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No RTA protections at all if your agreement is with a current lease holder (eg you’re a roommate and not on the official lease) or if you rent a room from the property owner and share the kitchen or a bathroom with them. The RTA would still apply in rooming house situations. So yes, the standard lease is void and does not apply here even if one was signed. NAL but long time renter and afaik, this all falls under small claims of either party has a dispute the LTB won’t hear it.
The way it’s worded makes it seem worse than it is.
You can rent a room by itself and still have protections as long as you have the standard lease and the landlord does not live with you.
My landlord thought the same as the comments in this chain and illegally locked me out thinking i had no protections. After 6 days in the woods due to illegal lock out i got an expedited (emergency) LTB hearing where we determined i did have rights for renting that one room in a house stuffed with 2 people per room (except mine).
LTB determined i had rights and because the shitlord tried to spin lies in court the hearing took way too long and got adjourned for another day.
We got that first hearings results and it went my way, the LL didn’t show up to the hearing saying he’s allergic to sounds and his electronic gadgets so we had the hearing without him
This isn't entirely true.
The RTA only doesn't apply if you live with the landlord.
So if you are renting a room, and the person you signed a lease with doesn't live with you, you are still RTA protected.
Might I add, that if everyone who needed a roommate to help with rent/expenses had to follow the RTA people would learn that being homeless might be better.
This sounds like an exaggeration, but on paper (that is if you want to follow the law to the letter), it's almost like you are married your tenant with respect to ending a tenancy.
If you got a roommate that presented a danger to you for instance, you would have to wait a year and a half to prove it first, all while they continue to use your space.
In that situation, I would rather be homeless, but they would not release you from your covenant even if you were.
> just because my kids have grown and moved away does not mean I suddenly have 4 extra rooms to rent out...
You *could* rent them out if you wanted to, but if you don't want to it is your absolute right to leave them unrented and no airheaded blogger should tell you otherwise.
Lmao
We have gotten to a point where we are now going into people’s homes and counting how many bedrooms they aren’t using?
The hidden agenda behind articles like this is to shift blame away from government and make it seem like there are enough homes, just greedy rich people hoarding houses.. who needs to be *surprise surprise* taxed. That’s their plan for everything
It is a useful stat, not really good without context though.
Basically we have so many houses that were built for 3 to 5 person families which are now occupied by childless couples or singles. As well as retirees that don't have much options to downsize because zoning only allows detached houses in their area. (Plus stubborn retirees).
For all the complaints about lack of family sized apartments/condos, they are quite wrong. Family sized units have better supply:demand ratios than studios/one beds.. they are just horribly expensive, like all housing.
You mean doug ford the conservative.
In 2018, Ontario's Progressive Conservative government took a controversial step to try to address a dearth of purpose-built rentals. Fresh off his election win, Premier Doug Ford rolled back rent controls on all units built or occupied after Nov.
If we didn't rapidly take in several million more people to house than we can accommodate, then this wouldn't be as big of an issue. Even without controls rent is still subject to supply-demand pressures. If we didn't suddenly explode with 10x the demand and people competing for rentals, landlords would not have room to raise so quickly.
Rent control is not a solution. To state the obvious opening green belt was a solution, because it added supply, but so called progressives just let people be homeless as we immigrated people.
I can't stand these fear-adverse people.
"Things really fucking suck right now, we had better do **nothing at all** in case things get worse!"
Fucking bonkers.
He owns half a condo and his wife owns a condo or house that she had before they were married
He owns half of a company whose sole asset is a condo in the Calgary area.
“His wife Anaida Poilievre owns a condo in Orleans that is rented to a tenant that has no relationship with the Poilievres.”
[https://globalnews.ca/news/8771911/pierre-poilievre-mps-rental-property-housing-crunch/](https://globalnews.ca/news/8771911/pierre-poilievre-mps-rental-property-housing-crunch/)
Remember all bad things are from liberals and only good things come from conservatives. It's the conservative way. /s
Go ahead and downvote me conservatives. I'm not saying liberals are any better, but your downvotes only prove your delusion. Party loyalty is stupid.
You get downvoted because you parrot this with no evidence to support your claims. You have nothing to show that Conservatives would be worse, you're just repeating an end-of-line Liberal talking point.
First it was that the crisis wasn't real, and it was just the Conservatives making a big fuss about nothing. Then it became impossible to deny, so the propaganda became that the feds were not responsible and the blame should lay on the provinces.
And now, in the end game, its blind accusations that the other party would be worse.
It’s fucking wild how some people are so blind and just go with things instead of doing research or opening their eyes lmao like PP isn’t any bodies friends except Landlords, his Grocery store CEO buddies and the international students that he’s said he’s going to fight harder for to protect lmao
If only Jack Layton was around. I wonder what Canadian politics would look like today instead of the clusterfuck we have now lol
I guess you have memory issues. This wasn't really a problem until trudeau came to power, our immigration was strict and not just "open the flud gates" housing is a demand supply issue.
That's the problem my parents are in, renting a 4 bedroom house for almost 30 years and even 1 bedroom apartments tend to have higher rent now. They'd have to give up tons of space, and their yard to save barely any money, if they save anything at all.
This..
Boomers have their mortgages paid off. So now it's just property taxes, utilities and upkeep (let's say you put aside $3k-$4k a year for furnace, roof, AC, plumbing etc), so maybe they have to spend $1200 a month on housing. And the place is big enough to have family gatherings.
Now let's say they sell to downsize to an apartment. First they will pay the capital gains taxes, which will eat a big chunk. Then realtor fees, moving fees etc. Just to move into a decent sized 1 bedroom for $2k a month and still have to pay some utilities, and if they are lucky maybe have a parking space. (Much more expensive than the house per month, and inflation will eat away at it)
Even if they go to a condo, they can buy it outright with the money from house sale, but then pay $1000 a month on condo fees and pay utilities on top. And possibly have some young partier next door with paper thin walls.
So for older 55+ crowd, it's just cheaper to stay put, without the government building purpose built apartment buildings with cheaper rent and age restricted (so they have a sense of community)
Does each province have different senior housing systems and requirements? I've seen affordable senior apartments or assisted-living apartments and one-bedroom senior houses.
What I don't get is why it isn't a requirement to have affordable 600-900 sq ft one/two bedroom houses interspersed with these unaffordable McMansion 4+ bedroom, 2+ bath houses.
Usually "neighborhood cohesion".. people who buy $1.6 million dollar homes, don't want to have some middle class plebs around. They would much rather live around other people of a similar income bracket. So mcmansions surrounded by mcmansions fetch a higher price.
Also in my city in Ontario, my oma and opa moved into a lovely 55+ building that was reasonable rent and had social clubs and group activities. It was fantastic for them when they moved there at 70 years old..
But then some asshole took building owner (an older european person who wanted a place for seniors to be able to live with dignity) to court about age discrimination, and the building was open for everybody after that. Now it's just some shitty apartment building that is market rate rents and barely any activities...
I’d like to see any actual data that suggests grandmas aren’t downsizing in reasonable numbers.
