As many of you know, in addition to being the host of the Real Estate Espresso Podcast, by day I’m the senior partner at Y Street Capital. Our firm is active across 9 states in the US and also in Canada where I reside.
It sounds strange to say this, but Canada has a much more acute housing crisis than the US. Our population has grown through immigration much faster than the US. Many Canadian cities are facing a crisis of availability at any price and it’s no longer even a question of affordability.
Unless governments are going to take over housing and socialize housing like you might in a communist country, the only free market way to address the housing crisis is create the incentives for additional supply to enter the market.
Just like in the US, Canadian cities get their power from the next level of government. US cities get their power from the state in which they reside and Canadian cities get their power from the province in which they reside.
In addition to the steps taken over the past couple of years at the provincial level, the Ontario government has a new bill called bill 185 which is aimed at Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes. One of the obstacles to creating more supply is the red tape and bureaucracy that exists in the planning system.
Most of our listening audience is outside of Canada. In fact 81% of our listeners are in the US. I’m going over this in some detail because I believe you can influence the political process and create improvements in the development process that will benefit developers and ultimately the people who are going to live in those newly created homes.
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Host: Victor Menasce
email: podcast@victorjm.com
