Landlords vs tenants: Both sides of the housing crisis

The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people—at least in California, where I currently reside—are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!

"It's the fundamental issue of a capitalist society." That hit the nail on the head.

I feel like the Canadian government doesn’t understand that high housing costs cause terrible problems for the economy. If people are spending all of their earnings on housing, they don’t have money to put into the economy which means jobs will be lost because businesses won’t be making enough money. So, it becomes harder to earn money as housing prices increases. The whole thing is just ridiculous. Right now, I live in Taiwan, I rent a three bedroom beachside house for $350/month plus I rent a beach bar for a business that can sit 150 people and the rent is $1200/month… So why did I leave Canada??? Taiwan has a strong economy with affordable living. The world could learn a lot from Taiwan.

Applause to CBC for opening up comments. I hear so many stories of families having a hard time with food because of their housing costs, both renters and home owners! These people all have children This is where the Government has truly failed because it doesn't have to be this way. I also appreciate CBC addressing this terrible situation. This situation has to turn around because it has become dire.

First of all, kudos to CBC for allowing comments, as they usually do not. I have been in the housing industry for over 35 years in the GTA, and was a landlord for a little over 30 years. I was quite fortunate with tenants over the years, but after my last tenant left in 2020 I sold my last rental. Even though I was fairly fortunate, I had experienced enough difficulties, and was seeing what some friends were going through, and decided enough was enough. I am however very sympathetic to the tenants they had on this interview, it is extremely challenging at present to be a tenant looking for a place to live. I strongly agree with what the economist said about the housing shortage. The present federal government has done a terrible job managing housing versus immigration, but the provincial and municipal governments of the past 20 years have also made mistakes. It is nice to see both the provincial government and the City of Toronto starting to try to fix the mess, but we need the Federal government to start pitching in as well. To be clear, I am not against immigration, we definitely need a certain level just to keep the country running, but it is extremely irresponsible to our new friends and neighbours to say please join us here, but sorry we are short housing, health care workers, etc. There have been numerous studies on our housing situation. A BMO economist recently said the housing shortage was a myth based on the rate of building vs the rate of immigration over the last few years, but at the same time other economists have said we are short 1-1.5 million residences. The CMHC recently said that by 2030 we will need an extra 3.5 million homes, and that is above the 2.3 million they say is planned in that time frame. Aside from issues like getting approvals to build, having necessary materials available, there is very little/zero chance that we will have the necessary skilled labour available to pull off all of this construction. If anyone has time, you can also check out the massive increase in the development fees charged by the various regions and municipalities. I know all of government is looking for money, but these increases are to me obscene. I know most are unsympathetic to the builders, but we all should note that these fees are ultimately passed on to the Buyers. There are stats available showing that the US and Canada are amongst the lowest countries in the developed world for available housing per capita. It is no coincidence that we both have major cities that are extremely expensive to try to buy or rent. Aside from our population growth, there has also been the growth in popularity in AIR BNB's, and the number of households with a single occupant has grown from 1.7 million to 4.4 million over the last 40 years. These issues are rarely mentioned, but they alone would eat into the availability of long term rental or owner occupied residences. Hopefully there are better days ahead. Everyone be well!

I love the landlord's comment......"there are cheaper places to move too". Like it's that easy to pick up and move anywhere. Talk about our of touch.

As a Landlord and tenant, I see both sides. What I understand is housing is essential. What I understand is as a landlord having properties I need to remember empathy amongst all. I need to remember everything goes both ways. I’ve only ever truly had 1 “bad” tenant. Why? I left a friend in charge while I was away, there was damage unresolved and the tenant got annoyed and it created issues. Understandable. As a landlord, I don’t feel superior or think people can just move if they don’t like it. This is a business transaction going both ways. When my variable mortgage got crazy, I NEVER used my properties for income gouging. I need landlords to understand that it’s okay to pay. Too many of you want to not pay a thing. You think you’ve done enough signing a mortgage and now expect your tenants to pay every last thing. That’s the biggest issue 🤷🏽‍♀️ Most don’t do jack shit or upgrade a thing. You only see or hear from them when it’s time to get money. The quality of living needs to be respected. If more of us landlords remembered this and had the thread of homelessness hanging over our heads as renters do? You’d act better. There would be less landlord vs tenant threads 🤷🏽‍♀️

Tokyo has 30 million people, Sao Paolo has 20 million people. There is zero reason why Canada, the second largest country in the world should have a housing shortage. Government needs to get out of the way.

