Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 272 posts

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#51

Post by mathattack »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #12

As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships), I think we Canadians should be more worried about highly educated millennials fleeing Canada entirely. Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. To the Canadian tech industry: How are you…

According to the article real estate costs in Vancouver are half that of San Francisco. Are salaries half too?

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#52

Post by monkeywork »

tempestn wrote: post #30

The USD median house price in Vancouver is misleading too, because it wasn't long ago that the dollar was at parity, and incomes certainly haven't changed much as the dollar has dropped by a third. Anyway, so far the effect on Victoria seems to be our own mini (compared to Vancouver; still nuts for most of the world) housing boom. I have three couples of close friends all house-hunting right now, and it's not a fun t…

dropped a quarter not a third... don't make it even worse than reality.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#53

Post by eru »

tallanvor wrote: post #47

I see this as a problem all over the world. - San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Vancouver, London, Oslo... Really the list could go on for quite a while. So many of these cities feel like they have to retain their "identity" or the "feel" of the town, so they set restrictions that make it very hard to develop properties that can hold more people. The result is always the same: continually increasing prices in the cen…

Locally the people who own the land (and small houses on top) often obstruct that very planning process for higher density housing.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#54

Post by eru »

daemin wrote: post #37
raverbashing wrote: post #23

The Chinese are parking their money there, that's what's happening Hence people paying millions of dollars for a house that's falling apart But I'm glad to hear about Victoria.

That's been a common theme among people talking about the rising house prices in Australia as well. That Chinese people just buy property to park their money overseas. But when someone looked at the numbers the number of houses that were bought by Chinese people were in the low single digit percentages. While this could create some upward pressure on prices it cannot be the only factor. For instance in Australia most…

Negative gearing, and the low density allowed.

My own suburb, Glebe, is just ten minutes by bike from the central business district. Yet, single family dwellings prevail at low density.

(At the light rail, some NIMBYs were rallying against an eight storey building to be put up. Ha! Twenty to forty would be better.)

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#55

Post by pwm »

mikekchar wrote: post #45
peanut_merchant wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a similar problem in Scotland, I know a lot of people would love to have continued living in Scotland but can make >2 times the salary as a developer by making the move down to London. The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this. Granted, this is a move within the UK so it's not really a drain on the UK's economy but it leads to a more London-centric economy and…

What's really crazy is that salaries in London aren't that high (unless you are in the financial sector). I am constantly astonished by the low salaries (for qualified programmers) offered in most parts of Britain. I suspect that you could actually get away with building a consulting firm in the country side and getting companies to offshore work from the US.

I'm not familiar with how things in the US are, but in the UK and specifically in London a lot of senior tech people do contract work which pays considerably more than permanent positions.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#56

Post by jbarham »

Apocryphon wrote: post #5

"The vacancy rate of 0.8 percent is one of the lowest in the country, and the average monthly rent of C$937 for a bachelor suite is tied at highest with the cost in Toronto, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp." Montreal? Calgary? Edmonton? Halifax? St. John's?

> Montreal? Calgary? Edmonton? Halifax? St. John's?

Winter.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#57

Post by branchless »

peanut_merchant wrote: post #38
lewisl9029 wrote: post #12

As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships), I think we Canadians should be more worried about highly educated millennials fleeing Canada entirely. Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. To the Canadian tech industry: How are you…

We have a similar problem in Scotland, I know a lot of people would love to have continued living in Scotland but can make >2 times the salary as a developer by making the move down to London. The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this. Granted, this is a move within the UK so it's not really a drain on the UK's economy but it leads to a more London-centric economy and…

London banks can pay more because whilst other companies have to make products banks make fiat money. This acts as a tax on the rest of the uk.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#58

Post by zeemonkee3 »

tallanvor wrote: post #47

I see this as a problem all over the world. - San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Vancouver, London, Oslo... Really the list could go on for quite a while. So many of these cities feel like they have to retain their "identity" or the "feel" of the town, so they set restrictions that make it very hard to develop properties that can hold more people. The result is always the same: continually increasing prices in the cen…

> This is going to continue until planning commissions start allowing the construction of higher density housing.

Or we have more remote jobs, and/or satellite offices. For example in the UK why have your developers in London? Open an office in Newcastle or Glasgow, you're just a few hours away by train (an hour on the plane) and you'll save a fortune on salaries and office space (and probably a tax break or two). Or use remote workers where it makes sense.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#59

Post by jakobegger »

tallanvor wrote: post #47

I see this as a problem all over the world. - San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Vancouver, London, Oslo... Really the list could go on for quite a while. So many of these cities feel like they have to retain their "identity" or the "feel" of the town, so they set restrictions that make it very hard to develop properties that can hold more people. The result is always the same: continually increasing prices in the cen…

I'm not sure if a fix would be so easy. Housing prices have been rising everywhere, even in small cities like my home town, where a decent amount of construction is going on.

I think that the biggest reason for growing housing prices are the currently low interest rates.

There are two factors that cause rising prices (due to low interest rates):

1) It's more affordable than ever to borrow money, so people are willing to pay higher prices, and even people with little savings can afford to buy a home. At 8% interest rates nobody would be able to afford current prices. This means that sellers can ask much higher prices.

2) Since interest rates are so low, people are increasingly looking at the housing market as an investment opportunity. Aspiring homeowners now have to compete with deep-pocketed investors leading to a further increase in prices.

So I think that housing prices would naturally fall if interest rates went up. (Of course, for young people without savings this makes little difference; they would likely end up paying just as much due to higher financing costs.)

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#60

Post by forgetsusername »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #12

As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships), I think we Canadians should be more worried about highly educated millennials fleeing Canada entirely. Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. To the Canadian tech industry: How are you…

>Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left.

This is what young people do; they adventure. Then, many times, they come back to their roots to settle down.

I'm sure there're a few people around these parts with anecdata regarding the joys of finding housing and raising a family in the SF Bay Area.

Post reply on HN