Vancouver Real Estate 'Bubble' at 30-year Peak

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Everybody knows Vancouver has expensive housing. Do you have a point to your endless ranting on the same topics?

Thanks for asking, as I most certainly do.

The whole point of housing, at least in most cities, is to do exactly that, provide housing. Vancouver & BC have decided thru the years that it should be instead used as a place to flip like a stock. Of course, playing it like a stock hurts the actual citizens who need a place to live. Although the damage is done and now Vancouver is now more of a resort for the wealthy as opposed to a city for the people, there are concrete actions that gov't can take to bring back "livability" for the actual people who live here:

First, buying a SFH just to replace it with another SFH must be banned. The new purchaser of the land cannot build on it unless the housing increases supply. So if a SFH is sold, any replacement building must have at LEAST 5X density or be a commercial building. No one except the top 1% cannot afford to pull down a ugly $2 million house and replace it with another one. It's Money Laundering 101.

Second, anyone with more than 3 properties in the province should be "encouraged" to get rid of them. You can't force someone to sell but you can twist their arm. Any property above that 3 limit {the homes of which would be the owners choice} would be subject to a 25% sales tax. They would be given 18 months before the sales tax begins so anyone renting has more than enough time to find alternate accommodation. "Investors" would sell lest they pay this sales tax later. It would also put a dead stop to new "investors" from buying current properties.

Third, put a general sales tax on all homes over $1 million. 1% for the first million and going up by 1% every $500k after that and send those funds 100% towards affordable housing.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Doomers and declinists are definitely not part of the solution.

LOL, "declinists"? Are you now lamenting that housing prices are declining?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

- snip -

Good news: the BCNDP just last year abolished SFH zoning and legalized multiplexes across the entire province. Mission accomplished.

Leaving aside the fact that anybody who tried the second and third would be voted out of office, you can't put a sales tax on something that's not for sale. We already have property taxes, empty home taxes and foreign buyer taxes.

Originally Posted by whatnext

LOL, "declinists"? Are you now lamenting that housing prices are declining?

See, this is how clankers rot your brain, folks: after weeks of blindly trusting Google Search's AI text box, whatnext is unable to simply read the first link that pops up.

Declinism is the belief that a society or institution is tending towards decline. Particularly, it is the predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, to view the past more favourably and the future more negatively.

[WarrenC12]

This should keep whatnext and ssiguy confused for the weekend. How are these things possible at the same time?!

Rent prices falling the fastest in B.C., but remain most expensive in Canada

Among Canada’s large cities, rent in Vancouver has fallen the most, down 7.4 per cent since last October to an average of $2,728 per month.

Average prices in Vancouver, the country’s second-most expensive city to rent in, reached a 43-month low in October, down 11.4 per cent over the past three years.

When it comes to shared accommodation, Vancouver also led all cities with a 16.7 per cent annual drop in rent, reaching $1,241 per month, though it simultaneously held its lead as the city with the highest rent for that type of home.

These are based on "asking rents" so the declines could be more given what actually gets paid, and don't forget inflation.

[GenWhy?]

"First, buying a SFH just to replace it with another SFH must be banned. The new purchaser of the land cannot build on it unless the housing increases supply."

Good lord no and thank goodness we don't have that our here. I think some cities in Ontario do and that's just bananas overreach

"Second, anyone with more than 3 properties in the province should be "encouraged" to get rid of them. "

Wouldn't you just create a company? And if companies cannot own more than 3... you just killed building housing

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Good news: the BCNDP just last year abolished SFH zoning and legalized multiplexes across the entire province. Mission accomplished.

Leaving aside the fact that anybody who tried the second and third would be voted out of office, you can't put a sales tax on something that's not for sale. We already have property taxes, empty home taxes and foreign buyer taxes.

The only people who would be ticked off with a tax on more than 3 homes are foreign buyers, speculators, and money launderers. I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who has 4 or more properties.

