Chinese Investors Driving Up Metro Housing Prices

[slide_rule]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I do have access to several years of a real estate company's books, I work in the industry, and like I said in my post, most of what you said is correct, I just disagreed with some of what you said. I dont know why you didn’t bother to ask what I disagreed with.

First off, I'm sure you know that REITs are no longer tax avoidance schemes, and even when they were, it is not the fault of the board for adopting a IT structure, but of the government for making it such an attractive alternative to incorporation. Second, I dont think Godfrey being on the board of RioCan does not make him the boss, he is a board member and nothing more. The inherent conflict of interest you attempt to create is not very likely, as the much more likely story is simplly shoddy journalism and sensationalist titles. Drivers of RE prices are much much more deep seeded than confidence in the industry, and Godfrey knows this, making some price influencing media conspiracy theory just not very likely in my opinion.

Second, I would hesitate to call the Mainland Chinese investors amateur. Though they may not be corporate or institutional investors, most mainlanders with money are well educated and of the business class, and would likely therefore be somewhat sophisticated, at least sophisticated enough to hire an advisor or consultant when making an international investment, especially in real estate.

I do agree that the banks and RE industry have a very close relationship and a vested interest in keeping prices rising, and like I said, I took this away from your post and disregarded the rest.

With regards to your latest post, I have some serious issues with your logic. Double declining depreciation does not allow for heavier reinvestment. First off double declining depreciation wipes assets off ones book sooner rather than later, making it difficult to secure debt financing as there are less opportunities for asset backed collateralized loans not to mention the damage it does to a firm's financial metrics. As well the benefits of DD depreciation do not show up in a company's ability to capitalize projects, as CAPEX is a pre-tax expense and therefore a product of free cash flows and not after tax NI, which is what is benefitted by DD depreciation. I am not even aware of many firms double declining their land assets, in fact im not even sure that would comply with GAAP, but I'm not an accountant so I don't spend too much time looking at various firm's depreciation methodologies. The DD depreciation method does not allow for a firm to invest more in CAPEX, but merely allows it to report a lower taxable income without affecting its cashflows... very handy for sure, but not a contributor to the raise in re prices.

Lower taxes on capital gains on the other hand certainly could be argued to have had an effect, but this is a very divisive issue and there are pros and cons to lowering capital gains taxes... and that is a very long and protracted debate that I dont know anyone here wants to sit through, and frankly belongs in its own thread if anyone cares to talk about it.

Finally, tax shields certainly allow a firm access to more capital, both from making a shift to higher leverage attractive, and freeing up more capital from a firms tax bill, but that is an issue that affects the entire economy, not just the RE industry, and has more positive effects than negative. Don't really know why taxes would be paid on income tax expenses anyway... they are expenses afterall.

Ease of access to capital was, and still is, the prime casue of the rise in RE prices. There are so many causes and symptoms of that it could, and has, literally filled volumes of books. If you would like to discuss that one further please create a thread entitled "The financial crisis of 2007 and how we haven't actually fixed a thing" and I would be more than happy to chat about it on end. I keep in contact with a lot of my profs from b-school and we have had quite a few chats about it lately. It's an incredibly interesting and complex web of mistakes and misguided policies that just can't be summed up in one post here.

you've written so much. yet i had ONE quibble. i'll address that, then go on.

i argued that accelerated depreciation schemes were a contributing factor to the asset price bubble. many properties are owned for only a few years. declining depreciation schemes result in higher yields for short term owners. a generation ago, a building was depreciated using the straight line method. plotted on a graph, with the x axis being time and the y axis being depreciation expense, it would go down in a straight line. with declining value depreciation, the depreciation expense would be asymptotic. because of accelerated depreciation, the (paper) expense would be much higher in the first few years of ownership. a higher paper depreciation would not detract from actual revenue, but it would lead to a lower tax burden. for the first years of any real estate investment, accelerated depreciation results in more after-tax profit.

EVERY school of economics argues that higher yields will result in more investment. classical economists like smith/mill/ricardo/marx state that lowered tax burdens/higher yields on real estate investments will result in further investment and hence higher values and even more unearned income. the chicago/austrian school boys state that the lowered tax burden and higher yields will result in higher prices and wealth creation. arguing against the initial tax-friendly aspects of accelerated depreciation is akin to arguing against gravity.

