A long time ago, Albert Einstein said: “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
It’s a fact of life that you’ll find stup… (sorry, “dreamers”) in any profession and institution and, certainly, the government and the Ontario Real Estate Association are not exceptions. As proof about the government’s stupidity (about real estate) is that they are still keeping FINTRAC in spite of its uselessness, its $77-million annual budget and the lack of real results.
If that “stupidity” at the federal level was not enough, now they are chasing a new mirage at provincial level with OREA’s help and its recommendations to the cute More Homes for Everyone Act (funny name, eh?). In order to reduce the price of properties, what OREA recommended sounds a little bit ridiculous:
1) Use financial incentives to encourage municipalities to speed up zoning bylaw amendments.
2) Increase the certainty of development charges to bring down prices on new homes.
3) Strengthen consumer protections for purchasers of new homes by doubling fines and extending building license suspensions to address unethical conduct by developers.
Do they really believe that prices will go down just by applying these incongruent measures? Or is this just a show before elections? I don’t know what happens where they live but here, on planet Earth, it doesn’t work that way. The current prices, simply put, are the prices of this market. Probably the only way to get a reduction would be by flooding the market with thousands of properties next week. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
As everybody knows, supply and demand is a basic principle. If supply is higher, prices go down. If demand is higher, prices go up. If you could buy diamonds by the pound from a big basket in No Frills, certainly they would be cheaper than the price you see in a jewelry store.
It seems to me that the government didn’t realize yet that, unfortunately, affordable housing (at least in Toronto and the GTA) is a naive and impossible dream. Do they think that in the next neighbourhood to be built (even with the above recommendations) will they see houses 40 per cent or 50 per cent cheaper than other locations around that area? Don’t try to artificially reduce the price of houses. Try to realistically increase people’s income!
In a nutshell: If you can’t afford a Mercedes, buy another car. Do not expect that the Germans will reduce the price for you. If you can’t buy a house in Toronto or the GTA, then do what Shrek did and move to The Land of Far Far Away.
You have to adapt to the market, not the other way around. I know that it’s not your fault, buyer, but like the rest of us, deal with it.
Jorge Branca
Sales representative and ABR
Century21 Leading Edge Realty
Toronto
Excuse, that I can not participate now in discussion – there is no free time. I will return – I will necessarily express the opinion on this question.