Chinese Investors Driving Up Metro Housing Prices

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Rent is skyrocketing due to Airbnb now. Where do you suggest Canadians who are too poor to continue living in their home town go? Calgary used to be the answer, but now it's in a huge recession. Victoria has no jobs outside of government. Toronto is no relief financially. Montreal isn't great economically and isn't welcoming to non-French speakers. The only towns that are more affordable are miserable frozen shit holes with very few jobs.

Sure rental rates in Vancouver are quite high (average of almost $2300 for 2 beds) but rental rates in the suburbs are definitely still affordable.

Surrey: $1027
Burnaby: $1940
Delta: $1163
Port Moody: $974 (this one is for 1 beds)
Langley: $934
Coquitlam: $1215

And even if rents eveywhere in Metro Vancouver were absurdly high, that's still no excuse to go into debt you can't afford and then ask people for sympathy.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by ryanmaccdn

Also the AirBnb thing is such a shitty excuse for lack of rentals... solution ditch the ALR and build some density and problem solved.

There really is no need to ditch the ALR when 90% of the City of Vancouver is still single family housing and you have SkyTrain stations like 29th Avenue and Nanaimo that are surrounded in low density.

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by ryanmaccdn

"miserable frozen shit holes with very few jobs" that's like 95% of this country.... then why stay in Canada?

Also the AirBnb thing is such a shitty excuse for lack of rentals... solution ditch the ALR and build some density and problem solved.

...maybe we should all follow Jebby's lead and head to Mexico City.....

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

...maybe we should all follow Jebby's lead and head to Mexico City.....

Huge housing bubble here as well. And rent to property value ratios are much higher than in Vancouver.

That said, if you have a good job (especially one that pays you in Euros or US dollars) you can live really well here.

[s211]

So many hidden posts by people I've blocked... can't imagine what I must be missing.

Anyhow, if there's someone I'd rather not be right now is an assessor, because now is the season of the effective dates for next year's assessed values. With the wheels on the bus appearing to be wobbly, their job must seem like trying to throw darts at a bouncing super ball.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Jebby

There really is no need to ditch the ALR when 90% of the City of Vancouver is still single family housing and you have SkyTrain stations like 29th Avenue and Nanaimo that are surrounded in low density.

Another need to keep the ALR is...?

It is incapable of feeding anywhere near the population of Metro, so food security isn't valid. The growing season is not suitable for growing many of the crops desired by the market (without greenhouses anyway). In fact, its very existence is due to the same demographic cohort who championed neighbourhoods and are regularly derided on SSP as grey haired NIMBYs.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Another need to keep the ALR is...?

It is incapable of feeding anywhere near the population of Metro, so food security isn't valid. The growing season is not suitable for growing many of the crops desired by the market (without greenhouses anyway). In fact, its very existence is due to the same demographic cohort who championed neighbourhoods and are regularly derided on SSP as grey haired NIMBYs.

I don't have a problem with keeping a green belt in the region, both to focus development towards density and for the environmental aspects. It would be nicer to have it as parklands instead of farms.

The thing is, developing the ALR isn't needed to help solve affordability issues. The CoV alone has the capacity of housing the entire GVRD if density were increased to European inner-city levels. Paris, for example, has over 2.2 million people living in an area slightly smaller than the City of Vancouver.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Jebby

I don't have a problem with keeping a green belt in the region, both to focus development towards density and for the environmental aspects. It would be nicer to have it as parklands instead of farms.

The thing is, developing the ALR isn't needed to help solve affordability issues. The CoV alone has the capacity of housing the entire GVRD if density were increased to European inner-city levels. Paris, for example, has over 2.2 million people living in an area slightly smaller than the City of Vancouver.

"But that's sooooo not Vancouver, we just don't have that kind of culture!"

"High density buildings lack that touch of human scale that defines the excitement and vibrancy of quiet quaint neighbourhoods"

"I hate shadows!"

"I can't play street hockey with so many people around, not that I ever played."

"High density will block the views of my precioussssss.....ahem ahem Mountains!"

"We want to roll around on our useless yards and lawns, so hands off!"

"WHerE the heck can we smoke pot when our garages are kaput?"

[go_leafs_go02]

Here are some stats to show the market has stopped which I received from a realtor. Small sample size, but you'll get the gist of it:

Walnut Grove, North Langley. 3 Bedroom townhouses (very common):

August 2016: 2 sales in the month. About 20 properties on the market right now.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Vin

"But that's sooooo not Vancouver, we just don't have that kind of culture!"

"High density buildings lack that touch of human scale that defines the excitement and vibrancy of quiet quaint neighbourhoods"

"I hate shadows!"

"I can't play street hockey with so many people around, not that I ever played."

