Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[misher]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Aren't a lot of these Chinese foreign buyers not working and thus have an income of $0?

Its referring to neighborhoods and segregation, basically the rich/poor areas and who lives there. If you make 0 but live in a rich neighborhood your part of that neighborhood. So that loophole doesn't work.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by misher

Goes to Surrey, looks around, yes lots of Chinese billionaires here.
Goes to North Van, looks around, yes, so many asians right?
Goes to East Van, looks around, hey where did my bike go.....

I'm disgusted at how prevalent racism against Chinese is. Basically been blamed for all BC's troubles since the 1800's. Despite being overall on average poorer than white people, asians still face racial oppression with the excuse that "some of them" are visibly rich now whereas before they were accused of being too poor. Overall most of Metro Vancouver's wealth is concentrated among its white population as per the below. Overwhelmingly white people occupy the rich neighborhoods of Vancouver. But its the fact that asians have started to become their neighbors that has started calls for racism against asians.

Calm down.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Calm down.

How would you feel if I said blacks are responsible for stds and crime? Or natives are all druggie homeless?

I'm angry because there's blatant racism here and no one is speaking out against it. We're not some group of white supremacists, we're Canadians and we have a duty to speak out against racism even if the racism isn't against our own race. Not only have I spoken out against racism, I've posted stats and figures disproving it. Yet all I receive is denials and silence. Has illogical racism become the Canadian way?

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by misher

How would you feel if I said blacks are responsible for stds and crime? Or natives are all druggie homeless?

I'm angry because there's blatant racism here and no one is speaking out against it. We're not some group of white supremacists, we're Canadians and we have a duty to speak out against racism even if the racism isn't against our own race. Not only have I spoken out against racism, I've posted stats and figures disproving it. Yet all I receive is denials and silence. Has illogical racism become the Canadian way?

Oh for crying out loud. People here are speaking out against the Chinese and their foreign ownership of bloody real estate, which yes has had an effect on Vancouver and Toronto real estate, just like it has in some cities in Australia and New Zealand. I guess the people over there who speak out against this are racist xenophobic a**holes too, eh?

I'm so tired of the far-left SJW wingnut brigade looking for reasons to be "offended" in literally every single aspect of life. Doesn't the crusade ever wear you out?

[misher]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Oh for crying out loud. People here are speaking out against the Chinese and their foreign ownership of bloody real estate, which yes has had an effect on Vancouver and Toronto real estate, just like it has in some cities in Australia and New Zealand. I guess the people over there who speak out against this are racist xenophobic a**holes too, eh?

I'm so tired of the far-left SJW wingnut brigade looking for reasons to be "offended" in literally every single aspect of life. Doesn't the crusade ever wear you out?

And why has there been less problems in Seattle, Los Angeles, and nearly every other city on the West Coast with foreign buyer %'s higher than ours? Or India, London, etc where foreign buyers are significant. You blame a foreign buyer % of 1-3% total for a problem like the blind xenophobic racist you are. In 2015 before the FBT foreign buyer's as a % of real estate sales in BC were less than the foreign buyer average of all of America. In specific cities in America foreign buyers as a % were 5x or more what we see in Vancouver. There are problems with Vancouver, but foreign buyers is not a significant one.

However, I know what truly drives you, the fear that a minority may move into your neighborhood. After all, we need to keep our rich neighborhoods "pure". Minorities are overwhelmingly represented in poor neighborhoods yet you say they are the problem? Are they those pests you think we should exterminate? Are you angry that they live in a cheap condo and not a proper house like a white person?

Vancouver is one of the most racist cities in Canada. Its City Council has even noticed that its voters avoid voting for candidates with foreign last names such that the whole Council is white.
http://thevolcano.org/2019/02/05/anti-ch...new-yellow-peril-and-the-electoral-left/

[theman23]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Oh for crying out loud. People here are speaking out against the Chinese and their foreign ownership of bloody real estate, which yes has had an effect on Vancouver and Toronto real estate, just like it has in some cities in Australia and New Zealand. I guess the people over there who speak out against this are racist xenophobic a**holes too, eh?

I'm so tired of the far-left SJW wingnut brigade looking for reasons to be "offended" in literally every single aspect of life. Doesn't the crusade ever wear you out?

Uhh, misher is not left at all. He’s a paid PRC troll who, if anything, leans right.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by theman23

Uhh, misher is not left at all. He’s a paid PRC troll who, if anything, leans right.

So is Civicblues. Two peas in a pod, they are. Although Civic is definately a lefty wingnut.

