An update based on more recent data would be great! The construction costs are from RSMeans and Altus, and they include developer profits and soft costs (see page 11 and pp. 23-24 of the full report).
If I could make a suggestion, I think you might have a better time reaching readers if you took the time to use the full titles at least once in everything your write instead of just assuming readers know what your acronyms mean. I get that CMHC means "Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation". I had to look up HPI, which I assume means "Home Price Index", and I did find a Wikipedia article about it.
Like a lot of real estate terms, according to Wikipedia HPI can mean different things in different countries, and, there also seem to be more than one (ie: 'new' versus 'resale'). I get that you are trying to be brief in order to not lose readership, but there's also an issue of readers not being able to understand what you are talking about.
I wonder if this is a key problem with the housing crisis. The Devil really is in the details, and the average person hasn't got a clue about what's really driving the problem because very few people are trying to explain things to them in a way that they can understand.
Housing is an extremely emotional subject to people that are getting brutalized by the current situation. This makes them vulnerable to populists who are willing sell them a convenient narrative that says, for example, that the whole problem comes down to the greed of developers and apartment owners. If no one is bothering to explain things to them in ways that they can actually understand, it leaves a vacuum for the purveyors of nonsensical public policy.
Just a suggestion. Not knowing exactly who your target audience is, or, where you are coming from---take these ideas or leave them as makes sense to you---.
Thanks Bill, that's a good suggestion. I'm always trying to use everyday language, I figure part of the reason I'm doing this is to translate this kind of report for a more general audience. So it's a good idea to include an explanation of anything that's likely to make someone reading this say, wait a minute, what does that mean? (Like HPI in this case - basically a benchmark home price.) Often it'll involve looking it up myself and figuring it out. https://www.rebgv.org/content/rebgv-org/news-archive/mls-home-price-index-explained.html
I think you're exactly right - the shortage of housing in BC and Ontario is making people fearful and angry. Ontario especially. In Vancouver I think we're accustomed to prices being crazy, but in Ontario it's much more recent.
I assume that "construction cost" includes not just labour and materials but also developer profits, municipal fees, loan interest, etc.?
It would be nice to see recent data as well, given how high the cost of labour and materials have become since the pandemic.
An update based on more recent data would be great! The construction costs are from RSMeans and Altus, and they include developer profits and soft costs (see page 11 and pp. 23-24 of the full report).
If I could make a suggestion, I think you might have a better time reaching readers if you took the time to use the full titles at least once in everything your write instead of just assuming readers know what your acronyms mean. I get that CMHC means "Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation". I had to look up HPI, which I assume means "Home Price Index", and I did find a Wikipedia article about it.
Like a lot of real estate terms, according to Wikipedia HPI can mean different things in different countries, and, there also seem to be more than one (ie: 'new' versus 'resale'). I get that you are trying to be brief in order to not lose readership, but there's also an issue of readers not being able to understand what you are talking about.
I wonder if this is a key problem with the housing crisis. The Devil really is in the details, and the average person hasn't got a clue about what's really driving the problem because very few people are trying to explain things to them in a way that they can understand.
Housing is an extremely emotional subject to people that are getting brutalized by the current situation. This makes them vulnerable to populists who are willing sell them a convenient narrative that says, for example, that the whole problem comes down to the greed of developers and apartment owners. If no one is bothering to explain things to them in ways that they can actually understand, it leaves a vacuum for the purveyors of nonsensical public policy.
Just a suggestion. Not knowing exactly who your target audience is, or, where you are coming from---take these ideas or leave them as makes sense to you---.
Thanks Bill, that's a good suggestion. I'm always trying to use everyday language, I figure part of the reason I'm doing this is to translate this kind of report for a more general audience. So it's a good idea to include an explanation of anything that's likely to make someone reading this say, wait a minute, what does that mean? (Like HPI in this case - basically a benchmark home price.) Often it'll involve looking it up myself and figuring it out. https://www.rebgv.org/content/rebgv-org/news-archive/mls-home-price-index-explained.html
I think you're exactly right - the shortage of housing in BC and Ontario is making people fearful and angry. Ontario especially. In Vancouver I think we're accustomed to prices being crazy, but in Ontario it's much more recent.