REITs have ALWAYS been tax avoidance schemes. their rules have been changed, but they still have a higher expected return than other investment schemes. i didn't BLAME the real estate people for the investment trust industry, i just said it contributed to some fat profits and inflated values.

mind you, much of the government's tax laws ARE in fact influenced by the FIRE industry. all those profits concentrated into a few connected and politically organized industries could lead to some nice campaign contributions. but then with your logic, you could argue that the interest expense deduction and low, low capital gains taxes on real estate speculation aren't influenced by vested interests. maybe workers are lobbying for low capital gains taxes? maybe those mainland chinse are lobbying for them? or maybe we can use a little logic and see that the already politically organized and powerful want the tax laws to their liking?

you can continue goosestepping with the other gullible fools and follow the newspaper in casting blame on one particular ethnic group, and ignore the inherent advantages of the real estate industry. it's so easy to blame it on the out-group, while ignoring the systemic advantages of commercial real estate industry. *hint hint* the ability to deduct interest expense on real estate investment.

go ahead and doubt my logic. unless you're an apologist for the FIRE industry friendly tax laws, and thus seek to deflect blame for the asset price bubble onto some third party, you're just not making any coherent point. you thoroughly mangled depreciation expense, yet you're accusing someone else of faulty logic?

[LeftCoaster]

Listen, I have tried to be very civil and engaging here, and I don't see how it is at all useful to imply that I am a gullible fool, especially when the implication is built on something I never said. Where did I ever blame the run up on mainland Chinese investors? I will quote myself here:

Ease of access to capital was, and still is, the prime casue of the rise in RE prices.

If you are going resort to petty name calling please at least read what I have to say, I actually work in the industry and am quite well informed on the subject and don't just read articles on the issues.

I don't understand how I "thoroughly mangled" accelerated depreciation, when my definition of it is essentially textbook and far more detailed than any explanation that you have ever given.

You completely ignored my points about fewer unencumbered assets in which to back debt financing, which is in actuality vitally important. Most investments are not made through retained earnings, which would be aided by DD depreciation, but through debt financing, which would be hampered by heightened rates of depreciation. I never "argued against gravity" i just argued that the effects of depreciating faster are not the only ones at play and that they would in fact likely have little to no effect on CAPEX. Investment in real-estate, and most any revenue generating project is much more complicated than simply increasing after tax income.

This is all entirely moot though, as IFRS stipulates that investment properties, under IAS 40, are not to be depreciated, but marked at fair value and gains/losses are to amortized on an annual basis. Furthermore it is against both IFRS and GAAP regulations to depreciate land prices, so only the buildings can be depreciated, which usually represents a small portion of an asset's value. Don't know where you read that double declining depreciation was a major cause of the run up in real estate prices, but it is just plain wrong.

Can you find me a single REIT that depreciates their investment assets at double declining rates? Their books are public so all the information is available.

I said it before and I'll say it again: "Easy access to cheap capital was and is the number one cause of rapidly rising RE prices"

[slide_rule]

without getting too much further into things: you have to learn to decipher an income statement. there's no other way to put it.

depreciation expense effectively allows for HIGHER after tax income. that higher after tax income just attracts more money to be put into real estate. a real estate company's higher after tax profits make them more secure customers to the banks.

the CRA lists class 1 assets as depreciating by 4% on a declining scale. *a bizarre combo of double declining and straight line is used in the US*

if you didn't defend paul godfrey's interests in a previous post, i wouldn't even bother. before you were just amongst the chorus. with the defence of paul godfrey and his REIT, you've crossed over into inadvertent shill. as if a realtor's description of a few sales to individual buyers from a one distinct place can be compared to behemoth investment trusts? anyone who reads the vancouver sun and does not notice the overt hypocrisy is suspect himself.

Lower taxes on capital gains on the other hand certainly could be argued to have had an effect, but this is a very divisive issue and there are pros and cons to lowering capital gains taxes

when you give the above quote, you're just parroting what the FIRE industry wants you to say. increasing capital gains on real estate speculation? it'd most hurt the FIRE industry, and they have the political power to protect their cash cow.

several years ago i was (un)lucky enough to have worked in arizona. the local newspaper of record, the arizona republic was spewing very similar faux populist stuff about the influx of canadians into phoenix and how the real estate prices were being inflated. like you, it did not broach the subjects of intangible depreciation on an inflating asset, it didn't talk about the interest expense deduction, it didn't talk about low, low capital gains. it didn't mention the local real estate companies profiting handsomely. all it did was say the canadians were well-heeled and savvy investors and were helping to fuel the then high prices.

