7 ms·

I live on Vancouver Island (short boat ride from Vancouver). This year I will graduate with a degree in computer science and already have a decent job working a

by A_fow 11y ago

I live on Vancouver Island (short boat ride from Vancouver). This year I will graduate with a degree in computer science and already have a decent job working as a web developer. My wife has a well paying job with the government. We both have lots of family and friends in Vancouver but will likely never live there as we can't afford $700,000 for a starter home. Even here on Vancouver Island it seems the possibility of owning our own home is becoming unattainable as prices sky rocket. Something needs to be done about foreign investment. I guess this happens all over the world. The rich get to live in the nicest cities and everyone else gets pushed out. I've lived here my whole life but soon I won't be able to call it home. I can't read many of the street signs in Richmond (Cantonese and Mandarin). I take the bus to University while some of my Chinese classmates drive their Maserati/Lambo/Mercedes. It feels like my home is being sold out from underneath me to the Chinese. I don't know how to solve this or even approach talking about it without offending people. Maybe I need to open my mind and not view this as a problem. But it makes me very sad to feel like I don't belong in the place where I grew up.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fapjacks 11y ago
Thanks for being honest, though. It's interesting to read your perspective.
DickingAround 11y ago
Just to take nationalism out of it; would you feel just as screwed if they were rich banker? You don't own that land and you can't use it unless it's literally a friend of yours. So what is the actual impact? Just the language on the signs? Interestingly this is a bit of an exceptional case; it being a bubble and all you actually have leverage. The interesting thing about real-estate is that it's not like factories; the land doesn't itself produce value. If the people of Vancouver leave and it's nothing but investment property those prices will go down. Once they begin going down, it'll be a bad investment and they'll come down a lot (pretty common bubble situation). So if you think the market put the wrong price on those houses, just don't pay it and leave. Plenty of other good cities out there.
- darryl42 11y ago
  Even rich bankers are probably priced out of the market when "the average price of a single-family detached home in Vancouver at $2.5-million" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/questionable-tactics-encourage-bc-homebuyers-to-avoid-taxes/article28758483/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/questiona...
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    I can get the sentimental value of not wanting to leave your home, but why should anyone else care? There are plenty of other places out there to live that are far cheaper. Full disclosure: I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and have never lived in a large city.
    - zhemao 11y ago
      Yeah, but is it easy to find jobs in those places? Most economic activity happens in the big cities, so most people will want to live close to those cities in order to be in a reasonable commuting distance from work. Of course, you could do remote work. But those kinds of jobs are not yet the norm. Plus, a lot of jobs require daily face-to-face interaction with clients, coworkers, or higher-ups.
      - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
        If you are decent at IT you can find jobs. I know I've never had issues. They don't pay as much, but when you adjust for the price of living you can often end up with a better life style.
      - tropo 11y ago
        You have things backwards. To "be in a reasonable commuting distance from work" you must stay far from those cities. Well, assuming you want a family. Commuting into SF from some place in the central valley is not reasonable. Pick the middle of Florida's east coast though, and you could afford a big house (perhaps half acre, 4 bedroom) within a mile of work. Yes, there are jobs.
danieltillett 11y ago
I think your problem is your worry about offending people. When you are losing your home then offending anyone is the least of your worries.
ooo000ooo 11y ago
> even approach talking about it without offending people Start by not worrying about this. You're entitled to your own opinions. > Maybe I need to open my mind and not view this as a problem. That's literally the opposite of opening your mind, that's self-brainwashing. > But it makes me very sad to feel like I don't belong in the place where I grew up. You're not the only one feeling like this. It's happening in many places in the West.
jseliger 11y ago
Even here on Vancouver Island it seems the possibility of owning our own home is becoming unattainable as prices sky rocket. Something needs to be done about foreign investment. Not really. Something needs to be done about parochial land use laws that prevent supply from rising to meet demand: 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.... Until that happens, prices will rise. Despite many efforts to the contrary, you cannot legislate away supply, demand, and prices. Preventing new development appears to have really taken off in the 1970s, according to Chapters 7 and 8 of William Fischel's Zoning Rules!: http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation/dp/155844288X http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation.... Until we reverse that dynamic (or make cities less attractive places to live) we're going to see rising prices.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I think increasing supply is a good idea in the short run, but in the long run, I think the answer lies more in changing the way society views real estate. As the article makes clear, real estate is increasingly viewed as an asset that can simply be purchased and held on to diversify a risky portfolio. Foreign property owners add little to no value (in a true, human, social sense) to the greater society. They do contribute tax revenue, but at the expense of making real estate unattainable for others by driving up prices. Real estate used to be the center of a business owner's livelihood or a family's multi-decade investment in an area with family, good schools, a good community, etc. While increasing supply would reduce price, foreign investors would simply purchase more. Demand for (perceived) stable assets to offset market volatility is at an all time high, especially in China where many are trying to export wealth. When the market crashes, you'll have an oversupply of property that was built for people who did not actually inhabit the area.
  - eru 11y ago
    See http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val...
sliverstorm 11y ago
The rich get to live in the nicest cities and everyone else gets pushed out As a non-rich, this seems natural & unavoidable given the fundamental principals of economics & the free market. I'm not sure anything can be done about it, and I don't believe the people who say that if only we did X, everyone & anyone who wanted to live in Vancouver/Manhattan/Pacific Heights could.
- tertius 11y ago
  Man, if I could live in X I would! You're saying that one ideological change won't enable that for me (and every one of the other 100 million like me)?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
logfromblammo 11y ago
The traditional way to handle too many rich people moving into town is to suck up to them as you charge extortionate prices on ordinary stuff that you can pretend is rare and exclusive. One of the great things about rich kids is that they never really learned how much anything is really worth. So you can hand them pretty cocktails made from rail booze and gold leaf, and they gleefully hand you your next 20 car payments. So you're looking at it the wrong way. It is an opportunity, not a curse. Turn that foreign investment into foreign spending. And try to make sure that a good portion is spent on you.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  Meanwhile they buy a house and charge you the next 700 car payments in rent every month.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Well part of the trick is knowing when to sell your shovel company and move on.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  The problem is is that "normal" people can't afford those prices and when every shop becomes some "artisan" crap the only people who can afford to buy there are the rich and the hipsters that mooch of their parents / mount credit card debt while complaining about the student loans they had to take to get their medieval feminist arts degree and how the baby boomers that cover their bills ruined their future.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
refurb 11y ago
At least on Vancouver Island, it's not the foreigner's pushing up home prices, it's the locals. Victoria is one of the few cities that actually tracks the citizenship of the buyer. In 2015, 97.8% of buyers of homes in Victoria were Canadian citizens. 0.68% were from Asia.[1] [1]http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/01/31/of-debt-data/ http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/01/31/of-debt-data/
- redthrowaway 11y ago
  Victoria is where the people who used to live in Vancouver come to retire. Sell your house in Vancouver for $2MM, buy a smaller one in Vic for $700k, and live off the difference.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by A_fow 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

