Originally Posted by Rusty Gull
Great discussion. Interesting times for Vancouver. It does feel like the city is reaching some kind of existential crisis. At the same time, I think some perspective is needed. Yes, the movement of global capital is fueling the crisis, but it's not the only variable in play. There is immigration from abroad; there is migration into the region from across the country. All of these factors are nothing new - they've been in play for decades. But they are exacerbated by recent trends, such as the outflow of capital from other countries, AND the strength of the Canadian economy. Face it: Canada is one of the world's most desirable nations, and Vancouver is one if its signature cities. And its economy is growing. All of this is to say that any one viewpoint on the cause of the crisis is legitimate, but that considered in sum this crisis has been created by a perfect storm of causes.
Personally, I was priced out of the City of Vancouver years ago. I wound up relocating to the North Shore (North Van City) which offered much of the upside of the city, but with cheaper housing costs. At the time, the costs to rent and/or buy were much cheaper. Yet folks in the City would dismiss a place like Lower Lonsdale out of hand, on the grounds that they could not possibly leave the urban center. In other words, if you were a middle-income earner, you could either a) buy outside of the city limits, or East/South Van; or b) rent in the city.
At the same time, the City of Vancouver was doing a huge disservice to the region over the last decade by failing to seriously commit to densification in the vast West Side. Prices to buy any kind of homes, including condos, were never within realistic reach of those making less than six figures in a swathe of land that stretched from essentially Cambie to UBC. And UBC didn't help matters by devoting some of their building efforts to *luxury* housing developments. The city also failed to invest in projects like the False Creek Streetcar, which could have facilitated the development of a dense, family-oriented corridor linking Granville Island to the Downtown Eastside and Coal Harbour. Instead, we're stuck with yuppified or abandoned high-end condo enclaves.
The region and the province also seriously under-invested in transit during the past two decades, exacerbating the crisis. Ironically, the housing stock that continued to be built for working people and families was in jurisdictions like, gasp, Surrey and Langley. So now we have stunning population growth in the Fraser Valley, and an equally stunning inability for people who live there to get to the big job centers in Vancouver and Burnaby.
And so people from afar look at the situation and say "no thank you!" The region is dysfunctional and the quality of life for people who actually -live- in Metro Vancouver is significantly lower than for people living in smaller cities like Calgary and Ottawa, but especially lower than those in mid-sized cities like Victoria, Kelowna, Guelph, Saskatoon, etc.
Now, some perspective is needed: We are pricier than Toronto, Seattle, and the Bay Area - but not by much. There is a fundamental shift happening right now in the economy. People in Vancouver tend to navel-gaze, and fail to consider that the local real crisis is connected to skyrocketing costs in housing happening across the country and continent. And as long as interest rates are low, economic growth is strong, and millennials are pouring out of university programs to start their lives in major cities, this trend will not go away.
My prediction: The market will correct itself. Without reasonable housing for those employed in trades, services, and even white collar professions, there will be a hollowing out of the vitality of the city (you can sense this already in Vancouver west side) and a subsequent drop in demand for real estate. Housing dollars, at least from within the province, will be drawn to the places that offer the ideal mix of services, recreation, schools, transportation, and jobs. So we may see a huge movement of real estate investment from Vancouver into Surrey, or Kamloops, or Alberta. That's the long view.
The other scenario is some kind of big geopolitical event that scares both local and offshore investors out of real estate and into cash. That would reset prices in Vancouver and bring things back to equilibrium.
But to the writer of the Tyee article about leaving Vancouver, I might ask: Why didn't you give New West a shot in the first place?
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