you see the analogy between the arizona republic circa 2006 and the vancouver sun now?

yet the papers AND you were dismissive of the FIRE industry's role and fat profits from asset price bubbles. think of arizona. how many of those rich canadian investors were able to lobby the US politicians for favorable tax laws, lobby for upzoning, lobby for infrastructure improvements in their vicinity? many of those "sophisticated" canadians couldn't figure out the basic withholding taxes, let alone manipulate the system.

why could you harp on the thread, acknowledge the role of the "sophisticated" mainland chinese investors and dismiss any accusations against the real estate companies? with your logic, you could emphasize the power of individual stock market investors while ignoring the role of the investment banks and brokers. you could also dwell on the power of small time retailers while ignoring the power of walmart.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by slide_rule

without getting too much further into things: you have to learn to decipher an income statement. there's no other way to put it.

I dont know why you need to go here. I have an MBA, I work in corporate finance for one of the larger institutional investors in the world and I spend more time looking at financal documents in a day than you probably have in your entire life.

You have made it quite clear by ignoring every technical arguement I have put forward that you know absolutely nothing of the subject aside from what you have read in a few newspapers and investopedia.

Your lack of understanding the fundamental excercises of accounting are simply staggering. A firm cannot depreciate an asset at whatever rate they want, the depreciation must match the assets useful life, if not then the auditors will not sign off on the statements, its that simple. You cannot depreciate 60% of a buildings worth in the first year unless you can reasonably claim that depreciation to be accurate. The depreciation must reflect the useful life of the asset. And like I said in my last post, which you so blatantly ignored, Canadian REITs following IFRS go even further than this and mark their assets to their fair value, which is annually adjusted, and gains or asset impairments are noted. Depreciation isnt even an issue.

You continually ignore all the technical proof and insight I offer and return to quoting off the cuff articles and centuries old economic theory written before modern finance was even a consideration. These theories did a great job of laying the foundation for economic theory, but they do not apply to the intracies of modern corporate finance. If you tried to explain the structure of CDOs which brought down Lehman Smith's head would probably explode... both at the stupidity of what was going on and the complexity of financial insturments being utilized.

I asked you to explain how decreasing a firms ability to meet debt covenants and collatoralize assets isnt affeccted by accelorating depreciation: You ignored it.

I told you the majority of CAPEX investments are made through additional leverage, not retained earnings: You ignored it.

I asked you to find examples of REITs double declining their assets: You ignored it.

I explicitly said that the main reason of the price runups has been low interest rates and that banks are inherantly in bed with the RE industry: You ignored it.

I've tried to be polite but I've had enough, take a business class, educate yourself, then come back and maybe we can have a discussion. Until then I'm done with this.

[phesto]

The new real estate protectionism is misguided

By CAM GOOD, Special to The Sun April 21, 2011

In the last two months, we’ve sold over 700 condos in Toronto. Sixty per cent went to Mainland Chinese buyers. In meccas like Richmond, 98 per cent of the hundreds of homes we’ve sold are to buyers who are Chinese. Even in White Rock, we sold 35 per cent of a new condo tower to buyers from Mainland China. For a new market like White Rock, that’s a shocking number.

As the North American media has just recently picked up, buyers from Mainland China are a driving force in our real estate market. The staggering truth is we’ve seen just the tip of the iceberg. There is a rapidly growing middle class in China which is just now beginning to realize they can afford homes abroad.

Chinese buy Canadian homes because they care about nothing more than their kids, their kids’ education and real estate. They also want a safe haven for their wealth. These are some of the push factors.

Pull factors are that Chinese are crazy about Canada. They think it’s safe and stable, with a great education system, and we survived fairly well through the global economic downturn. Plus, our real estate is freehold and less expensive, even in pricey Vancouver.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese are “stampeding to Vancouver and Toronto, two of Canada’s hottest markets.” For that, we should be grateful. Chinese have made owning real estate in Canada more rewarding than any of us expected and they have made our society distinctly richer by bringing their values and culture to Canada and sharing them with us.

But instead of gratitude, I see growing fear and resentment that foreign buyers are inflating prices and pricing “us” and “our children” out of the market.