fapjacks 11y ago

Thanks for being honest, though. It's interesting to read your perspective.

DickingAround 11y ago

Just to take nationalism out of it; would you feel just as screwed if they were rich banker? You don't own that land and you can't use it unless it's literally a friend of yours. So what is the actual impact? Just the language on the signs? Interestingly this is a bit of an exceptional case; it being a bubble and all you actually have leverage. The interesting thing about real-estate is that it's not like factories; the land doesn't itself produce value. If the people of Vancouver leave and it's nothing but investment property those prices will go down. Once they begin going down, it'll be a bad investment and they'll come down a lot (pretty common bubble situation). So if you think the market put the wrong price on those houses, just don't pay it and leave. Plenty of other good cities out there.

darryl42 11y ago
Even rich bankers are probably priced out of the market when "the average price of a single-family detached home in Vancouver at $2.5-million" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/questionable-tactics-encourage-bc-homebuyers-to-avoid-taxes/article28758483/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/questiona...
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  I can get the sentimental value of not wanting to leave your home, but why should anyone else care? There are plenty of other places out there to live that are far cheaper. Full disclosure: I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and have never lived in a large city.
  - zhemao 11y ago
    Yeah, but is it easy to find jobs in those places? Most economic activity happens in the big cities, so most people will want to live close to those cities in order to be in a reasonable commuting distance from work. Of course, you could do remote work. But those kinds of jobs are not yet the norm. Plus, a lot of jobs require daily face-to-face interaction with clients, coworkers, or higher-ups.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      If you are decent at IT you can find jobs. I know I've never had issues. They don't pay as much, but when you adjust for the price of living you can often end up with a better life style.
    - tropo 11y ago
      You have things backwards. To "be in a reasonable commuting distance from work" you must stay far from those cities. Well, assuming you want a family. Commuting into SF from some place in the central valley is not reasonable. Pick the middle of Florida's east coast though, and you could afford a big house (perhaps half acre, 4 bedroom) within a mile of work. Yes, there are jobs.

