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

71–80 of 272 posts

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#71

Post by kspaans »

pwm wrote: post #55
mikekchar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Contracting rates != salaried rates. You have to charge more because you don't get any benefits (vacation, sick leave, pension), and have little job security.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#72

Post by vanthrow »

I'm a millennial immigrant to Vancouver (came with my family when I was 10).

I'm a software developer by trade.

The problems are real, but the outcome is greatly exaggerated.

The fact is MOST millennials outside the most lucrative STEM/Law/Finance fields are in no position to be buying real estate anywhere in North America.

And the Vancouver rental market is actually not half bad. You can get a basement suite for under $1000 in the city proper. You can get a 2 bedroom downtown for $2000. Or at least you could a year ago, the Canadian dollar has plummeted.

Meanwhile people are weighing in with terrible salary stories. It's also not exactly true. Yes, I could make more in Seattle, and even MORE in Silicon Valley. But there are lifestyle costs to both. I value the Vancouver lifestyle quite highly. Now, full disclosure, I moved to Europe for a 2-3 year transfer with my company last year. But this was also a lifestyle based decision to allow me to travel more - I took a paycut.

The truth about salaries is Amazon pays very well (though not as well as in the States). Microsoft pays very well. So does Facebook, and Apple, and Salesforce pays the best (supposedly they are competitive with US salaries). These big players are forcing the rest of the market to kick up. And all these players are also relatively new to the scene (most growth in the last 5 years). As a result, I foresee in the next few years a lot of ex-employees from these places going out on their own and doing great things in the startup community, or commanding similar salaries from local shops that want to get experienced engineers with big scale experience.

The problem with Vancouver is it's hard to find a city to compare it to. Yes, the economy isn't the strongest it can be, but the proximity to nature is unbelievable and very difficult to match. That intangible IS worth something despite people not taking advantage of it complaining that "that's all there is". If you don't care about world-class ocean and mountain sports in close proximity to outstanding international food options, this city is not for you. There are places with more vibrant art and culture and nightlife scenes, no doubt. But if you make the most of Vancouver's strengths, it is unbeatable.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#74

Post by tomp »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #61
mikekchar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

£35,000 salary in the UK has the same buying power (for want of a better expression as a $60,000 US salary. Adjust for "because London" and you're looking at £45/55K (not hard in London) equating to $75K - $100K. Thinking about it, I know a dozen or so people in the "poor deprived" north east of England earning over £40K who are under 30 years old so we're not all badly paid.

The difference is that Brits feel poor when they come to the US, whereas Americans feel rich when they come to the UK.

Sure, PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) comparisions are important (e.g. it's easier to live in Thailand with $1000 per months than in NYC), but absolute values matter as well.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#75

Post by kspaans »

sndean wrote: post #62
mathattack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Based on some quick Googling and Glassdoor, it looks like average salaries are ~110k vs. ~80k. The cost of rent in San Francisco looks to be ~190% higher. Not sure how well those figures line up with reality, though.

Metro Vancouver (2800km^2) is quite a bit bigger than SF (600km^2), so you may want to include rents in other outlying Bay Area cities.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#76

Post by ameen »

wingsonfire wrote: post #68
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…

Exactly same issue with India. India has tons of IT Company and Government invests a lot in education.. obviously pay is more in US but I think it is also environment. That makes me wonder what has US done right to remain talent magnet

The issue in India is that our IT Companies are way overhyped. None of them are doing well financially, all of them barely scraping through each quarter given the Industry at-large stance on outsourcing.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#77

Post by pjc50 »

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…

The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this

Are you sure? I made the opposite move for reduced cost of housing (and commuting).

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#78

Post by hoorayimhelping »

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.

This is already happening here in New York City and has been for a few years. It's not solving the problem and honestly this seems like pretty a reductive way of stating the problem.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#79

Post by pjc50 »

jakobegger wrote: post #59
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…

So I think that housing prices would naturally fall if interest rates went up.

The problem is that falling house prices put people "underwater", and rising interest rates put people on variable rate mortgages in arrears. This inflicts a huge amount of pain on middle class floating voters.

Post reply on HN