I don’t know of many 80 year olds who want to maintain a 3,000 sq ft home.
Why 80 as the threshold? My parents who are grandparents are in their late 60s and would love to downsize however the market the way that it is prevents them from seeing the same cost of living after the downsize as there are few options. Condos are the main option but the condo fees significantly increase their cost of living. The small WW era bungalows are all getting replaced with rebuilds or require so much in renovation costs if isn't worth it. This is the real problem!
Most of the people on our street were seniors who were the original owners, when we moved in 10 years ago. So many lawn cutting services that cut their lawns.
I worked 7 years (ending recently) as a residential house cleaner. Most of my clients were elderly singles or couples in 3, 4, or 5 bedroom McMansions. It actually happens a lot.
I live in rural Ontario and so many elderly people are clutching onto old farmhouses they should’ve passed down 30+ years ago. My family is a perfect example of this. My grandfather got our family farmhouse at 30, his father was 60. My grandfather is now 85 and has refused to pass it down to his son to the point that it may skip him all together
I hear you but for every story like that I hear a story of someone who does downsize.
Both my grandparents sold their homes for apartments. My aunt did the same, my parents did it, and so did my fiancées grandma.
Again, anecdotes aren’t proof. Would like to see the real data. Empty bedrooms is a flawed metric. We just bought a 4 bedroom house because we both work from home and want kids in the near future. By this study it would say there’s 3 empty bedrooms, but that’s not accurate at all because 2 are spoken for for home offices and one will be a child’s room.
My dad is in his 80s. He still lives in the house I was raised in. Same deal, bought the house for a song and now it's 2 mil easy. Never at any point have I thought he needs to sell his home to pay for mine. You sound incredibly entitled.
Eliminate corporate and foreign investors from buying single family homes, and maybe Canadians could afford one.
Your issue shouldn't be with gramps. Look at the top 3 political parties with basically the same view on housing and immigration. That's the problem.
Why are you calling her Grandma? Also, how many people who choose to become childless have more than one bedroom in their house? We also have a climate crisis so maybe you should ditch your vehicle.
So what they are saying is if I have a house and kids once the kids move out I need to rent their bedroom out to random people? Because if me and my partner worked hard and raised two kids I personally would want to have some peace and not some random in the house
This is a ludicrous article. I really hope someday I'll be able to look back at the absurdity of some of these suggestions because my God it's crazy to be living in it
I have what is marked as a bedroom on my house’s floor plan which doesn’t have anyone sleeping in it. It has two desks and two computers and a printer in it, and my wife and I use it every single day. It’s an “empty bedroom” according to this article, but it isn’t empty and if I rented it out to someone I’d have to build another room to put my office in.
The article refers to having a home office as a "luxury".
Don't you realize you could have your desks set up in the kitchen and living room, and then you could be providing a bedroom to people in need!? You bourgeois pig. /s
This is a bit silly. We have a three bedroom house but one bedroom is an office. In thru analysis, that is an “empty” bedroom that I guess could be used to house someone.
Who’s to say what constitutes a bedroom. This article is ridiculous. That will be the day that politicians will risk their cushy jobs and their own 5 bedroom mansions, to force an unused bedroom tax. Even debating this is stupid.
What's the working theory here? Solve the housing crisis by assigning people to live in other people's houses where we think they aren't making maximum productive use of their available rooms?
If you mean only Canadian residents, most of these 5 million are owned by Canadian investors.
If you mean the person living in said house, then I agree to a large extent but you would have to zone some areas (cottage country for example)to allow for secondary residences. Or simply put make most of our major cities primary residence only ownership, including condos (not the building, landlords are essential, just the units themselves)
60% of new builds since 2020 have ended up as investment properties. So yes, I’m sure it’s mostly investors.
And before people blame foreign ownership the absolute highest % in all of Canada for that is Vancouver at 4%, so even in Vancouver 56% is Canadian investor owned.
It’s a win win for Canadian investors, there is only so much desirable land so it’s a safe bet and the more you own the more you artificially increase demand, making your assets more valuable.
The result is a lack of investment in everything but real estate tanking our legitimate economy lowering wages and creating a fake GDP bubble around real estate. Canadas economy is fucked if we keep electing blue red or orange neo-liberals. R.I.P. Jack Layton the one chance we had at avoiding this shit. Mackenzie King’s grave could power all of North America with how violated his labouring ideals have become.
Was from CBC for a breakdown of home buyers, 20-21% of all homes are now investment properties in Canada (varies province to province), 30% of all purchases were made by real estate investors (they listed this as someone who owns more than 3 real estate properties) and 60% of new builds.
Every time I link anything Reddit flags me for linking hate speech (even when all I linked was a fucking pay scale for teachers… CUPE = hate speech I guess).
For comparison immigrants were only 15% of all purchases and 20% of new builds. Article was from 2023.
Easily accessible stat from stats can is that 20.3% of all homes are now investor owned and growing quickly, (up from 14% in 2020….)
> and 60% of new builds.
I just want to mention that condo construction in places like Toronto relies on selling a certain percentage of units beforehand to finance construction. Most regular people can't put money up for a home years before they can even live in it, which naturally leads to relying on investors.
Yes but you need to look at all the available rooms across all the homes ever built, I’d bet less that half of those rooms are investor owned.
The 5 million empty room metric is total nonsense anyway
This is a key point. Once upon a time, we had a domestic investment industry that was built on taking successful midsized Canadian companies public and selling shares in those Canadian companies to other Canadians. This gave Canadians with money to invest 'something to buy' and the proceeds were used to expand those businesses.
Excessive regulation strangled that 'small IPO' market. Now, your choices as an investor are 'investment fund products' or...real estate. (I'm over-simplifying the choices, but I hope the point is understood)
In a lot of Europe, if vacancies go below a certain % in a city, the they make residency mandatory for every address in the city. Each person can be a resident of one address, so if you own, say, 3 properties in the country but your residential address is in a different country, then either you find renters for all 3 properties, or the city finds them for you. And if you register one of them as your address but live out of country, then you'll be paying income taxes both places, so it's tough to cheat.
There is always some leeway; up to one year working abroad is generally fine without finding a renter, or more if you're an MEP or work at an embassy abroad. But if you simply get a regular private sector job out of country, or settle down in Brussels or Geneva to work longterm with the EU or UN, you're SOL.
I was friends with a couple who had a downtown Copenhagen apartment but worked for a decade in Geneva. Once a housing crunch hit Copenhagen, they got a letter from the city stating that they had 3 months to find a renter or the city would find one for them with move-in being the first day of the 3rd month. There isn't a whole lot of speculation in Denmark because of strict controls on how many properties you can own, as well as fixed (low) rental prices for most housing. So, it's not a really widespread problem, but it does help a lot to not have empty apartments and houses in times of need.
In Toronto, where there are no restrictions, there are tons of condos, houses and apartments owned almost purely for speculation; also people who live elsewhere but drop by once in awhile and otherwise AirBNB. In times of low vacancies, there shouldn't be any of those things getting in the way of people know need housing.
