Canada

Yes, home buying plans are an empty ploy by governments to be able to say they're helping prospective home owners, without introducing risk to the portfolios of retirees.

The ploy is empty because within a housing area first time buyers are generally all competing for the same units. If you help all of them, you're not really helping anyone other than the sellers.

I think part of the reason that housing is so unaffordable is that a large portion of home owners own much more house than they need or truly desire, but they've lived there for 30 years, there isn't a more appealing place to move and moving is an overwhelming task to them.

I think that if we want to convert single family detached housing into higher density, we have to build spaces that baby boomers will want to move to. And we ought to encourage (marketing) them to move, and help them through the process. By help I mean, maybe municipalities could have an office of impartial coordinators that could make sure seniors aren't getting ripped off by scummy realtors. Programs along those lines anyway.