danieltillett 11y ago

I think your problem is your worry about offending people. When you are losing your home then offending anyone is the least of your worries.

ooo000ooo 11y ago

> even approach talking about it without offending people Start by not worrying about this. You're entitled to your own opinions. > Maybe I need to open my mind and not view this as a problem. That's literally the opposite of opening your mind, that's self-brainwashing. > But it makes me very sad to feel like I don't belong in the place where I grew up. You're not the only one feeling like this. It's happening in many places in the West.

jseliger 11y ago

Even here on Vancouver Island it seems the possibility of owning our own home is becoming unattainable as prices sky rocket. Something needs to be done about foreign investment. Not really. Something needs to be done about parochial land use laws that prevent supply from rising to meet demand: 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.... Until that happens, prices will rise. Despite many efforts to the contrary, you cannot legislate away supply, demand, and prices. Preventing new development appears to have really taken off in the 1970s, according to Chapters 7 and 8 of William Fischel's Zoning Rules!: http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation/dp/155844288X http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation.... Until we reverse that dynamic (or make cities less attractive places to live) we're going to see rising prices.

roymurdock 11y ago
I think increasing supply is a good idea in the short run, but in the long run, I think the answer lies more in changing the way society views real estate. As the article makes clear, real estate is increasingly viewed as an asset that can simply be purchased and held on to diversify a risky portfolio. Foreign property owners add little to no value (in a true, human, social sense) to the greater society. They do contribute tax revenue, but at the expense of making real estate unattainable for others by driving up prices. Real estate used to be the center of a business owner's livelihood or a family's multi-decade investment in an area with family, good schools, a good community, etc. While increasing supply would reduce price, foreign investors would simply purchase more. Demand for (perceived) stable assets to offset market volatility is at an all time high, especially in China where many are trying to export wealth. When the market crashes, you'll have an oversupply of property that was built for people who did not actually inhabit the area.
- eru 11y ago
  See http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val...

sliverstorm 11y ago

The rich get to live in the nicest cities and everyone else gets pushed out As a non-rich, this seems natural & unavoidable given the fundamental principals of economics & the free market. I'm not sure anything can be done about it, and I don't believe the people who say that if only we did X, everyone & anyone who wanted to live in Vancouver/Manhattan/Pacific Heights could.

tertius 11y ago
Man, if I could live in X I would! You're saying that one ideological change won't enable that for me (and every one of the other 100 million like me)?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

logfromblammo 11y ago

The traditional way to handle too many rich people moving into town is to suck up to them as you charge extortionate prices on ordinary stuff that you can pretend is rare and exclusive. One of the great things about rich kids is that they never really learned how much anything is really worth. So you can hand them pretty cocktails made from rail booze and gold leaf, and they gleefully hand you your next 20 car payments. So you're looking at it the wrong way. It is an opportunity, not a curse. Turn that foreign investment into foreign spending. And try to make sure that a good portion is spent on you.

crdoconnor 11y ago
Meanwhile they buy a house and charge you the next 700 car payments in rent every month.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Well part of the trick is knowing when to sell your shovel company and move on.
dogma1138 11y ago
The problem is is that "normal" people can't afford those prices and when every shop becomes some "artisan" crap the only people who can afford to buy there are the rich and the hipsters that mooch of their parents / mount credit card debt while complaining about the student loans they had to take to get their medieval feminist arts degree and how the baby boomers that cover their bills ruined their future.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

refurb 11y ago

At least on Vancouver Island, it's not the foreigner's pushing up home prices, it's the locals. Victoria is one of the few cities that actually tracks the citizenship of the buyer. In 2015, 97.8% of buyers of homes in Victoria were Canadian citizens. 0.68% were from Asia.[1] [1]http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/01/31/of-debt-data/ http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/01/31/of-debt-data/

redthrowaway 11y ago
Victoria is where the people who used to live in Vancouver come to retire. Sell your house in Vancouver for $2MM, buy a smaller one in Vic for $700k, and live off the difference.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]