Root cause of housing unaffordability

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Someone will rent it fast, too.

A friend of mine has a Giant couch - like it was custom made for some 7’ something basketball player or something. He’s rented it out to mutual friends through some Winters and I told him he should do it again this Winter as he’ll be able to find a roommate to take it at a fair price. It’s longer than a single bed I think.

As for the article above, another friend shared that post and one of the comments from one of his FB friends was that she’s seen posts for people with Queen sized beds literally renting out the other side of their bed for $700/mo in Vancouver. Like not even joking there are ads to sleep beside someone else in their bed for 700 bucks a month. And that would actually be a good option for some people tbh.. better than homeless and a cheap way to be in a certain location but still holy moly.

And the pioneer approach based on a belief that there's still plenty of land has definitely reached its limit.
Isn't that natural process being currently artificially stopped by zoning?

In continental Europe, there are various, and variously successful, attempts at urbanistic design, to prevent city sprawling and to keep possibly much living space for people within the reach of public transport (also to have city green and various public goods available locally).

Vancouver tries to do those things, too. But we hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics and then even more people and/or their money wanted to move here And our provincial government at the time decided to make Vancouver one of the biggest money laundering centres in the world for people to move their money out of China into.. soo, the city doesn't have nearly the housing density that it should. There are condo towers, yes, but there are a lot of areas that should be built up with 6+ story apartment buildings but it's nearly impossible to get approval to build them because very rich people say NIMBY! They don't want apartment buildings, or working class people, within eyesight.. and don't care if people have to live an hour or two drive away and commute to work. Money corrupts everything.

Zoning is the official way to achieve it, corrupting city councils is the unofficial way to achieve it, the goal and the side effects are the same. Rich people have no poor people in their neighbourhood, poor people have no place to live.

With all the issues of socialism, the way it mixed social groups in housing does provide benefits that we still enjoy here.

I am shocked that people rent out one side of a queen bed, and also amused in a tragic kind of way.

Comment on an actual Vancouver ad renting a 28 square foot “bedroom,” for $1200/mo. (Plus bathroom and kitchen access I assume.)

Was just hearing about the latest Trump revelations.

His actual apartment in NYC is ten thousand square feet. Imagine renting a space in Vancouver that is a square a hundred feet on each side (thirty meters). Thats the actual size of a tycoon's apt in NYC. Not too shabby.

But back in the day when he applied for bank loans he claimed his apartment was thirty thousand square feet. You would think that someone at the bank would stop to think that "this guy claims that he lives in a building that contains an apartment that is two thirds of the size of a football field". Even if he IS the guy who owns the building that the apartment is in still...I would have had someone look into it.

I’ve worked on lots in of large houses including one that was 9,000sf and expanded to 18,000sf with underground parking and a music studio. Also, I live in a 3200sf house. I know how big 10,000sf of living space is.

We'll be visiting Vancouver in two weeks GF.
We should have lunch on the $1300 hide-a-bed.

So how come we managed OK in the 80s and 90s with much lower immigration?

Immigration has very little do do with the housing shortage. Below is a condensed version of an earlier post:
No, because they create denser urban housing which actually frees up space. The local inhabitants who had lived in those spaces previously move out to the suburbs, so they are not competing for urban rentals. Statistically this is how it often pans out. (Though not always and it varies greatly by locations.) Below is an article on the topic, from the UK, and this is a quote:

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-net ... ing-crisis[/quote]

Poland recently got about a million new inhabitants (per 37 million nation) in just a couple of weeks. Less than two years later, the housing market looks just as it always did, with previous trends going on in every aspect I know of.

I was surprised myself by how little change a sudden million of immigrants caused.

Part of the difference is that they’re refugees fleeing war and ending up wherever nearby out of necessity whereas many of the ones that come here bring immense amounts of money with them. Big difference in wealth, so likely why they’re not bidding up your real estate market.

Then, apparently, immigrants in Canada are a completely different bunch than immigrants in EU, UK or USA.

Not all of them, but many of them. Enough to bring Billions of dollars/year here, much of it illicit in one way or another - probably mostly getting it out of China.

Canada also had an "investor immigrant," program running for a couple decades where almost anyone could buy their way in by loaning Canada $500k or a couple Million dollars or whatever the numbers were for a few years interest free. They they were allowed to come as investor immigrants to start businesses in Canada. When BC shut that down, Quebec still kept their program going as a cash cow so people would pay their way into Canada via Quebec and then immediately head to Vancouver or Toronto, wherever they wanted to be.. so we still got the upward pressure on population from that program until it was completely stopped nation wide.

There are a lot of regular working class immigrants, professionals, working poor, migrant workers, refugees etc too but there are enough from the moneyed class to take notice of - especially when they flaunt their wealth with luxury homes and super cars. Vancouver is the luxury and super car capital of North America.. more cars worth $200k+/capita than anywhere else on the continent - and that didn't happen from local construction workers buying Ferraris and McClarens.

Canada has topped the list of most desirable countries to move to many years. There are 2.3 Million immigration applications in process right now - and they only bring in 400-500k/year. (and those are record highs.) With high demand I'm sure those who show on paper that they can afford to support themselves here have an easier time getting in than those w/o money simply seeking to work. (Maybe, maybe not.. not 100% sure on that. I know it's also easier for someone to come here if they have certain work skills we need as well - construction trades etc = faster to get approved as we need hands working)

We don't see this class of immigrants here at all.
Poland is certainly not a safe haven for super rich.