> All this is true and bad but the Canadian market is primarily driven by supply issues, not red tape. There just aren’t enough houses/condos.

You forgot cheap debt. There's also a ton of speculation. Jack up those interest rates and see where we're at.

Jack up interest rates to trigger a recession, and now not only do you still have a housing market that exists in its current form due to perpetual undersupply but with a recession on top.

Making it too expensive to buy a home does 'help' with prices, but it's more like treating the symptom than the cause. The result is there still isn't enough affordable housing in places where it is needed.

If raising interest rates causes a recession then we’re already in one and just pretending we’re not.

Consider the long term consequences of this debt economy. We’re just kicking the can down the road. It won’t magically get better. The sooner we (society) learn that massively over borrowing has consequences, the better.

I agree though that building more housing (or maybe radically changing the way housing works) should also happen. Maybe once everyone wakes up from this real estate debt fantasy there’ll be the political will to actually do something about it.

Average house price in Canada has ballooned. It’s like a crypto scheme, only instead of a bunch of shady YouTubers selling it, we have an entire industry of snake oil pushers. I don’t think your average Jane really gets how ridiculous it is… yet.

>> All this is true and bad but the Canadian market is primarily driven by supply issues, not red tape.

My point is that if you reduce the red tape (and deadweight loss) there are actually people who want to sell, but wont sell if they are losing a ton of money on the sale. Reduce the loss and more supply appears.

In the US this is a huge issue. If you switch cities twice and sell each time, your entire downpayment has disappeared in fees/taxes. You literally have nothing left to buy your next home with. So people stick around in houses they dont want in cities without ideal jobs because they have no choice.

That isn’t what’s happening in the Canadian market is what we’re telling you.

It is not that there are people that aren’t selling, it’s that there aren’t enough houses for the number of people in the country. House prices have risen enough to cover all of the fees, except that there is nowhere in the country you can move to where this isn’t happening.

When markets are rising so rapidly, there are very few people who might lose money on a sale. There’s a lot of fat in the process, but it’s not particularly relevant when prices are going up double digits each year.

Unless potential sellers are leaving the country or are choosing to rent after they sell, wouldn't more sellers also increase the number of buyers (because those sellers have to live somewhere else after they sell), and it all will end up being a wash?

(And if they are choosing to rent after they sell, that just shifts unaffordable home prices to unaffordable rents, as rental demand increases without a corresponding increase in supply.)