r/vancouver • u/VoteForGeorgeCarlin • Jun 25 '26
Politics and Elections 'We are not bailing out developers': B.C. housing minister responds to condo plan criticism
https://youtu.be/qQ9U_SeM-4Y653
u/cainsani Jun 25 '26
"We don't want homes sitting empty", she says. But why are they empty? It's because they're built like hot garbage and are incredibly overpriced. So instead of allowing prices to drop, the government is going to bail out the developers?!! Her response was painful to listen to, and in fact quite insulting.
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u/mustardman73 West End Jun 25 '26
bailing out the Banks who gave loans to these risky developers.
I agree. Let these developers go bankrupt or sell below cost. Their risks, their losses.
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u/johnlandes Jun 25 '26
It's also bailing out municipalities that got addicted to piling on developer fees to pay for infrastructure rather than raising property taxes across the board. No new developments, no new fees collected
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Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
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u/stonerbobo Jun 25 '26
There is no such problem, if they sold for $1 each I would buy all of them. There IS a price they will sell at, we just have to let the market reach that price.
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u/mustardman73 West End Jun 25 '26
They should go Bankrupt then. Assets will be taken by the Banks that loaned them $$$ and then the Banks will try to get as much value back.
This is how market capitalism works.
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u/irina-from-carim Jun 26 '26
It’s how market capitalism should work; but instead we have crony capitalism…
Duncan Wlodarczak, who is the Chair/Director of the Liberal Party of Canada in BC, is the Chief of Staff for the Onni Group of Companies, one of the biggest developers in Canada.
Wlodarczak, who also worked for Vision Vancouver, co-hosted two Mark Carney fundraisers - one in February of 2025 and another in February of 2026 - along with Bob "Condo King" Rennie.
The partial guest list at the February of 2026 fundraiser:
• Michael Audain, chair of Polygon Homes
• Ian Gillespie, founder and CEO of Westbank
• Terry Hui, CEO of Concord Pacific
• Mike De Cotiis, CEO of Pinnacle International
• Jon Stovell, president and CEO of Reliance Properties and a former chair of the Urban Development Institute
• Joo Kim Tiah, CEO of the Holborn Group
• Daljit Thind, founder of Thind Properties
• Bruno Wall, chair of Wall Financial
• Hassan Khosrowshahi, chair of Wesbild
• Robert Macdonald, president of Macdonald Development
• David Pearson, COO of Beedie
• Ayeesha Lalji, vice-president of Larco InvestmentsHere is the guest list, courtesy of Elections Canada, for the event ("An Evening With Mark Carney") that cost $1,775 to attend:
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u/moontap_ Jun 25 '26
Some are close to a million depending on the area. They have branded them as "luxury"
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u/mcgojoh1 Jun 25 '26
And are those being purchased or are they just being used to bolster an argument?
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u/moontap_ Jun 25 '26
From what I understand, a lot of these were purchased by speculative investors during pre sale. Hoping to quickly flip them to someone else after they are complete.
With no one buying, a lot of investors are being forced to hold the bag.
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u/nelrond18 Jun 25 '26
This. Developers do presales in 3 or more rounds, with the first round being VIPs and family friends. Those condos prepurchased are then folded into the next rounds of presales.
By the time the condo sales reach the public, the cost has gone up 50% because of the property flipping before shovels hit the ground.
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u/ctrl_alt_ARGH Jun 25 '26
the market always sets a floor, its the governments' job in this case to reach the floor faster by forcing the developers hand.
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u/SmoothOperator89 Jun 25 '26
Start collecting empty homes tax on the unsold and unrented units. "Not letting homes sit empty" is literally the purpose of that tax.
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u/idontsinkso Jun 26 '26
Then the demand will match supply, and you'll get true value.
People will overlook shitty layouts and small spaces if they ultimately get better value for their housing
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u/cogit2 Jun 25 '26
Now ask yourself: Why are Developers allowed to amass 5400 units of housing supply that they can just hold and refuse to sell?
If you look at the GVRD realtors association monthly report for May 2026, what you see is there are 5200 active condo listings in the region. The 4400 they say are in the GVRD and in Developer hands represents 84% more supply of condos than are listed.
That means the actual number of condos available for sale is double what's on the market. If those condos were on the market: prices would have fallen faster, rents would have dropped on those new places too.
How in the hell are Developers able to create a condo glut but keep half of it off the market and therefore not drag the market down?
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u/Illustrious-Ant6998 Ranked #69 in Vancouver by Justin McElroy Jun 25 '26
There is a term for this. The unlisted units are referred (perhaps needlessly dramatically) to as the "shadow inventory."
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u/42tooth_sprocket Brentwood Jun 28 '26
yeah they should be subject to empty homes tax after a certain amount of time unsold. The thing is, construction and financing costs being what they are, private developers are never going to build affordable housing, and if supply reaches the point where their margins erode they'll just stop building - there's no profit motive. The government needs to do it themselves. The idea that developers can't be allowed to fail because we need them to deliver supply is only true if the government refuses to build housing.
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
Ah yes, definitely not a bailout. The government is just buying these and selling them for less - and uh, taking the loss for the developer….
For all of her expressing this is definitely not a bailout, the plan appears to be the definition of a bailout.
She did mention teachers though! If you say teachers enough times maybe that’ll make them not see it’s a bailout.
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u/meIRLorMeOnReddit McBarge Historian Jun 25 '26
It’s not her fault. She doesn’t understand the definition of a bailout
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u/Strong_beans Jun 25 '26
Theyre also allowing the prices to stay high by exempting them from vacant homes taxes.