I think people are fine with a vacancy tax of some sort, but this article is counting bedrooms in occupied houses. If a married couple own a 3 bedroom house then there's 2 bedrooms that are marked as empty.
Yeah but that is Denmark, an advanced country with a responsible, highly educated population and government. We are in Canada, a country of naive idiotic wannabe investors governed by a bunch of criminals who should be hanged by their balls.
I think the rugged individualism that is North America would never be able to wrap their head around that, and politicians and citizens couldn't even digest the concept.
Thats the problem with our politicians, they bury their head in the sand and live in a damn bubble, ignoring what arguably more advanced societies of the worlds do to solve issues that we can't even awknowledge exist.
Pick a country that is doing well, better than us, educated and happy, and xerox their policy.;
Nah, it's just a headline grabbing statistic and doesn't have any bearing on the actual issue. Every headline on this topic has previously focused on empty homes. Suddenly swtiching to bedrooms gives one a huge number: 5 MILLION (!!!!!!) to grab attention with but it doesn't say anything at all.
Nova Scotia is looking at taxing people on the unused rooms in their home in addition to the property taxes that already account for house size. Fuck right off with this nonsense.
There are so many cases of tenants coming in and not paying rent and then demanding the property is theirs. No. This will turn into exploration ans elder abuse almost assuredly.
Want to to know what else has lots of room that could be utilized? Seats on the planes h aded back to their countries for many "international students". We could try tlutilizing that to solve that housing crisis too
We could start by not subsidizing seniors in what they've allowed to become luxury housing. No empty nesters in a four bedroom home need property tax deferrals, welfare like OAS/GIS, or grants for repairs or renovations.
Been saying this for years. It seemed to be, and not that long ago it shifted, but it used to be, kids move out and you downsized. Then “keeping seniors in their homes” was introduced as a health care model (no comment, I don’t know enough about it), and now it’s also keeping them in homes that are too big for their uses.
I don’t have a solution as obviously I don’t want people forced out of their homes.
Aging in place was implemented because we do not have the space in retirement homes or similar facilities to accommodate all the aging boomers.
Multi generation house holds are growing too, many folks are opting to move in with grandma or mom. Saw three friends do that for different reasons in the last year. Two of them to help care for aging parents, one because he couldn't afford a place on his own in the city so he moved in with his mom, who will likely need help in the next 5-10 years.
Aging in Place as the terminology has been called, shows significant impacts for cognition & overall health. As much as it would be nice to expect downsizing, the strain might then be felt by other underdeveloped aspects especially health care
Thank you. I couldn’t think of the term.
That’s why I said, I don’t have an answer as I don’t want people forced from their homes. I also agree we should be allowing seniors to remain in homes for as long as possible.
We need a solution that’s for sure.
I mean if you refused to do your job you would get fired. Politicians and landlords for some reason aren't expected to serve society but expect society to serve them.
Eliminate property tax caps. No reason grandma should get a tax break to live in a multi bedroom home all by herself, while new buyers get hit with the full brunt of the taxes.
Give an incentive to empty nesters to downsize. A 2 bedroom apartment costs them more than their 4 bedroom house. Build housing in their community that they can downsize into. Real estate has become a trap for some.
They literally just voted to mandate the pricing of some staple grocery items.
Our politicians are simply trying to manage our implosion at this point.
Here's the fucking problem.
Retirement homes are expensive as fuck... They start at about 6k a month.
I'm sorry but that's fucking insane, lets say a couple wants to go into one... 12k/month.. $144,000/year!!! They own a $600,000 home and sell it so they can go into the retirement home... Well that's only fucking 4 years in there then they're homeless..
Now instead of retiring lets say they get an apartment...
They sell their house but now instead of paying nothing at all for housing other than taxes they're paying $2200 for a 2br because they snore and sleep separately, slowly their money dwindles away and by the end of it they can only afford 1 year in a retirement home...
That money that these old age homes are bleeding from old people.... Used to be the next generations inheritance, most used it for buying their first home... Fuck mike harris..
lol don’t forget BC is home to the most inflated real estate market in Canada and one of the most inflated in the world. Hate to say it but reality might just tallywhack you across the face when you arrive.
The did this I'm BC... There were ~20,000 air BnB units... The province needs to build 40,000 - 60,000 per year just to keep up with population.
It changed nothing, rent is still higher that ever.
It’s weird it doesn’t say how many of these empty bedrooms are in recreational properties. If some has a cottage outside of Huntsville, that isn’t driving the crisis.
A lot of cottages are now just residences. Between remote work and people retiring, my quiet cottage neighbourhood is mostly year round residents now, which I appreciate.
Except that one up the road has been converted into a bunk house for some reason, with at least 10 people living in it and the garage turned into a shower room and two porta potties out front. It’s weird.
Depend which cottage country, when I moved in mine in 2020 not too long later the whole neighborhood became inhabited by Montrealer who were now working from home. The people who owned the cottages in the first place made out like bandits, but the whole area shot up in value especially because of the Montrealers moving in the area. It is still livable compared to Toronto or whatever, but a lot is now worth more than a house was in the 2019 which make every buyer struggle more.
Also to be fair a shit load of those empty bedroom are probably in the large houses of people who have kids who left and it would make no sense for them to rent those bedrooms.
>Also to be fair a shit load of those empty bedroom are probably in the large houses of people who have kids who left and it would make no sense for them to rent those bedrooms.
Yeah, there are a lot of retired people in my neighborhood living in very large family size houses.
I have to imagine a substantial amount of those are bedrooms of adult children who've moved out of their parents' house.
Parents don't want to have stranger living with them and want them available as guest rooms for when kids come to visit.
I said it before in a different post about this.
You can’t force people to rent out their spare bedroom. That’s an insane way to try and “fix” our housing issues. We need to build more - not try to force people to allow strangers to move in with them and share their living space.
Should homeowners not have a modicum of privacy??
To be fair, nimbys who have these spare bedrooms are also preventing the city from building more. End consultations, ignore nimbys, reduce development charges and start building.
"You will own nothing and be happy" seems to be the underlying message here. Are they really trying to push the idea that some older couple or single person who has spend a lifetime working and paying taxes doesn't deserve more than a one bedroom shack?
Yes, next up, empty rooms tax! Clearly the crises is caused by foreign speculation, empty homes, second homes, landlords, and now empty bedrooms.
It has nothing to do with 1+ million immigrants each year...
Bought a house at an exhausting job ten years ago, it has nearly destroyed every part of me.
The right thing to do is rent the bedrooms to as many Indian citizens as possible?
Spain, another very socialist country, had pushed a similar propaganda theory that basically all empty houses can be used, to address the "affordable" housing situation. Government, supposedly, was going to invest in fixing these homes, spending lots of money. This was a political campaign promise.
Soon after, it was revealed that the many empty houses they believed existed, are in areas where nobody cares to move, interior, far away from the coast, in villages with derelict empty old houses.
Same with Japan, good supply of houses far away from big cities, and nobody interested moving in, because there are no jobs. Japan at least does not have an explosion of population.
