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Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

• hellofunk 11y ago
  I'm curious how this problem is unique to Vancouver. Berlin's real-estate values have risen some 40% in just the last 7 years or so. New York City, in the 10 years I lived there, had an enormous escalation in what you get for the same rent payment, even adjusted for inflation. Big cities deal with this all over, so how do they deal with this "problem," or is Vancouver somehow unique in other ways?
  • maxxxxx 11y ago
    I think Vancouver's problem is that they don't have a strong economy otherwise. Berlin and new York are bad but at least they offer well paying jobs. That's what I gathered from a coworker who used to live in Vancouver.
    • kyllo 11y ago
      Exactly, the best job you can get in Vancouver right now is... Real Estate Agent. And you have to speak Mandarin.
    • anuj_nm 11y ago
      Exactly. I'm currently working as a software engineer here, and the average wage is significantly lower than what Seattle companies offer (even if you ignore the difference in exchange rate). This combined with the housing affordability crisis makes it easy to leave.
  • galago 11y ago
    Over the last five years, the Canadian Dollar has declined more against the Yuan than the Euro or USD. It is mentioned in the article. I think that explains why Chinese investors purchase more property in Vancouver than say, Seattle.
    • rchaud 11y ago
      The trend of foreign investment in the Vancouver market has been occurring well before the slide of the CAD. The immigration regime in Canada is much friendlier to foreign nationals, and especially so if they are wealthy. Until 2014, the federal government had an investor visa program that offered a route to permanent residence and citizenship in exchange for $800,000 investment (not in real estate) and demonstrable assets of $1.6 million. http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/index.asp http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/in...
  • jhou2 11y ago
    Vancouver is not unique. Similar problems exist in many cities around the world. Vancouver today is a more vibrant and economically diverse city than it has ever been. The conversation over the direction of the city is contentious pitting the old guard against the new guard, the haves vs the have nots. I would say San Francisco and Seattle have similar issues. And like you say, Berlin and Munich probably have similar problems. Although I'm not sue if Germany is seeing similar large inflows of Chinese capital and immigration.
  • sricciardi 11y ago
    London is also suffering from gentrification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification)
  • HorizonXP 11y ago
    That was going to be my question. I mean, look at the Bay Area. They command some of the highest rents in the country, and many tech-sector workers are able to "get by" because of higher salaries from their employers. Of course, if you're not in the tech sector, you're forced to live in more affordable outskirts, like East Bay. In NYC, they have fantastic transit, so if you don't live in Manhattan, you can still get to work relatively easily. That infrastructure investment has helped NYC maintain its desirability. Meanwhile, Toronto has a similar problem to Vancouver, except we're building tons of condos. As long as you adjust your outlook to realize that you may only be able to afford a condominium (to buy or rent), you can make it work. Otherwise, you can move to the suburbs, but our transit is garbage, so good luck with that. Of course, I've simplified my points and glossed over the nuances. But I think the solution is really: 1) Higher density housing (i.e. high-rise residential) 2) Much better transit 3) Options for affordable rent-subsidized housing in these developments If you do those things, I think you'll make it easier for millenials to choose to stay, and still encourage a diverse community that's not made up of just high-income tech or finance workers. Places like Hong Kong, Tokyo, NYC, Singapore, and many more seem to be thriving cities, and I think those are the factors they have in common.
    • stuxnet79 11y ago
      Toronto's transit is indeed pretty trash. I want to move down to the city but I'm split on whether to put in a down-payment for a condo or piss away my equity by renting. They say the condo market is very volatile right now. Not sure how true this is because I am not very well versed on the subject.
      • jbob2000 11y ago
        Hey there, I used to work in the condo industry in Toronto. If you had asked me 5-10 years ago if buying a condo was the right decision, I would have said yes. But now, absolutely not. What changed is the respect the builders have for the people buying and living in their buildings. 5-10 years ago, condos were a bit more rare, so a construction company had to try really hard to make their condo appealing. They worked slower and the architecture was much more livable. Spacious units, sensible parking and elevators, and catchy amenities like pools and fitness rooms. Now, they pump out condos like a sweatshop. Instead of 8 units on a floor, there are now 12. Instead of a pool, you get a gym, and instead of a fitness room, you get a yoga studio. Elevators that serve more than 30 floors are too expensive, so those 50+ storey condos need 2 elevators; one to take you from 1-30, and another to take you to from 30-50. Every single new condo in the last 5 years is in litigation with the developer due to issues with the building. Contractors like plumbers and electricians know the game now too, so every bill from a contractor will be $999 (regardless of work done) because anything over $1000 requires board approval. Without a strong property management team, I expect half of the condos will be bankrupt within a decade. If you want to buy a condo, buy one in a building that is more than 10 years old. They will have sorted out the engineering problems by then and their budgets will be inline.
  • ucaetano 11y ago
    Berlin's values have risen to the point where rents are on average 10 euros per square meter. You can rent a 100 sqm for only 1000 euros per month!!!! You can't get 40 sqm for that same amount in Paris.
    • tomkinstinch 11y ago
      Berlin seems like an amazing value for a capital city with rich culture. Here in Boston I'm paying 3700 euros for (poorly maintained) 90 sqm, of course split with five people. Maybe it is time to consider a stint in Berlin. Are there any resources you would recommend to learn more about the city, and the tech scene?
      • iheartmemcache 11y ago
        I've lived in Boston, DC, NYC and London for extended periods of time, and spent a stint in Berlin. It's tech scene is awesome - if you find the right group of people it feels like CCC year round. It's art, music and food scene was an amazing value for the money when I was there circa 2011. I'm guessing the equivalent of their hipsters got wise to it and drove up prices a la the gentrification you saw (compare the between the dirty-grimy NYC of the "Taxi Driver" 1970s vs the clean power-tie NYC of the 1980s bond-trading years, or the early 2000s Williamsburg where the rent was somewhat reasonable vs 2010 where anything on the L costed literally 3 times as much because every white kid with a fixie had his parents pay his $2600 rent, etc. $800/mo on a split isn't too bad for Boston if you're anywhere close to a decent spot on the T, considering the supply/demand (it's arguably the biggest college region in the US - between Cambridge, Boston and BC in Newton it's probably the densest student:non-student ratio in the US). Berlin had that vibrant feeling that's hard to explain but yeah the tech scene was (and hopefully still is) spectacular, especially re: the hardware hacking scene when I was there and it's certainly worth a visit. Edit: http://ccc.de/ http://ccc.de/ In math if you solve something major, odds are you'll wait till that years AMS Symposium to present; if you crack the PS3, CCC is where fail0verflow went to present. (Don't write them off because of their l33t-name, these guys aren't script kiddies -- these hacks are worthy of PhD theses if you see the detail of reverse engineering they go into.).
