He Claims Immigration Isn't Destroying Our Housing - The Rich Are!
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Hate speech
6
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Summary
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about the housing shortage in the UK, the growing number of corporate conglomerates buying up thousands of houses, and whether or not this is a good or bad thing. We also talk about what the government should do about it.
Transcript
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Corporate conglomerates buying up thousands of houses.
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When's the last time you've applied for a license
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Like wouldn't you say that corporate conglomerates
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and keeping these houses without anyone even living in them, right?
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Just to make money off the scarcity of housing.
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Isn't that a bigger issue than perhaps in too many immigrants,
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which the Conservative Party is actually supporting these conglomerates
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I don't know about that, but what you're describing
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sounds an awful lot like Brookfield Asset Management,
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he was like the president of their board or something so his his 4 000 houses that he is
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slated to build with 13 billion dollars which is like like four or five times what i'm not i'm not
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a liberal but i'm not like a die-hard carney supporter yeah but i'm just wondering if perhaps
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i don't even necessarily think that policy though but yeah perhaps like don't you think
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supporting these like conglomerates that are buying up houses is more of a conservative
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policy than it is a liberal one i don't know i'm just saying that i think carney the houses that
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he's building are not going to be privately owned i think they will be owned by either the government
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or a corporation like brookfield asset management okay why is it why is it bad that it'll be owned
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by the housing well see okay now we're debating like a socialist idea again i'm not yeah i'm not
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against either party i'm i'm trying to learn so like yeah i'm asking you genuinely why why is it
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bad that like these houses will be owned by the government and not see um yeah so you won't have
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that that market signal for like rent or anything else like yeah you won't have that market signal
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so rent could be way too high or way too low or anything in between right um you won't have that
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market signal when it's government owned um but also they won't be properly managed anything
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that's government owned in general doesn't get managed very well it's either like they'll have
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not enough cleaning of it or repairs or anything like that like generally i'm wary of government
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government owned anything because it's going to go very poorly there should be competition
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in like the private sector not publicly owned that's i i i lean towards that but isn't that
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same competition was driving the housing crisis and the rents going up so much okay so there's a
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lot of regulation on building homes right now so not a lot of homes are being built that's one of
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the things that's causing housing to be just insane so not enough homes are being built
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but then the immigration is i think it is a very big issue because we're not we're bringing in
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like 10 times the number of people that we are building houses for and that's going to create
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a huge problem right we're not we're not building enough houses to suit the number of people that
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we're bringing in and our infrastructure is not ready to take that number of people man when you
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have too much competition for something then the price of it is going to go up because people are
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going to bid against each other like it's the supply and demand if it's owned by the government
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can the government say okay well hold up we don't actually have to compete right can they just keep
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the prices lower if it's owned by the government right because then you might have a housing
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shortage well what's what's driving the the the the capital owners in this case i guess to
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keep increasing rent is the fact that they other ones are also increasing rent right so
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obviously if they see an opportunity to raise their prices and they're going to do so there's
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a few things that are causing that if like if the house is going to be too expensive far less people
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are going to go like young people aren't going to bid for that house it's just going to be older
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people baby boomers and stuff like that and then immigrants with money right um but the so one of
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the things that's really driving it up so there's a few things there's immigration there's a bad
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regulation and building of homes and then there's also money laundering so when the bank does their
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their appraisal to see what the house is worth like this is the money you should be getting
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this is the price that you should be asking for the home they will look at the value of the homes
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in the community and they'll go okay this is what the other homes are worth so you should be asking
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around this like this is the estimate for the home so when money launders dirty money from
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foreign countries they'll come into our country and they want to clean their money so they'll put
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it into our housing market and they will bid above asking price for a lot of these homes this has
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happened in toronto and vancouver so they bid above asking price and when the bank goes and
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sees oh these people they bought their home no mortgage all cash and the owner took that amount
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that must be what the house is worth so then the value of the houses in that community go up
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slowly incrementally not just the two percent of a year we expect that's that's because of the free
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market right isn't that because the people the the landowners around that place are seeing this
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house go up and they're like hey this house is worth this much let me make my house worth this
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much but if it's owned by the government who isn't as driven by profit as like some guy that
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owns a couple houses then perhaps wouldn't it be more feasible for them to just be like hey you
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know what we're actually going to keep this price because this is what we think we're worth regardless
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of whether or not that house is like unbelievably overpriced okay so if see this is where supply and
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demand there's like nuance in it so if there is too much demand for something the price will go
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up but if it's owned by the government you don't have that supply and demand well yeah exactly so
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the price is going to stay the same but then everyone's going to have a house at that point
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and there's not good you don't want everyone to have no they should have a house but the trouble
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is you're going to get a shortage you're not going to have that signal to build more homes
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see if the price of the homes goes up and then everyone's like these new competitors in the
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industry are able to build homes then there's an incentive for them to build that home you're
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saying that there must necessarily be homeless people so that we can no that's not what i'm
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saying but if it's owned by the government then there is not going to be that supply and demand
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thing and there's going to be probably a housing shortage that's what it's happened before when
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there's been rent controls that there hasn't been that incentive for people to create new
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apartments put like build new houses and stuff like that if the price is too low for them to
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enter the market like if the government is out competing the market then new competitors are not
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going to enter that market yeah isn't that fine like if the government is out competing the market
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but it's making people get housing for cheaper then i don't see an issue that doesn't work if
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there's a housing housing shortage it okay I'll I'll try and make I will try
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and like make it make sense all right so if the government gets in there and
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starts creating houses at a fixed price okay fixed price fixed rent whatever so
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everyone's gonna go oh that's awesome all right I get a house so I'm now X
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number of people have a home either that or they all cram into one home and you get you know unsafe
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or unhealthy living standards right so everyone has a home and then the rest of the market if
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they see that rent is fixed at that price they know that they can't compete against that because
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the government takes taxes and is if it's government owned or whatever if it's like a
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fixed price no no market no competitor can go into that industry and out compete the government
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your issue is that just people won't be able to out compete the government yeah why is that an
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issue because then so you won't have the market signal so you're probably going to have a housing
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shortage right the government doesn't have that signal they were already doing and continue to
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build more houses maybe but they won't have that signal to say oh the housing rent is going up
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so we should build more homes they don't have there's there's there's this huge nuance in the
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supply and demand curve right that if people begin to compete more they get that signal the free
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market gets that signal that we should make more but the government at a fixed price doesn't get
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that it doesn't get that signal i don't if there's people in need of housing how are they not going
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to get that signal well people will cram into there'll be unlike unsafe living standards well
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my family isn't coming in with another family so i don't think that's like are would you come in
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with another family if i couldn't own a home i think like that's what you would rather do what
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you're doing now and like protest rather than come into another that's a pretty yeah so like
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but the government is slow right so the the change that the government can implement is going to be
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very slow it's much slower than the free market so the change there might be change but it's going
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to be so slow that the bad living standards will continue why is it slower why is the government is
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so slow when's the last time you've you've uh applied for a license or something you know how
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long that takes yeah that's the sort of length of time that you would get what is making the
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government in your opinion be so much slower than a privately owned corporation so our government
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is bloated that's one thing that of course causes the slowness but another thing is the absence of
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the market signal and that drive to be more efficient and gain more profit that is something
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the free market has and the government does not so the government is going to inherently be slower
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than the free market because the the workers the contractors they get more money the slower they
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are okay right all right yeah you're right yeah um well i gotta go all right awesome do you mind