A tenant can't walk out of a grocery store without paying. They'd call the police. Why then is it okay to rob a landlord of the rent? File a case with the LTB, wait a year and then he walks away saying he just doesn't have the money. During that time he is free to destroy your property as well. I think the people responsible for framing these laws deserve the maximum time behind bars.

Tenant moved in my property Oct 1. Didn’t pay damage deposit. Declined to pay rent as of Nov 1. Still trying to dispute thru Tenancy Board. Given numerous notices. Won’t move out. 😪

It's not private citizens job to house the rest of the population. Gov should be making public housing instead of relying on Canadians.

if you can't afford buying a second home then why buy it as an investment vehicle in the first place? All investments have risk of loss or depreciating, people have this mindset that if you're a landlord you SHOULD be promised a profit / value of home goes up / should get a monthly profit off of the housing NEED society has. It's wild that this is the norm, people should be buying a home to own for themselves to live in, not being greedy and buying multiple to profit off of someone else and contributing the to housing crisis and shortage. Greedy landlords are PART of the reason why people cannot afford down payments, and gobbling up multiple properties as 'investment vehicles' certainly does not help

As a student of economics in India, I am studying the housing crisis worldwide. You won't believe but this is true across the world, housing has become unaffordable in all the major cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Mumbai, Delhi, NY, Vegas etc). Economists need to find a solution to this besides making everyone understand how populist governmental policies have made fixed assets in the market extra expensive for the bottom 90%. Inflation is decided by the top 10% while the rest 90% suffer.

For starters. Housing for profit is a massive conflict of interests. We owned a condo in a tower with 200 units. One person owned 20 of them. Investors push up prices. Start there.

I think one fundamental part they're overlooking is the concentration of jobs in a few select cities. The number one reason people immigrate or move to the city is to pursue a career. This naturally drives up the demand if you're a young professional or family, especially if you're an immigrant. I've lived in Ottawa, Peterborough, and Kingston, ON, in that order. The reason I moved to Toronto was to get a job, because none of the other places that I lived in offered any, in terms of pursuing a career. Meanwhile, you have all of these suburban developments out in the middle of nowhere, with no local businesses within walking distance. These folks mostly drive into Toronto proper because that's where their work is located. There's no local commerce in the immediate area to sustain those suburban neighbourhoods. Places like Peterborough are desperate for jobs. When the major economic provider for the city is the GM plant located in Oshawa; a plant that has routinely threatened to shut down, it creates a lot of migration. Spread the jobs around, and hopefully the housing market will spread out as well.

One thing that’s rarely touched upon is the younger generations, I mean how does one born 1998> expect to even get started in the housing/rental market? Trust me we don’t want to live with our parents forever, but at the same time in major cities there’s no alternative when rents $3.5k+.

Toronto and Vancouver would not have gotten this bad if wasn't for the lack of legislation on foreign investors in the last 20 years. Both municipalities wanted growth at an unprecedented rate and made a deal with the devil to acquire it. It left Canadians with an untenable Real Estate market that spread to other parts of the country, beginning in their respective provinces.

So many horror situations that the renters do not pay rents plus destroyed the properties and the landlords could not do anything about that so most people rather left the houses be unoccupied than rent them out just not worth the aggravations and headaches with the rentals especially since the pandemic.

Thank you for both perspectives - well done.

What I'm not hearing discussed are the short-term rentals. I'm talking about airbnbs that were once housing families are now being used as hotel rooms. That has greatly affected the supply in the market. Homes are being purchased by investors yet no families are moving in they're being renovated and turned into short-term rentals. I believe this can be addressed through legislation that eliminates short-term rentals of four season properties where the owner is not also living at the property it will free up housing and turn some of those properties into long-term rentals helping bring down rents and making more properties available in the marketplace