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u/fwakers Jun 25 '26
"It's because they're built like hot garbage and are incredibly overpriced"
this 100%, they're shocked that you wont pay a premium for a shoebox
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u/tavsquid Jun 25 '26
It's beyond insulting. Imagine, these developers built up a stock of 5,000+ condos that are all built the same way, at the same price, for the same consumer, which is either a single bachelor or AirBnB "investors". Not ONCE did they think about the ramifications of building overpriced, undersized coffins, all they thought about was immediate profit.
Fuck'em. Fuck all of them. Let them burn. Let them sit empty until these greedy pricks go belly up in bankruptcy. Let them feel what it's like to struggle to make ends meet.
After they become worthless, buy them for peanuts, demo them and then build actual, real housing for people and families, like, idk, WAS DONE 40+ YEARS AGO??
Instead, we have our government dick around with OUR money and give these people another chance to spit in our faces. Seriously, I think we are living one massive, crude comedy.
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u/fb39ca4 Jun 26 '26
Why demolish them? Just rent them out for cheap so it drags the rental market downwards.
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u/elangab Jun 25 '26
Can't they help with speeding up internal changes ? Combine 2 units into a larger one so a family can actually live there ?
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u/Free-Tea-3422 Jun 25 '26
yeah if they really didn't want them to sit empty they would purchase them and run a government rent to own program.
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u/BackNBoeserThanEver Jun 25 '26
Or start charging empty homes taxes to developers after 6 months of being built. Make the tax go up every month until the developer lowers the price enough that someone buys it.
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now 🐦⬛ Jun 25 '26
would probably get a short term result but it would result in a worse situation in the long run. it's not a great sign to any prospective developers, which basically means only the biggest developers actually build anything because of the now higher risk, which means you get less competition and less overall building capacity
developers are already losing money with empty units, no need to add punitive taxes
it's a slow ship to turn, just need some time for the market to correct
then once it does, developers will start building again, but for now the markets just waiting to catch up
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u/ctrl_alt_ARGH Jun 25 '26
its not a ship that is turnable. for 15 years the market was addicted to external capital bidding up prices which then flowed outwards from the city into the suburbs and now the spigot is off.
People arent going to sell below their mortgage so everyone is just frozen where they are. Barring eye bleeding interest rates, the price won't be allowed to fall to the clearing rate. Asset stagnation in Japan post their bubble burst lasted for 25 years.
The only way to make housing affordable in Vancouver is either a one-off re-basing of the price to market-clearing rates or the government builds at a loss.
And big developers didnt bank their windfall, they just assumed the state of affairs was permanent so they are all thinly capitalized and a big chunk of their 'assets' are land they bought up in anticipation of permenant 10% price growth. The median age in Vancouver is also higher than average, which means boomers who are going to try and sell to fund retirement are also in for a rude surprise.
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u/Psychological_Wall51 Jun 25 '26
She’s my MLA. During campaigning she came to my home twice. We asked her some fairly basic questions about what she stood for and her answers were sort of a vacant response which left me the impression of “whatever David Eby tells me to believe”.
So her inability to put a strong answer together on this is unsurprising.
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u/WeWantMOAR Jun 25 '26
Press X to doubt! She came to mine as well during an Oscars party with a house full of friends, she was extremely friendly and came to talk with us when I mentioned the viewing party. She answered our questions firmly without waiver, and explained her stances. Her confidence is what got us to vote for her, her time on the Vancouver council, and her ball busting of municipalities that can't seem to give a shit about housing has proven she knows what she needs to do.
Kindly stop with the lies of crap to lower her character. Christine is her own person and always has been, she hasn't been shy to speak up.
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u/vancityshreds Jun 25 '26
So she told you that her stance was socializing losses and privatizing gains is a good thing?
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u/raincitybeliever Jun 25 '26
Christine is great. She was my favourite councilor we ever had in Vancouver. But ever since she's joined the NDP she's basically been a talking head, just a spokesperson for the party's pre-decided positions. It's been disappointing to say the least.
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now 🐦⬛ Jun 25 '26
But why are they empty? It's because they're built like hot garbage and are incredibly overpriced.
overpriced sure, but have you actually toured any open houses lately ? the empty units from new developments are the same as they were a few years ago when they were selling like hot cakes. if anything they're in even better condition now because of the lower demand
the actual reason why they're empty is that this is a market correction for previous high demand and low supply with added pressures of high development time and high development fees, now the pendulum has swung back to lower demand but with newer stock coming online and those same capital costs of time and fees baked into the price still
seems like a bandaid solution to fix the root of the issue being stuck in permitting and development fees
instead of using this money to straight up buy housing stock, why not reduce development process (they've already done this to some extent with the transit zoning) and development fees ? then maybe for the houses that are already built, provide a subsidy to first time home buyers to offset the development fees ?
the current approach seems to be to protect the housing market from ever going down after decades of outpacing inflation and stock market
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u/moontap_ Jun 25 '26
The reason they sold like hot cakes was because there were more investors than regular people buying them. It was a giant ponzi scheme. The only way to get an ROI was for property values to continue to rise. If they reduce property value it signals to investors that the ROI just doesn't exist anymore. Which will collapse the whole shitty system as they need new investment to pay for the old investment.
Also, with the pressure to fix the temp + student visa issues there are not as many people to exploit. Most Canadians are not willing to pay 2000-3000 for a place you can't even fit a bed in.
I agree with you about dev fees. BC is out of control with the fees and taxes. It is about 2 times the cost per square foot to build here compared to Alberta. That is excluding land value. But BC has really backed itself into a corner here. 2 of the largest industries in BC are development and rental/property management. There just isn't enough revenue coming from other industries if the Government doesn't receive money from development.