[ssiguy]

Misher.......... in case you aren't aware {or refused to acknowledge}, Chinese is NOT, under ANY definition of the word, a race. Hence your "racism" card proceeds from a false assumption. This is why you don't get such negative feedback about Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Filipinos who, with the Chinese are a race. The Chinese have been behind nearly all the money laundering and house flipping in the Vancouver real estate market for the past 20 years with Richmond being ground zero...........get over it.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Misher.......... in case you aren't aware {or refused to acknowledge}, Chinese is NOT, under ANY definition of the word, a race. Hence your "racism" card proceeds from a false assumption. This is why you don't get such negative feedback about Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Filipinos who, with the Chinese are a race. The Chinese have been behind nearly all the money laundering and house flipping in the Vancouver real estate market for the past 20 years with Richmond being ground zero...........get over it.

SJWs are unable to discern facts from fiction. All they know is to fabricate lies and stimulate outrage amongst the general public to further push their leftist agenda.

[zahav]

I don't even think he's a SJW, I don't know what category he fits into in the spectrum... To his partial credit, I do think there are some people that are racist/prejudice and use the housing issue to justify or explain their comments when really it is just bigotry. But in general that isn't the case, and when people talk about it, it isn't to demonize an ethnic group or anything, it is simply the people who money launder or manipulate the market. It just happens a large amount are Chinese. I am against it no matter who is doing it, and if it was revealed that Nova Scotians or Nigerians or Germans were doing the same, my feelings would be the same to them. It's not racism, it's directed at an activity

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by zahav

I don't even think he's a SJW, I don't know what category he fits into in the spectrum... To his partial credit, I do think there are some people that are racist/prejudice and use the housing issue to justify or explain their comments when really it is just bigotry. But in general that isn't the case, and when people talk about it, it isn't to demonize an ethnic group or anything, it is simply the people who money launder or manipulate the market. It just happens a large amount are Chinese. I am against it no matter who is doing it, and if it was revealed that Nova Scotians or Nigerians or Germans were doing the same, my feelings would be the same to them. It's not racism, it's directed at an activity

I do think he is a SJW. He fits the bill perfectly. He decries racism, bigotry and xenophobia to all who even speak of the Chinese ruining certain real estate markets, which they have, in Canada and Oceania. And it is soley the Chinese who are causing this, no other ethnicity, hence why people are not crying foul against other Asian ethnicities.

But people like misher don't understand this. They just assumes that all whites are racist trash and play the racist card every chance they get. There are a few others here who also use this tactic. All this to elicit anger amongst the readers here. I've encounter so many like him in real life who enjoy envoking social anger and rage despite the reality of the situation.

This is why I can't stand SJWs. They are truly hypocritical human beings.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Pinus

And it is soley the Chinese who are causing this, no other ethnicity, hence why people are not crying foul against other Asian ethnicities.

This isn't true and even if it were true it has nothing to do with how the problem should be solved. Changes like the foreign buyer tax, empty home tax, better money laundering enforcement, etc. don't have to do with ethnicity per se.

China just happens to be the biggest source of money flowing into real estate in BC right now because of the massive growth happening there and the size of the country. But if the structural problems are not solved, eventually it will be somewhere else, because our flawed tax structure and weak law enforcement encourage people from other countries to speculate in the real estate industry here, and global capital is increasingly mobile.

[misher]

Originally Posted by someone123

This isn't true and even if it were true it has nothing to do with how the problem should be solved. Changes like the foreign buyer tax, empty home tax, better money laundering enforcement, etc. don't have to do with ethnicity per se.

China just happens to be the biggest source of money flowing into real estate in BC right now because of the massive growth happening there and the size of the country. But if the structural problems are not solved, eventually it will be somewhere else, because our flawed tax structure and weak law enforcement encourage people from other countries to speculate in the real estate industry here, and global capital is increasingly mobile.

Thank you for taking race out of it.

I do challenge that money laundering is more significant here than elsewhere. The recent BC NDP report on money laundering stated it only increases housing values by an estimated 5% and is mostly from local sources.

I look at the housing supply which is less than 2% and rental supply which is less than 1% and would propose that we have major supply issues. We currently have an estimated 2.7 people per a home according to the CoV's latest stats, where the average in Helsinki is 2.2. We definitely need to spread out our population and reduce the amount of people we have per a home. As estimated population growth is only increasing, either we stop this growth or build more supply.

In the end people keep hammering at housing prices being the issue. But if prices were lower, where will the people that sell at a discount go? I haven't seen anyone reply to this besides saying that we have tons of empty homes and that all our statistics/research is wrong. But I would argue that we need to make decisions based on the facts infront of us rather than theories/suspicion. And those facts clearly support that we have a supply crisis.

