No. Why should I?
But neither would I try to interest those highland lairds in building a major city on their lands, and so becoming multi-billionaires. I suggest this business opportunity exists for you! 
Come one, Malthus, you should realize that land owned by a laird is obviously far more affordable for a friend of LC’s than Crown land transferred to a municipality for sale to LC’s friends at fair market value.
Funny you haven’t provided a map of New Brunswick. Or, for that matter, a map that shows where Vancouver is in BC.
Well, yeah. They have. Duh.
Where in Canada is the land that provides the best mix of farmable land, temperate conditions, transportation access to other major markets? Geographically speaking it’s gotta be southern Ontario, right?
Too bad no one lives there.
I keep hearing about this “Loretta Lynn” person but I don’t think she’s real. Nobody could possibly live in Tennessee, West Virginia or Kentucky, much less have an actual culture there. I should know, I looked at a topographical map.
Obviously you haven’t looked at that map very closely. How does the geography (climate, soil, topography, navigable rivers, etc.) of Tennessee or West Virginia or Kentucky in any way compare to northern Ontario?
The value of much of that land is in selling access to hunt and fish the wildlife. Scotland has a much, much more benign climate than vast chunks of Canada, and despite the roughness of the terrain actually has lots of roads - the furthest that you can be from a tarmac road in the mainland UK is less than 10 miles.
I’m not sure using Scotland to boost your argument about Canada is a winning strategy.
Here ya go, from the Ontario Crown Land Policy Use Atlas that you refuse to use.
Show me the Crown land. I see Toronto. I see London. I don’t see this Crown land that you claim the government is holding back so as to make housing unaffordable.
Did you know if you look at Australia nationwide, on a per hectare basis and rounding down, no one lives here?
We could spend all year playing amateur census taker and quibbling over specific people. I’m looking at this nationwide for goodness sake.
I never said that land availability within a stone’s throw from the GTA is the problem. The problem is that land in the other 99.99999% of the country is choked off. People from the rest of the country with middle class aspirations, as well as new immigrants, all get funneled to the GTA or a few other select areas, which all have artificially high prices as a result.
The list of desirable areas goes down even further now that a lot of people consider Quebec to be off limits for social reasons over the Quiet Revolution.
Huh? Why focus on Northern Ontario specifically?
I’ll bite.
I would expect to see more downward motion on the price before seriously looking at it. Judging by the fact that they have already dropped the price by 10 k, and with the house abutting that other house on the left, It would need to be in the 50k to 90k before it finds its floating price point.
Seeing the home and the neighborhood would also factor in, some of those tim hortons can be a nightmare, with drive through traffic.
Declan
LC why would anyone move to Sudbury if they didn’t need to? I mean it’s lovely an all now that the trees are growing back but there is no economic incentive to move people there. People don’t move to the middle of fucking nowhere to build a nice house for the kids, they move to the closest affordable place with a connection to economic activity.
Since 82% of Canada’s economy is tied to Services, which ties back to population density, there is almost no incentive to live away from dense population centres with their high connection densities.
I don’t know how many more times it has to be explained to you. People in the rest of the country, as well as new immigrants, have THEIR CHOICE of places to move to. There’s no law that says they can’t go to Thunder Bay or Timmins, or Fredericton, or Halifax, or Saint John. There are plenty of homes and land in all of those places, ready and waiting for a purchaser, and mostly at significantly lower prices than in the Toronto area.
They’re voting with their feet. They want to live where there are ample job opportunities, lots of shopping and amenities, easy access to hospitals and schools, good roads, night life, and whatever other features they particularly desire. The real estate prices in the GTA are not “artificially” high–they are naturally high, because lots of people want to live there. Lots of people competing for a place within a stone’s throw of the GTA (which by definition is limited) = high prices. This is a very natural and entirely explainable phenomenon.
In Timmins, however, there is not such demand. There are far fewer people competing for homes and land, which is why prices are so much lower. This also is a very natural and entirely explainable phenomenon. People have the choice of Timmins or Toronto, they pick Toronto, and you are imagining a conspiracy?
If more land was available in Timmins (in addition to the land already available there), why do you believe more people would choose Timmins over Toronto?
And what city do you live in, and why do you live there?
Okay, pick another area of Canada that you want to compare to central Appalachia. The point is: pick a specific area to compare to another specific area.
Holy shit, I just saw that the house lot is 0.066 acres. And it’s near a donut shop. That going for $129K is supposed to be an example of cheap real estate?
I agree with you and it’s really a tragic thing. It’s a vicious circle of high land prices > no disposable income > small families > no businesses > kids leave.
Making land available some distance away from Toronto isn’t going to have one iota of effect on Toronto house prices unless there is someone entertaining the possibility of moving to that location. And as has been pointed out to you numerous times, there are tremendous amounts of affordable (relative to Toronto or otherwise) places to live in Southern Ontario already, freely available to purchase. The fact that some patch of land in the Muskokas is made available has precisely zero effect on someone debating between Oakville and Burlington.
Again, I ask you - how much do you expect houses to cost, and do you understand that there is a bottom level cost at which a suitable, 21st Century livable 1000-1600 sq ft house cannot drop past, simply because of materials and labour?
Relative to a major metro it is, the last time you seen housing prices like that in Toronto proper, was in the 70’s, but that was in 1970’s dollars otherwise known as real money.
Declan
Compared to a comparable house in Toronto, do you not think it cheap?
I thought your argument was that the kids, and all of the other kids from elsewhere in the country and abroad, were COMING to the GTA, in fact were being funneled into the GTA. Now you’re claiming they’re leaving???
Good God, it’s a ripoff.
I clearly need to type each message slowly and carefully. People are leaving Sudbury, not the GTA.
If you think that it’s appropriate for land to have essentially the same cost in Nova Scotia as it does in Florida, while offering 10% of the culture and amenities (bring on the Florida jokes if you must), then don’t complain about Canada always being the United States’s dopey little brother. It might be a great situation for a small number of investors and special interests, but it’s not how you run a functional country.
There are over 150 current listings for detached houses under $50,000 in Saskatchewan. Granted most of those are small, old structures in dying small towns, but you want cheap, you can have cheap. Here you go, 750 sq ft bungalow in Canora which by Saskatchewan standards isn’t even a small town. Population 2200. Practically a city. House looks like it needs a bit of work, but the asking price is $14,900 so a buyer should be able to afford some paint and flooring.
Seriously, name your price for these houses. I want to see them.