Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[someone123]

Originally Posted by misher

That's a common complaint in most global cities like London, locals get shut out. However, there are benefits like jobs and as BC's employment usually leads the country its clear we have also benefited from being a global city. Look at Halifax, their homeownership rate is lower despite housing being much cheaper, thats likely because the economy sucks. Vancouver used to be Halifax and then we started bringing in immigrant investors.

Does this mean that Saint John NB has a great economy? Or is this just post hoc reasoning where you start with the normal assumptions you constantly post on here and then construct a story to explain a chart like the one you posted?

There's little correlation between economic health and home ownership. A lot of people don't even want to own. But they will buy if they are convinced that prices will rise significantly above inflation every year. Such a market ensures that housing will eventually become unaffordable, and that there will be inequity between those who were around before the bubble and those who came along later.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by theman23

Is Vancouver nicer than Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Fran? Nah. Get me a US green card and I’d be out of here in a second. It’s just our Canadian consolation prize.

Real estate is generally more affordable in the US West Coast cities (to say nothing of the Austins and Denvers that we don't really have here at all). Portland is quite cheap compared to Vancouver, and their incomes tend to be higher. I have friends in Portland who have average jobs and still complain about how they had to move 20 minutes out of town to afford a detached house. That kind of complaining is like a retro blast from the past to me in 2019. The sensible non-rich young people in Vancouver have given up and accepted that they will either live in a small apartment their whole life or move somewhere else. Anything but a huge crash in the housing market here means housing continues to be out of reach for typical new buyers. And the new buyers trying to get on the "property ladder" are the most vulnerable to corrections.

Yesterday I was listening to a former Vancouver city planner get interviewed by the CBC. She was talking about the Massey tunnel replacement, which has been debated for years. She spoke about how commuting from Delta is actually pretty nice and congestion is good because it'll get people out of their cars. We need to reduce the number of cars by increasing congestion to reduce climate change (she brought up electric cars and then moved on without any explanation). She mentioned some constant (like Planck's constant) that proves in planning circles that your commute times will always be the same so there's no point in trying to fix anything. We can have free wifi and people can watch Netflix on their hour-long commutes to their crappy jobs. Frankly, I don't think metro Vancouver has a great future in front of it. I think we will continue to have a real estate bubble for many years combined with high immigration that we don't build enough housing or infrastructure to accommodate, so the standard of living will continue to fall. Young people finishing school in the Lower Mainland today should look at moving out of province.

[CityTech]

It's something hearing about the California exodus due to high housing costs.. and then hearing that these "high housing costs" involve median house prices of only $600k in major California cities. If that's a crisis, I want that crisis!

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by someone123

Real estate is generally more affordable in the US West Coast cities (to say nothing of the Austins and Denvers that we don't really have here at all). Portland is quite cheap compared to Vancouver, and their incomes tend to be higher. I have friends in Portland who have average jobs and still complain about how they had to move 20 minutes out of town to afford a detached house. That kind of complaining is like a retro blast from the past to me in 2019. The sensible non-rich young people in Vancouver have given up and accepted that they will either live in a small apartment their whole life or move somewhere else. Anything but a huge crash in the housing market here means housing continues to be out of reach for typical new buyers. And the new buyers trying to get on the "property ladder" are the most vulnerable to corrections.

What's annoying is that until about a year ago, Ottawa was a city like that.. good job potential and full city offerings while being affordable. But it didn't take long for the market to break here, too.

[esquire]

Broadly speaking, what do places like Austin or Denver offer that you couldn't find somewhere like Calgary?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by esquire

Broadly speaking, what do places like Austin or Denver offer that you couldn't find somewhere like Calgary?

No snow in September (or May, or June)?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by whatnext

No snow in September (or May, or June)?

If you're looking for warm winters then Denver won't deliver regardless of September or May snow levels. Austin, yes.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by someone123

Young people finishing school in the Lower Mainland today should look at moving out of province.

I think there might be a shift towards living well instead of living high.