As for investors/speculators, I feel that the higher prices=more fees/taxes for the government and investors buy a home then rent it out which benefits our rental supply. If there was no investors, I would argue that most projects would not be built so that supply wouldn't exist to help renters and thus overall we lose if we take investment out of real estate. 40% of people in Vancouver have less than $200 in their bank account while 50% are renters. If we kill our rental supply further, the 40% aren't going to suddenly be able to buy houses.

Look at the below for total housing under construction, notice that it has risen with prices. If we had kept prices low and this housing didn't get built, where would people have lived? Again our supply is under 2% even with the increase in construction due to rising prices so we don't have extra homes just waiting for people. If you look at the graph below, I know foreigners, money launderers, etc. are blamed for the sudden increase in prices, but to me it looks like the sudden increase is strongly related to the rapidly decreasing supply of housing after 2015.

I'm a man of numbers and facts. These fears of money launders, foreigners, etc. are based on fears, prejudice, isolationism, and suspicion. I have the facts in front of me, vacancies went down, supply went down, demand went up. I don't comprehend how people can blame some vague threat when they have the facts right infront of them of what the obvious main cause is.




I think the below article really helps explain one of the main causes behind Vancouver's current problems:

Second, it’s quite a sight to witness traditionally left and right politicians banding together against the delivery of new secure housing, albeit for different reasons. Must the status quo be protected at all costs? Has scarcity and an over-regulatory environment helped thus far? More often than not, the permit process takes longer to fulfil than the actual construction.

The development community isn’t taking this lightly. There’s evidence in Vancouver that proposed rental projects in particular are being relegated to the “cancelled” category. Even the city’s new Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Program (MIRHPP) started with 55 applications for 20 spots, but we understand that only seven have gone forward with rezoning applications.

The city’s monetary loss will prove very significant. Will increases in metered parking and marijuana tax revenue make up the fiscal shortfall?

It’s widely acknowledged that rental apartment vacancies in Metro Vancouver are extraordinarily low (currently 1.0 per cent) and have been so for many years. Immigration remains strong, with approximately 35,000 to 40,000 new residents yearly. On the flip side, home prices remain beyond the reach of many. This has long created the perfect storm for unaffordability in our region.

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/d...-political-absurdity-over-rental-housing

We have a rental vacancy rate of 1% and yet most of our elected government officials are blocking projects. Rather than declaring an emergency and rubber stamping/rushing housing while creating large incentives to build it, they are slowing down development. Does that or some vague foreign threat contribute more to affordability in Vancouver? Does our 1% rental vacancy rate matter or can we just ignore it? If we had approved every rental project that came infront of Metro Van city councils for the past 5 years would we be facing the same affordability crisis? Would that have done more to solve the problems than the 2016 FBT that didn't seem to solve anything? Rather than blame outside threats I propose that we look in the mirror at what we're doing wrong ourselves. I understand its easier to just blame others, but perhaps we've been going at this all wrong.




PS: People keep accusing me of being so and so. In the end the solutions we've been trying are obviously not doing much, yet people say we should keep at it rather than trying something new. While I'm not into conspiracy theories, I'd suggest the only people who don't want to try something new is homeowners who want the prices to rise further. Anyone with a brain should be able to look at the stats for Vancouver and understand that we have serious supply deficiencies. And yet, we're doing our best to hammer developers accusing them of only allowing "foreigners" to live in new places or being greedy and development has actually been going down. More than 50% of new developments end out being rented out, why would we want development to go down when we need more supply?! Vancouver logic is seriously flawed.

[ssiguy]

^ Do you work for the PRC?

The reason why rentals are so expensive and scarce in Vancouver is not due to population growth. Vancouver doesn't crack the top 10 in pop growth in Canadian cities. It is because the price of real estate is so expensive that even condos are out of reach for all bu the top 10% of wage earners due to BOLIVIANS using the city as a safety deposit box and to launder their money. This means that people who, in the rest of the country who are renters and want to buy are artificially kept in the rental market.

[misher]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

^ Do you work for the PRC?

The reason why rentals are so expensive and scarce in Vancouver is not due to population growth. Vancouver doesn't crack the top 10 in pop growth in Canadian cities. It is because the price of real estate is so expensive that even condos are out of reach for all bu the top 10% of wage earners due to BOLIVIANS using the city as a safety deposit box and to launder their money. This means that people who, in the rest of the country who are renters and want to buy are artificially kept in the rental market.