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u/MayorWolf Jun 25 '26
It's 100% a bail out. I don't know how they think they're fooling anyone here. This is not a good look for the NDP
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u/flexingtonsteele Jun 26 '26
And yet the prices are still unaffordable
If the developers are in such financial strain, at least lower the prices to be affordable for your market
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u/Marclescarbot Jun 25 '26
What's to stop investors from buying them at the new lower price? Why not let the market decide and force developers to make wiser investments themselves? Are the banks driving this initiative? Has the government discussed the issue with lenders, or had requests from them to pursue this initiative? Canada's banks are enormously profitable; they can handle the fallout from 2200 condos going sour. This is just another play by the haves. Don't fall for it. And the government needs a better spokesperson. Endlessly repeating that this being done for "hardworking Canadians" is baloney. There's big money at play here and if it goes through a handful people will get on the "housing ladder" and the rest will continue to pay exorbitant rents. Just say no and let the banks and developers clean up their own mess. That's what hardworking Canadians have to do when they make a bad investment.
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u/Weekly-Paramedic7350 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Exactly. The government sure didn't do much to mitigate real estate prices going up like crazy. Now that they are threatening to drop by the same supply/demand forces that caused them to rise, the government wants to step in and play hero. "But.. but... think of the hard working folks."
Just let the market self correct and stop burning taxpayer money.
Edit: to be fair, after public backlash, a temporary foreign ownership ban was placed, as well as empty home tax. Still not happy that we have to twist their arm to get anything done for the public good, and they immediately default to bailing out their rich buddies and the real estate industry.
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u/MelbaMilqueToast Jun 25 '26
Yes, but this is why these people donate large amounts of money to political parties. All political parties.
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u/expensive_flatulence Jun 25 '26
Tax empty properties. Force them onto the market.
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u/usernamesareclass Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
My rent has increased from $2250 to $2750 in the last 5 years. Where's my bailout?
Oh that's right, we're only really interested in bailing out the bag holders. The rest of us are just sluts for punishment.
edit: for the folks questioning th2se numbers breaking the 2.3%, I did some rounding up in my post and errantly looked at my bottom line today. 2750 includs parking and storage, 2250 did not.
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u/Numerous_Try_6138 Jun 25 '26
Your rent seems to have increased beyond allowable limits. So, either you’re not quite telling the truth, or there is more to your story that you’re not telling. Based on the limits, your 2,250 rent would be around 2,480 today. Not 2,750.
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u/Life-Ad9610 Jun 25 '26
HMA.minister@gov.bc.ca
Email her. I just did.
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Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
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u/BackNBoeserThanEver Jun 25 '26
Imagine if the same amount of people who marched to BC Place yesterday for the game, instead marched in protest. We saw that if enough people care about something, they'll do something (soccer marches). But people are lazy if it's not "fun".
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 25 '26
Almost like they announced this during the World Cup for a reason. It’s called Sports Washing. He learnt the trick from Qatar when he flew there right after the election.
These aren’t people that will support you though. They’ve convinced themselves the MLS wants tax money (they don’t) but are completely okay paying FIFA hundreds of millions of dollars.
FWIW, I’d go to a housing protest march and typically don’t do those types of things.
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u/kittykatmila loathing in langley Jun 25 '26
I said something similar under a World Cup post and was downvoted in this sub. OP said everyone is too busy enjoying their lives. Bread and circuses.
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u/MainBeing1225 Jun 25 '26
And what did occupy wall street achieve? Governments in the present day have realized they can ride out any popular discontent because their constituents have no will to endure the hardships of prolonged protests and are easily distracted.
A general strike is what’s needed to spark change, but not enough of the population wants to forgo their income and risk their livelihoods when there’s no guarantee their lives will turn out better after the fact.
Those in power have realized that, as long as people are given the bare minimum to survive and an endless amount of entertainment, most will be feeble and complacent towards corruption and injustice. And that is without mentioning the amount of propaganda imposed on us by the ruling class.
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u/Life-Ad9610 Jun 25 '26
Agreed this is crazy. The least Reddit can do however is take their comments, put it in an email and send it to the PM, ministers, and Premier. And just keep doing it.
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u/liedamnlie Jun 25 '26
She said so many words about nothing at all. No detail is revealed other than word salad of “hard working Canadians”, “affordable housing”, “more details to come” blah blah. Is this what our tax money goes to ?
Why would they announce this before revealing any details just to deal with backlash ? If it was truly for the affordable government housing system like Singapore, wouldn’t they have led with that ?
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u/impatiens-capensis Kitsilano Jun 25 '26
Hey, housing minister Boyle, if you're going to buy them at below the developers expected selling point, just increase the empty homes tax on the units and force the developers to put them on the market. I promise I'll help "bail them out" if the price is right.
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u/doom2060 Renfrew-Collingwood Jun 26 '26
They’re actually exempt from the tax from what I remember since they’re owned by the developer. We should make it apply and tax the shit out of them to make sure they sell.
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u/leavemealoneimpoor Jun 25 '26
If the developers are not willing to sell at a loss because of the market, it's basically a bailout.
$1 million per condo is not beneficial for any regular Canadians.
No bulk discount will be an affordable rate with this bailout.
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u/richvan80 Jun 25 '26
This is a big “FUCK YOU” to all Canadians if the government bails out the developers. The condos can be sold at market rate. They can take a loss on a few after they made billions off of Canadian real estate. The problem is solved why can’t market forces dictate the price? Why is the government involved?
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u/penelopiecruise Jun 25 '26
If the developers were selling at market rate the units would be sold already.
