We talk about supply, and that's important, but it appears that we do have a little bit of an issue at the municipal level of government. They control the land development. They have the by-laws in place. They have the planning departments. It is very onerous, as I have heard in my discussions with a lot of different people across the country, to get a development project started.
I'm from Vancouver. In the Lower Mainland you can see up to a seven-year delay from the time you identify a piece of land that you may want to develop to when it actually comes to market. For that seven-year period of time, developers have to carry the property. There are a lot of costs. There are soft costs. There are fronting development cost charges. This is a lot of money that has to be paid for up front. Their interest costs accrue, and then, in the end, as I mentioned earlier, it's the home purchaser who actually pays for this.
Streamline that level of government, maybe through incentives, some capital expenditures to get water treatment facilities or land dedication in place. These actually delay land development projects.
On the development side, there are costs involved in acquiring land. We do those mortgages as well, as mortgage brokers for these developers. Those costs accrue. That may be one way of improving the supply side. You have to make it easier. It's very difficult.