Rent control reforms could mark a return to sky-high increases for Toronto tenants? Aren’t rent prices sky-high now? – November 16, 2018,
One thing I hope Canadians learn is that the fear of most of these government stooges is what actually happens when the government doesn’t stick its nose in the economy unnecessarily. As a Torontonian, that’s rented from 1990’s the truth is rent prices in Ontario are expensive because rental controls and CMHC had a fight! CMHC being a federal entity and Rental Controls being a Provincial entity are responsible for prices being where they are now.
If you’re wondering why rent prices are so high in Toronto as an example, it’s because a lot of condos were built where rentals should be and those condos weren’t built based on domestic demand, instead they were built based on speculator demand. A lot of the condo owners in Toronto are either foreigners or flippers. You can even call some real estate agents in Ontario to confirm this. A lot of real estate agents in Ontario, many of them in Ontario if you’re purchasing a condo, will tell you that you can make a lot of money in the future buying a condo now and flipping it in a few years.
Why I bring this up, is because most of those condos would have never been built if CMHC wasn’t incentivizing homeownership. In the 1990’s what you go a lot of in Toronto was white flight or a lot of people leaving the city to move areas less expensive. This is what happens organically if landlords decide to be jerks and raise rents on everybody. People leave, so while this exodus was happening I as a renter got a lot of deals, sure there was posted rental rates, but this is back when renters could negotiate, because when there are more options or a surplus demand, the landlord or property owner can post whatever rent price they want, that doesn’t mean that this is the price the renters will be charged.
If you have bad credit, a criminal record and bad rental history nobody wants to rent to you, it’s really that simple. If you’re young, unmarried, not working, on social assistance, loud, entitled, disrespectful or just plain rude landlords don’t want to rent to you. Canadians have to remember that most of the time, the majority of these rental control type laws get passed by welfare recipients and delinquents.
There of course will be the good that also have problems finding apartments but majority of the times these laws get passed because of delinquents, sure when the mainstream media sells it to the public, it sounds like oh these poor people have no homes, but when you get to the root causes you’ll realize that it’s the delinquents causing the most problems. I always recommend people do some volunteering and actually take the time to talk to the poor people who want government assistance.
There are poor people that simply reject capitalism and don’t want anything from anybody and then there are the people that want, expect and feel entitled to everything from everybody. I volunteer and this has been the common theme when I meet poor people and the truth is I prefer the poor people who don’t want anything from anybody. When I meet these types of men and women, these are the people I prefer helping the most.
Because usually what their problem is is that they’re not understanding why the world is such a cruel place. But the other so-called poor people who are using the system, the types that don’t work, don’t want to work and use the government to redistribute money to them and other government and corporate entities to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist I’m not fans of these people at all.
Understanding why so many condos are being built in Toronto
Owning a real estate property as an investment is just like any other investment, you want certainty. Most people prefer to work for wages rather than commissions because in most people’s minds wages equate to certainty. In the past, if you had good credit the landlords would often cut you a deal. In the 1990’s I got my first 2 months free and then 6 month’s where I saved $200 on the negotiated rate. When my lease came up for renewal I negotiated with the landlord again for a lower rent price.
then of course laws changed, more people started complaining and different demographics move in and well, landlords bottom lines were compromised and then of course every leftist politicians sides with the most votes, evil capitalism so, CMHC insures mortgages at normal interest rates, a few years later the U.S housing market crashes, Canada’s housing market doesn’t, prices for real estate rise, condo boom happens and rental units based on demand are passed on for condos based on easily accessible capital.
In Toronto right now if housing was based on the needs of the domestic population there wouldn’t be a housing shortage but because of government intervention, there is a shortage. So here we are, instead of Doug Ford just coming out hard and telling people that rental controls don’t work instead he says only new rental developments will be free of rent controls. So what this equates to is this CBC article that you can read below making a fair point.
Rent control reforms could mark return to sky-high increases for Toronto tenants, advocates warn – CBC
I’m in no way saying that I agree with the CBC article, but this is why when you’re a right-leaning politician you don’t beat around the bush. You tell it like it is and if people don’t want to accept it they’ll vote left and watch as their society deteriorates.
A portion of the CBC article states the following:
“We know that in the past we’ve had the exemption from the rent control and it hasn’t produced the much-needed rental stock in the region, and that’s why we are in the situation we are,” said councillor Ana Bailao, chair of the city’s affordable housing committee.
The keyword is this “hasn’t produced the much-needed rental stock in the region”. The region, the region, do you understand the wording they’re using, it’s not to say that rentals weren’t being built, but they weren’t being built in the region, the government wanted them to be built (central planning). You have to understand something Canada and this is where honest conversations have to occur. If an area of Toronto is known to have drugs and crime, why would any developer want to build there? If there’s a history that the government will faze out rent controls 1 year, just to bring them back the next year, why would a developer want to build there?
The reason why builders prefer condos is that once those condos are built, they’re bought and then owned and then on top of this the condo developer can charge the tenants a maintenance fee. Making things even better is that once the condo is built and paid for, the responsibility is shifted to the buyers, the banks, the new owners of the condo property, so the condo builder in that scenario doesn’t have to worry about government regulations nor do they have to worry about meeting the demands of the people.
This is why in my opinion CMHC was the biggest financial disaster ever created in Canadian history and instead of Doug Ford simply enacting laws what he should do is explain to Canadians why rental controls don’t work. Because we all know, that he knows, but he’s too scared to tell voters because he fears they’ll vote him out.
Canada rental controls do not work!
Interesting times ahead.