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Why are so many big-city condos sitting empty? | About That (12:18 video)

Why are so many big-city condos sitting empty? | About That

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGfFBP7U7pQ

In the midst of a housing supply crisis, thousands of condos in Canada's largest cities are sitting empty. Most, experts say, are less than 500 square feet. ...

Just to make things easier for people.

The video talks about the glut of micro units having issues selling due to how undesirable they are for people actually living in them and not aligning with a more realistic price.

The numbers on why a lot of people can't hold onto these investments:

Shrinking units, the ones discussed in the video is around ~300sqft:

Substantially less of newer units are owner occupied:

13 comments

Track_Shovel

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Cool, let's convert them into housing for homeless people. No I won't think about the landlords

poo

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Landlords aren't real people tbh. Fuck em.

MisterD

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Many of them are shell companies. We need a way to put them in jail.

How about if you own 20% of a company that is convicted of a crime, you do 20% of the time. After all, you got to benefit from 20% of the profits because of crime..

Voroxpete

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I'll settle for fines being substantially bigger than the profit obtained from the crime.

LostWon

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For hands-off investors, maybe. Directly responsible parties should see jail time though.

LostWon

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According to the video, the places aren't being built to be attractive to live in but to be cheap upfront investments for landlords (so not just small but crappy layouts and quality overall), and the majority of said landlords are "middle class" (their words) couples rather than large companies.

FireRetardant

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You know the system is broken when housing is prioritized and built for the landlords prefences and profits before being built as a functional residence.

Blaster_M

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TLDR: Nobody wants to spend 2 grand to live in a closet.

ThePrivacyPolicy

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I wonder how easy it is to reconfigure floor plans in condos? Surely there will come a time where we just have so many small and undesirable units that the building owners need to consider making livable size units again. I don't know a single person whose lived in one of these micro sized units and not talked about how horrible that living situation is for their mental health, yet in my city we just keep building thousands of these units every year now.

SamuelRJankis

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If you're referring to combining units I don't think it'll really be practical. The 300sqft mark is on the lower end of what is technically okay for people with some heavy consideration into functional design and lifestyle. Essentially a single person who probably spends a lot of time outside.

This is a pretty good video(13:03) on the topic .

SuperSpruce

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Just price it right and people will rent. For a single person this is all they really need.

Omega_Jimes

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It just doesn't make sense. I don't want granite counter tops and Italian taps, I want a roof and a floor and a place for a bed.

Honestly, I just want a little strawberry box house, but I'd settle for a condo outside of town.

GameGod

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What a fantastic video, good explainer.