this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This can work in some places (mostly looking at the prairies), but will do close to zero in others (like eastern Canada+BC). The simple problem is that the land the house is built on is often worth something like 80% the cost of buying property. The cost of a new house can be zero, but that will do little to help people afford new homes. Only slightly better than the tax cuts PP is proposing, which will have just as weak of an effect helping those who don't already own six houses.

The solution is to use the land we already use for homes more efficiently, and the only way to do that is to build condos and apartments. Make them mixed use and you can add the rental fees of a grocery store and several other services to the mix to subsidize the cost even further. A single grocery store that'll take up half the ground floor paid something like a million in rent a year, and that was before COVID. Add a convenience store, a couple fast food restaurants, a bar, and a dentist or salon, and you've got a mini-mall that'll rake in several million in rent that has a captured clientele in those that live above and near them. And that number will be in the hundreds for a 30 story apartment in the space of half a city block, since there'd be more than ten units per floor, even if it only has two-four bedroom units.

Such buildings can't be built in a factory, even partially. Not if we want them to last more than ten years, since that's the problem with the quick condos China tried to build.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You might not be able to pre construct the whole building, but there's a lot of new technology out there that pre builds very large parts.

I've seen 15m pre fabricated concrete walls placed with cranes before.

There's a lot we could probably do like that which would speed up build times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

If I remember right, that was basically what they did to make commie blocks.

If the building isn't too tall, maybe 5 stories or less, that is proven to work, though I don't know about the quality, at least it's durable. But I strongly doubt that it would work for skyscrapers. I don't think there's any way to get beyond single large support struts to go throughout the entire building, and concrete walls feel too heavy to be used. Maybe prefab concrete floors could work, but I don't work construction.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Is the only thing that's going to fix the housing crisis actually reducing the cost of homes? And nobody actually wants that to happen.. so...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Nobody who owns a home wants that to happen*

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

My home price has doubled since Covid, but so have all the others around me. The gains are fake. The only benefit is to the real estate agent, and my ego.

Drive the prices into the ground.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Because the entire economic system inherently benefits entrenched Capital.

This game of Monopoly was decided before we were born.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Even moreso, those who own other people's homes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I had a friend do this. It's a great house and the process went very smoothly.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's a sensible way to do it. Modern prefab doesn't necessarily mean the house is entirely built offsite and then dropped in place. It just means that more of the assembly is done in a controlled, precision, effficient environment (a factory) and then assembled on site with less time and expense. It means more houses, faster and cheaper. Which is what we need.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Sears company has prefab homes still standing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Modern_Homes

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The answer to this has always been no, everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Not quite true. Many homes in Canada literally were ordered from the Eaton catalogue. Truck arrives with all the components, you assemble it yourself. We used to do these things.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Yeah. We actually already do prefab with roof trusses. They are precision manufactured in a factory, shipped to the site and then assembled. This is extending the same principle to other home components like wall assemblies.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, but it won’t fill the housing gap.

Those houses still have to be assembled somewhere.

The more likely solution is a big fibre optic rollout and getting all information workers out of the cities.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They would be assembled on site.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah; in most of the places where there are housing issues, the problem isn’t skilled labour to build houses or a lack of building materials (although those can become issues) — it’s the cost and availability and accessibility of land. There’s no “on site” to assemble them on.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

the problem isn’t skilled labour to build houses

Can you provide any references for this? My naive web searches find that most sources say there is a significant skill labour shortage, so if you can provide sources which I can learn from that would be helpful.

it’s the cost and availability and accessibility of land

Housing shortage is a multi-dimensional problems with what you mention here included. One plank in the BCH platform that attempts to address this is the release federal lands for new housing. I suppose it will remain to be seen how that works out, if Carney is elected.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

We should give tax credit for wfh too perhaps.

Except our government doesn't actually want housing prices to fall, or for there to be less people in the city.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

More people should be living in the city so the wilderness can remain the wilderness. Build up, not out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm kind of on the fence with your opinion. Living in Montreal I've seen some old broken down neighbourhoods being turned into new condominium cities, but without enough city/social planning. (Griffintown) This caused incredible problems for the local infrastructure, commerce, and services. Sewers, aqueducts, electricity, roads, public transports, kindergartens, schools, medical clinics, etc. The concentration of people increased too much, too fast.

Instead, I think we need to increase density slowly, but spread it out over the city. Not everyone needs to live in 300 sq ft closets downtown. Having smaller apartment buildings with 4/5 storeys replacing old duplexes and triplexes in adjacent neighborhoods, with units that are better adapted to family life with several rooms and enough space to move around could be even more beneficial. And include social housing mixed in with regular housing would have a positive impact as well. But, that's a pretty Montreal-specific scenario. I know in Toronto it's very different and their needs are different, for example.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Frankly housing should be a right and everyone should have the same space for the same sized families and you can move as your family changes into different sized units.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Absolutely. The way housing is treated as a financial investment vehicle instead of a basic human right is disgusting. Unless it turns a profit, there are no incentives to build social housing in this system. Or to build larger units, if instead you can build and sell more smaller ones.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The law of rent dictates the price of a house, there is no equitable way to give people housing. Its naive to think that there is, some problems are extremely complex and take much more nuance related to second order effects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I don't block, but just know I am never going to have an actual conversation with you so I would suggest you quit wasting your time and mine spouting nonsense.

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