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Vancouverite here. The biggest trouble is that our economy now really depends on that dirty money. The biggest sector of the BC economy (almost 20%) is real est
by john_moscow 7y ago
Vancouverite here. The biggest trouble is that our economy now really depends on that dirty money. The biggest sector of the BC economy (almost 20%) is real estate and the next one is construction with 8%. So banning that would mean losing roughly a third of the budget income, let alone most mortgages going under. On the other hand, continuing it would make property ownership pretty much out of reach for anyone without external capital flowing in. Tough spot.
- blueside 7y agoThe moral dilemma of curtailing dirty money to keep your economy going. Yikes.
- harryVic 7y agoYou make an assumption that foreign money is entirely funding those two industries which is untrue. Vancouver is the most desirable city in a country with 36 Million people, so it makes sense for real estate to be expensive there. And new immigrants want to live in lower BC because it is warm here. I am an immigrant and I live in Victoria. It doesn't matter how much more I could make in Calgary, I don't want to spend 9 months of a year shoveling snow.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoSo Vancouver is a nice place to live, but so is nearby Seattle. Does Vancouver deserve to be more expensive than Seattle rent wise? No, at least as a tech worker, the salaries just aren't there.
- harryVic 7y agoMoving to Vancouver from another country is much easier than moving to Seattle. And Seattle is considered to be a city with a bad weather in the US. That bad weather is actually considered good here in Canada.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoA lot of techies from Vancouver are working in Seattle under NAFTA TN visas, which are pretty easy to get.
- Macross8299 7y agoIt is not surprising considering how similar Vancouver and Seattle are and considering that the Vancouver mayor openly brags about how low tech salaries are [0] [0]: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-criticized-for-boasting-about-low-pay-of-its-tech-workers-in-amazon-hq-bid https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-criti...
- john_moscow 7y agoMost new immigrants don't have a budget to buy a $1M+ home, neither do locals with a $80K median gross household income, so the demand must come from somewhere else.
- Tiktaalik 7y agoPretty much this. Yes absolutely 'everyone wants to be here' but the land valuations are so beyond typical local incomes that it's a weak af explanation.
- blueside 7y agoYour argument holds no water I'm afraid. The same thing is going on elsewhere in the country - Toronto has reached the same expensive real estate levels because it's warm there too?