I recently hosted a helicopter tour of White Rock for a select group of Chinese realtors. In response to the media coverage of that event, my office was inundated with emails from people who think this will cause a Chinese takeover. I was threatened and faced the brunt of many nasty words – too nasty to put into print here.

This is not, unfortunately, a minority voice. Former Vancouver city councillor Peter Ladner recently spoke out about how Chinese homebuyers are “warping” real estate prices in the city. What to do?

There are a growing number of people and politicians who profess imposing restrictions on offshore property investors – as they do in countries like Australia – to protect our interests. But in the last two years, our government has imposed higher standards that make it more difficult and expensive for immigrants to come to Canada. And even though we’ve raised the bar, immigration remains strong. The government is doing what it should. We are benefiting and the system is working.

It’s too late for protectionist measures anyway. There are so many Chinese here already. We are a nation of immigrants after all and Chinese Canadians are some of the best. I’ve got no tolerance for this kind of attitude. In fact, I would love to see the advocates of this nonsense debate their ideas with some native people. I think they would really enjoy the irony.

Let’s look at what this global trend is doing to benefit us: It’s driving demand and creating a real estate industry that is the envy of the entire world. Our land, homes and businesses have become more valuable and Chinese investment is a big reason we weathered the global economic storm as well as we did. We are finally outperforming and stepping out from the shadow of our big American brother. The argument for protecting our real estate from offshore investment is not economic, but emotional. It’s based on fear and who has time for that? Not me.

If you suffer from real estate impotence, don’t blame Chinese people. Besides, getting all worked up about it will only make it worse. Have a glass of wine. Relax. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and pick up the phone to call a realtor or a mortgage broker, either of whom will be more than happy to show you how easy it can be to get your real estate groove on.

Real estate is the best investment you’ll ever make, but don’t take my word for it. Ask any of the 70 per cent of Canadians who are already owners. Or a Chinese person.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/real+es...sguided/4651769/story.html#ixzz1KZZApGwC

Ugh.

[whatnext]

What a steaming load of crap that article is. But then most realtors are one step above used car salesmen.

I guess I'm not selfish enough to believe "I've got my house in Vancouver, so screw the rest of you who will never be able to afford one" ethos he's peddling.

Interesting article in the weekend Globe & Mail about bogus immigration to Canada, which explains how so many from Mainland China are able to snap up property for ridiculously inflated prices:

How China’s ‘crooked consultants’ help the rich enter Canada

...An estimated 400 firms based in China offer their services to prospective immigrants. Of the 22 approached by The Globe’s fictitious client, no fewer than 18 advised fabricating documents to produce the required background.

Although many suggested he ask someone who owns a company to create the income and tax documentation, eight said they could produce the papers themselves. Two even offered to have a Canadian company speed the process by hiring the applicant, if only on paper....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/worl...-rich-enter-canada/article1996240/page2/

[SpongeG]

yah my prospect of an $8 an hour job will get me buying a $1,000,000 home

[cornholio]

That article is downright disgusting. This is a big issue, but what makes it really big is the fact that China has a economy growing at over 10% per year and nearly 1.5billion people. Our world is full of protectionism, it has to be, they are called government, laws, rules, regulations, taxes, etc. anyone who thinks that we arent heading straight for a disaster is ignorant. This is nothing about race, its about a country nearly twice the size of the entire EU that is producing hundreds of thousands of new millionaires every year and growing at break neck speeds. Rapid change like this always ends very badly, China is doing their part to try and cool their economy and keep control, Canada should be doing the same regarding real estate speculation and investments. Once China stumbles, and it will, Canada is going to get screwed.

Personally I think immigration reforms and realestate reforms cant come fast enough, and at that I would like to see massive investment in better investigating current and especially past claims, any forgeries should result in residency and citizenship being stripped and the person deported. This process should be streamlined.

Regardless we are heading that way anyways, and more so the rest of Canada will take us there.

*I should add I have more experience and knowledge about our current immigration system then likely anyone here. Cant get in to details though.

[Zassk]

Er... since when is real estate affordable on minimum wage in Canada? Probably never.

[SpongeG]

no but thats the kind of jobs out there

most jobs out there pay crap like $8 or $9 an hour - just to get a simple job now like in a kitchen you need a food safe certificate or a serving it right certificate

Over the last year I have met a number of people - from china, phillipines who are brought over to work and they are making minimum wage but compared to what they would get back home they are making great money but they can't afford to live here and they complain how expensive it is here, they don't wanna leave here but they just struggle to live here and send money back home

[LeftCoaster]

Most jobs pay 8-9 an hour? I havent worked for that wage since I was, well never. My first job as a summer landscape labourer payed $12 an hour cash. My sister worked as a cashier for $18 an hour... I dont really believe that MOST jobs pay minimum wage.

