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

81–90 of 272 posts

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#81

Post by avar »

tomp wrote: post #74
simonbarker87 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£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.

Sure they matter, but only to the extent that foreign expenditures are a part of your costs.

I.e. sure when you go to the US and have to buy USD with GBP you'l be at a disadvantage, or when you buy some electronics priced in USD, but how big a portion of your spending is that compared to food/rent/commuting/hobbies etc., all of which are priced in your local currency.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#82

Post by Tistel »

I lived in Vancouver for 5 years. Beautiful spot. Met a lot of interesting people from all over the world. But, even by Canadian standards (which are much lower than the US) the salaries in Vancouver are notoriously low. A much better (2X) offer brought me to Toronto.

Staring to feel the same about Toronto too expense and hassle wise. Want to try remote work from the States and live in the country in Canada. Only interia prevents me.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#83

Post by kspaans »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
jakobegger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think one way to soften the blow could be to make all property sales, even your first home that you live in full-time, fully capital-gains taxable. Homes need to be seen less as investment vehicles.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#84

Post by ameen »

clickok wrote: post #33
cat-dev-null wrote: post #27

Assuming one has a really good heater and sleeping bag, it legal/possible/affordable to live in a VW bus in say south Vancouver? Renting in places like NYC, SF these days seems most people are lemmingly throwing money away in an unaffordable attempt to buy faux status while going into debt and gaining no balance sheet because "everyone else is doing it." Unless you've sold a series to HBO, living below one's means is…

If I'm going to be living in a van (down by the river), I would at least drive it to a river in a warmer climate. One with a higher exchange rate, lower taxes, and faster Internet, say.

Ideally, us tech workers should research such places. Anyone up for creating a Github repo with,

* Location

* Work Authorization (and/or Visa issues)

* Average weather throughout the year - Max temp - Min temp

* Exchange rate

* Avg. Internet Speed + Prices

* Language barriers (or lack of).

Something similar to this [1] but with a crowdsourced/community aspect with solid sources.

[1] - http://fundersandfounders.com/where-to-start-your-startup-be...

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#85

Post by tallanvor »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #78
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.

The key is that when construction is allowed to lag behind needs, prices will rice much more quickly than they otherwise might. But sure, I agree that there will always be multiple factors at play.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#86

Post by buserror »

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.

Well 45/55k is /cheap/ for a senior dev. Unless you work for a bank/inner london (or google) all you can hope for is perhaps 65k, at the top... So yeah, if you want more, the only way is to sell off and 'manage', or go off contracting. There's many junior 'managers' who can barely lace their own shoes who get quite a bit more than 65k.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#88

Post by Tistel »

JackPoach wrote: post #16

Yep, Canadian tech salaries can't compete with Silicon Valley

I know a couple of people who did the move and both said it was a wash money wise once you factor all your costs (healthcare, rent, private school for the kids etc). Your job options are an order of magnitude better though.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#89

Post by jungturk »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
jakobegger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well that's the downside of variable rate, yes, but that's more of a feature than a bug.

Locking in the interest rate costs a little bit more (in the form of a higher fixed rate), so perhaps the folks taking the variable rate weren't financially prepared to handle those terms in any case?

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#90

Post by zeemonkee3 »

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.

In the UK you get ahead by going into management. Tech (or sales, or accounting, or whatever) is just a short term thing you do for a few years until you get promoted into management. We don't like to reward people for being clever; we like to reward people who tell others what to do.
Post reply on HN