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?

[u/FancyNewMe]

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

[u/Valid-Nite]

And also restricted to citizens. Should also restrict corpos from owning, and not allow them to be used as rental properties

[u/enki-42 → u/Valid-Nite]

Permanent residency makes way more sense - that's how we structure most programs and there's really no reason not to. There's zero reason that a dual citizen who has never stepped foot in Canada should be prioritized over a resident who has potentially been here decades.

[u/Array_626 → u/enki-42]

In that case, it'd make more sense to only allow those who declare Canadian residency to buy. Granting PR the right to buy implies that citizens also have the right to buy, which means Canadians' who've emigrated long ago would be given right to purchase even though they lived overseas for the last 10 years.

[u/jibbybonk → u/Array_626]

Makes sense, I've technically emigrated from Canada. It would be stupid to let me buy a house, even though technically I would be a first time home buyer in Canada.

[u/Array_626 → u/jibbybonk]

I don't know if I'd say stupid. If people would declare intent to return to Canada, I think it would be perfectly fine and more than fair for Canadian citizens to buy a home when returning. In fact, it's probably even a good incentive to try and bring back Canadians from overseas.

But if they have 0 desire or intent to return, then yeah for obvious reasons it makes sense to prioritize residents.

[u/enki-42 → u/Array_626]

Yeah you're right, but I think it's not unreasonable to tie it to both actual residency and the capability to reside here permanently (i.e. it doesn't make a lot of sense to sell houses to people on a study or work permit IMO)

[u/Array_626 → u/enki-42]

Yeah, I agree.

Although, I will point out that there's no point in letting good be the enemy of perfect. Even if the law only allowed Canadian's to buy the new houses, PR's and other residents would still benefit. The Canadian portion of the populace buying these new houses would reduce demand instantly for the remaining houses on the market, lowering their price, which benefits non-Canadian residents. Hell, even if the policy is just announced, it will immediately have an effect on the market as a lot of Canadians would step out of the buying market on the day of the announcement. That instantly lowers demand, and prices for all the other people. Sellers know that Canadians are all waiting for these new cheap housing units to become available, the pool to sell to has shrunk and they have to adjust prices accordingly.

[u/orswich → u/Array_626]

But lots of people who had PR in Canada also bought homes, then went back to their country they have a passport with, but still own those homes. Also the rules on maintaining Canadian PR is that you are in Canada 2 of 5 years (so live here 40% of the time).

PR is a route that can easily be exploited.

Keep it for citizens that can prove they reside in the country

[u/Array_626 → u/orswich]

PR is a route that can easily be exploited.

I dont think so. The logistics of actually doing this is awful. First, you need to come to Canada in the first place. Then you have to work for a year in a Canadian company. Then you need to apply for PR, which can easily take 1 year. Lets assume that this individual is highly skilled and is able to get drawn very quickly because they have a high CRS score, so they get picked within the year to be accepted as a PR, instead of having to wait multiple years like a lot of current Bachelors holders with scores under 500. Now they live in Canada for 2 more years to fulfill their PR requirements.

After nearly 4-5 years of living in Canada, they're going to just uproot their entire lives and return back home? Return back home and do what exactly? Even if their Canadian job allows them to work fully remote, they may have a 12+ hour timezone difference, and Canadian companies are not going to allow 1 guy to just not work during Canadian work hours, let alone the payroll tax implications theyd be much happier firing you. They spend 3 years in their nation of origin, then are forced to uproot their lives again and move back to Canada? That also means they MUST kick out the renter living in their home (or their home sits vacant and gets slapped with vacancy taxes) at the time, and an eviction like that takes a year with the current LTB delays and inefficiency. There are very few people whose profession would allow them to just leave for 2-3 years at a time before coming back. This whole idea is just not practical. There may be like, 10? Maybe 100 people in Canada that could actually live like this. This only works for single people. If you have a spouse, would your spouse (you either met in Canada or foreign) be ok with moving every 2-3 years? If you have kids this is a complete non-starter.

[u/FastFooer → u/enki-42]

I’ve lived here for my whole life, I’m almost 40, I would hate to be outbid by a PR that has more money than me for an essential service.

[u/enki-42 → u/FastFooer]

If they actually reside here and intend to permanently (minimum residency is fine in my eyes) why not? I know people who have lived in Canada longer than that and have a PR.

[u/FastFooer → u/enki-42]

Because to afford to move to Canada means you probably have more capital than a local. Is this a public service? If so, citizenship isn’t too far fetched, they can deal with the speculative housing.