  • te_chris 11y ago
    I'm in London now but used to be in Auckland. 40% over 7 years sounds blissfully slow after the insanity of Auckland - a city facing a very similar situation to Vancouver.
    • yardie 11y ago
      Berlin is unique in that this city has some very tough housing laws. You're better off being a renter than an owner. Because of that flippers and investors have shied away. I can't remember where I heard but the city controls the rental rates. Don't want to pay more for a property than you can recoup. And you don't want to leave it unoccupied less you come back to find it squatted; and they have rights as well. Because it is so highly regulated its not a great investment.
  • legulere 11y ago
    Berlin is in a pretty unique situation. It was a city where most buildings stood empty and with few jobs, especially in the high paying sector. The only pull factors were low cost. This changed only slowly after it became the capital again.
  • rootbear 11y ago
    I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Real estate in DC is very high and did not suffer as much in the Great Recession, due to the extremely limited supply of available housing. But I don't think our problem is foreign investors. Many people who moved into the burbs in the 80s and 90s now want to move back, as DC becomes more desirable. I see young people everywhere, even though it's hard for someone just starting out to buy here. But because DC can't physically grow as a city, it becomes harder and harder to find places for new housing. Out here in the burbs, it's a different story. A development just down the road from me suffered very badly in the downturn, with houses losing as much as 50% of their value. Some of those owners will never be above water on their houses. I'm very glad I chose not to move from my townhouse into a single family home a decade ago, as prices soared, even though I really wanted a place with a mad scientist basement workroom. And as my friends retire, most are moving to warmer and/or cheaper places.
    • infinite8s 11y ago
      DC also has height restrictions due to the 1899 Height of Buildings Act (amended in 1910 to effectively restrict buildings to no taller than 13 stories - http://www.welovedc.com/2009/05/19/dc-mythbusting-the-height-limit/ http://www.welovedc.com/2009/05/19/dc-mythbusting-the-height...).
  • maxsilver 11y ago
    > Big cities deal with this all over, so how do they deal with this "problem," As far as I can tell, they simply don't. I don't think there is any city that "deals with it", or even tries to, in any way. Every city I can think of that has value in living in, is experiencing explosive bubble-like growth in them. Even the supposedly "cheap" or "low cost of living" cities are undergoing this process. I think most cities secretly want this to happen, since it leads to higher property taxes and drives out members of their community they consider less desirable.
  • cgh 11y ago
    Vancouver is unique simply in the degree of unaffordability. After Hong Kong, its housing is the most unaffordable in the world. The elephant in the room is why this happened. Everyone talks about "foreign speculation" but in fact most of it is not speculation at all. In mainland China, Vancouver is widely viewed as a nice, quiet small city, good for students and the elderly. It's not a place for "real" work. So they buy homes there to live in part-time. It is quite normal to have the mother and child live in Vancouver while the father continues to work overseas. They pay almost no Canadian tax as they have no Canadian income. With their child in school, the parents can eventually claim permanent resident status thanks to the family reunification program and they can expect to retire in Canada. It's a big win for them and they see nothing wrong with it. To summarize: introducing vast income inequality has distorted the Vancouver housing market and drastically altered the demographics of the city, making it unaffordable for the people who actually work and pay taxes there.
  • mr_november 11y ago
    Low avg income in Vancouver is unique vs the other cities you cite. Much lower. Apparently ~$44k in 2009[1] [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/for-vancouver-housing-and-income-dont-add-up/article12436288/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-est...
• legutierr 11y ago
  > There are already enough houses and condos in the city with no lights on because no one actually lives in them. To me, there seems to be a pretty obvious public policy response. Institute a very high property tax, which is abated on some kind of curve according to the amount of time the owner or tenants spend living in a property, with no tax being due if the property is legitimately occupied for more than, say, ten months. It might not solve the problem entirely, but at least you would reduce the effect of a diminution of housing supply that is driven by these kinds of absentee owners, and that must be driving up rents, at least.
  • kitcar 11y ago
    What you're describing is similar to the approach south Florida takes - assume many purchasers are non-residents, and therefore rely on property taxes rather than income taxes to fill the coffer https://southfloridaforbeginners.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-low-tax-illusion/ https://southfloridaforbeginners.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/th...
  • ryandrake 11y ago
    This is normally done via a "Homestead" tax exemption, where if your vacation home is assessed at $100K, you get taxed on all $100K, but if you live on it, you only get taxed on $100,000-N, where N is the exemption. This is meant to encourage owners occupying their homes, which is a great thing. I don't know if they have it in Vancouver. In California, the exemption is a measly $7000. Which is essentially nothing, given home prices in the Bay Area. What they need to do is increase that number 10-20X or make it a percentage of the home's value. This would greatly help solve the problem of foreign "investors" buying up all the housing, leaving it vacant, and essentially just treating homes like bars of gold in a safe. And don't even get me started on Prop 13, which is essentially mechanism to transfer wealth from younger, newer residents to older residents.
    • zanny 11y ago
      I'd like to just see a return to homesteading period. If a property goes unused / unoccupied for a year, anyone can move in. No more land squatting to drive up real estate prices and use it as a store of wealth. Yes, this kills real estate as a long term investment. No, that is a good thing, we should collectively much rather see capital invested in the stock market rather than being thrown into precious metals or property as a store of value.
• Yhippa 11y ago
  Where does the youth diaspora in Vancouver lead to? The suburbs? Other cities in Canada or the US?
  • jhou2 11y ago
    A lot of the young people go back to Asia for better jobs after graduating. Silicon Valley and Seattle are popular destinations. Also some move to Toronto or Montreal.
  • anuj_nm 11y ago
    I went to UBC, Vancouver from my undergrad. A large part of my friends moved to the US (since the exchange rate works in your favor). Calgary and Toronto are also popular.
  • Zanta 11y ago
    Suburbs of Toronto for me and several of my friends from my time at UBC. A lot of us were transplants from across the country, tried to hack it professionally in Vancouver before eventually being driven elsewhere by job and housing prospects.
  • serge2k 11y ago
    Loads go to the US. TN is easy to get and you can get close to (or more than) 50% higher salary (not including exchange rate, before tax).
    • generalpf 11y ago
      You have to lie and say you're a systems analyst to get a TN visa. (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.)
      • serge2k 11y ago
        Correct, although it's a small lie as you still submit paperwork which states what your job actually entails (albeit with an emphasis on design and such over actual programming every day).