I suggest we get an official TV coverage of a bunch of homeless people moving into the empty bedrooms of the residences of our woke Liberal-NDP leaders in power, Freeland, Trudeau, Miller, etc, etc. I have no doubt they have empty bedrooms!
These reports sound a bit as if they are coming from North Korea.
So the data shows the demographics of the owners? Is that how you came to The conclusion that boomers are owning all these condo units with vacant bedrooms? Or did you just write that to create some clickbait?
It's interesting how people always assume private individuals are supposed to solve the housing crisis. If people want socialism then they should vote for socialism, or worse. If they want communism more that government can just seize these vacant bedrooms and duel them out to whoever they deem worthy than vote for communism.
The answer to the immigration crisis (let’s call it what it is) is not to put immigrants into my house or apartment. It is to limit immigration to supportable levels.
2-3 bedroom houses (esp. 3) are the most in demand especially if they are senior friendly (bungalow with a manageable yard). People in 5 bedroom houses are not moving because they are giving up extra bedrooms for very little in return in terms of cash.
First you make becoming a landlord very hard, with eviction taking half a year or more. Is it a surprise that people with spare bedrooms will not want the hassle of being a landlord?
Except it's far more intimate to share a house with someone, rather than a separate unit. The worry is the government will use census data to force people to rent out bedrooms to someone they don't know.
Who's paying for nonessential growth promoting articles like this? Find out how this article was financed and you may find out one of the major causes of the crisis.
Many of my colleagues have bought larger homes in the last couple of years and use the extra bedrooms as offices. With the shift to work from home, even hybrid setups, people need space to work. Lots of people need places to work and take calls away from others so they use bedrooms. Not everyone can or wants to work at the kitchen table.
We haven’t built most houses to have separated office space (or multiple offices) so people are using the bedrooms.
The decadent hoarding of bedroom space stands counter to the Century Initiative Party's revolutionary aims for the expansion of the workers's collective. The resources of this reactionary bourgeoisie must be reassigned for the growth of the glorious people's utopia.
Biggest driver is probably boomers still living in the house they raised a family in, while the kids who used to occupy those boardrooms have moved out. Older folks are not downsizing. Mississauga is actually losing population overall because this phenomenon describes such a big proportion of the city (pretty much the entire city was building in the 90s when boomers were starting families). I don’t know how to fix that, but I would start with changing the tax system: because of the land transfer tax (especially the double tax in Toronto), people are disincentivized from changing their house, so boomers taxed for downsizing and millennials taxed for upsizing.
The other driver is cottages.
If a leader of the country is unable to comprehend and fix the housing issue, he could change the legislation to force home owners to house the proletariat in those empty bedrooms. (Facetious comment, not a recommendation)
Wow, really reaching here... Not everyone wants shared living accomodations, both the renter, or the owner.
How do they even get these stats? Assuming because the household has 2 in a 3 bed, that the 3rd bedroom isn't for an office, hobbies, or none of their god damn business??
How about the rich assholes that think its normal to have a 5+ bedroom home for a 3 person family, or the even more wealthy that have 10 bed 12 bath for a family of 5.
A bedroom isn’t a home. We have a 2 bedroom apartment, but need the second bedroom to use as an office space. It’s in use for more hours of the day than the bedroom itself. It’s not dead space.
Omg, how dare I use my extra bedrooms as I please. It’s definitely my fault that we are bringing millions of people into the country with no place to put them.
They are trying to make us accept cramming 4 people to a bedroom as being Yet Another New Normal so we’ll meekly accept them cramming *another* 2 million “students” into Canada.
Which by suppressing wages and worker rights and keeping the housing bubble inflated just happens to massively benefit asset holders, big business, and of course a large number of politicians themselves
You’d almost think it was planned
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Do we need to be reminded that a bedroom is not a home?
Especially in Ontario where renting a room means no rights and protections. Zero days notice required for evicting/removing someone renting a room.
I did not know this! Even with a standardized lease agreement?
No RTA protections at all if your agreement is with a current lease holder (eg you’re a roommate and not on the official lease) or if you rent a room from the property owner and share the kitchen or a bathroom with them. The RTA would still apply in rooming house situations. So yes, the standard lease is void and does not apply here even if one was signed. NAL but long time renter and afaik, this all falls under small claims of either party has a dispute the LTB won’t hear it.
The way it’s worded makes it seem worse than it is. You can rent a room by itself and still have protections as long as you have the standard lease and the landlord does not live with you. My landlord thought the same as the comments in this chain and illegally locked me out thinking i had no protections. After 6 days in the woods due to illegal lock out i got an expedited (emergency) LTB hearing where we determined i did have rights for renting that one room in a house stuffed with 2 people per room (except mine). LTB determined i had rights and because the shitlord tried to spin lies in court the hearing took way too long and got adjourned for another day. We got that first hearings results and it went my way, the LL didn’t show up to the hearing saying he’s allergic to sounds and his electronic gadgets so we had the hearing without him
The lease could provide the right to sue in small claims court, for breach, and damages. There are no laws regarding room rentals.
This isn't entirely true. The RTA only doesn't apply if you live with the landlord. So if you are renting a room, and the person you signed a lease with doesn't live with you, you are still RTA protected. Might I add, that if everyone who needed a roommate to help with rent/expenses had to follow the RTA people would learn that being homeless might be better. This sounds like an exaggeration, but on paper (that is if you want to follow the law to the letter), it's almost like you are married your tenant with respect to ending a tenancy. If you got a roommate that presented a danger to you for instance, you would have to wait a year and a half to prove it first, all while they continue to use your space. In that situation, I would rather be homeless, but they would not release you from your covenant even if you were.
And do we need to remember that the empty rooms in my house are mine and no stranger is entitled to them!
yup, what a stupid article just because my kids have grown and moved away does not mean I suddenly have 4 extra rooms to rent out...
> just because my kids have grown and moved away does not mean I suddenly have 4 extra rooms to rent out... You *could* rent them out if you wanted to, but if you don't want to it is your absolute right to leave them unrented and no airheaded blogger should tell you otherwise.
right, thats what I'm getting at counting empty bedrooms is the dumbest thing I've seen recently
Come home one day and half your shit is stolen.
Lmao We have gotten to a point where we are now going into people’s homes and counting how many bedrooms they aren’t using? The hidden agenda behind articles like this is to shift blame away from government and make it seem like there are enough homes, just greedy rich people hoarding houses.. who needs to be *surprise surprise* taxed. That’s their plan for everything
100% about blame shifting and acting as if the inventory is there. Guess what I don’t want any randoms living in my house.
They get you with the wording. Had me fooled for a second.
It is a useful stat, not really good without context though. Basically we have so many houses that were built for 3 to 5 person families which are now occupied by childless couples or singles. As well as retirees that don't have much options to downsize because zoning only allows detached houses in their area. (Plus stubborn retirees). For all the complaints about lack of family sized apartments/condos, they are quite wrong. Family sized units have better supply:demand ratios than studios/one beds.. they are just horribly expensive, like all housing.
Yeah but paid liberal media had to shift the blame somehow, its the greedy people who don't want to house strangers fault.
