Chinese Buy One-Third of Vancouver Homes: National Bank Estimate
I am curious about the downstream effects of house prices becoming increasing multiples of income in so many western countries. E.g. I suspect it will hit entrepreneurship. Younger generations are buying houses later and taking out massive loans when they do. For the boomers you&#x27;d often hear how they bought a house soon after college and paid it off by their early thirties. This would put people in a good place to leave their work for a couple of years to start a business. Now people have these huge mortgages where your ability to start a business is hampered by your ability to get a financial buffer to take a year or 2 off. And lets not forget most businesses are created form people mid-career, not the TV typical university dropout.<p>And small community business, how will they exist in the future. If someone wants to set up a local &#x27;physical presence&#x27; vet&#x2F;daycare type business that are typically mixed into residential areas the threshold is now so high ot exist and especially set up a new business. How can a daycare buy a million+ dollar house and expect to make money paying that back on having 30 local kids being looked after.<p>Also what is going to happen with retirement and periods of unemployment. I suspect society will be less stable as either the government has to foot high rent costs  (unlikely) or we will see increased population movements during retirement, and now the government has to look after older people that before a family who lived nearby could help out with. And during low employment cycles society can absorb this downturn if people dont have large loans. Historically people cant &#x27;tighten belts&#x27; for a year while things improve, harder when your neck deep in debt. So we will again see more movement of people, debt default etc. It will serve to exacerbate recessions etc.<p>Also these higher prices skew the economy. When people are tied up in these ever increasing loan&#x2F;income ratios there will be less spending on dining, holidays, hobbies etc. It will weaken the economy by concentrating the spend in limited areas.<p>I believe we should look to ensure affordable housing for owner occupiers. Residential investment need to be discouraged (note I&#x27;m not saying stopped) as a speculative asset class. I&#x27;ve seen a few suggested methods to achieve this but I feel the simplest is to place a yearly &#x27;asset tax&#x27; on non-owner occupied residential property (I would also include farms). Having a % tax would make it easy to adjust to find the right balance given economic cycles change. Also this would encourage property hoarders not in heavy debt to sell for lower taxed asset classes. This I feel is important as most solutions focus on controlling the investment lending side which is limiting in reach.