• alexandar 11y ago
  I lived in Vancouver briefly and worked as a developer. The salaries are horrible when you factor in living costs. You can get a much higher salary in Toronto, Ottawa, or Waterloo.
• cdnsteve 11y ago
  Vancouver real-estate is like buying gold for foreign investors, without paying tax. "suggesting the typical wealthy foreign family buying Vancouver real estate pays little or no income or capital gains tax" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/the-real-estate-beat/foreign-investors-avoid-taxes-by-buying-real-estate-in-canada/article26683767/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/ho...
  • jseliger 11y ago
    This is the best response I've seen so far. Real estate is actually a great export for cities and countries, at least properly considered: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/billion_to_one/2013/11/billionaire_apartments_they_should_be_an_economic_boon_to_cities.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/billion_to_one/2013/1.... Seattle has a bunch of similar articles about "outsiders" supposedly driving up housing costs. Which is absurd: steel frame construction and elevators are very old technologies that allow humans to build just about as many housing units as can be desired.
    • rgoldade 11y ago
      I'm not sure if you're familiar with Vancouver but outside of the small downtown core, there isn't much zoning for density. Government policy has created a supply shortage. However, condos come with their own issues as well. There has been a building boom in Toronto that has it owns issues.. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/fears-that-shoddy-toronto-condos-could-become-future-slums-1.2796979 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/fears-that-shoddy-toro.... I think urban planning is more complicated than simply increasing supply.
      • ido 11y ago
        And yet 100% of major US cities that built a lot of housing between 1990 and 2013 have low housing costs: http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.prices.png http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.price...
    • 11y ago
• serge2k 11y ago
  > are warning that it’s going to be nearly impossible to develop this business into anything meaningful unless the affordability question is addressed. one way to address it, and I know this is crazy guys just bear with me, is that these tech leaders could start paying more money. No hope to afford a condo at 75k a year? how about at 150? Vancouver is simply not that much better than Seattle that I would go back. The salary difference is just too high, especially with the favorable tax situation in washington and the lousy dollar.
• fm95 11y ago
  Slightly off topic, but is the supply significantly higher than the demand out in Vancouver? I've always wondered how companies could get away with the abysmally low salaries for dev roles vs anywhere on the east coast relative to living costs.
  • swizerguos 11y ago
    Yes many people love Vancouver because of the weather (esp relative to the rest of canada) and the proximity to nature there are also a lot of recent ubc/sfu grads and kids from other Canadian schools who find van desirable. This combined with few roles to begin with gives you the current situation
• branchless 11y ago
  Come to Montreal! It's great here. No way would I want to pledge the rest of my life to a bank in exchange for the right to exist. Rent controls here. It's odd: it's like the state understands that banks are bastards. Montreal has some issues with organised crime but nothing compared to the organised crime of banking / money laundering through land. I don't have to pay some gangster $1MM for a shack. Leave the boomers to their trinkets kids. Walk away. They need your labour, the rest is just paper.
  • Sideshow_Boob 11y ago
    i think i love you
  • option_greek 11y ago
    "They need your labour, the rest is just paper." I'm going to reuse that! I wish this kind of thinking about economy is more main stream.
  • epimetheus 11y ago
    I wonder how much climate is playing a factor in Vancouver's issues. Just from my perspective, I'd love to move to Vancouver, but would never, ever consider Montreal, not because it's not a beautiful city, but because of the harsh winters. Other people don't seem to really care about weather extremes or scenery, etc. I have no insight into these real estate investors dumping money into property, sure if they aren't living there, there's some other factors involved.
    • potatolicious 11y ago
      I'd argue climate plays a bigger factor for people who actually want to live in Vancouver, rather than absentee investors. That said, having grown up in Vancouver, I'd consider Montreal - seeing the sun in the fall/winter is a really nice concept I've gotten used to. I've gotten used to harsh cold of the east coast, but I never got used to the dreary vast grayness even though I spent most of my childhood in it.
    • CalRobert 11y ago
• empressplay 11y ago
  Melbourne's just as horrible. So's Sydney. So are a lot of places.
  • danieltillett 11y ago
    At least Sydney has nice beaches. I do agree that housing here suffers the same issues. We need a massive unimproved land value tax.
  • tajen 11y ago
    So what's happening with this general trend? Does it mean some smaller cities have stagnating prices and people are leaving? Or does that mean the money we've given to China for 30 years is finally buying out the world? Or does that mean that everyone is afraid of a bubble and invests since 7 years in land?
• grayfox 11y ago
  Currently residing within Vancouver. We love it here, but we have accepted that it is not where we will be able to put roots down. My partner and I work remotely, we'll enjoy our time here then buy a home elsewhere... Like maybe Hawaii. :)
  • JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Funny, the last two people I know who moved to Hawaii, moved back a year later. I'll have to find out why. But they must have a good reason - this is Iowa, and its currently 16 degrees.
    • ghaff 11y ago
      I know people who love it. But it's expensive and it's a long way from anywhere. You either live in a pretty soulless city (Honolulu) or in effectively a beach community of some sort that's often dominated by tourism. I appreciate why some people are attracted to it but I could easily see it getting old quickly even if living in a condo near a beautiful beach and ocean initially seemed like the perfect life. (OTOH, it's sure better than Florida IMO.)
      • JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        One lived in a rural (?) farm commune. Why, I don't know. I guess it got to be Groundhog Day. The other, a chef in a touristy restaurant. Made something new and different every week. He's another story - no idea why he'd give that up!
• tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
  sure, you can't buy a house in Vancouver anymore on a normal salary, but nothing prevents you from living in Surrey, there are plenty of towers going up around the skytrain at Surrey central and King George where you can get an apartment for less than 200k Yes, it's not Vancouver city, and yes, it's not a house, however via skytrain you can be downtown in a little over 40 minutes and get work done on your laptop in the meantime. You don't need a house to survive, it is nice, yes, but many many many millions of people live and bring up families in apartments in Europe, so it is definitely doable. Of course it's annoying to think that 12 years ago you could get a nice house in kits for 400k, or a 1000+ sqf condo downtown for 200k, but what can you do, same deal as buying a lottery ticket or joining a startup that makes it vs one that doesn't. The mountains and nature and weather are available whether you live in vancouver or in one of the suburbs Metro Vancouver is over 2m people, Surrey is the largest city in the metro area actually, even if Vancouver proper becomes a "haven for the rich" there's plenty of other areas where one can live, the problem is that a lot of tech companies can't seem to see beyond "gastown is trendy" or "let's go to yaletown" or "downtown is where it's at", when they could easily set up in other skytrain-served area and attract more folks that don't like the commute downtown. It is true, what you could do 10-15 years ago, buy a house within 30 minutes of downtown on a normal salary is not possible anymore (just like it wasn't possible back then to do that for a house in Point Grey) but it is still quite possible to live here, given the amount of immigration that the area is still getting. Townhouses and condos in Surrey or Langley are still very affordable, the commute is annoying, but from what I hear from friends in the valley it's not like traffic there is that great either, at least up here you can sit on the skytrain and get things done or read a book rather than be stuck in traffic and have no alternatives because there's no decent public transit.