"High density will block the views of my precioussssss.....ahem ahem Mountains!"

"We want to roll around on our useless yards and lawns, so hands off!"

"WHerE the heck can we smoke pot when our garages are kaput?"

That's because people are like you and equate density with 50 story towers. Paris has none in the city center, yet has about 5x the density of Vancouver.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Jebby

That's because people are like you and equate density with 50 story towers. Paris has none in the city center, yet has about 5x the density of Vancouver.

Paris "intra muros" (the city itself) is at about 7 storeys consistently. This is broken up by parks and bouldevards. Olympic Village has something of a "Parisian Density."

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Jebby

That's because people are like you and equate density with 50 story towers. Paris has none in the city center, yet has about 5x the density of Vancouver.

That's a tough thing for a 12 year old who has never left their parents basement to comprehend.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Vin

"But that's sooooo not Vancouver, we just don't have that kind of culture!"

"High density buildings lack that touch of human scale that defines the excitement and vibrancy of quiet quaint neighbourhoods"

"I hate shadows!"

"I can't play street hockey with so many people around, not that I ever played."

"High density will block the views of my precioussssss.....ahem ahem Mountains!"

"We want to roll around on our useless yards and lawns, so hands off!"

"WHerE the heck can we smoke pot when our garages are kaput?"

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by ryanmaccdn

"miserable frozen shit holes with very few jobs" that's like 95% of this country.... then why stay in Canada?

Also the AirBnb thing is such a shitty excuse for lack of rentals... solution ditch the ALR and build some density and problem solved.

In the middle of nowhere unserviced by any transit?

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by ryanmaccdn

"miserable frozen shit holes with very few jobs" that's like 95% of this country.... then why stay in Canada?

Also the AirBnb thing is such a shitty excuse for lack of rentals... solution ditch the ALR and build some density and problem solved.

People who have no desirable skills have a hard time moving at all, let alone immigrating to countries with a better economy.

And shitty excuse or not Airbnb is the reason why the rental situation is so bad now.

[trofirhen]

Found this on Yahoo! Canada. Indicative of where the toll of sky-high housing: buying or rental - is taking the city. People talk about this, yet whistle in the dark. More to come, no doubt.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/workers-tough-pricey-vancouver-rental-052841855.html

[ssiguy]

Did some fact checking on robchipman.com.

He tracks average asking and selling prices for all sold homes in the REBGV. In June there were 2 days where the average sales of the day were UNDER $900k and in July 3 days. In August there have only been 4 days OVER $900k and today was the lowest at $760k. That is a hell of a plunge in such a short amount of time and even if some could be written off as feer SFH sales, the selling prices today were $27k under asking which means condo/th prices are also dropping. There were only 100 homes{condo/th/sfh} sold over the weekend.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Did some fact checking on robchipman.com.

He tracks average asking and selling prices for all sold homes in the REBGV. In June there were 2 days where the average sales of the day were UNDER $900k and in July 3 days. In August there have only been 4 days OVER $900k and today was the lowest at $760k. That is a hell of a plunge in such a short amount of time and even if some could be written off as feer SFH sales, the selling prices today were $27k under asking which means condo/th prices are also dropping. There were only 100 homes{condo/th/sfh} sold over the weekend.

It's a .Net url

[ssiguy]

Thanks.

[whatnext]

Words of wisdom from today's Globe & Mail:

It was not long ago that the real estate community in Metro Vancouver held an unequivocal view of the notion foreign nationals from China were buying up the region in bulk and forcing house prices obscenely skyward in the process: It was unadulterated bunk.

The number of homes bought by people living abroad was an inconsequential fraction of the total, the real-estate association insisted. British Columbians with mean annual family incomes of $60,000, we were expected to believe, were behind the unprecedented feeding frenzy we were witnessing: Average Joes and Janes bidding hundreds of thousands more than asking for teardowns suddenly worth $2-million or more.

Initially, the Liberal government went along with this fantasy, not wanting to do anything to anger its friends in the real-estate and development sectors or stifle the lucrative flow of tax dollars these transactions were providing to provincial coffers.

Eventually, however, any allegiance the Liberals felt toward a group that had donated millions to their cause throughout the years was trumped by hard, political fact: The province’s long-governing party faced the real prospect of losing next year’s election unless it did something to address public anger over the high cost of housing. Which is how we ended up with the government in July imposing a 15-per-cent property-transfer tax on foreign nationals buying real estate in Metro Vancouver. The motivation was political survival, nothing else...

....
Meantime, remember: The foreign property-transfer tax is a good thing and do not let anyone try to tell you differently – least of all realtors.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/brit...olitical-survival/article31628911/?ord=1