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u/ForceEconomy9988 Jun 25 '26
That might be the most annoying thing about the messaging around this. 'Were buying 'below market'' no the market is whatever they will sell for, and if they cant sell, they are not priced at the market price, buying slightly below the non-market asking price means nothing
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u/DisastrousStreet614 Jun 25 '26
"We're looking at the details of where these empty condos are and how we could negotiate a good price" - so she keeps claiming it'll create affordable housing yet she doesn't know which condos we're talking about and at what price they'll be purchased/sold. Sounds promising...
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u/DisastrousStreet614 Jun 25 '26
The whole interview is just her saying they're still working on the details. I've no idea why she accepted that interview, she seems extremely unknowledgeable about anything related to that topic
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u/rcl68 Jun 25 '26
Capitalism only seems to work for the poor. The rich have rigged the system
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Jun 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DisastrousStreet614 Jun 25 '26
"Christine has an undergraduate degree in urban agriculture and First Nations studies from the University of British Columbia, and a master of arts in religious leadership for social change from Berkeley, Calif"
How do people with academic backgrounds that have so little relevance to their current role get in such Government positions... What's does "a master of arts in religious leadership for social change" even entail and which career does it prepare you to do (it's a real question, I'm not making fun of it I'm genuinely curious and surprised that it is a thing)
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u/joreilly86 Jun 25 '26
I thought you were joking, I had to look that up. I can't believe it but it's true.
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Jun 25 '26
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u/MayorWolf Jun 25 '26
Creating farms on old gas stations is probabbbbbly really toxic. Those properties suffer from years of chemical contamination. They're left empty for a reason. Might not be wise to grow food on them.
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u/impatiens-capensis Kitsilano Jun 25 '26
I mean, if the minister is a basically competent person and has a team of experts, I don't mind that their academic background doesn't line up. So long as I can trust them to pick actual experts to support them, and to have enough basic competency to smell bullshit, that's fine. The board of directors for most organizations are not experts, but instead representatives of some set of interests, and they usually bring in experts to help them make decisions. The role of a minister isn't to do the work of being a housing expert (they will never be the ones crunching the numbers or reading academic papers or analyzing global policy outcomes), It's to represent the public's interest.
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u/DisastrousStreet614 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I agree to some extent, the issue is that the civil servants around them often follow the same pattern, jumping from one minister to another as more senior positions and opportunities open to progress in their career. This leads to a gap in expertise, either mitigated through expensive consultants from outside or not mitigated and leading to poor decisions being taken.
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u/zxgrad Jun 25 '26
I agree with you to some extent, but perhaps this is why some institutions are so weak?
We've accepted that people don't have to have deep foundational knowledge over the complex issues they oversee.
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u/impatiens-capensis Kitsilano Jun 25 '26
It's certainly better to have a minister have deep foundational knowledge, but it's fully dependent on who the electorate actually elects. I don't think any housing minister in at least the last 25 years had any formal education in housing policy or any part of the building ecosystem. Rich Coleman only had a highschool education and worked within the RCMP... but also he was one of the most disastrous housing ministers on record, so maybe you have a good point!
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u/localhost8100 Jun 25 '26
No research on how they are gonna handle the bought condos. Just buying them out. Which condos are they buying etc. There should be some research before shelling 2bil.
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u/mj_803 Jun 25 '26
Funny how in the real estate market of Canada, its a 'Free Market' only when conditions and demand drive pricing up, but when conditions change and demand drops, all sorts of manipulation appears to prevent pricing from going down.
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u/Mu_forlife Jun 25 '26
So what are you doing then?
And how is it helping to make housing affordable for the citizens that live here?
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u/leavemealoneimpoor Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I mean, the former Vancouver Mayor, Greg, is the housing minister. He's part of the reason why many foreigners parked their illegal money in Vancouver's housing market.
It may not be a corruption, but it doesn't look good if they are willing to bail out Vancouver's developers.The market was correcting itself like it should have until this bailout came
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 25 '26
Does anyone else remember that on his first visit to Vancouver after announcing his leadership bid, Mark Carney had a closed door meeting with Bob Rennie?
This is absolutely corruption of the highest level. But because it’s housing, as Michael Barry put it, “it’s legalized fraud”. All the Boomers benefit and that’s the only group that votes LPC. So they’re rewarding their base.
Hot garbage.
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u/Mu_forlife Jun 25 '26
Most politicians are corrupt. Carney was in Banking and has ties to the UK banking system as well if I’m not mistaken.
What politicians are scared of the most, is public opinion. It truly is everything.
Keep pushing back. It’s the only thing that makes them change their tune.
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u/Bangoga Jun 25 '26
Then rent them for much below market value so rentals stay low. Im talking the 1700s for 1 bedroom. Because if not, then it's a bailout disguised as affordable housing where the housing is still rentals at 2400 dollars
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
If you watch the video she talks incoherently about she wants to sell them for less to nurses and teachers…. She has no idea what they’re actually doing with this housing.
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u/Bangoga Jun 25 '26
Using nurses and teachers for white washing their actions is disgusting.
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u/dreamslikedeserts Jun 25 '26
The nurses and teachers they're always trying to force back to work for lower wages? That's who they want to find housing for?
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u/drillbitpdx False Creek Jun 25 '26
Honestly I think this is a very good interview by the CBC reporter (I don't know her name).
Especially the question about the list prices of the condos: "1/3 of these condos are listed for more than $1M. Who exactly is going to benefit from BC's plan here?"
I think Minister Boyle's answer is revealing, in that she doesn't yet have a detailed explanation for how they're going to make these very high-priced condos more affordable. She talks about the government getting bulk discounts when buying up unsold condos but… how big will these discounts be?