Except for the bedrooms in politicians houses. Of course everyone would agree those are off limits!
You mean doug ford the conservative. In 2018, Ontario's Progressive Conservative government took a controversial step to try to address a dearth of purpose-built rentals. Fresh off his election win, Premier Doug Ford rolled back rent controls on all units built or occupied after Nov.
If we didn't rapidly take in several million more people to house than we can accommodate, then this wouldn't be as big of an issue. Even without controls rent is still subject to supply-demand pressures. If we didn't suddenly explode with 10x the demand and people competing for rentals, landlords would not have room to raise so quickly.
Yeah they both have their hands in this mess. I won’t make excuses for either side. We need better representation.
Rent control is not a solution. To state the obvious opening green belt was a solution, because it added supply, but so called progressives just let people be homeless as we immigrated people.
Who you gonna blame if PP wins and housing gets even worse? The guy who owns and rents what is it, 6 houses? You think he’s gonna help?
Who you gonna blame if PP wins and it gets better?
I can't stand these fear-adverse people. "Things really fucking suck right now, we had better do **nothing at all** in case things get worse!" Fucking bonkers.
The guy that has voted 'no' on every affordable housing initiative since 2006 is going to make it better?
He owns half a condo and his wife owns a condo or house that she had before they were married He owns half of a company whose sole asset is a condo in the Calgary area. “His wife Anaida Poilievre owns a condo in Orleans that is rented to a tenant that has no relationship with the Poilievres.” [https://globalnews.ca/news/8771911/pierre-poilievre-mps-rental-property-housing-crunch/](https://globalnews.ca/news/8771911/pierre-poilievre-mps-rental-property-housing-crunch/)
Remember all bad things are from liberals and only good things come from conservatives. It's the conservative way. /s Go ahead and downvote me conservatives. I'm not saying liberals are any better, but your downvotes only prove your delusion. Party loyalty is stupid.
You get downvoted because you parrot this with no evidence to support your claims. You have nothing to show that Conservatives would be worse, you're just repeating an end-of-line Liberal talking point. First it was that the crisis wasn't real, and it was just the Conservatives making a big fuss about nothing. Then it became impossible to deny, so the propaganda became that the feds were not responsible and the blame should lay on the provinces. And now, in the end game, its blind accusations that the other party would be worse.
It’s fucking wild how some people are so blind and just go with things instead of doing research or opening their eyes lmao like PP isn’t any bodies friends except Landlords, his Grocery store CEO buddies and the international students that he’s said he’s going to fight harder for to protect lmao If only Jack Layton was around. I wonder what Canadian politics would look like today instead of the clusterfuck we have now lol
I guess you have memory issues. This wasn't really a problem until trudeau came to power, our immigration was strict and not just "open the flud gates" housing is a demand supply issue.
They’re also not empty - someone owns them.
So what, they think we should be rooming with strangers?
I think downsizing Grandma. Get rid of all taxes when people are downsizing would help.
I could very well see Grandma looking at what downsizing would cost and say, "fuck it, I'm staying put."
That's the problem my parents are in, renting a 4 bedroom house for almost 30 years and even 1 bedroom apartments tend to have higher rent now. They'd have to give up tons of space, and their yard to save barely any money, if they save anything at all.
This.. Boomers have their mortgages paid off. So now it's just property taxes, utilities and upkeep (let's say you put aside $3k-$4k a year for furnace, roof, AC, plumbing etc), so maybe they have to spend $1200 a month on housing. And the place is big enough to have family gatherings. Now let's say they sell to downsize to an apartment. First they will pay the capital gains taxes, which will eat a big chunk. Then realtor fees, moving fees etc. Just to move into a decent sized 1 bedroom for $2k a month and still have to pay some utilities, and if they are lucky maybe have a parking space. (Much more expensive than the house per month, and inflation will eat away at it) Even if they go to a condo, they can buy it outright with the money from house sale, but then pay $1000 a month on condo fees and pay utilities on top. And possibly have some young partier next door with paper thin walls. So for older 55+ crowd, it's just cheaper to stay put, without the government building purpose built apartment buildings with cheaper rent and age restricted (so they have a sense of community)
FYI capital gains are tax exempt on your primary residence
There’s no capital gains on your primary residence.
Does each province have different senior housing systems and requirements? I've seen affordable senior apartments or assisted-living apartments and one-bedroom senior houses. What I don't get is why it isn't a requirement to have affordable 600-900 sq ft one/two bedroom houses interspersed with these unaffordable McMansion 4+ bedroom, 2+ bath houses.
Usually "neighborhood cohesion".. people who buy $1.6 million dollar homes, don't want to have some middle class plebs around. They would much rather live around other people of a similar income bracket. So mcmansions surrounded by mcmansions fetch a higher price. Also in my city in Ontario, my oma and opa moved into a lovely 55+ building that was reasonable rent and had social clubs and group activities. It was fantastic for them when they moved there at 70 years old.. But then some asshole took building owner (an older european person who wanted a place for seniors to be able to live with dignity) to court about age discrimination, and the building was open for everybody after that. Now it's just some shitty apartment building that is market rate rents and barely any activities...
I’d like to see any actual data that suggests grandmas aren’t downsizing in reasonable numbers. I don’t know of many 80 year olds who want to maintain a 3,000 sq ft home.
Why 80 as the threshold? My parents who are grandparents are in their late 60s and would love to downsize however the market the way that it is prevents them from seeing the same cost of living after the downsize as there are few options. Condos are the main option but the condo fees significantly increase their cost of living. The small WW era bungalows are all getting replaced with rebuilds or require so much in renovation costs if isn't worth it. This is the real problem!
Most of the people on our street were seniors who were the original owners, when we moved in 10 years ago. So many lawn cutting services that cut their lawns.
I worked 7 years (ending recently) as a residential house cleaner. Most of my clients were elderly singles or couples in 3, 4, or 5 bedroom McMansions. It actually happens a lot.
I live in rural Ontario and so many elderly people are clutching onto old farmhouses they should’ve passed down 30+ years ago. My family is a perfect example of this. My grandfather got our family farmhouse at 30, his father was 60. My grandfather is now 85 and has refused to pass it down to his son to the point that it may skip him all together
I hear you but for every story like that I hear a story of someone who does downsize. Both my grandparents sold their homes for apartments. My aunt did the same, my parents did it, and so did my fiancées grandma. Again, anecdotes aren’t proof. Would like to see the real data. Empty bedrooms is a flawed metric. We just bought a 4 bedroom house because we both work from home and want kids in the near future. By this study it would say there’s 3 empty bedrooms, but that’s not accurate at all because 2 are spoken for for home offices and one will be a child’s room.
My dad is in his 80s. He still lives in the house I was raised in. Same deal, bought the house for a song and now it's 2 mil easy. Never at any point have I thought he needs to sell his home to pay for mine. You sound incredibly entitled. Eliminate corporate and foreign investors from buying single family homes, and maybe Canadians could afford one. Your issue shouldn't be with gramps. Look at the top 3 political parties with basically the same view on housing and immigration. That's the problem.