  • ghaff 11y ago
    This sort of thing is true broadly. It's a bit more complicated in California because the South Bay is also very popular and very expensive, but the trendy areas of many downtowns have, over a relatively short period, become very popular with, among others, a certain young & educated demographic that really has turned them into luxury goods. This has arguably long been the case in some places like Manhattan. Going back decades, living in a crappy tiny apartment in Manhattan rather than, heaven forbid, Queens was a thing for recent graduates. But, at the same time, tech was generally moving out of metropolitan Boston and the computer companies were mostly out on the 128 and 495 corridors.
• ajmurmann 11y ago
  I wonder how much of this and similar cases are based on low interests. You can't keep your money in the bank because you won't get any interests and at the same time leveraging your money and buying housing is cheaper. So maybe the solution to housing prices is significantly higher interest rates?
  • GFischer 11y ago
    I think that's one of the causes, the other is the excessive money supply: https://positivemoney.org/issues/house-prices/ https://positivemoney.org/issues/house-prices/ The issue described is not unique to Vancouver, it's a worldwide phenomenon, lots of desirable locations across the globe are facing the same (from Auckland to London to Sydney to Zurich), even in my hometown in Montevideo, Uruguay, houses are going for ridiculous prices. A good measure on whether housing is overvalued (IMO) is how many salaries it takes to buy a house. A good salaries to house ratio was something like 4 yearly salaries, it's currently over 10 for England, with some places going to 20 yearly salaries for a house: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/06/average-house-price-rises-times-local-salary-england-wales http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/06/average-house-p... As someone who doesn't own any property, I really hope the housing bubble explodes. OTOH there are people who have gotten very wealthy just by inheriting and holding property, who must dread the same scenario, but where can they safely store their value? As mentioned, interest rates are very low or negative.
    • ap3 11y ago
      >As someone who doesn't own any property, I really hope the housing bubble explodes. Where were you 5-7 years ago?
      • GFischer 11y ago
        Starting an expensive tech MBA instead of putting the money for a down payment on a house... bad move.
      • throwaway_xx9 11y ago
        I was sitting on large bank and calling real estate agents in the Bay Area ... who either committed suicide or left the industry. So no house for me.
• api_or_ipa 11y ago
  As someone who just moved from Vancouver to the Bay Area, it's obvious the issue isn't housing. It's income. My apartment in trendy yaletown was $2350/month for a very nice 2 bed, 2 bath place within 10 mins of anything in downtown. Try finding something even remotely as nice around Silicon Valley. The issue we should be tackling is the low wages seen in the area. The same developer who could make $100k USD in the valley makes $60k CAD in Vancouver.
  • bonesmoses 11y ago
    Isn't that a housing issue, though? Paying for a $2350/mo place on $60k is... pretty ridiculous.
    • gearoidoc 11y ago
      I'd argue its impossible since $2350 is almost half your monthly salary before tax!
    • edwinnathaniel 11y ago
      That's a lifestyle issue. No fresh grad ($60k) should live in "trendy" Yaletown district with 2 BR + 2 Bath.
      • acrooks 11y ago
        A lot of fresh grads (from UBC) in Vancouver are living around Kitsilano where you can get a one bedroom place for <$1000/month. Right now I live in a two bedroom flat in the heart of Kits where I'm paying $825 and my flatmate $725. Previously to that in Vancouver I lived in the heart of Yaletown in a 550sqft studio costing about $1300/month, and started living there on a salary of about $62k. I've never had financial struggles living in Vancouver with salaries ranging from $42-85k, and have generally had enough disposable income to afford to travel quite a bit, ski at Whistler every weekend, and eat out and go out regularly. That said, it's totally a renter's market. It's unaffordable for me to buy anything that I'd want to live in for the longer term, unless I go to Surrey or somewhere else in greater Vancouver, which would completely take away or hinder a lot of the benefits I see to living in Vancouver.
• p4wnc6 11y ago
  I can't help but to quote the full song Modern Man from Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs -- which basically was an entire album chronicling this sort of issue in San Francisco. So I wait my turn, I'm a modern man And the people behind me, they can't understand Makes me feel like Makes me feel like So I wait in line, I'm a modern man And the people behind me, they can't understand Makes me feel like Something don't feel right Like a record that's skipping I'm a modern man And the clock keeps ticking I'm a modern man Makes me feel like Makes me feel like In my dream I was almost there Then they pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere They say we are the chosen few But we waste it And that's why we're still waiting On a number from the modern man Maybe when you're older you will understand Why you don't feel right Why you can't sleep at night now In line for a number but you don't understand Like a modern man In line for a number but you don't understand Like a modern man Oh I had a dream I was dreaming And I feel I'm losing the feeling Makes me feel like Like something don't feel right I erase the number of the modern man Want to break the mirror of the modern man Makes me feel like Makes me feel like In my dream I was almost there Then they pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere I know we are the chosen few But we waste it And that's why we're still waiting In line for a number but you don't understand Like a modern man In line for a number but you don't understand Like a modern man If it's alright Then how come you can't sleep at night? In line for a number but you don't understand Like a modern man I'm a modern man I'm a modern man I'm a modern man I'm a modern man In a Law of Rents sort of way, I can't help but to think that these phenomena are self indictments. If land prices are driven by those who can extract the most value from them, and the result is that wealthy people land-grab property that even remains vacant in some cases, or otherwise is a living space for a twenty-something working in finance, law, or medicine, who will eventually move away and be replaced by some other twenty-something in finance, law, or medicine, this seems to say a lot more about failures on the part of the wealthy members of older generations to innovate. If the best a use of that land is dormancy, sitting like gold in a vault, instead of being a place where a working class father inspires a child or where a mother teaches her son or where an artist, like what David Byrne did in the Talking Heads days in New York, transforms a space into a freeing creative studio ... isn't this embarrassing to them (the wealthy older generations)? It's basically an admission that, with the huge wealth endowment and peaceful world they were handed by their parents' generation, they managed to squander it to the point where the best use of land, the most inventive thing they can do with their money, is ... nothing. You've got two options: pour your money into consumer variation bullshit startups, or park it into assets like real estate that deprive younger generations of opportunity. It seems that wealth and a half century of the position of passively dominating in Western-led proxy wars has stripped away any sense of civic duty, or even basic shame at their failure to use capital to do anything.
