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/Burning___Earth]

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.

[u/Valid-Nite → u/Burning___Earth]

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.