Also if migrants chose to work here and dont want to go back becasue their life is better here, if still somewhat difficult, I dont see the problem. Life isnt supposed to be easy.

Not to mention if you are unable to get a serving certificate than I dont really want you handling my food. Its not rocket science, it just a damn certificate.

I dont see the problem with mainland chinese immigration, if they are moving here, bringing business and prosperity im just fine with it. Speculation on the other hand is another issue entirely.

[SpongeG]

Most jobs pay 8-9 an hour? I havent worked for that wage since I was, well never. My first job as a summer landscape labourer payed $12 an hour cash. My sister worked as a cashier for $18 an hour... I dont really believe that MOST jobs pay minimum wage.

Also if migrants chose to work here and dont want to go back becasue their life is better here, if still somewhat difficult, I dont see the problem. Life isnt supposed to be easy.

You have to pay for the certificates like $75 - $100 when you have a minimum wage job thats a lot of money to fork out.

I am just sharing my friends experience he doesn't understand how people can live here when its so expensive to live in Canada and I tend to agree with them, good paying jobs are hard to find these days

i've been looking for more than a year maybe I am too picky but I can't survive on what is being offered thats why I am going to duck out and go to school soon and even than the field I am going into doesn't pay that well but enough that I will be okay. I am going to be a chef and i have investigated the field and wages range from $8 an hour to $20 an hour. its much less than I used to make as a graphic designer but I don't wanna pay to go back to school and upgrade in that field cause its not much better and the job prospects suck.

my one filipino friend works in a kitchen for minimum wage or just over it - he never immigrated here, he is on a work visa, the chinese guy i know is the same he came here on a work visa and works in a restaurant. I know another filipino guy who came as a nurse on a work visa couldn't afford vancouver and is now somewhere in a small ontario town. They are happy but lets face it vancouver is expensive and these people are taking the jobs canadians don't want cause they pay so low.

my friend who is trying to immgrate here from korea just got a job - he is a chef and is working for $8 an hour and he said he has never worked so hard in his life for such little money, he will try to get into a better place when he can but he has to leave canada for an interview to move to canada and than a japanese friend is also trying to immigrate here he worked for some japanese company in richmond for $9 an hour and he said he has never worked so physically hard for so little money - he's a web designer/graphic designer and he took a warehouse job for a while

I have a friend who works at the hospital in an entry level position for a over $18 an hour but next year they are privatizing what he does and they are expecting the wage to drop to about $12 an hour. It already happenned with the kitchen staff.

I don't know what you people do but please share the secrets to making a livable wage.

[jlousa]

I swear I didn't pay more then $20 for my serve it right certificate, took the course over the net to be able to bartend at a friends function. Think the whole process took well under an hour too.

It never fails to surprise me that a family of immigrants making min wage are able to scrap together a downpayment and buy a fixer upper in east van and then rent out the basement and always make their mortgage payments, while Canadian born couples making close to 100K/yr combined can't manage to afford condo in this city.

[SpongeG]

thats not my point - point is when i was a kid you wanted a restaurant job you applied you didn't need any kind of certificate to get your foot in the door now just an entry level job you need so much to get the position cause the next applicant is going to have it.

I got my food safe last fall and it was $75 and it was the cheapest one i could find, most were like $95. I needed for my school application.

I looked at an entry level mail office job just recently and you needed a degree or equivalent schooling beyond high school just to apply for that.

now you need so much just to get a crappy paying job, its crazy to me how much you have to do to get a job, I had the same job since 1996 and before that I always had a job never had been on EI before. I got laid off with people who worked there for over 30 years and they are like in shock and still not working cause there is so much competition its crazy. They are and I am discovering too much experience at one job is maybe a bad thing these days. and than other places think you are over qualified and why are you even applying to this.

I have to deal with job counselors and such being on EI and one of them said one of her clients who was well qualified was going for a retail job and there were over 200 applicants for like 10 positions, the counselor said she hasn't seen that sort of thing ever in the past, its getting really desperate and the companies know that and they can pay like minimum wage cause there is someone willing to work for it.

