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Rent control goes a long way to solving the housing crisis
(canadiandimension.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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There is only one mechanism that both reduces rent, and increases housing supply that I’ve heard of. Taxing the shit out of the land value (not the property value) a.k.a. Georgism.
The problem with this is that it WILL reduce the cost of housing which isn’t what our leaders actually want. They won’t say that part out loud though. This is because people want both affordable housing for our youth and people starting out, and they want retirees to be able to cash in on the value of their home.
You CAN’T have both things. If the market was flooded with $300k houses then the value of everyone’s house would plummet because why wouldn’t you just buy a $300K house instead of a $1M house?
I don't know much about georgism, only that people who advocate for it online tend to present it as a silver bullet for too many things and that makes me suspicious that it's snake oil. Like I don't know the band, but the fans are kinda sketchy.
Totally fair. I think it’s just terribly unlikely to ever happen, and the ramifications aren’t really understood.
It amounts to wealth redistribution at the end of the day. Tax the land at a really high rate and redistribute the tax to everyone equally. This is precisely why it won’t take hold. Too many people have invested in land speculation (which is where most real estate investment profits come from) and it would tank a lot of peoples savings and retirement plans - but so would anything that delivers on affordable housing at scale.
So I at least don’t think it is a silver bullet. The obvious downside is that a lot of retirees who were counting on using the proceeds of selling their house to fund their retirement or end of life care would be absolutely fucked by it. Retirement homes are really expensive. It’s a choice though. We either decide to hurt the retirees who can’t work anymore, or put the pressure onto the youth and others starting out who have the ability to dig out of this mess.
When I bought my house I paid $330k for everything. Now the land alone is worth more than that. We’ll never see affordable houses again until the cost of land goes down, and Georgism is the only path to that I’ve heard of. I am not sure if this is something we should do or not.
Why are things like housing coops and other kinds of off-market housing (eg council housing) not a solution to affordable housing? Georgism to me sounds like too many hoops jumped to protect private ownership, when social/municipal/public ownership is a more straightforward solution.
And on the other end, Canada is big. There is still a lot of space to go off into the boonies and construct new transit oriented towns.
If done at massive scale then yes that would also work, but I don’t believe the Canadian government is willing to go there either. It would truly need to be a huge scale to be able to bring housing back to affordable levels.
I think that is a second best solution, but would take a huge investment from our government.
It would still tank a lot of people’s retirements, because at its core more affordable housing means people can sell their houses for a lot less.
At its root I think Georgism is actually quite socialist. You are effectively saying nobody really owns land anymore, but instead have to rent it from the state for the value that you would get if you rented out just the land.
Agreed on all counts. Additionally, living wages need to be paid with "casual" no hours jobs disincentivized (I.e. full benefits for all workers). Rent is more and more of people's income, and it's not solely because rent is rising although that is a giant part of the problem.
Still, I'd ultimately want decommidification, but literally anything that will actually ease the problem is good in the meantime.
So this government will know this, see the youth giving up on them in favour of the same cancer going terminal in the USA, and ignore it.
Sounds good.
Let’s be very clear here: HOUSING IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PROVINCES.
As well, PROPERTY TAX (TAX ON LAND) IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PROVINCES.
So if by “this government” you mean the Carney Liberals you’re right in the sense they won’t do anything about this — but the reason for that is they can’t. That’s not their Constitutional role, and the levers they can pull in this regard are minimal (and mostly revolve around either mortgage insurance, regulating the financial sector, and dolling money out to Provinces).
If you’re upset about housing, you should be upset at your Provincial Government, not the Feds.
The federal government loosened LMIA requirements, increased immigration, created a surf class the UN described as modern slavery. That all directly affects housing for Canadians who fight for finite land and jobs, as we fail to invest in modern infrastructure like high speed rail to make it sustainable.
One year we brought in 1.4 million people, the US brings in 1/4 that per year and has 10x the density , so 2.5% on a per capita basis.
Pretty sure they did say that out loud though.
I’ve heard them say it, but then quickly walk it back with phrases like how of course they are for affordable housing.
Note that this isn’t a liberal, conservative or even NDP or PPC thing. I haven’t heard ANY of them propose anything that would actually make housing affordable at scale.
If you’re heard any different please point me to it.