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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 t

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?
  - neptunespear 11y ago
    If you extend your search to Burnaby/New West, you can easily find 1 bedrooms for $700-1000 that are close to a frequent bus route (e.g. 106, 123). You're not paying a premium to live close to Skytrain, but commuting to downtown doesn't take an hour by transit either. There's actually not a lot of data on Vancouver dev salaries out there. I've heard ranges from $50K to 70K depending on the source.
    - vehementi 11y ago
      glassdoor is accurate and actually under shoots reality. also https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk/edit?pref=2&pli=1 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx... tldr lol if you only start out at 70k
retbull 11y ago
I live as a developer in Seattle. Right now I live 45 min from downtown on a bus route with a roommate and I pay more rent for half an apartment than you do for your full one.
- mjevans 11y ago
  Also in the Seattle metro area; rent here is just massively out of balance. There is a total lack of regional urban planning and competition in the form of sufficiently available housing to keep prices low. All of that development went to the improperly supported suburban exodus movement of the 80s and 90s.
  - neptunespear 11y ago
    I hear that even in the more conservative suburbs, support for rail is increasing, just because the traffic in Seattle is so bad. Is this true? I think Washington state's regressive tax pyramid and dependence on plebecites will still stymie progress, though; in Canada, provincial and federal governments have much more centralized power to levy taxes and spend.
    - mjevans 11y ago
      I think that is a more nuanced neighborhood by neighborhood issue. NIMBY is always a thing, and no one wants to live right next to any sort of transit. There are various reasons for this, part of those reasons is that, disproportionately, the poor tend to be relegated to mass transit. Part of that is that transit doesn't make sense if you get on/off work outside of peek hours; most of the Seattle metro system is biased around serving /Seattle/. Transit systems in the counties to the north and south serve even less, have much tighter budgets, and therefore also have much less service. This is one of those self-re-enforcing loops. With the HOV Toll Lane revealing just how horrid traffic on I-405 is (again absolute lack of urban planning), I think that you'd find many would agree about doing /something/, /anything/, except for taxing them in any way. Little do they realize that you pay 'taxes' in other ways, like having daily commutes of hell and a poor environment for their children to enter the workforce within. I know that my own career development is still severely hampered by having grown up in a suburb, without a car, and thus also with less access to the scarce jobs in the area that many (but not all) of my peers took up. I suspect that there probably weren't enough 'after school' jobs to go around though, so those who did get experience early got a head start on learning how to handle interacting with employers.
kareemm 11y ago
1BR inventory is not really an issue. Most of the new builds consist of small 1BRs so that developers can maximize their $ per square foot. rents on 2 or 3BR places have shot through the roof because there's very little supply being added. The real problem is that prices have become decoupled from incomes. The median home price is 10x more than the median household income (this includes condos and townhomes). The only reason for this is outside capital driving up prices.
- wrong_variable 11y ago
  > The only reason for this is outside capital driving up prices. Also known as inflation OR debt issued by your govt returning home.
  - shawn-furyan 11y ago
    This is an insufficient explanation. Canada's debt to GDP ratio is in the 60-70% range where that of the US is in the 90% range. Yet the situation in Vancouver is significantly more acute than those of New York and San Francisco.
tbirdx 11y ago
I lived in Vancouver (proper) for many years and as a developer $70k is a joke. Even moreso now that the Canadian dollar is hovering around 70 cents. I now live in a city where the cost of living is substantially lower, and I make substantially more (about 100k). I could make more, but I don't have to. I spend about half my time traveling, something every Vancouver person aspires to do and yet never does. Leaving that city was the best choice I ever made. Certainly I will visit in the future but I will never move back.
- neptunespear 11y ago
  May I ask where you live?
CountSessine 11y ago
As an established middle-aged software developer with a family living in Burnaby who cannot move now because of custody issues, I'm going to give you the same advice I give to all of the engineering co-ops I work with. You should move out of the Vancouver area as soon as you get your degree. I don't think that you're ever going to have a problem finding 1 bedroom accommodations in Vancouver because that's what developers predominantly build. Eventually you'll probably want to get married and have kids, and then you'll realize that the GVRD has nothing for you. The detached home market now largely belongs to rich Chinese immigrants who made their millions outside the country; you'll never be able to compete with these folks working in the Canadian economy and paying Canadian taxes. That will largely rule out Vancouver, Burnaby, and by the time you graduate, New West, Coquitlam, Poco, and Port Moody. This isn't even a matter of stretching anymore - this market is completely isolated from CHMC policy now because the prices are beyond what Canadian home buyers could ever leverage. Developers have little incentive to build 3 bedroom family-friendly condos, so you'll have a hard time finding those, too. I wanted to buy one recently and it was going to cost about $700000. My current 2 bedroom would sell for about $400k, but I don't think that I want to stretch that far on a single income, even though it would mean I could get my kids their own rooms. And really, is Vancouver so great? The mountains are nice, and the downtown is nice if you're young. But it's a trap for the young - through well-intentioned tolerance and bad public policy we've created a city that is hostile to young families. Live anywhere else in North America and you'll enjoy a more favourable cost of living and/or a better lifestyle. I'd leave in a minute if I could.
- kilroy123 11y ago
  Why does / did the Canadian government let so many Chinese come in and buy property like that?
  - burnaber 11y ago
    1. http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/index.asp http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/in... 2. Proxy companies that maintain RE portfolios for overseas clients 3. Complete unwillingness of the government to do anything about this. That's the root of the problem.
vehementi 11y ago
> assuming you max out your RRSPs As a side note, this shouldn't really factor into your calculations. Either way you're paying the tax