They shouldn't 'have' to do anything. I am sure there are many things you are doing, that I could point a finger at.
We already don't have capital gains on principal residences. What taxes are you envisioning?
Government: “how can we find a way to tax this”
Why are you calling her Grandma? Also, how many people who choose to become childless have more than one bedroom in their house? We also have a climate crisis so maybe you should ditch your vehicle.
So what they are saying is if I have a house and kids once the kids move out I need to rent their bedroom out to random people? Because if me and my partner worked hard and raised two kids I personally would want to have some peace and not some random in the house
You have to keep those bedrooms empty for when the kids return home because they can’t afford the rent where they wanna live
No, clearly you should immediately vacate your home to a family who need the space and move to a one bedroom home. It's basically communist logic.
This is a ludicrous article. I really hope someday I'll be able to look back at the absurdity of some of these suggestions because my God it's crazy to be living in it
I have what is marked as a bedroom on my house’s floor plan which doesn’t have anyone sleeping in it. It has two desks and two computers and a printer in it, and my wife and I use it every single day. It’s an “empty bedroom” according to this article, but it isn’t empty and if I rented it out to someone I’d have to build another room to put my office in.
The article refers to having a home office as a "luxury". Don't you realize you could have your desks set up in the kitchen and living room, and then you could be providing a bedroom to people in need!? You bourgeois pig. /s
Better order that murphy bed
This is a bit silly. We have a three bedroom house but one bedroom is an office. In thru analysis, that is an “empty” bedroom that I guess could be used to house someone.
Who’s to say what constitutes a bedroom. This article is ridiculous. That will be the day that politicians will risk their cushy jobs and their own 5 bedroom mansions, to force an unused bedroom tax. Even debating this is stupid.
What's the working theory here? Solve the housing crisis by assigning people to live in other people's houses where we think they aren't making maximum productive use of their available rooms?
Start by having only residents being able to own property. It’s like that in most of the world.
If you mean only Canadian residents, most of these 5 million are owned by Canadian investors. If you mean the person living in said house, then I agree to a large extent but you would have to zone some areas (cottage country for example)to allow for secondary residences. Or simply put make most of our major cities primary residence only ownership, including condos (not the building, landlords are essential, just the units themselves)
Most of the 5 million rooms are owned by investors? Are u sure about that?
60% of new builds since 2020 have ended up as investment properties. So yes, I’m sure it’s mostly investors. And before people blame foreign ownership the absolute highest % in all of Canada for that is Vancouver at 4%, so even in Vancouver 56% is Canadian investor owned. It’s a win win for Canadian investors, there is only so much desirable land so it’s a safe bet and the more you own the more you artificially increase demand, making your assets more valuable. The result is a lack of investment in everything but real estate tanking our legitimate economy lowering wages and creating a fake GDP bubble around real estate. Canadas economy is fucked if we keep electing blue red or orange neo-liberals. R.I.P. Jack Layton the one chance we had at avoiding this shit. Mackenzie King’s grave could power all of North America with how violated his labouring ideals have become.
"60% of new builds since 2020 have ended up as investment properties. " Can you cite the source?
Was from CBC for a breakdown of home buyers, 20-21% of all homes are now investment properties in Canada (varies province to province), 30% of all purchases were made by real estate investors (they listed this as someone who owns more than 3 real estate properties) and 60% of new builds. Every time I link anything Reddit flags me for linking hate speech (even when all I linked was a fucking pay scale for teachers… CUPE = hate speech I guess). For comparison immigrants were only 15% of all purchases and 20% of new builds. Article was from 2023. Easily accessible stat from stats can is that 20.3% of all homes are now investor owned and growing quickly, (up from 14% in 2020….)
> and 60% of new builds. I just want to mention that condo construction in places like Toronto relies on selling a certain percentage of units beforehand to finance construction. Most regular people can't put money up for a home years before they can even live in it, which naturally leads to relying on investors.
Yes but you need to look at all the available rooms across all the homes ever built, I’d bet less that half of those rooms are investor owned. The 5 million empty room metric is total nonsense anyway
This is a key point. Once upon a time, we had a domestic investment industry that was built on taking successful midsized Canadian companies public and selling shares in those Canadian companies to other Canadians. This gave Canadians with money to invest 'something to buy' and the proceeds were used to expand those businesses. Excessive regulation strangled that 'small IPO' market. Now, your choices as an investor are 'investment fund products' or...real estate. (I'm over-simplifying the choices, but I hope the point is understood)
Right? It's baby boomers, and above whos kids have moved out. I don't want randoms living with my elderly parents.
That is absolutely false.
I need those bedrooms in case my kids return because the rents are totally stupid!!
They're not your rooms. They're *our* rooms.
Take my angry updoot
In a lot of Europe, if vacancies go below a certain % in a city, the they make residency mandatory for every address in the city. Each person can be a resident of one address, so if you own, say, 3 properties in the country but your residential address is in a different country, then either you find renters for all 3 properties, or the city finds them for you. And if you register one of them as your address but live out of country, then you'll be paying income taxes both places, so it's tough to cheat. There is always some leeway; up to one year working abroad is generally fine without finding a renter, or more if you're an MEP or work at an embassy abroad. But if you simply get a regular private sector job out of country, or settle down in Brussels or Geneva to work longterm with the EU or UN, you're SOL. I was friends with a couple who had a downtown Copenhagen apartment but worked for a decade in Geneva. Once a housing crunch hit Copenhagen, they got a letter from the city stating that they had 3 months to find a renter or the city would find one for them with move-in being the first day of the 3rd month. There isn't a whole lot of speculation in Denmark because of strict controls on how many properties you can own, as well as fixed (low) rental prices for most housing. So, it's not a really widespread problem, but it does help a lot to not have empty apartments and houses in times of need. In Toronto, where there are no restrictions, there are tons of condos, houses and apartments owned almost purely for speculation; also people who live elsewhere but drop by once in awhile and otherwise AirBNB. In times of low vacancies, there shouldn't be any of those things getting in the way of people know need housing.
I think people are fine with a vacancy tax of some sort, but this article is counting bedrooms in occupied houses. If a married couple own a 3 bedroom house then there's 2 bedrooms that are marked as empty.
Yeah but that is Denmark, an advanced country with a responsible, highly educated population and government. We are in Canada, a country of naive idiotic wannabe investors governed by a bunch of criminals who should be hanged by their balls.
I think the rugged individualism that is North America would never be able to wrap their head around that, and politicians and citizens couldn't even digest the concept. Thats the problem with our politicians, they bury their head in the sand and live in a damn bubble, ignoring what arguably more advanced societies of the worlds do to solve issues that we can't even awknowledge exist. Pick a country that is doing well, better than us, educated and happy, and xerox their policy.;
Yes, thats exactly it. They think instead of solving the housing crisis everybody should be forced to rent any ""spare" rooms in their house.
Nah, it's just a headline grabbing statistic and doesn't have any bearing on the actual issue. Every headline on this topic has previously focused on empty homes. Suddenly swtiching to bedrooms gives one a huge number: 5 MILLION (!!!!!!) to grab attention with but it doesn't say anything at all.
