Vancouver Real Estate 'Bubble' at 30-year Peak

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Wow, that's your take on the article? This has come off as extremely tone deaf in the general public. Nobody gives a rat's 🞵🞵🞵 about some American whining about their vacation property up here. Good riddance.

Now a working Canadian family has another chance at a place to live in Victoria.

Exactly, cairnstone's playing a lonely violin while weeping over some rich American who spent a couple of months in Victoria, leaving his partment empty the rest of the year. The new downsizing owner will add to the vitality of the neighbourhood by being present year-round, while some family who needs the sapce by his house. The Minneapolis moaner is welcome to come stay at a VRBO or hotel when they visit BC.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Exactly, cairnstone's playing a lonely violin while weeping over some rich American who spent a couple of months in Victoria, leaving his partment empty the rest of the year. The new downsizing owner will add to the vitality of the neighbourhood by being present year-round, while some family who needs the sapce by his house. The Minneapolis moaner is welcome to come stay at a VRBO or hotel when they visit BC.

Agreed. We are in a housing crisis. This person’s problems pale in comparison to the average citizen who actually lives here.

[Migrant_Coconut]

And what would James say to British Columbians who own vacation condos in, say, Phoenix or Honolulu if those jurisdictions retaliate and single out B.C. owners for their own discriminatory speculation tax?

Funny story... And no, the empty homes tax targets ALL non-residents.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

Found this in my news feeds. Very good read on how stupid these taxes are.

Haha, no F's given. Bye Felicias.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

Haha, no F's given. Bye Felicias.

Yep. Here's another one, oh the humanity!

1710 Bayshore Drive, No. 1305, Vancouver

Asking price: $1.158-million

Selling price: $1.158-million

Previous sale price: $269,000 (1997)

Days on market: 4

Taxes: $2,860.70

Maintenance fee: $545.47

Buyer’s agent: Ian Watt, Sutton Group West Coast

Listing agent: Donna Leyland, Re/Max Select

The action
The deal closes in the next couple of days. Americans owned the unit but sold because of the new city and provincial empty home taxes, agent Ian Watt says. The buyers had taken the risky step of selling their apartment to rent and sit outside the market for a year until prices reduced...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-est...r-market-with-well-timed-condo-purchase/

[cairnstone]

Whats next. Should we let the government decide on the size of space we all should live in. Next thing will be you need to be a family of 2 to have a one bedroom. Need 6 kids for a house.

You dont realize the long term effects of policies. These policies have slowed the building of new gray market rental that is true up down in the market. What we are going to move to now is rental projects. And the overall cost per square foot will increase as they all have a board of directors that want there return. They will fix the price in the market and will increase the cost of living.

Post expo we started the move to condos in a big way as it was already not affordable compared to the rest of the country. Developers moved to strata as it was cheaper to become a home owner. Also it allowed many home owners and investors to become landlords in Canada. A Lot of the development became driven by the investor not the home owner so the marketing companies sold the developments to investors who would by 2 or more units.

So why is it our right to force someone to use there property different than they choose? SO whats is preventing the city going door to door and see who has a spare bedroom for a homeless person as this is about the same thing.

[misher]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

James also said, “there are individuals who couldn’t even dream of having one home never mind an additional home they leave vacant.” I guess no one deserves a vacation home now, unless they turn it into a rental business. And there’s that word “vacant” again. We purchased our condo to use, and use it we did. We did not leave it abandoned and empty like a stock certificate in a safe deposit box.

Yes, I understand that many people will have little sympathy for owners of a vacation home like ourselves. We feel very fortunate to have had a Victoria condo for 14 years. But no more. We sold it to a Victoria gentleman who is downsizing. He will not have to pay an additional $12,000 a year in taxes, even if he uses it part time like we did.

His previous large home won’t add to the available affordable home inventory in Victoria either, so in our case James’s stated objective is not met. She has accomplished her actual objective of erecting an “outsiders not welcome” sign, as evidenced by our departure.

Goodbye Victoria, it seems we hardly knew ye.

In the end there is this attitude that if you can "afford" something then its ok for us to do it. I'd call it a sense of entitlement, people feel that we are entitled to others wealth and are ok with it as long as they themselves do not sacrifice. Perhaps its similar to the roman coliseum where we watched people fight and die for our amusement, as long as its someone else suffering right?

