Where does the youth diaspora in Vancouver lead to? The suburbs? Other cities in Canada or the US?
I'm an hour outside of Vancouver in Abbotsford. Housing is still high, 300k for a single detached unit, but it's very liveable.
Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
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Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#32Melbourne's just as horrible. So's Sydney. So are a lot of places.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#33> There are already enough houses and condos in the city with no lights on because no one actually lives in them. To me, there seems to be a pretty obvious public policy response. Institute a very high property tax, which is abated on some kind of curve according to the amount of time the owner or tenants spend living in a property, with no tax being due if the property is legitimately occupied for more than, say, te…
And how much do your 'Occupancy Police' cost to administer such a system ? If it relies on a property owner filling in a form, they're just going to lie to avoid the cost and without someone going round to every single house and monitoring it for weeks and months of the year, you have no way to detect people avoiding the tax.
Super high property tax when I'm not there? Simple, employ a cleaner on some minimal wage and let them stay there when I'm not in town. When I'm in town, put them up in a hotel. I'll probably still save money on the property tax and I can claim to be a caring employer, helping with employment in town. The city council are evil job destroyers by sticking me with huge taxes.
Scotland implements a 'second home' variant of their 'council tax' [a weird name for property tax]. Depending on area, it's a locally chosen multiple of the standard tax. But that's based on whether people declare another property and there's a lot of overhead in policing it. I doubt if it actually raises any extra net income.
But what if your empty property is actually from a relative who recently died and the estate is being finalized? Does that get hit too?
It always sounds simple to just slap extra taxes on rich people (who always happen to be defined as someone other than yourself), but that often leads to unfairness to decidedly non-rich people.
Rich people always find a way round these things - they pay lawyers and accountants to make sure they can. No public policy will ever fix that.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#34I'm curious how this problem is unique to Vancouver. Berlin's real-estate values have risen some 40% in just the last 7 years or so. New York City, in the 10 years I lived there, had an enormous escalation in what you get for the same rent payment, even adjusted for inflation. Big cities deal with this all over, so how do they deal with this "problem," or is Vancouver somehow unique in other ways?
Berlin's values have risen to the point where rents are on average 10 euros per square meter. You can rent a 100 sqm for only 1000 euros per month!!!! You can't get 40 sqm for that same amount in Paris.
Berlin seems like an amazing value for a capital city with rich culture.
Here in Boston I'm paying 3700 euros for (poorly maintained) 90 sqm, of course split with five people. Maybe it is time to consider a stint in Berlin.
Are there any resources you would recommend to learn more about the city, and the tech scene?
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#35Currently residing within Vancouver.
We love it here, but we have accepted that it is not where we will be able to put roots down.
My partner and I work remotely, we'll enjoy our time here then buy a home elsewhere...
Like maybe Hawaii. :)
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#36Currently residing within Vancouver. We love it here, but we have accepted that it is not where we will be able to put roots down. My partner and I work remotely, we'll enjoy our time here then buy a home elsewhere... Like maybe Hawaii. :)
Funny, the last two people I know who moved to Hawaii, moved back a year later. I'll have to find out why. But they must have a good reason - this is Iowa, and its currently 16 degrees.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#37Where does the youth diaspora in Vancouver lead to? The suburbs? Other cities in Canada or the US?
I'm an hour outside of Vancouver in Abbotsford. Housing is still high, 300k for a single detached unit, but it's very liveable.
A modest house in the suburbs of Victoria is 400K now so that's not too bad, really.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#38Where does the youth diaspora in Vancouver lead to? The suburbs? Other cities in Canada or the US?
The suburbs?
There's a lot of this, yes. And the suburbs aren't necessarily very suburban: I live in a 30 floor condo tower in Burnaby, and within 2 block radius there's a dozen similar towers and twenty more 30-60 floor towers in various stages of zoning hearings (8) / building approval (7) / digging big holes (2) / towers going up (3).
There are two major phenomena at play in Vancouver:
1. Across Metro Vancouver, the supply of land for single family detached houses is very constrained; this is pushing prices of detached houses up dramatically.
2. The City of Vancouver proper is very hostile to development, due to a toxic combination of NIMBYism, height restrictions to maintain "view corridors" of the nearby mountains, and social activists who think that building more housing will somehow make housing less affordable.
But if you're willing to live in a condo and you don't mind living a 20 minute train ride away from downtown, the cost of housing is far more reasonable than hysterical media reports would have you believe; and unlike detached houses, prices of condos have barely kept up with inflation over the past decade.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#39Where does the youth diaspora in Vancouver lead to? The suburbs? Other cities in Canada or the US?
I grew up in the region and went to school there. Left for Ottawa. I'd say most of my friends left. I still read the Georgia straight and follow the news. It is kind of home after all but one I will never go back to.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#40Come to Montreal! It's great here. No way would I want to pledge the rest of my life to a bank in exchange for the right to exist. Rent controls here. It's odd: it's like the state understands that banks are bastards. Montreal has some issues with organised crime but nothing compared to the organised crime of banking / money laundering through land. I don't have to pay some gangster $1MM for a shack. Leave the boomer…
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