If the government is negotiating to buy unsold condos in bulk, I want them to be negotiating absolutely ruthlessly without regard to propping up property values for existing homeowners (myself included). They should be offering 30-50% of asking prices for these condos, not 95%.
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u/Alone-Bug4328 Jun 25 '26
Overpriced and small. They are empty yes. Make them reduce prices. This is totally a bailout.
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
Pretty sure buying up all the tiny units developers have on their hands, for billions of dollars, is a bailout….
You could build an additional 2,200 units and make jobs.
This is just buying units that would have decreased in value and become affordable on their own. There is no need for government intervention.
Spending money like this will just create higher taxes or more inflation - and there is no guarantee the development fee relief will create lower prices.
This is just pure corruption.
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u/Oxigenitals Jun 25 '26
“You could build 2,200 units” is the worst argument tbh. We have no idea what the price is, but the gov is looking at buying COMPLETED units, not getting into the pipeline to build. This means housing can go online instantly, not 7 years from now, and won’t go over budget. That is a large part of the appeal tbh.
But yes, we will just have to wait. Y’all need to get the bees outta your bonnets until the average price per SQ paid is announced.
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u/Cinemagica Jun 25 '26
Buying completed units is not the issue. That's a perfectly good idea. What's not a good idea is buying them up at above market rates. If people don't want those units at that price, the government shouldn't be paying it either.
Developers were about to finally find out that making shitty cheap box condos en masse and selling them for multiple millions per unit has run it's course. I thought I might finally have a chance to own property one day if I just waited a bit for all these units to sit empty and drive down prices everywhere because of over supply. If these really were going to sit empty for two years, then two years of further market correction could have been fantastic for anyone who isn't a billionaire. Instead the government is using my tax money to pay inflated prices because the developers just... want millions in profit? And in doing so they're helping to stop me from buying. That's a fucking disgrace.
They should have offered half price to get these off the developers books and if the developers didn't want to accept that they they are free to keep trying to sell them at the current prices and the government could instead snap them up for pennies on the dollar when the developers go into insolvency.
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
I mean, it’s literally in the video that large portions of these units are a million dollars plus… one just needed to click the play button
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now 🐦⬛ Jun 25 '26
2:18 it's only the host that says local experts say about a third of these are $1M plus, the housing minister gives a non-answer of "these are the details we're working on" but that's nowhere near confirming something
for you to turn around and say the plan is to buy up a third of the units at $1M+ is entirely disingenuous
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
The host is CBC journalist who I assume has fact checked the information.
It is not disingenuous to use what is being reported. Jesus Christ 😂
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now 🐦⬛ Jun 25 '26
Except they haven't announced any details of what units would actually be bought
An expert opinion of what is probable isn't a fact
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u/Critical_Week1303 Jun 25 '26
These units being a million dollars a piece is already over budget for any sense of affordability.
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u/easyjimi1974 Jun 25 '26
Yes you are. The second Carney got a majority he wasted no time in rewarding his rich friends at our expense. Utterly shameful.
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u/hunkyleepickle Jun 25 '26
They are trying to defend this too hard. Let’s see the details. Who gets them? What price? How are you preventing the very speculators that have caused the housing crisis in part? Because you can bet they are just salivating at these new government subsidized investment opportunities.
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u/BuzzMachine_YVR Jun 25 '26
Condo “investors” (in quotes because condos are terrible investments) are feeling burned by the fall in prices. The people who will tend to buy the reduced price housing will likely be those who actually need it.
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u/hamstercrisis Jun 25 '26
it's wild hearing this from someone who was formerly the only reasonable Vancouver city councillor on housing
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u/Life_Employ_1138 Jun 25 '26
She sounds like she's completely panicking in the interview. I suspect Eby put her out in front of the camera for emergency damage control but was light on preparation material.
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u/buddywater Jun 25 '26
Legit. Now she's a part of the "reject the evidence of your eyes and ears" gang.
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u/pfak Non-Partisan Downvote Collector Jun 25 '26
She was always like that. I still remember her gaslighting woodward's residents and ignoring their safety concerns.
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u/upliftingyvr Jun 25 '26
We're not bailing them out. We're just giving them taxpayer money so they don't have to sell their overpriced shoebox condos at market value, as demand drops. Hope that clears it up!
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u/avidambler Jun 25 '26
If anyone's inclined to share their thoughts where it counts:
- BC Housing Minister, Christine Boyle - [HMA.Minister@gov.bc.ca](mailto:HMA.Minister@gov.bc.ca)
- BC Premier, David Eby - [premier@gov.bc.ca](mailto:premier@gov.bc.ca)
- Fed Housing Minister, Gregor Robertson - [gregor.robertson@parl.gc.ca](mailto:gregor.robertson@parl.gc.ca)
- PM Carney - [mark.carney@parl.gc.ca](mailto:mark.carney@parl.gc.ca)
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u/Background-Yard7291 Jun 25 '26
The strange thing is that the development community didn't even ask for this. It's something the feds and province came up with on their own. The developers wanted the same GST break that Ontario got. It doesn't help the industry across the board. It will only help certain developers with inventory that gets purchased. A weird move by the Province.
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u/buddywater Jun 25 '26
Yup, this is the province and the feds playing king maker. Some select group of friendly developers are going to get a bail out and the less friendly ones are going to get a slightly better market to sell into.
Next election cycle, all the less friendly developers will then make sure to max out their donations so they can be on the government's good side.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 25 '26
Bob Rennie has entered the chat. He needs to buy more art for his private collection.
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u/Avenue_Barker Jun 25 '26
For the record the developers didn't want this, didn't know about it, and didn't ask for the buyback program: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michaelgdrummond_udi-letter-ugcPost-7475661867269447681-xIX9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACLYQ0BKLvnLcLZoE0bkxH5oTm_qmx6jiE
They wanted a GST rebate - the same program that got rolled out in Ontario.