In the end I would say as a people we should strive to not be dicks. Unfortunately for the past 100 years we have done our best to blame others for our problems. The Owners in this example are not from our country, but they did nothing wrong, they paid the proper taxes when purchasing their place and paid full price. They have come to our nation every few months boosting our vacation industry. They did nothing wrong. Many Canadians have vacation homes throughout the world, we're a people that has more vacation homes per a family than the other 99% of the world. Leaving a home empty is not a crime, and apparently being foreign and leaving a home empty is somehow worse. But suddenly they are now the enemy. I think there is something wrong with this attitude. Perhaps it would have been better to grandfather people in. If you no longer want people purchasing vacation homes fine but don't punish those who did and who did so while our government and businesses were doing their best to push them.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

Whats next. Should we let the government decide on the size of space we all should live in. Next thing will be you need to be a family of 2 to have a one bedroom. Need 6 kids for a house.

You dont realize the long term effects of policies. These policies have slowed the building of new gray market rental that is true up down in the market. What we are going to move to now is rental projects. And the overall cost per square foot will increase as they all have a board of directors that want there return. They will fix the price in the market and will increase the cost of living.

Post expo we started the move to condos in a big way as it was already not affordable compared to the rest of the country. Developers moved to strata as it was cheaper to become a home owner. Also it allowed many home owners and investors to become landlords in Canada. A Lot of the development became driven by the investor not the home owner so the marketing companies sold the developments to investors who would by 2 or more units.

So why is it our right to force someone to use there property different than they choose? SO whats is preventing the city going door to door and see who has a spare bedroom for a homeless person as this is about the same thing.

In 2000 (14 years after Expo) you could get a West Side house for $500k and an East Side one for $300k.

Why is encouraging individual investors a good thing? Certainly not if they're offshore as it creates a dissonance between what is beng paid for the property and what locals can afford. There's also the inherent clash between units beng sold in the same building to somebody vs one being sold to an investor, with all the strata strife that entails. You want to invest in real estate - buy into a REIT.

Ben Rabidoux had a great graph showing the perils of letting real estate investment take over your economy:

[IMG]credit: ben rabidoux on twitter by whatnextyvr, on Flickr[/IMG]

https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1171573403763036167

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

The Owners in this example are not from our country, but they did nothing wrong, they paid the proper taxes when purchasing their place and paid full price. They have come to our nation every few months boosting our vacation industry. They did nothing wrong. Many Canadians have vacation homes throughout the world, we're a people that has more vacation homes per a family than the other 99% of the world. Leaving a home empty is not a crime, and apparently being foreign and leaving a home empty is somehow worse. But suddenly they are now the enemy. I think there is something wrong with this attitude. Perhaps it would have been better to grandfather people in. If you no longer want people purchasing vacation homes fine but don't punish those who did and who did so while our government and businesses were doing their best to push them.

LOL we aren't throwing them in prison, we are increasing their taxes. That can happen at any time for any reason. We live in a democracy where we elect governments to create policy.

As for our 'vacation industry' I can guarantee you that any local working person living in that home will contribute far, far more to your precious economy.

[Migrant_Coconut]

As for Canadians' vacation homes, other countries are free to impose their own taxes, as Singapore and Australia have had for years.

Originally Posted by cairnstone

So why is it our right to force someone to use there property different than they choose? SO whats is preventing the city going door to door and see who has a spare bedroom for a homeless person as this is about the same thing.

Nobody's being forced to do anything. Owners can easily avoid the tax by renting their houses while they're away - "see, it's not vacant!" You always have a choice.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

As for Canadians' vacation homes, other countries are free to impose their own taxes, as Singapore and Australia have had for years.

Nobody's being forced to do anything. Owners can easily avoid the tax by renting their houses while they're away - "see, it's not vacant!" You always have a choice.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a resurgence of the condo hotel, where you own a unit, like the Westin Grand. Makes sense for people like this, if the allowed stays were long enough. Or did the residential condo bubble wreck the economics of those along with traditional hotels?

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Ben Rabidoux had a great graph showing the perils of letting real estate investment take over your economy:


credit: ben rabidoux on twitter
by whatnextyvr, on Flickr
https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1171573403763036167

That graph is a bit misleading though, as it shows relative shares.

