimize them building a steaming pile and walking away.

 

[nobbie48]

In my younger days, I tagged along with a buddy who had maintenance contracts with Toronto Housing. Never saw much happy in those places.

Yes there were a lot of sad people, but I'd say there were a lot of able-bodied deadbeats too -- those who refused responsibility and accepted the meager public offer of food and shelter as an entitlement.

The entitlement isn't new. A friend worked in a grocery store over sixty years ago and people would come in with their food stamps and try to get cigarettes with them.

 

[crankcall]

My soninlaw occasionally stays in camps around Ft Mac, he is on various sites and sometimes the drive home 2hrs each way just isnt worth it . They are 100% drug/alcohol free and even the roads in and out have speedlimits with 0 tolerance on speeding , 1st ticket is yours , a second ticket and you and your supervisor have to attend a meeting to explain why you be allowed to continue driving a company road . They also have almost 0 traffic accidents . Its great food or people wont stay, lots of variety and healthy, rec centers on site, huge TV lounges, but its oil money not public money. You cant compare modern work camps to public housing attempts .

 

[Jampy00]

Does this sound kind of "scummy" to you?

Friend of mine and his wife are looking to move, they have no mortgage on their current home and it is currently listed.
They saw a house a month ago, but just missed out on it as a offer was already made, the offer was conditional to the buyer selling their home.
So, it's now back on the market as the buyer has had no interested in their home.
My friend makes an offer without the selling first condition.
The seller asks for a bump in the offer, my friend agrees.
The seller then asks for the closing date to be moved forward 30 days, my friend agrees.
The seller then asked for 55K more, my friend says no and the deal expires.

Not sure if it is the seller or the selling agent, but this feels like a sh!tty move to me.
To me I'm glad my friend said no...

 

[GreyGhost]

Does this sound kind of "scummy" to you?

Friend of mine and his wife are looking to move, they have no mortgage on their current home and it is currently listed.
They saw a house a month ago, but just missed out on it as a offer was already made, the offer was conditional to the buyer selling their home.
So, it's now back on the market as the buyer has had no interested in their home.
My friend makes an offer without the selling first condition.
The seller asks for a bump in the offer, my friend agrees.
The seller then asks for the closing date to be moved forward 30 days, my friend agrees.
The seller then asked for 55K more, my friend says no and the deal expires.

Not sure if it is the seller or the selling agent, but this feels like a sh!tty move to me.
To me I'm glad my friend said no...

Some people will keep pushing to see how much they can get. If I was your buddy I'd let the house fester for a while and then go back in with my original offer (or less). No more amendments. The seller can take the lower price and maybe learn a lesson or they can hang out waiting for someone else willing to put up with their crap.

 

[Mad Mike]

Remove the land value from housing and financial viability is much improved (especially if private sector controls construction process). Government owns a lot of land. Start building tons of units. Maybe PPP with government contributing land, private building and operating tower and rent split between them (municipal portion rolling into future developments). If the units are sold, lock prices to inflation and only owner-occupied allowed. Still widens the wealth gap but gives people a hedge against inflation and stable housing. Making the builder operate helps minimize them building a steaming pile and walking away.

The bottom line is there is there is little serviced land available in Southern Ontario, and a lot of land protected as greenspace.

In the GTA there is tension between greenspace and a generation that wants more affordable homes. Can't have both.

And it's not just here in the GTA. I play a little in Northern Ontario, prices in places like Sudbury and Timmins have doubled in 4 years. In 2000, you could buy a simple 1000sq'; bungalow in a better Timmins hood for $120K, or rent it for $900. Today that's $200K and $1800/mo. Still a bargain, but it's getting worse as the population in the North is growing too. The challenges aren't land availability -- there is lots and it's cheap, the challenges are development, permitting, and building costs. In the North it costs $250/sq' -- and $50K on development fees -- so while $300K it sounds reasonable in the GTA, that house would have a market value of less than it's build costs. Until make/buy costs become equal, few will build which raises the price of existing stock.

Bureaucratic changes can help reduce costs everywhere. particularly in the entry-level like townhouses and small walk-up rental apartments.

 

[Mad Mike]

Does this sound kind of "scummy" to you?

Friend of mine and his wife are looking to move, they have no mortgage on their current home and it is currently listed.
They saw a house a month ago, but just missed out on it as a offer was already made, the offer was conditional to the buyer selling their home.
So, it's now back on the market as the buyer has had no interested in their home.
My friend makes an offer without the selling first condition.
The seller asks for a bump in the offer, my friend agrees.
The seller then asks for the closing date to be moved forward 30 days, my friend agrees.
The seller then asked for 55K more, my friend says no and the deal expires.

Not sure if it is the seller or the selling agent, but this feels like a sh!tty move to me.
To me I'm glad my friend said no...

I use an agent friend to do my offers -- takes him about 1/2 hour to whip one up, then a few minutes on the phone with the listing agent. The phone call is to let the listing agent know I'm serious and this will be my first and final offer, no dicking around.

It's worked for me most of the time, I have lost a few.

 

[Jampy00]

Some people will keep pushing to see how much they can get. If I was your buddy I'd let the house fester for a while and then go back in with my original offer (or less). No more amendments. The seller can take the lower price and maybe learn a lesson or they can hang out waiting for someone else willing to put up with their crap.

Not sure what his plans are, but if it was me I'd walk away and stay away. F that guy...

 

[Jampy00]

I use an agent friend to do my offers -- takes him about 1/2 hour to whip one up, then a few minutes on the phone with the listing agent. The phone call is to let the listing agent know I'm serious and this will be my first and final offer, no dicking around.

It's worked for me most of the time, I have lost a few.

This was through agents, I'm like you I have no time to waste, take my money for F off...
I think they both liked this house and were trying to be civil, I told him learn your lesson and be a dick next time..

 

[Priller]

And it's not just here in the GTA. I play a little in Northern Ontario, prices in places like Sudbury and Timmins have doubled in 4 years. In 2000, you could buy a simple 1000sq'; bungalow in a better Timmins hood for $120K, or rent it for $900. Today that's $200K and $1800/mo. Still a bargain, but it's getting worse as the population in the North is growing too.

Some of this is also driven by online aspirational marketing. Lots of ex- crypto bros wanting to become property moguls, but with wallets too thin to buy into anywhere south of Sudbury. They look for what they think is value with almost zero real understanding of real estate, just a weekend course from a scammer promising the usual get-rich-quick returns. When you're used to looking at $2M+ for a row house in the Annex, $200k for a detached house in the Soo looks like an absolute steal.

Have a look at the SID Developments (and associated shell companies) bankruptcy fiasco for a good example of a combination of scamming and total lack of understanding the markets in the north for what the consequences can be. Lots of wannabe slumlords, I mean, real estate moguls, not understanding that the elevator has long since left the ground floor...

 

[GreyGhost]

Ouch. Choices meet consequences. Family with eight kids, half with health challenges bought a house in 2021 for 800K with 3.2% fixed for three years. That renews at end of June and she has been offered 7.1%. That pushes payments from $3000 to $5100. That makes her outstanding mortgage about 650K. Her husband is now working 73 hours a week to try to cover the payments. No mention on her working but she probably has to look after the hoard.

'Harder than anything': Ontario family's mortgage payments to increase by more than $2,000

An Ontario mother said her mortgage payments are about to practically double – translating to more than $2,000 extra per month if interest rates don’t dip on Wednesday – and it’s 'harder than anything' she’s ever faced.

toronto.ctvnews.ca