Editor:
Re: “Housing conundrum” Oct. 14, editorial
The writer echoed the popular narative repeated by polititians that the housing crisis only has two sides to the coin: home owners and wanna-be home owners.
If real estate prices drop, it hurts the 70 per cent of Canadians that have the majority of their net worth in their homes. If real estate prices rise, it hurts the 30 per cent of Candians that are yet to become home owners.
What about the third player in all this? Big government.
A recent article by Paul Sulivan, partner at Burgess Crawley Sullivan and Associates stated that when building a new one-bedroom condo on Cambie street, $220,000 had to be set aside to pay for all the government taxes, levies and fees. That’s an aditional cost of 26 per cent.
So a condo that could sell for $620,000 now sells for $840,000.
If the government lowered its development costs, we could bring more affordable housing stock to market without trying to cool the market artificially by punishing existing home owners with higher interest rates.
Troy Adamson, South Surrey