Yup. Big number drive big rage, get clicks. How do people not recognize this? Half the articles posted here are just rage bait.
Nova Scotia is actively suggesting that
I am the least individualistic person I know and even I think this is a batshit bonkers way to address the housing problem.
Empty bedroom tax /s.
Aaand I now have 3 home offices and a gym, shame /s
Nova Scotia is looking at taxing people on the unused rooms in their home in addition to the property taxes that already account for house size. Fuck right off with this nonsense. There are so many cases of tenants coming in and not paying rent and then demanding the property is theirs. No. This will turn into exploration ans elder abuse almost assuredly. Want to to know what else has lots of room that could be utilized? Seats on the planes h aded back to their countries for many "international students". We could try tlutilizing that to solve that housing crisis too
We could start by not subsidizing seniors in what they've allowed to become luxury housing. No empty nesters in a four bedroom home need property tax deferrals, welfare like OAS/GIS, or grants for repairs or renovations.
Been saying this for years. It seemed to be, and not that long ago it shifted, but it used to be, kids move out and you downsized. Then “keeping seniors in their homes” was introduced as a health care model (no comment, I don’t know enough about it), and now it’s also keeping them in homes that are too big for their uses. I don’t have a solution as obviously I don’t want people forced out of their homes.
Aging in place was implemented because we do not have the space in retirement homes or similar facilities to accommodate all the aging boomers. Multi generation house holds are growing too, many folks are opting to move in with grandma or mom. Saw three friends do that for different reasons in the last year. Two of them to help care for aging parents, one because he couldn't afford a place on his own in the city so he moved in with his mom, who will likely need help in the next 5-10 years.
Aging in Place as the terminology has been called, shows significant impacts for cognition & overall health. As much as it would be nice to expect downsizing, the strain might then be felt by other underdeveloped aspects especially health care
Thank you. I couldn’t think of the term. That’s why I said, I don’t have an answer as I don’t want people forced from their homes. I also agree we should be allowing seniors to remain in homes for as long as possible. We need a solution that’s for sure.
Implement a Land Value Tax and reduce income taxes. Make working pay better and owning unproductive land more expensive.
I mean if you refused to do your job you would get fired. Politicians and landlords for some reason aren't expected to serve society but expect society to serve them.
Eliminate property tax caps. No reason grandma should get a tax break to live in a multi bedroom home all by herself, while new buyers get hit with the full brunt of the taxes.
Give an incentive to empty nesters to downsize. A 2 bedroom apartment costs them more than their 4 bedroom house. Build housing in their community that they can downsize into. Real estate has become a trap for some.
They literally just voted to mandate the pricing of some staple grocery items. Our politicians are simply trying to manage our implosion at this point.
They voted against this nearly all of them
We used to occasionally Airbnb our spare bedroom but since the city of Toronto cracked down on short term rentals we haven’t listed it anymore.
Occupancy tax
When you turn 18 and go off to college, your 60 your old divorced mom gets a newly arrived immigrant room mate assigned to your old room.
The article doesn’t go deep into specifics but does mention people downsizing that don’t need all of the bedrooms.
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Bedrooms, not basements. It's more like 600 million with good bunk beds.
Don’t forget their dependents that often go unreported
Bunk beds? I'm thinking drawers. Much more space efficient
lol bedrooms? What in the holy fuck does that even mean… there’s some spare rooms available?
I’ll tear my empty bedrooms down if government ever forces me to fill them.
5 bathroom, 1 bedroom house
Here's the fucking problem. Retirement homes are expensive as fuck... They start at about 6k a month. I'm sorry but that's fucking insane, lets say a couple wants to go into one... 12k/month.. $144,000/year!!! They own a $600,000 home and sell it so they can go into the retirement home... Well that's only fucking 4 years in there then they're homeless.. Now instead of retiring lets say they get an apartment... They sell their house but now instead of paying nothing at all for housing other than taxes they're paying $2200 for a 2br because they snore and sleep separately, slowly their money dwindles away and by the end of it they can only afford 1 year in a retirement home... That money that these old age homes are bleeding from old people.... Used to be the next generations inheritance, most used it for buying their first home... Fuck mike harris..
I vote we fill the empty bedrooms in the rich neighborhoods first.
Start with politicians. Every MPs, ministers and public servants must house people in their spare bedrooms.
This is how problems actually get solved
Yes, let’s put some strangers into your grandparents spare bedrooms. I’m sure that will make them very secure in their homes.
Banning Airbnb should be a start
So jealous that it happened in Nyc.
And in BC :)
I'm moving to BC from ontario in a few months and I'm so excited, feel like I actually have hope instead of just constant pessimism here
lol don’t forget BC is home to the most inflated real estate market in Canada and one of the most inflated in the world. Hate to say it but reality might just tallywhack you across the face when you arrive.
Honestly I've given up on the possibility of ever buying a home, here or there, rents are about similar between the two provinces
The did this I'm BC... There were ~20,000 air BnB units... The province needs to build 40,000 - 60,000 per year just to keep up with population. It changed nothing, rent is still higher that ever.
It’s weird it doesn’t say how many of these empty bedrooms are in recreational properties. If some has a cottage outside of Huntsville, that isn’t driving the crisis.
A lot of cottages are now just residences. Between remote work and people retiring, my quiet cottage neighbourhood is mostly year round residents now, which I appreciate. Except that one up the road has been converted into a bunk house for some reason, with at least 10 people living in it and the garage turned into a shower room and two porta potties out front. It’s weird.
It's weird all together, there's a very obvious factor driving the crisis, this is not it
Depend which cottage country, when I moved in mine in 2020 not too long later the whole neighborhood became inhabited by Montrealer who were now working from home. The people who owned the cottages in the first place made out like bandits, but the whole area shot up in value especially because of the Montrealers moving in the area. It is still livable compared to Toronto or whatever, but a lot is now worth more than a house was in the 2019 which make every buyer struggle more. Also to be fair a shit load of those empty bedroom are probably in the large houses of people who have kids who left and it would make no sense for them to rent those bedrooms.
>Also to be fair a shit load of those empty bedroom are probably in the large houses of people who have kids who left and it would make no sense for them to rent those bedrooms. Yeah, there are a lot of retired people in my neighborhood living in very large family size houses.
Yeah same for my parents. They kept pur childhood home. Which make sense.
People still live in cottage country you know right?
I have to imagine a substantial amount of those are bedrooms of adult children who've moved out of their parents' house. Parents don't want to have stranger living with them and want them available as guest rooms for when kids come to visit.
I said it before in a different post about this. You can’t force people to rent out their spare bedroom. That’s an insane way to try and “fix” our housing issues. We need to build more - not try to force people to allow strangers to move in with them and share their living space. Should homeowners not have a modicum of privacy??
To be fair, nimbys who have these spare bedrooms are also preventing the city from building more. End consultations, ignore nimbys, reduce development charges and start building.
The plan looks like it is to make everyone poor enough that you have to rent out bedrooms to avoid being homeless
What a stupid fucking measurement, I’m sure this is part of some new spin to “solve the housing crisis” by letting people live in your guest room.