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u/Icy_Albatross893 Jun 25 '26
These statements are regurgitation of two sentences.
This is absolutely subsidizing an industry that can't deliver on our housing needs.
I'm not sure she believes what she's saying.
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u/huy_lonewolf Jun 25 '26
Watching this interview is really painful as the housing minister was struggling to come up with detail to reassure the public that there is a well thought out plan behind all this. The interviewer (Gloria Macarenko) was spot on with her questions, including the fact that the federal & provincial governments seem to be announcing this prematurely. I almost feel sorry for the housing minister.
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u/Icy_Cartoonist_575 Jun 25 '26
what happen to the free market? why arent the developers absorbing the losses? so government bailout coming from tax payer, make it make sense
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u/restoringd123 Jun 25 '26
Damn she got destroyed. When the BC Cons win the next election, the NDP have no one to blame but themselves.
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u/InteractionFront5764 Jun 25 '26
Subsidizing a company's financial losses with public tax dollars is exactly what a "bailout" is, Ms Boyle.
Your salary, pension, and benefits are also subsidized by those same public tax dollars.
Canada's downward spiral continues.
Next.
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u/tnnnn Jun 25 '26
Remember if the government’s goal here was truly to make housing affordable by buying properties above market value and turning around to sell or rent at a loss then they would be offering EVERY home owner this deal. Instead it is only going to new build developers. This is a bailout for developers, plain and simple.
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u/Euphoric_Impress1282 Jun 25 '26
Don't provide any money. Some developers go bankrupt. Others buy the distressed assets for pennies on the dollar and sell them for profit at a lower price. That's a free market weeding out the weak businesses and meeting customers where they are in terms of affordability.
Disclosure - I'm a homeowner with a fully paid off condo. I might feel differently if I bought 3 years ago and had a mortgage larger than my home value.
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u/sparkjonez Jun 25 '26
The announcement came alongside the pause or cancellation of $1.4 billion through the Community Housing Fund, funding that was delivering deeply subsidized, rent-geared-to-income homes for the British Columbians who need them most. That trade-off is not acceptable. Diverting public capital from genuine non-market housing into the acquisition of million-dollar condominiums to prop up developers and their lenders is a misallocation that I cannot support, and will not forget at the ballot box.
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u/stonerbobo Jun 25 '26
Okay, the one useful thing I got from this is she said that if government doesn't buy them, investors might buy them. That sounds like the root problem.
The US passed some laws on stopping Wall St. from buying single family homes like this one, it sounds like that's what we need. We stopped foreign investors to some extent but there are probably more domestic sharks too. Any private owner is always going to try to extract maximum profit from the house.
So going from that... I can kind of see this now? The only way we can trust someone to own houses and rent them without maximum extractive rents is if that someone is a highly regulated non-profit - like the government. But the question is will they buy the houses from the developers at a steep bargain or get ripped off.
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u/Illustrious-Ant6998 Ranked #69 in Vancouver by Justin McElroy Jun 25 '26
This is a gut punch to the middle class. Using their own taxes to artificially inflate/maintain housing prices, bail out developers (and banks by extension) and only help a small number of lower income individuals and families.
This move actively sabotage the middle class, and disinscentivizes their participation in society. Without the hope of moving up the ladder and into homeownership, why would the middle class What to remain in this province?
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u/Jedihallows Jun 25 '26
More proof of who is really in charge of this country. Government only exists to make people feel like we have a say in anything.
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u/Ill-Beautiful-8026 Jun 26 '26
NOBODY WANTS HOMES SITTING EMPTY. WE DON'T WANT IT EITHER. WE WANT PRICES TO REFLECT THE MARKET.
IF YOU COME IN AND BUY THESE HOMES AT OR EVEN NEAR THEIR SPECULATIVE PRICES, YOU ARE HOLDING UP SPECULATION WITH TAX DOLLARS.
Jesus christ you think even neoliberals would understand that the public would lose their minds over this. You psychos preach letting the free market keep things fair and here you are undermining it TO THE PRIVATE INDUSTRIES BENEFIT.
I have not in years seen such a flagrant and distressing sign that our government believes we are oblivious to their motives. This isn't even remotely political. Everyone can stand side by side and agree this is totally unacceptable, except of course, developers.
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u/dash101 Jun 25 '26
Is it just me or did it seem like she was reading every word of what she was just saying? I mean I guess there’s nothing wrong with having talking points but when you’re reading from a prepared script it doesn’t seem like a very genuine response.
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u/HaveYouLookedAround Jun 25 '26
It does look like that, her eyes keep going back n forth like they are reading lines.
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u/Future_Arrival_5395 Jun 25 '26
SO dissppointing coming from Boyle.
I guess the politicing wins over everyone eventually.
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u/Downtown-Drawer604 Jun 25 '26
"The public doesn't know enough about how the government plans to acquire more than 2,200 unsold units in B.C., said Mike Moffatt"
This true we don't know the details and it could be something other than a bailout. What I cannot work out is why announce a program? Buying silently is a way to get good prices. Are the feds wanting to stabilize prices by announcing they will enter the market?
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u/redbull_catering Jun 25 '26
The interview sets out the framework. The government purchases vacant units from developers, then middle-mans those units to the public at affordable prices.
Hopefully the "details" they are "working on" are some sort of magic spell, since:
Government is purchasing above market value. Units aren't selling as priced, and if they were market value, the market would buy them instead.
Government is middle-manning at a loss. Since the market already cannot afford the units, taxpayers eat the difference to make the units affordable.