• jmspring 11y ago
  Back in the mid/late 90s as Hong Kong was returning to China, the spike in prices started. I recall Condos in Kits for $200k or so, new build later in the 90s was still sub $300k. The victorians around there were still reasonable as well. In a few short years it went nutty and prices spiked and they've only been going up since. Those retiring age sold their places in Van, moved to the Okanagan and prices there spiked as well. Weather is maybe part of it, setting and scenery certainly are too. Easy access to the Pacific Rim is also part of it.
• hvmonk 11y ago
  Yeah, investors are all around in Bay area too. They are making the real estate market crazy. I have witnessed more than 15 offers on ordinary properties in South Bay, and well, they are selling far more than the listed price. All these investors pay all-cash, money gifted from other side of the globe. It doesn't matter where you work, how much is your salary - you can't beat these investors.
  • rconti 11y ago
    For very real reasons, it's different in Vancouver than in the Bay Area, which some of the comments touch on. Not that you're wrong -- we bought in the bay area. Our offer was the best of 13, and narrowly beat out an all-cash offer. Of course, you have to have the right seller to be willing to "risk" selling it to normal people who have to borrow to buy, vs the sure thing of an all cash offer. Guy across the street bid on tons of properties before buying. I think they had the best of 34 (!) offers. RWC.
• HorizonXP 11y ago
  Just realized that a lot of people in this thread may be Canadians looking to shift around. If you're interested in working on cool engineering problems in Toronto, e-mail me.
• theworstshill 11y ago
  Meh... article is pushed by special interest groups. Their concerns could be addressed very quickly by raising their employees salaries. Especially since vast majority of companies sell services to the US, and get more CADs than before with the current exchange rate.
  • rchaud 11y ago
    The Vancouver economy is not 100% tech, there are many, many businesses (logistics, banking, retail, etc.) that have no exports to the US. Can I ask where you are getting your data?
    • theworstshill 11y ago
      Thats true, but did you read the article though? It addresses tech industry in several paragraphs at the very beginning. The older tech industries might be CAD-orientied, but any new startup aspires to be global and charges in USD.
• msvan 11y ago
  It seems like many major cities of the world are experiencing this problem, and no city has been able to come up with a good solution. It always leads to displacement and newspaper articles about displacement, but no real solutions. Here are a couple of solutions: 1. Build really tall. Hasn't worked out all that great in Hong Kong, though. 2. Rent control. This is often unfair and inflates price of non-rent controlled apartments. 3. Tax the living crap out of property speculation. Not sure if this has been tried anywhere, and I'm sure it would be unpopular among many middle class home owners as well. I'm still rooting for Georgism. 4. Accept that it's a lost cause and move on to the next underdog city that will stay un-gentrified for the next 10 years.
  • dnlhmt 11y ago
    Singapore has been able to solve it to a certain extend. 90%+ of land is owned by the government and leased/purchased back to its residents at an affordable rate. This generates revenue the government can re-invest into the economy. It also reduces the impact of a small group of rent seekers siphoning billions out of the local economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore
    • tempestn 11y ago
      Tough to employ that model if the government doesn't already own the land though.
  • ghshephard 11y ago
    Singapore has a pretty good solution for this sort of thing. Socialize Housing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board), and then drop 10s of thousands of new units onto the market continuously, subsidize citizen ownership (with further subsidies if you live close to your parents), and further, create a culture of constantly wiping out the older (20-30+ year) apartment blocks that were lower density, and replacing them with taller, higher density buildings. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_En_bloc_Redevelopment_Scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_En_bloc_Redevelopmen... ) Pricing has stabilized, and, even is dropping a little bit.
• Tistel 11y ago
  This is me. I left Vancouver for Toronto 5 years ago. What is not mentioned (that I saw) is that salaries in Vancouver are also much lower than Toronto for the same job. Montreal is even cheaper than Toronto and is probably more fun (if you are bilingual)
  • jpambrun 11y ago
    Salaries are also much lower in Montréal. If you are willing to learn French, you will be very welcome.
    • Tistel 11y ago
      I am from NB (Anglo). So I have very rusty French. I am sure it would come back if I used it. Montreal is a great city. My salary doubled for the same industry (programmer with CS) going from Van to TO. Vancouver is beautiful if you like playing in the mountains. I miss the snowboarding and hiking very much. But I was almost homeless I was so poor out there.
• pfarnsworth 11y ago
  Nothing has changed in the last 20 years. House prices are still high, and salaries are still low. There is no real industry in Vancouver except tourism. At least the rents are somewhat affordable, tho. The gap between house prices vs rent prices is immense, compared to a place like San Francisco. You can rent a 2 bedroom in the West End for ~$1500.
  • messick 11y ago
    "Direct spending on Film & TV production in British Columbia (BC) totalled more than $2 billion in 2014 making Vancouver the 3rd largest production centre in North America" http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/film-television/ http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/film-television/
• jnowlan 11y ago
  For all these 'bubble' cities (Vancouver, S.F., Seattle, London, ...), I wonder if the bubble ever pops? Are there examples of the prices/avg. income getting so far out of whack that things collapse? http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/global-house-prices http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/global-hou... Detroit probably experienced a R.E. bubble in the day...
  • matrix 11y ago
    Yes. I'm told that some people who bought property in Vancouver the early 80's were upside down on their properties for 15 years. That said, I'm not predicting that outcome myself -- at this point, I would not want to place any sort of bet on that market.
  • lmm 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan) Everything is still disputed, but Tokyo real estate prices certainly played a part. There was no crash as such, but rather a stagnation.
  • DrScump 11y ago
    Oh, sure. In the Bay Area, prices drop substantially after every bubble / recession (early 90s, 2000, mid-2000s).
• skewart 11y ago
  It blows my mind that the internety tech industry, of all industries, is so heavily concentrated in a handful of physical locations around the world. There's this vicious cycle where companies think they need to be in one of these places to attract the best talent, and employees think they need to live in one of these places to have the best career options. Sometimes when I'm at Red Door in SOMA, overhearing twenty different conversations about startups, I want to scream "We have this thing, it's called the internet, it makes it super easy to communicate from anywhere! Let's go! Let's disperse across the globe!" I mean, I get it. Face-to-face in-person communication is powerful for building trust, and the valley runs on trust, but still.