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?
- neptunespear 11y ago
  If you extend your search to Burnaby/New West, you can easily find 1 bedrooms for $700-1000 that are close to a frequent bus route (e.g. 106, 123). You're not paying a premium to live close to Skytrain, but commuting to downtown doesn't take an hour by transit either. There's actually not a lot of data on Vancouver dev salaries out there. I've heard ranges from $50K to 70K depending on the source.
  - vehementi 11y ago
    glassdoor is accurate and actually under shoots reality. also https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk/edit?pref=2&pli=1 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx... tldr lol if you only start out at 70k

retbull 11y ago

I live as a developer in Seattle. Right now I live 45 min from downtown on a bus route with a roommate and I pay more rent for half an apartment than you do for your full one.

mjevans 11y ago
Also in the Seattle metro area; rent here is just massively out of balance. There is a total lack of regional urban planning and competition in the form of sufficiently available housing to keep prices low. All of that development went to the improperly supported suburban exodus movement of the 80s and 90s.
- neptunespear 11y ago
  I hear that even in the more conservative suburbs, support for rail is increasing, just because the traffic in Seattle is so bad. Is this true? I think Washington state's regressive tax pyramid and dependence on plebecites will still stymie progress, though; in Canada, provincial and federal governments have much more centralized power to levy taxes and spend.
  - mjevans 11y ago
    I think that is a more nuanced neighborhood by neighborhood issue. NIMBY is always a thing, and no one wants to live right next to any sort of transit. There are various reasons for this, part of those reasons is that, disproportionately, the poor tend to be relegated to mass transit. Part of that is that transit doesn't make sense if you get on/off work outside of peek hours; most of the Seattle metro system is biased around serving /Seattle/. Transit systems in the counties to the north and south serve even less, have much tighter budgets, and therefore also have much less service. This is one of those self-re-enforcing loops. With the HOV Toll Lane revealing just how horrid traffic on I-405 is (again absolute lack of urban planning), I think that you'd find many would agree about doing /something/, /anything/, except for taxing them in any way. Little do they realize that you pay 'taxes' in other ways, like having daily commutes of hell and a poor environment for their children to enter the workforce within. I know that my own career development is still severely hampered by having grown up in a suburb, without a car, and thus also with less access to the scarce jobs in the area that many (but not all) of my peers took up. I suspect that there probably weren't enough 'after school' jobs to go around though, so those who did get experience early got a head start on learning how to handle interacting with employers.

kareemm 11y ago

1BR inventory is not really an issue. Most of the new builds consist of small 1BRs so that developers can maximize their $ per square foot. rents on 2 or 3BR places have shot through the roof because there's very little supply being added. The real problem is that prices have become decoupled from incomes. The median home price is 10x more than the median household income (this includes condos and townhomes). The only reason for this is outside capital driving up prices.

wrong_variable 11y ago
> The only reason for this is outside capital driving up prices. Also known as inflation OR debt issued by your govt returning home.
- shawn-furyan 11y ago
  This is an insufficient explanation. Canada's debt to GDP ratio is in the 60-70% range where that of the US is in the 90% range. Yet the situation in Vancouver is significantly more acute than those of New York and San Francisco.

tbirdx 11y ago

I lived in Vancouver (proper) for many years and as a developer $70k is a joke. Even moreso now that the Canadian dollar is hovering around 70 cents. I now live in a city where the cost of living is substantially lower, and I make substantially more (about 100k). I could make more, but I don't have to. I spend about half my time traveling, something every Vancouver person aspires to do and yet never does. Leaving that city was the best choice I ever made. Certainly I will visit in the future but I will never move back.

neptunespear 11y ago
May I ask where you live?

CountSessine 11y ago

As an established middle-aged software developer with a family living in Burnaby who cannot move now because of custody issues, I'm going to give you the same advice I give to all of the engineering co-ops I work with. You should move out of the Vancouver area as soon as you get your degree. I don't think that you're ever going to have a problem finding 1 bedroom accommodations in Vancouver because that's what developers predominantly build. Eventually you'll probably want to get married and have kids, and then you'll realize that the GVRD has nothing for you. The detached home market now largely belongs to rich Chinese immigrants who made their millions outside the country; you'll never be able to compete with these folks working in the Canadian economy and paying Canadian taxes. That will largely rule out Vancouver, Burnaby, and by the time you graduate, New West, Coquitlam, Poco, and Port Moody. This isn't even a matter of stretching anymore - this market is completely isolated from CHMC policy now because the prices are beyond what Canadian home buyers could ever leverage. Developers have little incentive to build 3 bedroom family-friendly condos, so you'll have a hard time finding those, too. I wanted to buy one recently and it was going to cost about $700000. My current 2 bedroom would sell for about $400k, but I don't think that I want to stretch that far on a single income, even though it would mean I could get my kids their own rooms. And really, is Vancouver so great? The mountains are nice, and the downtown is nice if you're young. But it's a trap for the young - through well-intentioned tolerance and bad public policy we've created a city that is hostile to young families. Live anywhere else in North America and you'll enjoy a more favourable cost of living and/or a better lifestyle. I'd leave in a minute if I could.

kilroy123 11y ago
Why does / did the Canadian government let so many Chinese come in and buy property like that?
- burnaber 11y ago
  1. http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/index.asp http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/business/investors/in... 2. Proxy companies that maintain RE portfolios for overseas clients 3. Complete unwillingness of the government to do anything about this. That's the root of the problem.

vehementi 11y ago

> assuming you max out your RRSPs As a side note, this shouldn't really factor into your calculations. Either way you're paying the tax