Unless you have a job the requires you to be in a place like Toronto or Vancouver, why the heck would you bother living there for more than a couple of years - basically, during school or your mid-20s - because you'll never get ahead there today unless you're part of the part of the top few percentiles.

Sure, you might be a dual-income-no-kids kind of person who loves the city and doesn't really give a hoot about that, but the city really pigeonholes you into a certain lifestyle.

All the better for Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal and smaller cheaper places, I suppose.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by CityTech

What's annoying is that until about a year ago, Ottawa was a city like that.. good job potential and full city offerings while being affordable. But it didn't take long for the market to break here, too.

I didn't think the Ottawa was nearly as bad as either Toronto or Vancouver.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by wave46

I think there might be a shift towards living well instead of living high.

Unless you have a job the requires you to be in a place like Toronto or Vancouver, why the heck would you bother living there for more than a couple of years - basically, during school or your mid-20s - because you'll never get ahead there today unless you're part of the part of the top few percentiles.

Sure, you might be a dual-income-no-kids kind of person who loves the city and doesn't really give a hoot about that, but the city really pigeonholes you into a certain lifestyle.

All the better for Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal and smaller cheaper places, I suppose.

It's easy to move around when you're young and it quickly gets harder and more annoying as you get older, unless you do so badly you have nothing to lose. I'm in my 30's and I would really need a good reason to move at this point.

I think we downplay this too much. It's important to offer people in every part of Canada stability and a good standard of living. The idea that everybody can just pick up and move to the place they like best is largely fiction for people who aren't multi-millionaires. Even making one 1,000 km+ move is a big deal.

There's a common argument that Vancouver's just an amazing world city and the people who grow up there and don't like living in shoeboxes should suck it up and move with zero sympathy from their compatriots. But aside from being harsh (the same people who don't care if a kid from Vancouver has no choice but to leave will often lecture others on how we are heartless unless we assist immigrants in moving here), the logic isn't particularly sound. There are lots of Vancouver-like cities around the world and almost all of them are more affordable. Our investment and planning regime is the product of deliberate policy decisions.

[GreaterMontréal]

One of the reason people don't go to Montréal is because of its harsh winter season, but the CMA is still growing at a good rate. Montréal will hit 5 million pretty soon and you'll still hear people complaining about the weather.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

One of the reason people don't go to Montréal is because of its harsh winter season, but the CMA is still growing at a good rate. Montréal will hit 5 million pretty soon and you'll still hear people complaining about the weather.

FWIW I don't understand why anybody tolerates the weather Toronto and Montreal get.

I did hear from people who moved to Victoria that they talk to friends back in eastern Ontario who do not believe the actual weather in Victoria half the time.

[someone123]

Victoria weather is what you'd get if you extended Toronto's November weather through to March then got rid of summer. I suggest people who find that mind-blowing book a flight to Cancun or something.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by someone123

Victoria weather is what you'd get if you extended Toronto's November weather through to March then got rid of summer. I suggest people who find that mind-blowing book a flight to Cancun or something.

I think they just assume winter in Canada = snow and ice.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yesterday I was listening to a former Vancouver city planner get interviewed by the CBC. She was talking about the Massey tunnel replacement, which has been debated for years. She spoke about how commuting from Delta is actually pretty nice and congestion is good because it'll get people out of their cars. We need to reduce the number of cars by increasing congestion to reduce climate change (she brought up electric cars and then moved on without any explanation). She mentioned some constant (like Planck's constant) that proves in planning circles that your commute times will always be the same so there's no point in trying to fix anything. We can have free wifi and people can watch Netflix on their hour-long commutes to their crappy jobs. Frankly, I don't think metro Vancouver has a great future in front of it. I think we will continue to have a real estate bubble for many years combined with high immigration that we don't build enough housing or infrastructure to accommodate, so the standard of living will continue to fall. Young people finishing school in the Lower Mainland today should look at moving out of province.

What a terrible take for a city planner. Delta, without a car, may as well be on the moon if you have to commute to downtown Vancouver. For a former city planner to suggest that congestion is a good thing, while not addressing how to fix ALL modes of commuter infrastructure is baffling. My sister moved out of Metro Vancouver specifically because of her travel times to and from work. She basically made it home to tuck the kids in to bed.