Those would be private property, comrade. Don't get any big ideas.
"You will own nothing and be happy" seems to be the underlying message here. Are they really trying to push the idea that some older couple or single person who has spend a lifetime working and paying taxes doesn't deserve more than a one bedroom shack?
Yes, next up, empty rooms tax! Clearly the crises is caused by foreign speculation, empty homes, second homes, landlords, and now empty bedrooms. It has nothing to do with 1+ million immigrants each year...
So basically, if I have a spare bedroom, I should be ashamed for not selling my house. Okay then. lol
Bought a house at an exhausting job ten years ago, it has nearly destroyed every part of me. The right thing to do is rent the bedrooms to as many Indian citizens as possible?
Spain, another very socialist country, had pushed a similar propaganda theory that basically all empty houses can be used, to address the "affordable" housing situation. Government, supposedly, was going to invest in fixing these homes, spending lots of money. This was a political campaign promise. Soon after, it was revealed that the many empty houses they believed existed, are in areas where nobody cares to move, interior, far away from the coast, in villages with derelict empty old houses. Same with Japan, good supply of houses far away from big cities, and nobody interested moving in, because there are no jobs. Japan at least does not have an explosion of population. I suggest we get an official TV coverage of a bunch of homeless people moving into the empty bedrooms of the residences of our woke Liberal-NDP leaders in power, Freeland, Trudeau, Miller, etc, etc. I have no doubt they have empty bedrooms! These reports sound a bit as if they are coming from North Korea.
So the data shows the demographics of the owners? Is that how you came to The conclusion that boomers are owning all these condo units with vacant bedrooms? Or did you just write that to create some clickbait? It's interesting how people always assume private individuals are supposed to solve the housing crisis. If people want socialism then they should vote for socialism, or worse. If they want communism more that government can just seize these vacant bedrooms and duel them out to whoever they deem worthy than vote for communism.
I think the literally want everyone to live in a 1 bedroom condo or a shared living with several people.
There are also 25 million empty seats travelling every day. What’s next? We all need to take on 3-4 strangers while driving?
the hitchhiker stories would be…interesting
The answer to the immigration crisis (let’s call it what it is) is not to put immigrants into my house or apartment. It is to limit immigration to supportable levels.
In a few words, this is pretty much it. Doesn’t require much more explanation or argument.
The author, Kimia Afshar Mehrabi, should be ashamed of pushing this narrative.
2-3 bedroom houses (esp. 3) are the most in demand especially if they are senior friendly (bungalow with a manageable yard). People in 5 bedroom houses are not moving because they are giving up extra bedrooms for very little in return in terms of cash.
And ?
Yeah that should tell you something about how people generally feel about sharing a small living space with strangers.
First you make becoming a landlord very hard, with eviction taking half a year or more. Is it a surprise that people with spare bedrooms will not want the hassle of being a landlord?
Most bedroom situations wouldn’t actually be difficult to evict because they don’t fall under the RTA (in Ontario).
Except it's far more intimate to share a house with someone, rather than a separate unit. The worry is the government will use census data to force people to rent out bedrooms to someone they don't know.
Who's paying for nonessential growth promoting articles like this? Find out how this article was financed and you may find out one of the major causes of the crisis.
The state is aware that your child moved out if your home. A person will be assigned to your empty bedroom. Thank you.
Imagine how far we have come down when a guest bedroom or an office bedroom is considered unreasonable luxury
Forget empty bedrooms, I just wanna know how may units are being pulled off the market to force false scarcity and rent prices to stay high.
Are you suggesting there is a single company that owns all the real estate? Otherwise I'm not aware of a landlord group that all acts together lol.
So is a family of Ukrainians going to move into my 8x9.5 home office?
Many of my colleagues have bought larger homes in the last couple of years and use the extra bedrooms as offices. With the shift to work from home, even hybrid setups, people need space to work. Lots of people need places to work and take calls away from others so they use bedrooms. Not everyone can or wants to work at the kitchen table. We haven’t built most houses to have separated office space (or multiple offices) so people are using the bedrooms.
Yes I have 6 bedrooms only 3 are used should I invite people in to stay with my young kids?
I also don’t have anyone living in my shed, guess I’m part of the problem
My house is mine and I am not going to rent it to anyone especially after knowing how one sided the stupid LTB is.
Yeah, I got a few of those. If the laws weren’t so ridiculously against landlords maybe I’d rent some out.
The decadent hoarding of bedroom space stands counter to the Century Initiative Party's revolutionary aims for the expansion of the workers's collective. The resources of this reactionary bourgeoisie must be reassigned for the growth of the glorious people's utopia.
This to is immigrants fault, not the investors and their investment properties.
Tax, tax, tax… you people are a broken record.
"Housing is for households and not speculative investment," she said. "Changing that vision was a colossal mistake." https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6946376
BS stat! Bedrooms? What's next, they're gonna ask me to share a bed with a stranger? Just build more housing! Repeal zoning laws!
Biggest driver is probably boomers still living in the house they raised a family in, while the kids who used to occupy those boardrooms have moved out. Older folks are not downsizing. Mississauga is actually losing population overall because this phenomenon describes such a big proportion of the city (pretty much the entire city was building in the 90s when boomers were starting families). I don’t know how to fix that, but I would start with changing the tax system: because of the land transfer tax (especially the double tax in Toronto), people are disincentivized from changing their house, so boomers taxed for downsizing and millennials taxed for upsizing. The other driver is cottages.
Yeah, because nobody can afford to sleep in them.
Government needs to allow landlords to make money else renters will not be served
Dr. Zhivago anyone?
Yeah because no one is going to pay 900-1300 bucks a month for a room in a shared house if they can help it
Sweet! I just need 1.
If a leader of the country is unable to comprehend and fix the housing issue, he could change the legislation to force home owners to house the proletariat in those empty bedrooms. (Facetious comment, not a recommendation)
Wow, really reaching here... Not everyone wants shared living accomodations, both the renter, or the owner. How do they even get these stats? Assuming because the household has 2 in a 3 bed, that the 3rd bedroom isn't for an office, hobbies, or none of their god damn business?? How about the rich assholes that think its normal to have a 5+ bedroom home for a 3 person family, or the even more wealthy that have 10 bed 12 bath for a family of 5.
So what's the point of this comment? If you have 10 bedrooms in your house that doesn't mean you want to fill them up with strangers
A bedroom isn’t a home. We have a 2 bedroom apartment, but need the second bedroom to use as an office space. It’s in use for more hours of the day than the bedroom itself. It’s not dead space.
LOLLL bedroom 🤣🤣🤣
Omg, how dare I use my extra bedrooms as I please. It’s definitely my fault that we are bringing millions of people into the country with no place to put them.
They are trying to make us accept cramming 4 people to a bedroom as being Yet Another New Normal so we’ll meekly accept them cramming *another* 2 million “students” into Canada. Which by suppressing wages and worker rights and keeping the housing bubble inflated just happens to massively benefit asset holders, big business, and of course a large number of politicians themselves You’d almost think it was planned