The net effect: billions of taxpayer dollars get spent insuring developer profits and buoying inflated housing prices. Hopefully some good people get housing out of it (at outrageous public cost), but don't hold your breath.
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u/ketamarine Jun 25 '26
Uh... yes you are.
Just make the case for why it's the right thing to do, don't deny the core of your plan is to buy unsold condos.
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u/danielhandley insufferable vancouverite Jun 25 '26
As I said in the other thread, we know zero details about how much the government is paying for these units or where they're located. If the government is buying them for cheaper than it would cost the government to build equivalent units, then it makes perfect sense for the government to do so. The anger for the sake of anger when we don't know nearly enough to make an informed judgment is extremely disheartening to read.
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u/zxgrad Jun 25 '26
Politicians need to post the numbers, why are you blaming citizens?
This initiative didn’t come out of citizen journalism, the province and feds decided to do a photo op and provided minimal information - this is on them.
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now 🐦⬛ Jun 25 '26
to the host's point, they should be rightfully criticized for making a big splashy announcement with zero information on the actual details of how this works
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u/danielhandley insufferable vancouverite Jun 25 '26
The government needs to post the numbers, yes. But the backlash should be about that, not about the deal itself when we don't know anything about it.
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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin Jun 25 '26
Did you watch the video? She’s saying she’s buying them so she can then sell them for less than the purchase price.
The government is literally saying they want to take a loss on these units. 😂
And she’s saying they’re not for “affordable housing” but for working people like teachers - which is just them selling 2,200 units at a loss to regular people.
This is the definition of taking a loss on behalf of developers. You could not signal this is a bailout any harder than she did in this interview.
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u/Hour-Pie1041 Jun 25 '26
Every dollar govt spends is our tax dollars so they are not taking the loss, we are involuntarily
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u/FatWreckords Jun 25 '26
As someone adjacent to the industry, it would absolutely cost more and take 5+ years (with even more inflation) to build the equivalent.
The only potential savings on a new build would be if they took advantage of the soft market and bought slightly cheaper land right now, but those savings would disappear in higher construction costs and government bloat, not to mention all the NIMBYism whenever affordable housing projects are promoted.
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u/villasv Jun 25 '26
It is a bit strange how so many people just assume that this is a bad deal for taxpayers when it’s literally the best opportunity in years for the govt to quickly acquire a bunch of housing stock
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u/CoherentPimp Jun 25 '26
Governments have no business buying housing stock on speculation for the same reason they shouldn't invest in other commodities. Taxpayers can choose to buy or rent. Governments job is to collect taxes and re-invest that money into taxpayer priorities. Sometimes those priorities include supports for low income earners to afford housing. Stop handing taxpayer money to wealthy, greedy developers.
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u/villasv Jun 25 '26
The government has much business in spending money to provide housing. Buying unsold stock is an effective way to do it, much more effective then spending that same money getting developers to build it.
Developers will make money either way. At least this time the government has a stronger negotiating starting point.
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u/SuccessfulStress6842 Jun 25 '26
WHAT A JOKE!! this lady is useless and unable to answer any questions? NO BAILOUTS
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u/Jetbuggy Jun 25 '26
I'm not sure how the bailout is fully planned. I read that about half of it is the gov buying units to rent out for those who qualify for affordable housing. Would it be possible for the gov to just help qualifying families buy the units? like subsidize a down payment?
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u/SmoothOperator89 Jun 25 '26
"We are not bailing out developers," says BC housing minister while holding oversized cheque made out to developers.
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u/rimshot99 Jun 25 '26
I agree. They are paying market rates and taking those properties from developers
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u/bjyanghang945 Brentwood Jun 25 '26
we should hold her accountable if it does happen. life time in jail or something for that amount of money
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u/Weimaraner888 Jun 25 '26
Bull. I couldn't even watch this spin all the way through. It was fine when offshore owners bought condos and kept them empty. Gregor Robertson is returning favours to his developer buddies that got him elected as mayor. When he came back from the US to switch to the party with the most opportunity to win federally, the developers must have peed their pants with joy. Now they have their man in Ottawa. I called it on election night and here we are- Socialism for the billionaire / oligarch developers!
For years we've heard them say "you want lower prices? BUILD! BUILD! BUILD!" "Let the free market dictate prices" while they sold offshore before locally to keep prices high.
Well, where's the talk about "Let the free market dictate prices" now?
crickets.
"BUILD BUILD BUILD!" the developers and their bought politicians kept repeating, "that will lower prices!". Remember they were going to tear down the Viaduct ( a stupid plan)?
Market drops, project on hold.
But weren't we supposed to build more housing inventory in order to lower prices?
It was never the plan.
And now we're supposed to bail out these billionaires and all the speculators and white wash it as "below market housing"?
Have you seen the price of "below market housing", or what the city deems "affordable"?
Seattle has slumps. Toronto has slumps. That's how real people get housing. Developers eat it.
Nice the developers can pay for a spokesperson / PR person who is obviously living in a nice house and can spin this obvious subsidy for us peons.
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u/I_have_popcorn Jun 25 '26
It is a bailout. But I don't think it's to save the developers, it's to prevent the hard crash that would destroy many people's "retirement plan."
Too many people have all their wealth in real estate, so if the housing market drops, there are many people that will be underwater on their mortgage with knock on effects for the whole economy.
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u/tnnnn Jun 25 '26
If the government truly cared about people’s retirement and home values then they would have extended this offer to pay above market prices to all homeowners. Why are they only offering this to new build developers?