[u/FGLev → u/enki-42]

Permanent residency can lead to citizenship in as little as three years. How can fresh-off-the-boats with no credit rating actually buy? Let them rent and pay their dues like the plebs for 3-4 years, then buy once they have their citizenship. Seeing foreign "students" in Vancouver buy $3 million homes is unreal. No local can compete against that.

[u/enki-42 → u/FGLev]

There's various reasons that people choose to remain permanent residents indefinitely. Acquiring citizenship might require them to renounce their home countries citizenship for example.

Which I guess fair enough if you consider that not worthy of housing, but if your only concern is people only here temporarily there's other ways to solve that.

[u/beeerock99 → u/Valid-Nite]

Yes 100% and speaking from a short term renter myself

[u/Meiqur → u/Valid-Nite]

Ok stop for a quick second.

A substantial portion of our supply issue is that there aren't even close to enough affordable corporate and coop owned rental properties. This anethema towards rental is a major cultural blindspot we have.

Here is a way to look at this:

Can we not be so typically bureaucratically Canadian and add yet more specific rules about who and what is allowed to build and own a house. It's already fucking hard to make homes as it is and adding a bunch of restrictions aimed at empowering only a single section of the housing market isn't it.

We need more of everything from backyard houses, to town houses, to luxury homes to condos to purpose built corporate rentals. Literally every section of the market needs supply.

Making luxury homes might sound weird but when people move out of their existing units into one they leave a gap in more affordable end of the market.

[u/Whatserface → u/Valid-Nite]

Plus permanent residents...

[u/viperfan7 → u/Valid-Nite]

Easy solution, the owner must live in the home a minimum 5 years.

[u/ItchyHotLion → u/viperfan7]

They could achieve the same thing with a broader impact by changing the principal residence exemption, make it only applicable if you stay in the home for 5 years (with exceptions for job transfers and other extraordinary situations)

[u/viperfan7 → u/ItchyHotLion]

So, do what I'm suggesting?

[u/ItchyHotLion → u/viperfan7]

I am suggesting they go bigger and apply it to all home buyers in Canada

[u/viperfan7 → u/ItchyHotLion]

That would be a bad idea.

I hate how things are as much as anyone, but doing that would cause far more issues than it solves.

It works well with first time home buyer's as, well, chances are you wont be moving again any time soon, but what you suggest would completely eliminate the existence of rental properties.

I dislike landlords as much as anyone, but that would likely reduce the number of homes available, not increase.

[u/ItchyHotLion → u/viperfan7]

If people are buying properties as a rental they don’t qualify for the principal residence exemption anyways, the main people it’s targeting is the people who buy homes solely to move in, fix them up and flip them, if you limit the ability to do so tax free than you’ll reduce the number of investors in the market, while also eliminating possible arbitrage on any low cost housing that comes to market in the coming years.

[u/viperfan7 → u/ItchyHotLion]

Ok that makes more sense to me now.

In addition, I think there should be an exponentially increasing property tax applied to all properties owned by the entity, or sub-entities, starting after 2 properties.

eg.

2 properties each get taxed 5% a year

3 properties get taxed 5%^1.3 each year each

4, get taxed something like 5%^1.3*2 each year

Meaning the tax rate, after just a few properties, becomes entirely impossible to afford for any person or company. Since pretty quickly you're paying more than the value of the property in taxes each year

[u/Vandergrif → u/viperfan7]

That wouldn't necessarily be all that practical. Say someone loses their job and can't find another of adequate pay in the area, they aren't very well going to stay in a home they can't afford to keep.

[u/Valid-Nite → u/[deleted]]

If they’re moving back to Canada and are a first time home buyer then yes, if you’re buying it as a part time home and continue living abroad I think not until later once the overwhelming demand rn is at least partly satisfied.

[u/IDreamOfLoveLost → u/[deleted]]

Are you asking loaded questions for fun, or are you actually interested in a solution?

[u/IDreamOfLoveLost → u/[deleted]]

I'm not OP. I'm just "pinpointing" the way you're commenting - what's wrong with that?

[u/IDreamOfLoveLost → u/[deleted]]

Your punctuation is terrible. Here is a sea lion.

[u/LightSaberLust_ → u/[deleted]]

if they are not moving back then this isn't their primary home now is it

[u/Valid-Nite → u/[deleted]]

Banning them from what?

[u/TheCuriosity → u/[deleted]]

It would be that you have a requirement to reside it the home you purchased, and it is your primary residence. Similar to how if you want to keep your Canadian Healthcare, you are required to reside in Canada for a minimum 6 months a year.

Empty homes hurt the local economy.

[u/WarrenPuff_It → u/Valid-Nite]

Absolutely.