Its hard to adjust to the idea of working two jobs but looks like thats what I will have to do.

It never fails to surprise me that a family of immigrants making min wage are able to scrap together a downpayment and buy a fixer upper in east van and then rent out the basement and always make their mortgage payments, while Canadian born couples making close to 100K/yr combined can't manage to afford condo in this city.

that might have been the case a decade or so ago, a fixer upper in east van is well over $600,000 now and constantly rising. when you are making $20,000 a year it takes a long time to save the down payment unless you live on nothing.

[Millennium2002]

One of my high school teachers once said that eventually we'll need degrees to bag groceries at the stores ^^'

But yeah in some places its getting dangerously outrageous. ><"

[SpongeG]

i totally took it off topic - but these are just things my friends talk about - cause the ones here on work visas ask me how do you afford to live here? how can people buy houses that cost $1 million? etc. and my friend who is immigrating finds vancouver expensive too and he just got his first job in canada and when we go out for coffee now he goes I have to work 25 minutes to afford this drink and he is really thinking about things differently now

anyway I have no issues with investors i never planned on owning a home here lifetime renter i will be

[logan5]

Wouldn't the solution be to build a healthy supply of housing as to cool speculation and sour the milk so to speak. Or is that too simplistic?

[whatnext]

This article from the weekend G & M illustrates the problem:

On a recent trip to Vancouver, Jin Wang, a Chinese businesswoman, toured a large home – six bedrooms and seven baths – listed at $3.6-million in the British Properties, a wealthy enclave on the north shore overlooking the ocean and the city.

Ms. Wang and her husband, Hui Huang, made their money in the import and export of electronics, leveraging government connections in Beijing to do business in Shanghai. The Chinese nationals also expanded their business to domestic real estate in China. Now, they’re looking to invest more heavily in Vancouver real estate. Three years ago, the couple first bought a $2.1-million home on Vancouver’s west side and rented it to a local family. Its value has since hurtled past $3-million. Back this month to scout more buys, Ms. Wang closed a deal for a $3-million home on Chartwell Drive in the British Properties and mulled the additional $3.6-million home on the same street. ...

...Ms. Wang – who was scouting another home in the British Properties – buys for investment purposes, and although she and her husband don’t plan to move to Canada, the desire for a stronger education is a factor. Ms. Wang’s 17-year-old daughter lives in Vancouver, where she attends private school, a motivation for the family’s investment in the city....
(bold mine)

So somebody with no intentions to move to Canada has basically removed at least three properties from the local housing market, indirectly driving up prices of properties that remain.

Furthermore, how is a Canadian, working under Canada's environmental regulations and tax regime supposed to compete with the Mrs.Wangs and their "Beijing connections"?

[geoff's two cents]

In my opinion, one potential way to mitigate the high cost of living would be to authorize new construction of ultra-small rental or condo suites, very much along the lines of what is on offer in places like Japan and Korea. My living space, for instance, is ~500 square feet, only about half of which I actually use, and the other half could easily have been planned much more efficiently. It also costs me a little more than I can comfortably afford, and I make a wage that would stand me in good stead in pretty much any other part of the country.

In fact, I can't understand why Vancouver isn't already considering this - if not as stand-alone buildings, at least as recommended, required, or height trade-off components of new condo construction downtown. It certainly wouldn't need to be "social housing." One can hope that this rather sizeable untapped market for affordable, micro, owner-lived-in, ultra high-density housing will open the door to lower-income areas like Central Surrey, which is desperate to get numbers in their up-and-coming "downtown."

I think the gap thus far is also an index of how rapid the growth in the Lower Mainland has been over the past 25 years, and how our collective mentality hasn't kept pace with the rate of change. It's an utter mystery to me, for instance, that, in a region with excellent transit such as ours, cities are still zoning for minimum parking-space requirements (I'm not sure what Vancouver's policy is on this at the moment, though I understand there has been recent talk of it changing. Perhaps somebody here knows?), rather than letting the market decide. You can't blame that on the Chinese!

[ckkelley]

Most people it seems aren't willing to make the sacrifice needed to own real estate in Vancouver. There's definitely an attitude of entitlement for some strange reason (I want to live where I want live and I want to pay what I want to pay).

I ALWAYS knew that if you want to get ahead in the world, it doesn't happen without sacrifice. For most people it just isn't going to happen otherwise.

I just dont see it as being more complicated than that.