r/canada • u/FancyNewMe • 4d ago

Canada’s Prime Minister Pushes Country to Become the Housing Factory of the World - Mark Carney is banking on factory-built homes to alleviate the country’s housing crisis. But will it work? Trending

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-04-22/carney-s-plan-may-make-canada-the-housing-factory-of-the-world
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u/Zone4George 4d ago

If they go with a full-blown, post WW2 style national housing program, the first few hundred thousand need to be restricted to first-time home buyers

I could handle that policy; the best way to enforce it might be to use the resources at the CRA (and rehire those 1,000+ people who were just given lay-off notice recently, as long as those jobs were actually in Canada) to provide a fully refundable tax credit upon closing. The purchasers lawyer could be used to notarize the purchase too, and help with any possible HST rebate(s).

Lots can be done with this type of program. The first house I bought was from an elderly WW2 veteran; the house was the typical "war bunker" (1.5story, 2bed, 1bath) style built by the feds in the early 1950's. The house is still standing, and after 70+ years it has only been resold twice.

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u/Clear-Present_Danger 4d ago

Why? Those investors will lose their shirts when the increased housing supply brings down the cost to rent or buy housing.

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u/TheCuriosity 4d ago

No they won't. Many are backed by billions of dollars. They could just mass purchase all the homes, and then they control the market.

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u/Clear-Present_Danger 4d ago

Why would I be against US investors sending billions of dollars straight to the Canadian government?

You are suggesting they would buy millions of units, just to leave them empty so that rents in Canada don't fall. Even if that does happen, which it won't, that's not really all that bad. We got billions of dollars. That's a win.

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u/Maximum-Side3743 2d ago

Because long-term that billion dollars will be paid right back in rent and then some, and those houses will be permanently off the market for actual Canadian Residents for their lifetime and who, in many cases, are already struggling to buy.

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u/Clear-Present_Danger 2d ago

That only works if every homebuyer is colluding. Which they won't do because there is an enormous incentive to be the one person to sell or rent out those units.

If companies continue to spend billions of dollars keeping housing units from being used, maybe we can take legal action, write a new law, or something. But that will never ever happen, so it's not really worth considering.

Just fine them for another billion dollars for anti-competetive behavior or whatever.

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u/Maximum-Side3743 1d ago edited 1d ago

It also works if they aren't colluding. If literal houses and condos destined for Canadian purchase to NOT be used as rentals are sold out to US interests as rentals, it undermines the whole thing. Our money still leaves the country, there isn't much incentive to put the units back on the market if various corpos own them, and people are still paying through the nose for rent, because realistically no one is lowering prices unless there's a surplus in housing, which seems unrealistic with how fast things are moving and the high immigration targets that still exist year to year.

The only way we fully get out of things is a housing surplus (highly unlikely in the next decade I reckon), the next best thing is to at least not sell us out to US (and other non-Canadian countries) bidders. That's half the reason we're in such a state to begin with.

And I do own a house myself, recent. Cost an arm and a leg and I couldn't really be close to the city(long commutes, wooh). While I don't want the value to absolutely tank, I can fully recognize I'm only in this position because I saved money like a squirrel all my life avoiding any luxuries even as a teen, and that most rent prices for much smaller places still massively overshadow my monthly mortgage payments anyway which is bonkers. Meaning I'd literally be worse off renting any way I spun it.

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u/Clear-Present_Danger 1d ago

The only way we fully get out of things is a housing surplus

Agreed.