  • ghaff 11y ago
    It's easy to complain about zoning, tax policies, NIMBY-ism, lack of investment in public transit, etc. etc. But the reality is that you could turn all sorts of dials to increase the supply of available housing over the course of years and decades and you'd still have a situation where not everyone could live in an affordable condo/apartment in whatever $TRENDY_CITY. I suspect that the current concentration of certain sectors of the tech industry in the Bay area is just unsustainable. There's an upper limit to how much companies can afford to pay for employees relative to other areas, how much employees can afford to pay for housing, and how long commutes they'll tolerate.
    • skewart 11y ago
      For sure. And the reality also is that people can take job offers and/or move to new cities a lot faster than builders can build housing. I don't think building more is a panacea that would suddenly mean two-bedrooms in Cow Hollow rent for $1,000 in 2017. That said, restricting market rate construction certainly only makes things worse. And building more would help at least a little.
  • serge2k 11y ago
    Vancouver is a great place to live, people don't stay there because they are forced to.
• PythonForGirls 11y ago
  Obviously, there's affordable housing because plenty of people manage to live there.
• hardcandy 11y ago
  Vancouver and cities like it became popular because of the critical mass of fun, interesting, creative, hard working young people who moved there and created communities. Once priced out, they will just go elsewhere. Other young people will follow and recreate the same communities with a lower price tag. Depending on local land use restrictions, some amount of gentrification then follows. In other words, this is a problem that takes care of itself, to some extent. Visit Austin or Nashville today and you will see this in action. San Francisco is an outlier given the extremely dense concentration of high paying jobs which drove housing into orbit. This makes it much ''stickier''. However, this entire model is dependent upon the public markets giving tech companies sky high valuations, which could change. Already I see many of the more proactive venture firms scouring outside of SF for deal flow, particularly in these gentrifying second tier cities like Austin, Nashville, Minneapolis, Kansas City, etc.
  • odbol_ 11y ago
    Does Vancouver have rent control? I thought rent control was one of the big causes of the SF housing crisis... or so people say. For me, at least, it's the only way I can afford to live in the city!
    • patmcc 11y ago
      Yes, BC sets sensible maximum rates that rent can be increased per year (usually on the order of inflation, ~2%).
      • nibs 11y ago
        Only if you rent month-to-month. And if a month-to-month tenant leaves, you increase rent by any amount you want. Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Daphne+Bramham+tier+system+rent+control+needs+change/11333131/story.html?__lsa=54b5-b4c1 http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Daphne+Bramham+tier+sys...
  • jseliger 11y ago
    San Francisco is an outlier given the extremely dense concentration of high paying jobs which drove housing into orbit San Francisco's housing policies drove housing into orbit: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/. There are numerous other discussions of this: http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp.... We have the technology to build lots of units (steel-frame construction, elevators): http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/03/silicon_valley_housing_boom_there_s_no_such_thing.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/03/silicon_valle.... "We" just choose not to use them.
• lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
  If having essentially no affordable housing rendered a city an economic ghost town, then much of the Bay area and Manhattan would be "ghost towns" - which, in turn, would lower housing prices radically. What might happen to Vancouver is probably similar to other major cities with housing crunches but an otherwise desirable economic climate: lower wage workers will be displaced further from the city and forced to commute, housing prices will remain astronomical and suck much of the gains from the area.
  • eigenvector 11y ago
    The article's gist is that Vancouver lacks the "otherwise desirable economic climate" that makes the SFBA, Manhattan and London housing markets at least tolerable. Rather than being a side-effect of explosive economic growth as in SF, the housing prices are totally out-of-step with the local economy.
    • yelnatz 11y ago
      It's really painful. Having average home price of $1.8m while the median salary is at $60k. Something really needs to be done to help out Vancouverites.
      • mjmahone17 11y ago
        Would it be as big a problem if people had a strong incentive to rent their property? I know most people like owning property, but renting often makes more economic sense. Especially when the cost to rent is significantly below a monthly mortgage. As a city, Vancouver has the ability to vote for significant property tax increases. Which would encourage investors and speculators to rent out more of their (currently empty) property in order to offset the yearly cost of ownership. Right now, it probably is more expensive to sell property that currently has renters living in it, because evicting people is a messy, expensive and difficult process. But higher property taxes make it more expensive to own: a tax of 3% per year completely eats up a 3% yearly increase in property value. Unless you offset the tax through other income.
      • 11y ago
• gniv 11y ago
  Previous discussion (also today) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086981
  • dang 11y ago
    Ok, we merged the threads. Thanks! The current article seems to be the original source, so we'll keep it.
• bigsteve78 11y ago
  Vancouverite here. It is an economic ghost town. Its a complete nightmare for employment as well. There may be 2-3 data scientist jobs in the city right now.
• yarrel 11y ago
  Vancouver is becoming a store of value rather than a city.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  • throwaway2048 11y ago
    The key point you are missing is that housing is being bought almost entirely by people who do not live there and never will, either as investment vehicles, or a way to safely move money out of china (real estate is one of the few things china allows Chinese citizens to invest in outside of china). They have no incentive to even rent, because of both frozen value property taxes, and the house generally forming a small part of their total wealth, generally being held as a rainy day nest egg. There are entire city blocks of high rises in Vancouver that have no lights on at night, no traffic in the morning, and no cars in their parking lots. Your entire post addresses arguments nobody made. But if you had read the article you would already know that....
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
      • throwaway2048 11y ago
        The economic activity driving the purchases is not tied to Vancouver in any way, it would continue if nobody lived in Vancouver whatsoever. Its a place for rich mainland Chinese to dump their wealth away from the clutches of the CCP.
    • msie 11y ago
      Wrong, there are not entire city blocks that have no lights on at night. There are some buildings under construction too.
• neves 11y ago
  Article summary: Vancouver is expensive, their young, creative and fun population will leave because they can't afford a house. Let's burn down its antique building restrictions, and build big skyscrapers where no neighbor knows each other, now the young, creative and fun population can live in a gray place and become old, dull and boring. Hope they can read a little of Jane Jacobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_Am...
• sandworm101 11y ago
  Vancouver's problem isn't the house prices. The problem is to a large extent caused by the author of this piece, the Hootsuite CEO. The few tech companies in vancouver don't pay. They expect the city to provide them a steady flow of over-educated 20-somethings willing to work long hours for only slightly more than rent. For the last 15 years the city has provided just that. The complaints now are that those 20-somethings want to own stuff. They want a house. They want to own a dog that isn't left alone 10+ hours every day. They want families. So it is time to let them go and demand the city provide a new flock. What every company in Vancouver seems to want is an employee who is desperate for work but also independently wealthy. That might seem a conflict but in Vancouver it is normal. There are thousands of young people here who are supported by parents who have enjoyed the rise in house prices. They are desperate for work, but don't much care about the pay because they have support. Hootsuite's problem is that many of those kids are now in their thirties, mom and dad have moved, and they want to have an actual life of their own. That cannot happen at 30k in a city like Vancouver. (Lets see how long it takes for this comment to hit a nerve. Hoot is a social media company with eyes everywhere.)