No, but honestly this comment shows how ignorant and uninformed you are, the PRC wants Chinese not buying abroad. Almost everyone agrees with this, even the racist white supremacists.



Housing is not a good on a store shelf. Where will the person living in the home the renter purchased go? If homeowners become renters and renters become homeowners how does that solve anything? You haven't answered how we will solve the simple fact that we don't have spare homes unless your theory is that the research our government has done into vacant homes is wrong.

You sound like the person insisting that the rich should lose their mansions, well if the rich person loses his mansion and a poor person moves in, the rich person then lives in the poor persons house and nothing is solved.

Another example is if we have 1000 people and 1000 cars, 500 are leased and 500 are owned, if we reduce the price of the owned cars so that the owners sell to the people leasing and then the owners need to lease, is that a solution? To me it seems like nothings changed.

If your saying we should make the leased ones cheaper so the renters can buy them, well 80% of Vancouver renters don't have any money so even at 50% cheaper they couldn't afford to buy. This theory that renters don't buy because housing prices are high is faulty because if you look at their bank accounts, they have no money! Right now Canada has a debt crisis so a bunch of people taking on large loans is something we definitely don't want.

[SpongeG]

just an article to read about Australia

Sydney property developer Ralan collapses

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/sydney-property-developer-ralan-collapses-20190731-p52cep

[SpongeG]

Where is the next home price bubble brewing? Canada, New Zealand most vulnerable
Niraj Shah (Economist), Bloomberg News

Canada and New Zealand are the most vulnerable to a house price correction given both the price-income ratio and the price-rent ratio are well above their long-run averages, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Policy makers may already be acting given Canada’s government has introduced a tax on foreign buyers, while overseas purchases have been banned in New Zealand. Still, the next challenge will be whether global house prices rise as central banks get ready to lower interest rates, with the Federal Reserve set to cut rates for the first time in more than a decade on Wednesday.



...

video story at source:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/so-where-is-the-next-house-price-bubble-brewing-1.1294261

[misher]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Where is the next home price bubble brewing? Canada, New Zealand most vulnerable
Niraj Shah (Economist), Bloomberg News

Canada and New Zealand are the most vulnerable to a house price correction given both the price-income ratio and the price-rent ratio are well above their long-run averages, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Policy makers may already be acting given Canada’s government has introduced a tax on foreign buyers, while overseas purchases have been banned in New Zealand. Still, the next challenge will be whether global house prices rise as central banks get ready to lower interest rates, with the Federal Reserve set to cut rates for the first time in more than a decade on Wednesday.



...

video story at source:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/so-where-is-the-next-house-price-bubble-brewing-1.1294261

May be looking at rising prices amid lower interest rates. Plus that FBT case's decision is out in a month or two. They screwed up though as I know of no foreign buyer tax imposed by Canada's government. Personally our massive debt does worry me, interest rates are too low but we're forced to keep up with America.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Oh for crying out loud. People here are speaking out against the Chinese and their foreign ownership of bloody real estate, which yes has had an effect on Vancouver and Toronto real estate, just like it has in some cities in Australia and New Zealand. I guess the people over there who speak out against this are racist xenophobic a**holes too, eh?

I'm so tired of the far-left SJW wingnut brigade looking for reasons to be "offended" in literally every single aspect of life. Doesn't the crusade ever wear you out?

Misher is far from a SJW, more like a classic BC Liberal supporter of some fluid ethnic background (it seems to vary back and forth depending on posts) whose mummy owns a couple apartments. That group lap up the BC Lieberal schtick.

[ssiguy]

Thanks for the housing bubble chart but I would say that for Canada, our situation is rather unique compared to the other top 5 countries. For NZ, Norway, Sweden, and Australia, all areas of those countries are over valued certainly some more than others. That is most definately not the case in Canada.

In Canada we have truly grotesque regional differences in prices. BC is obviously the most glaring example but the GTA is also relatively expensive. Conversely most Canadians live in fairly reasonably real estate priced markets. Even the booming prices in Windsor, London, and Montreal still leave those cities with reasonably affordable real estate. Remember Montreal prices are rising quickly but would have to nearly quadruple to reach Vancouver's dizzying heights.

For people in Quebec, Atlantic Canada, the Prairies, and Ontarians outside the GTA, home ownership is well within grasp for even the working class. The GTA will definately see a significant drop but of course it will be BC that is ground zero for a housing collapse.

Canada is too large and economically diverse to really say there is "A Canadian Housing Market". When there is downturn due to something like high interest rates then yes the overall market will decline but due to the huge variations in prices in the country, some markets may see no declines and other go into freefall.