As for "you can't put a sales tax on something that's not for sale" is amongst the most ignorant comments I've ever heard on the entire Canada forum. It's done nationwide, and worldwide for that matter, all the time. It's taxation 101. You put on a new tax but due to potentially effecting a third party {ie a potential renter} or due to the wanting to give the seller a reasonable amount of notice of the change, you simply delay it. 18 months would give the seller lots of time to rid themselves of the property if they so desire while also giving the renter more than enough time to find replacement accommodation so they aren't kicked out on the street in a couple months. It would also would result in a stoppage of investors buying new properties so the local population doesn't have to compete on housing with billionaires, foreign dirty money, and money launderers.

Even if you strongly disagree with my proposals, this idea that "you can't tax something that isn't for sale" is truly bizarre. If you believe that then I can only assume you've never paid property or income taxes.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The only people who would be ticked off with a tax on more than 3 homes are foreign buyers, speculators, and money launderers. I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who has 4 or more properties.

As for "you can't put a sales tax on something that's not for sale" is amongst the most ignorant comments I've ever heard on the entire Canada forum. It's done nationwide, and worldwide for that matter, all the time. It's taxation 101. You put on a new tax but due to potentially effecting a third party {ie a potential renter} or due to the wanting to give the seller a reasonable amount of notice of the change, you simply delay it. 18 months would give the seller lots of time to rid themselves of the property if they so desire while also giving the renter more than enough time to find replacement accommodation so they aren't kicked out on the street in a couple months. It would also would result in a stoppage of investors buying new properties so the local population doesn't have to compete on housing with billionaires, foreign dirty money, and money launderers.

Even if you strongly disagree with my proposals, this idea that "you can't tax something that isn't for sale" is truly bizarre. If you believe that then I can only assume you've never paid property or income taxes.

You seem confused by what you wrote. The counter to your suggestion wasn't "you can't tax something that isn't for sale", it was "you can't put a sales tax on something that's not for sale". Which is true.

Maybe you could come up with some other sort of tax that is targetted at individuals that own multiple properties, but you've already ignored the suggestion that all the owners need to do is set up a company to hold their properties. The "private investor property tax", or whatever it is you're not explaining very clearly, seems pretty pointless because you "don't even know anyone who knows anyone who has 4 or more properties."

[Migrant_Coconut]

Speaking of ignorant takes:

Originally Posted by ssiguy

- snip -

Also the vast majority of developers, landlords and nonprofits. If you include them in your tax, you'll never see another multiplex sold at affordable rates again... and if you don't, congrats, every multi-owner and landlord is now forming their own business to dodge it.

Sales taxes are for when something is sold; until the owner actually sells, it's a property tax. It's not rocket science... and we already have the Foreign Buyer Tax and Empty Home Tax to counter speculators.
Also, practically every city in the metro has housing prices over $1m... so you're basically just asking for property taxes to go up, which is a completely different argument.

[ssiguy]

I NEVER said you can tax someone for keeping their house. You put on the sales tax when the home is sold whether that be 18 months or 18 years from now which is why it's called a "sales" tax in the first place. This is why I stated that "18 months would give the seller lots of time to sell the property IF THEY SO DESIRED". It's also why I said in the previous post that you cannot force someone to sell their property {except for gov't appropriation uses which is not what we are talking about} but you can twist their arm.

I NEVER said, nor even implied, that the gov't can make someone sell their property. Please stop this manipulation of what I have stated. It adds nothing to the needed conversation about Vancouver's housing crisis. If you don't agree with my statements then fine, feel free to critic them and/or offer alternatives but stop with the falsehoods and misrepresentations.

[Migrant_Coconut]

That's... literally just reinventing the Property Transfer Tax and the Foreign Buyer Tax (both of which can be increased, but that has not been suggested here). Nothing of value has been added to the conversation so far.

Originally Posted by madog222

AC is now planning to Rouge all their 7M8s by the end of 2026, the first will start being reconfigured before the end of this year.

Wrong thread?

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Wrong thread?

Yes… That was weird.