[misher]

Originally Posted by giallo

What a terrible take for a city planner. Delta, without a car, may as well be on the moon if you have to commute to downtown Vancouver. For a former city planner to suggest that congestion is a good thing, while not addressing how to fix ALL modes of commuter infrastructure is baffling. My sister moved out of Metro Vancouver specifically because of her travel times to and from work. She basically made it home to tuck the kids in to bed.

I still remember getting into an argument with Gregor Robertson over traffic. I said we had to build more bridges, more lanes, ring roads, and stop closing down lanes. He argued that if we build more more people will drive and that won't solve congestion. He stated that we need to close down lanes and worsen traffic so people are pushed into biking or taking alternative transport. And thus he started closing down roads for bike lanes and endeavored to make traffic as bad as he could.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by giallo

What a terrible take for a city planner. Delta, without a car, may as well be on the moon if you have to commute to downtown Vancouver. For a former city planner to suggest that congestion is a good thing, while not addressing how to fix ALL modes of commuter infrastructure is baffling. My sister moved out of Metro Vancouver specifically because of her travel times to and from work. She basically made it home to tuck the kids in to bed.

Based on what she was saying I'm guessing she lived by one of those 3-digit express buses and works downtown. That's the best-case scenario and it's still a long commute. Most people in Delta don't live by transit and most commuting destinations aren't easily accessible. Then there are all the people who need to drive for their jobs. Transit is not a viable option for Delta.

Her answer to the truck traffic was to move the truck traffic to 3 am. I wonder how she'd feel about it if she were a truck driver.

This type of talk just seems to be the norm now in planning circles. Travel times and affordability are at best secondary concerns. The biggest concerns seem to be to demonstrate a commitment to environmentalism and to placate whoever happens to live close to whatever project we are talking about (which in a lot of cases is probably people who don't even live there combined with a few older/wealthy NIMBYs who don't need to commute anywhere).

The Patullo is going to be replaced soon and its 4 lanes will be replaced with.. a new 4 lane bridge. It won't have direct highway connections either.

[giallo]

I don't have a problem with council not doing expansive work to the road network (Hwy 1 and 99 and bridges/overpasses notwithstanding. They are critical arterial roads and chokepoints that need more lanes/upkeep), but in order for that to work, there needs to be a massive amount of focus and resources towards alternate modes of transportation (rapid transit, really). You'll never compete with a car if you're offering someone in Port Coquitlam to commute on 35kms of wet, hilly bike lanes in December. It's not practical at all.

I find comments like these from this city planner and Gregor so irresponsible. It sounds like they didn't have a clue what they were doing.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by giallo

I don't have a problem with council not doing expansive work to the road network (Hwy 1 and 99 and bridges/overpasses notwithstanding. They are critical arterial roads and chokepoints that need more lanes/upkeep), but in order for that to work, there needs to be a massive amount of focus and resources towards alternate modes of transportation (rapid transit, really). You'll never compete with a car if you're offering someone in Port Coquitlam to commute on 35kms of wet, hilly bike lanes in December. It's not practical at all.

My completely arbitrary transit/car infrastructure rating would be something like this:

Portland - car 9/10, transit 4/10
Amsterdam - car 4/10, transit 9/10
Vancouver - car 6/10, transit 5/10

Vancouver is a blend of American-style transit and European-style highways.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

I still remember getting into an argument with Gregor Robertson over traffic. I said we had to build more bridges, more lanes, ring roads, and stop closing down lanes. He argued that if we build more more people will drive and that won't solve congestion. He stated that we need to close down lanes and worsen traffic so people are pushed into biking or taking alternative transport. And thus he started closing down roads for bike lanes and endeavored to make traffic as bad as he could.

The arguments being made in Delta don't apply to Vancouver. Building more roads, bridges, and lanes in the City of Vancouver would be a foolhardy exercise.

And yes I'm sure he changed his policies based on an argument with you.