  • vvanders 11y ago
    Man, lots of parallels to game-dev here. You see an almost similar problem, albiet that it means the average career is ~3 years instead of being a geographical migration.
    • sandworm101 11y ago
      I used to work in the Vancouver film industry. I remember an interview with some of the Stargate people where they laughed at the fact that most of the CG guys working on the shows final years (SG Atlantis) were in diapers when SG1 started. As soon as the novelty wore off and they wanted pay, everyone left. Anyone who thinks actresses age quickly in Hollywood, look at the teenagers who work in CG.
    • vkou 11y ago
      Incidentally, there is also a lot of game dev in Vancouver.
• sshrinivasan 11y ago
  The price-to-income ratio, a good indicator of affordability is quite ridiculous here. It should be around 4, i.e your home value should be 4 times your gross household yearly income, its closer to 12 here. I believe in this, and though my family makes a good income, in order to meet this ratio I had to move further out to Richmond. Don't regret it at all, since it eases the stress of requiring two well paid jobs just to live a decent life. But the lack of available rental properties, rampant foreign speculation, low interest rates is a pretty perfect storm.
  • sliverstorm 11y ago
    Does the fixed price-to-income ratio actually hold meaning across a wide range of mortgage interest rates?
• mwnz 11y ago
  Take note, Auckland. The same dynamics exist there.
• epx 11y ago
  I see that as a worldwide problem, as interest rates tend to zero. In Brazil, real estate prices are completely out of touch with median income (at least, the rents are still affordable, because the typical landlord owns only one or two places and simply needs to rent to cover taxes and maintenance, he cannot sit on them). Economists and governments paid too much attention to the inflation of the Big Mac and forgot real estate and other hard assets. Also, govts have a huge incentive to allow real estate bubbles: tax revenue, abundance of blue-collar jobs while the construction frenzy lasts, illusion of prosperity for whoever already owns the home, etc. Yet another possibility is that too many people need to put dirty or excess money in a 'safe' investment. I hear that Chinese buy a lot of real estate in London, Vancouver, etc. At least here in Brazil, the money you have in a bank can be frozen in a milissecond if you are suspect of a crime, but controls over real state are very lax, so a lot of corruption money goes into real estate, which fuels the bubble.
• volune 11y ago
  Monoco s a ghosttown...
• gorkemyurt 11y ago
  One of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is Prop 13 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...) Prop 13 basically keeps the property taxes constant (or 1% increase) as the value of your house increases (doubles or triples). Your tax gets re-calculated only if you sell your house and the new owner starts paying potentially multiples of what the previous owner has been paying in taxes. This works great for older people who own property they can basically stay at their home forever, but it creates an unfair situation for new comers in the area and the newer generations. How are property taxes calculated in other places in the world? Vancouver? London? Tokyo? This is such a hard problem to solve, no one wants to force elderly people to move because of a bull real estate market, but you also need young hard working people in your city for economic growth. My solution would be to jack up the real estate inheritance tax and allocate that money for public transportation and affordable housing.
  • fiatmoney 11y ago
    Prop 13 has nothing to do with real estate price inflation. If anything, shifting of property tax burdens from long-time homeowners to new homeowners would tend to suppress prices. Shifting that burden evenly across the population would tend to cause more churn as long-time homeowners get pushed out, but would do nothing to increase aggregate housing or lower aggregate prices. Although, you can get pretty far into the weeds trying to evaluate the effect of housing stability on political economy - NIMBYism would be expected to be stronger in longer-tenure populations, for instance. Stability of tax policy is a fantastic thing for encouraging long-term investment.
    • curveship 11y ago
      Wouldn't it discourage long-time owners from selling, thereby limiting supply and raising prices?
      • sterl 11y ago
        It would, and it does.
• yaroslavvb 11y ago
  Vancouver is on the way to becoming the bar from the joke "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
• falsyvalue 11y ago
  This article and thread hits pretty hard for me. I was born in Vancouver and I'm getting pretty worried that Canadian salaries aren't enough to live in Canadian city. To any of you living in Vancouver and working remotely, do you have any advice for getting into that?
  • cdelb 11y ago
    Not a remote job per se - but my side project which pays me in USD is working out quite well since the Canadian dollar started sliding. The economics of a building small side project have improved dramatically if you can get paid in USD and live in Canada.
• falsyvalue 11y ago
  This article and thread hits pretty hard for me. I was born in Vancouver and I'm getting pretty worried that Canadian salaries aren't enough to live in Canadian city. To any of you living in Vancouver and working remotely, do you have any advice for getting into that?
• neptunespear 11y ago
  I live in Vancouver. Well, Burnaby. Like many Vancouverites on HN I am studying for a comp sci degree, and want to work as a developer. I accept that I have to make sacrifices to keep living in Vancouver, such as: -Living in a suburb (like Burnaby) -Getting roommates/a shared room -Living on a bus route instead of being a 5 minute walk from Skytrain With those sacrifices, I can find rents for $750-1000/month. $750 is the lowest one will get for a place relatively close to Skytrain, not too far from downtown (e.g. Burnaby/New West), and in a clean, low property crime area. More and more companies are paying $70K+ for new grads (something I wouldn't have admitted in say 2012), which is about $45-50K take home assuming you max out your RRSPs. Assuming a "35% of take home salary on housing" rule, you can afford rent of $1350-1450/month (higher if you gross more). You can get a lot for that kind of money, like a big 1 bedroom (full lease) that's 15 minutes to downtown by transit. I dare you to find something similar in the Bay Area or Seattle, especially with commutes as short and crime rates as low as Vancouver's. If you absolutely must live in the downtown core, studios start at $1000-1200/month in the West End. There is lots of shared accommodation in Yaletown for <$1000. I was watching CBS This Morning on Wednesday on the Seattle channel (KIRO), and there was a story about the nuns having the rent on their soup kitchen in San Francisco increased by 50%. In BC, the provincial government restricts annual increases to 2.7% (for 2016) and Vancouver does not have a ward-based system of city councillors, limiting the influence of NIMBYs far more than in SF.
  • bdcravens 11y ago
    Are these amounts expensive for a developer there? I pay $1150 monthly rent ($1600 CAD) for a so-so house outside of Houston.
    • neptunespear 11y ago
      You can live downtown or close to it without spending half your (dev) salary on rent. And you don't have to worry about gas, being stuck in traffic, etc.
