Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town • Hacker News Board

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#41

Post by zanny » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #29

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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…

This is normally done via a "Homestead" tax exemption, where if your vacation home is assessed at $100K, you get taxed on all $100K, but if you live on it, you only get taxed on $100,000-N, where N is the exemption. This is meant to encourage owners occupying their homes, which is a great thing. I don't know if they have it in Vancouver. In California, the exemption is a measly $7000. Which is essentially nothing, gi…

I'd like to just see a return to homesteading period. If a property goes unused / unoccupied for a year, anyone can move in. No more land squatting to drive up real estate prices and use it as a store of wealth.

Yes, this kills real estate as a long term investment. No, that is a good thing, we should collectively much rather see capital invested in the stock market rather than being thrown into precious metals or property as a store of value.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#42

Post by jseliger » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

cdnsteve wrote: post #19

Vancouver real-estate is like buying gold for foreign investors, without paying tax. "suggesting the typical wealthy foreign family buying Vancouver real estate pays little or no income or capital gains tax" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/ho...

This is the best response I've seen so far. Real estate is actually a great export for cities and countries, at least properly considered: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/billion_to_one/2013/1....

Seattle has a bunch of similar articles about "outsiders" supposedly driving up housing costs. Which is absurd: steel frame construction and elevators are very old technologies that allow humans to build just about as many housing units as can be desired.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#43

Post by UVB-76 » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

pascalmemories wrote: post #33

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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 an…

Council tax in the UK is not really comparable to property taxes in other countries like the US.

It's a highly regressive tax, and utterly negligible when considering prime real estate in areas like London.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#44

Post by jlangenauer » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #14

hellofunk wrote: post #2

I'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.

I moved to Berlin recently from Sydney. My rent is 60% of what I was paying in Sydney, and for a nicer apartment. I can't believe more people aren't moving here.

(Maybe I shouldn't say so. Keep the secret to those who know.)

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#45

Post by nutmeg » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

pascalmemories wrote: post #33

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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 an…

Why have taxes at all if rich people always find a way around these things? Or laws, for that matter?

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#46

Post by jamespo » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:11 PM UTC

pascalmemories wrote: post #33

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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 an…

Well let's just abandon all taxation by that argument

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#47

Post by option_greek » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #27

Come 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…

"They need your labour, the rest is just paper."

I'm going to reuse that! I wish this kind of thinking about economy is more main stream.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#48

Post by tetraodonpuffer » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

sure, you can't buy a house in Vancouver anymore on a normal salary, but nothing prevents you from living in Surrey, there are plenty of towers going up around the skytrain at Surrey central and King George where you can get an apartment for less than 200k

Yes, it's not Vancouver city, and yes, it's not a house, however via skytrain you can be downtown in a little over 40 minutes and get work done on your laptop in the meantime.

You don't need a house to survive, it is nice, yes, but many many many millions of people live and bring up families in apartments in Europe, so it is definitely doable.

Of course it's annoying to think that 12 years ago you could get a nice house in kits for 400k, or a 1000+ sqf condo downtown for 200k, but what can you do, same deal as buying a lottery ticket or joining a startup that makes it vs one that doesn't. The mountains and nature and weather are available whether you live in vancouver or in one of the suburbs

Metro Vancouver is over 2m people, Surrey is the largest city in the metro area actually, even if Vancouver proper becomes a "haven for the rich" there's plenty of other areas where one can live, the problem is that a lot of tech companies can't seem to see beyond "gastown is trendy" or "let's go to yaletown" or "downtown is where it's at", when they could easily set up in other skytrain-served area and attract more folks that don't like the commute downtown.

It is true, what you could do 10-15 years ago, buy a house within 30 minutes of downtown on a normal salary is not possible anymore (just like it wasn't possible back then to do that for a house in Point Grey) but it is still quite possible to live here, given the amount of immigration that the area is still getting.

Townhouses and condos in Surrey or Langley are still very affordable, the commute is annoying, but from what I hear from friends in the valley it's not like traffic there is that great either, at least up here you can sit on the skytrain and get things done or read a book rather than be stuck in traffic and have no alternatives because there's no decent public transit.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#49

Post by CaptSpify » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

pascalmemories wrote: post #33

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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 an…

> 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.

Doesn't that kind of help the problem though? Because now someone who would have to rent an expensive apartment is now basically living rent-free in a home. If enough people did this, it would help alleviate the issue.

I agree with your point though, and know people who do this. They are "caretakers" who basically live rent-free to make sure the place doesn't fall apart. The occupancy idea sounds good, but it seems like a logistical, administrative pain to enforce.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#50

Post by Shivetya » Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #3

> 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…

I would be careful here. Laws like this are close to demonstrating a lack of respect for property rights and that is not a good direction for any democracy.

We have always had areas where the cost of housing was too high but the reactionary idea of taxing it to death is in effect the idea of that some property rights are important but others are not.

If any such idea was pushed then be sure that protection is applied to citizens of the country involved. Even this is dangerous as it tells foreigners that their money is welcome but their rights are subject to the whims of the times.

The real solution is, build more places to live. What is preventing the building of affordable housing? Find that and fix that. The response is far more proper and rewarding than trying to force someone out of their property because you think they don't deserve to own it if they don't live in a set amount of time