Investment in equipment, machinery and R&D could have gone up on an absolute basis in that timeframe but it would look like its crashing simply because residential investment has spiked.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

As for Canadians' vacation homes, other countries are free to impose their own taxes, as Singapore and Australia have had for years.



Nobody's being forced to do anything. Owners can easily avoid the tax by renting their houses while they're away - "see, it's not vacant!" You always have a choice.

Don't you understand that the move is suicidal though? If every nation chased away foreign purchases Canada would lose out overall. We buy a hell load more foreign property than foreigners buy here. We're criticizing foreign spending locally when we're quite happy to do much more foreign spending abroad. Its like saying don't smoke near me when you yourself smoke a few packs a day.

Not to mention that we are pushing a policy provincially that only benefits a few cities. We are killing foreign and local purchases and investments in real estate across the province yet much of the province benefits. We're killing the interior, the areas most desperate for people, money, jobs. The city's will survive no matter what happens but we are killing most of the province just for some small benefit to the cities. The mayors council for the entire province asked the province to allow each city to determine whether the tax is needed for this very reason.

[whatnext]

Apparently some posters have no clue as to what parts of the province are subect to the vacancy and speculation taxes

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/speculation-and-vacancy-tax/taxable-regions

[nds88]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

LOL we aren't throwing them in prison, we are increasing their taxes. That can happen at any time for any reason. We live in a democracy where we elect governments to create policy.

As for our 'vacation industry' I can guarantee you that any local working person living in that home will contribute far, far more to your precious economy.

Increasing taxes at any time for any reason is completely unjust. Its a form of weaponization and a way to punish someone/group because you don't like something about them. In some scenarios, I would probably prefer to go to jail than be taxed. A democracy doesn't mean mob mentality. Individuals still have rights even if a majority want to infringe them or harm them.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by nds88

Increasing taxes at any time for any reason is completely unjust. Its a form of weaponization and a way to punish someone/group because you don't like something about them. In some scenarios, I would probably prefer to go to jail than be taxed. A democracy doesn't mean mob mentality. Individuals still have rights even if a majority want to infringe them or harm them.

You have the right to believe that but our country is not governed by libertarian fantasies.

[nds88]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Nobody's being forced to do anything. Owners can easily avoid the tax by renting their houses while they're away - "see, it's not vacant!" You always have a choice.

Don't you see the flaw in your logic? By creating a consequence because you don't like how someone does something, it forces them to do something you want or incur significant consequence. In either outcome, there is no win for the owner to enjoy their property as they see fit. The only choices they have are choices that screw them. They pay a tax (consequence) or they rent out their unit (consequence, they aren't free to come and go into their property as they please and there is risk of damage from others occupying their property).

[nds88]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

You have the right to believe that but our country is not governed by libertarian fantasies.

I agree, we are governed by a bunch of clowns.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by misher

Don't you understand that the move is suicidal though? If every nation chased away foreign purchases Canada would lose out overall. We buy a hell load more foreign property than foreigners buy here. We're criticizing foreign spending locally when we're quite happy to do much more foreign spending abroad. Its like saying don't smoke near me when you yourself smoke a few packs a day.

If other countries want to balance their real estate "trade deficit," that's on them. Canadians will either pay up, sell, rent, or check into a hotel instead.

Originally Posted by misher

Not to mention that we are pushing a policy provincially that only benefits a few cities. We are killing foreign and local purchases and investments in real estate across the province yet much of the province benefits. We're killing the interior, the areas most desperate for people, money, jobs. The city's will survive no matter what happens but we are killing most of the province just for some small benefit to the cities. The mayors council for the entire province asked the province to allow each city to determine whether the tax is needed for this very reason.

The tax only applies to the cities that benefit: Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Kamloops, et al. They're all either neutral or supportive, and others like Penticton are only upset that they got left out.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by nds88

Don't you see the flaw in your logic? By creating a consequence because you don't like how someone does something, it forces them to do something you want or incur significant consequence. In either outcome, there is no win for the owner to enjoy their property as they see fit. The only choices they have are choices that screw them. They pay a tax (consequence) or they rent out their unit (consequence, they aren't free to come and go into their property as they please and there is risk of damage from others occupying their property).

I'd like to park or drive my car anywhere I'd please, but so does everybody else. Hence traffic rules, signals and signs, parking metres, fines, tickets and other regulations. Such is the price of society: nobody is truly free.