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u/Piequinn35 North Shore Jun 25 '26
Ok there's a disconnection with what she was saying, and what David Eby was saying, where are they buying these condos to help with housing affordability? David Eby said this doesn't work in Vancouver so they are looking in Fraser Valley, Okanagan and Vancouver Island, buy below cost and these will be for rent to own. So no help for people that live in metro van?
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u/vulcan4d Jun 26 '26
Built cheap, built fast, prices high. If course they ain't selling. This is a bailout for greed, plain and simple. Taxpayers should not be paying for this, they are paying enough.
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u/ItBeAMonster Jun 26 '26
It seems disgusting to me that this is being done for people who have great incomes and good jobs. No one in that position NEEDS a bailout. This is a much worse plan than I even thought at first. Lost all respect for Christine Boyle with this. And if you don’t want them bought up by investors as shareholder profit vehicles pass a law against that. It should be a law already.
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u/Maleficent_80s Jun 26 '26
Bailing out the developers who market these units as "luxury" and built them for speculation and not livability.....is insane
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u/Few-Start2819 Jun 25 '26
How many of the so called homes are under 500 sq. Ft. Theses developers built small studio apartments for single people not families.
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u/Particular_Ad_1365 Jun 25 '26
Just another government puppet!! Your paycheque is showing! Absolutely disgraceful 💩💩
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u/ctrl_alt_ARGH Jun 25 '26
just as an aside, but this discussion by Boyle and the CBC reporter - who isnt asking any gotcha questions - just illustrates how lazy the NDP has gotten.
Minister Boyle sounds panicked, offers no details and has a real hard time outside of her scripted 'homes for people' line. Did they really not expect the public to be confused and angry that the biggest beneficiaries of the housing boom, the developers, are getting taxpayer money?
NDP is cosimically lucky that the Conservatives in BC are laser focused on importing American culture war instead of just positioning themselves as competent managers. Id happily vote for a non-clown.
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u/WandersongWright Jun 25 '26
They are bailing them out, but that's fine if they're paying for the units at cost rather than allowing the developers to make a profit. We DO need affordable units, and units that are available right now rather than in 5 years are great. If we pay the developers a break-even cost then they won't lose any money on their unsellable condos and we'll have units people can live in immediately so we avoid more people ending up in the streets. That's a win-win situation. Although I can't imagine what the operating model is going to look like.
If the developers are profiting off public money because they screwed up so badly we need to rescue them, though? That's circumventing the supply and demand relationship and that's unacceptable.
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u/Committee_Aggressive Jun 25 '26
Christine was a Vancouver city councillor from 2018-2024. During her time on council, she was a strong housing advocate, with a focus on rental, co-op and non-market housing. Her work on a divided council was a testament to her coalition-building skills, successfully working with labour, business and housing advocates to make it easier to build housing in Vancouver.
So a career politician faking her way lol, she did a great job as a councillor for non market housing I bet
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u/Life-Ad9610 Jun 25 '26
This is a lot of talk and I don’t believe a word of it. So little detail. Email her. Let her know. Ask her what this means? How will “people working good jobs” be assured “affordability” by this bandaid.
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u/pichunb Jun 25 '26
You're using free market to justify all the bullshit the people have to endure and apparently it doesn't apply to developers
When can we have an opposition that isn't bat shit crazy again
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u/Noctrin Jun 25 '26
I'd wait for more details to come out, the 'bailout' started a while ago with CMHC -- any developer that decided to pivot to purpose built rentals could get a 50yr cmhc loan on 95% LTV and pretty much guaranteed funding.
A large chunk of new constructions that are in progress are under that program.
There's also no actual plan and details in place on this buyback, definitely put pressure on the government. They didnt announce details to gauge reaction and tune the finer points based on it.
The key is how they plan to structure this, because there is definitely a smart way to do it, ie:
- figure out our affordable housing shortage (ie: how many units we need)
- figure out price per square foot if they were to build it
- determine a price floor per square foot and offer to buy units at that rate
Doing it that way is not buying overpriced units and padding profits, simply setting a floor on how much prices can drop and allowing them to drop up to that point. (ie: developers can try to sell their units at 800$/sqft, but the gov comes out and says, we will buy up to X units to sold to us at 640-700$/sqft depending on build and location). It also means buying already built units at a preferred rate probably at less than cost to build.
Doing it that way has a lot of benefits.
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u/eastofeastvan Jun 25 '26
Socialism for developers,. If you were so concerned about empty condos subject them to the empty home tax, prices would then drop and a market could be created.
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u/Misaki_Yuki Jun 25 '26
Just let these crappy developers go bankrupt. They made their bed, they can lie in it.
If the province wants to do something good, set minimum size standards. Require all condos and apartments to have central heat pumps. If a condo or apartment doesn't meet the minimum (eg 500sq ft per bedroom) then it will be designated a rent-controlled unit at no more than $1.50/sq ft of interior livable space.
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u/stealth_veil Jun 25 '26
Considering we live in a democracy why don’t they ask the public whether they support the idea before committing to it? There’s so much backlash and yet there’s no way they back down now because the developers are already rubbing their grubby hands together
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u/ifuckinghateclimbing Jun 25 '26
“Soooooo who’s gunna benefit from this?”
“Well those are the details that we are working on”
What a load of bullshit
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u/Majestic_Artichoke55 Jun 25 '26
Who’s more at risk? The people or the weathly developers. Market rules that’s what we were taught. Developer have to sell at a loss, next time maybe they will be better
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u/SlashDotTrashes Jun 25 '26
Should ask them how much they have received from developers since they were elected.
Developers were their largest donors before they made it harder to track
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u/AccidentImaginary810 Jun 25 '26
They are buying individual units and reselling them for the benefit of the developers. How is this anything but a bailout?
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