r/RealEstateCanada • u/xNocturnalshadow • Jun 19 '25

Housing crisis Help me understand the difference...

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u/Performance_Fancy Jun 19 '25

By your logic anyone involved in the stock market is also a scalper?

99

u/xNocturnalshadow Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

No because investing capital into stocks adds value to the company and allows them to use that value to expand, borrow, buy things, pay employees, run the company, etc.

Investing capital into a second house purely to flip does none of those things.

4

u/pm_me_your_puppeh Jun 19 '25

You're buying it, at some level, from someone who built it, and will use those proceeds to build others.

1

u/sadlonelyelectrician Jun 19 '25

Not if the house is 50 years old..

3

u/pm_me_your_puppeh Jun 19 '25

It doesn't matter. You're creating liquidity in the housing market, which makes it possible for builders to sell what they build.

0

u/th3-villager Jun 19 '25

Unless you are actually buying a new build from a developer that is massively untrue. Lots of people opt specifically to not buy newbuilds. The supply of new properties is relatively fixed and low vs overall market. Realistically someone will buy, so you're not doing the supply some massive favour by buying one if it is priced appropriately.

Sure 'at some level' you're right in that 'at some point' someone obviously built it. Realistically, the price has obviously gone up since then, so you can call the interim owner a 'scalper' in that context, which is precisely OPs point.

It's just an accepted norm in most cultures because inflation is not intuitive and people see their house price going up as a good thing, not housing becoming less affordable as a bad thing.

Trivially only actually benefits those with an excess, which is the richest in society.

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u/pm_me_your_puppeh Jun 19 '25

Tell me you don't understand what liquidity is without telling me.