    • falsyvalue 11y ago
      I'd say $750-1000 CAD is per month is on the low end. In general I find that renting near the train system is about $1200-1300 CAD for 1 bedroom, but that's on eastmost side of the city which is about 15-20 mins out of downtown (by train). Average dev salaries are maybe 60k CAD?
• ISL 11y ago
  If apartments are 25% vacant on speculation grounds, that's quite a bubble. I don't intend to do it, but for curiosity's sake: How does one go short on houses? "I'll pay you to let me borrow your house and sell it to someone else. Later, I'll get you an equivalent house." Never heard of anyone doing such a thing, but at the right up-front payment, I bet someone would take the deal.
  • danieltillett 11y ago
    In practice you can't, but you can short the banks lending into this bubble. Also building companies can be shorted. The problem with going short on something like housing is the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. This bubble is being pushed by buyers who are not looking to make money, but to get money out of certain countries and providing a safe haven to flee to. Unless this changes then things won't get more rational. If you had enough money you could short the banks and then whip up a media campaign of anti-foreign investment and xenophobia. Scare the market enough and you might get it to crash.
  • maxlamb 11y ago
    Looks like people are already doing that: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/why-investors-are-shorting-canadas-housing-market.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/why-investors-are-shorting-ca...
• jbarham 11y ago
  I lived in Vancouver from 2000 - 2005. Left when I got married and worked as a software engineer in southern California until the end of 2010. Got fed up waiting for the green card so moved to Australia (my wife is an Aussie) and currently live in Melbourne. Reading articles like this I'm very, very glad I chose not to move back to Vancouver. Sure it's expensive to buy a house in Australia, but rent is relatively cheap. We're paying $1700/month for a 3-bedroom house in a nice neighbourhood 15 minutes by train from downtown Melbourne. Now that we have 3 boys I would never consider moving back to Vancouver. Low salaries, very high housing costs and non-stop rain in winter. Makes no sense at all if you have kids.
• simple212 11y ago
  why don't the young people left Vancouver create a city of their own?
  • stolk 11y ago
    ...with blackjack and hookers! As a matter of fact, forget about the city.
• ficklepickle 11y ago
  I live in Vancouver. I rent half an old house built in 1941 on a big lot. It sold twice recently, within a couple months, by the same realtor. They always collect the rent in cash, never issue a receipt. I know a racket when I see one, so I had to figure it out. First, somebody buys a house in cash but puts it in somebody else's name, like a child or spouse. They get lots of mail sent there. This is to establish primary residence exemption on capital gains when the house is sold. They make it look like that person is living there, when it's actually being rented. Two untaxed sources of income: undeclared cash rental income and the inevitable capital gains on the sale. As far as investments go, its a sure win. And I have reason to believe I'm renting one of these properties. It happens to work out well for me though cause rents pretty reasonable.
  • jeremyt 11y ago
    Sounds to me the rent could be a lot more reasonable with a 5 min conversation.
  • riquito 11y ago
    > They always collect the rent in cash, never issue a receipt. I know a racket when I see one Do you see that by not requiring a receipt you're helping that racket?
• ficklepickle 11y ago
  I live in Vancouver. I rent half an old house built in 1941 on a big lot. It sold twice recently, within a couple months, by the same realtor. They always collect the rent in cash, never issue a receipt. I know a racket when I see one, so I had to figure it out. First, somebody buys a house in cash but puts it in somebody else's name, like a child or spouse. They get lots of mail sent there. This is to establish primary residence exemption on capital gains when the house is sold. They make it look like that person is living there, when it's actually being rented. Two untaxed sources of income: undeclared cash rental income and the inevitable capital gains on the sale. As far as investments go, its a sure win. And I have reason to believe I'm renting one of these properties. It happens to work out well for me though cause rents pretty reasonable.
• sergers 11y ago
  i live in a subburb 30km outside vancouver. have a 3000sqft house with a $600k mortgage. my yearly income is 90k before taxes/deductions. my mortgage is $2500.00 a month (a bit more than half months wage). my property tax is ~5000.00 year my house insurance is $1200.00 a year my car insurance is ~$1300.00 a year my city utilities is about $120.00/month my car gas is about $400.00/month my house natural gas is $150/month my house hydro electric is ~$200/month that just covers the necessities minus food. i have friends who live in downtown core vancouver, paying the same as me for 600sqft condo. that is more than half my gross income, very not affordable. thinking about relocating. can keep same position and just move remote... also had career change opps in dallas, ny, californa, etc at $120k+, better than here... but my whole family is here... my whole life is here. tough decisions... always thought more money would lead me away, now lack of affordability will instead.
• cdransf 11y ago
  This is becoming increasingly true of LA too. Unless you're rent controlled and have been there for a while the price for an apartment is further and further out of reach. There's construction everywhere but the price of living in those new buildings is even more than the increasingly expensive older areas and a lot of new construction has begun with what seems like little to no consideration for its impact on traffic. Perhaps developers and the city expect people to use the limited metro system and other public transit but few people, in practice do. I can't be that upset though, my wife and I are leaving for the suburbs soon with no plans to come back. There's a lot happening in LA in terms of the tech scene, but it's not enough to outweigh the overwhelming cost of attempting to put down roots there (home ownership is a largely unobtainable goal, insurance of all kinds is expensive, every neighborhood suffers from traffic congestion and on and on).
  • jgh 11y ago
    I know only one or two people who actually own their own place in LA. Everyone else rents. Everyone.
    • cdransf 11y ago
      We've been rent controlled for 3 years or we wouldn't be able to be here now. I know one person that owns a place and everyone I know who's wanted to start a family has left.
• thomasfl 11y ago
  The situation is very similar in Norway's capital city Oslo. Single family homes all a round a small downtown. Crammed between the fjord on side and the great woods protected by politicians, it's runninh out of free space.
• ksec 11y ago
  There are lots and lots of empty Housing from Tokyo, HK and Sydney and Vancouver, most belongs to Chinese investors. We have empty housing sitting here, acting as a way to park money and yet we have so many suffer from housing price inflation. If we Tax of empty housing for prolong period of time, like 6 months, which should force the owner to rent out its place, balancing some of the supply and demand issue. IT DOES NOT solve the housing issues. Far from it, but it is one fair way to get more money to government and stop the price hiking so much.
• pedalpete 11y ago
  Are Yaletown, Coal Harbour and Olympic Village area (I forget what it is called, I left the Sea-to-Sky a few years ago), no longer the ghost towns of towering apartments they used to be? Even with the growth of 30,000 people per year, I can't image supply being a problem at all. Is there any really viable plan to get the foreign owned real estate on to the rental market?