Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities • Hacker News Board

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#211

Post by mkaziz » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #195

illumin8 wrote: post #180

This seems to be a direct result of capital flight from China. Wealthy chinese who are able to get their money out (through corruption, money laundering, or otherwise) are looking for somewhere safe to park their money for the inevitable decline in value of the yuan. China can only artificially peg their money to the dollar for so long, until they run out of dollars, and they are drawing down their reserves at a reco…

> This seems to be a direct result of capital flight from China. It's even happening to tiny PEI in the east we have seen a massive surge of Chinese people (to clarify yes from China) investing in and living in the province. Five years ago you could walk down the street and it was typical small town Canada last summer I went to a Starbucks and every single person was Chinese. There are now at least two if not three B…

PEI of Anne of Green Gables fame? Man, now I wish I had visited it earlier ... it's been a life dream of mine to go see it!

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#212

Post by nerfhammer » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #105

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…

Odd - I'm ~6 years out of a Scottish university with a CS degree. Everyone of my class who stayed in Scotland owns their own property and has a much higher disposable income than those in London. They're in Edinburgh mind you, why anyone would choose to live in Glasgow is beyond me... Edinburgh recently topped the stakes for average disposable income in the UK - £800 per month compared to £300 in London.

What's wrong with Glasgow? Just curious

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#213

Post by coke12 » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #200

dghughes wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a direct result of capital flight from China. It's even happening to tiny PEI in the east we have seen a massive surge of Chinese people (to clarify yes from China) investing in and living in the province. Five years ago you could walk down the street and it was typical small town Canada last summer I went to a Starbucks and every single person was Chinese. There are now at least two if not three B…

I wouldn't even say it's speculative condo buying - it's more like treating the condo as a piggy bank. It's considered a safer investment because it can be purchased through a shell company (LLC), hiding the true identity of the buyer, and unlike the funds in a bank account, can't easily be seized. There was a well known phenomenon: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/business/international/chi... "In London, Chinese i…

Isn't a "sovereign" wealth fund effectively the Chinese government investing in Australia?

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#214

Post by wcummings » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

ruffrey wrote: post #144

With online collaboration tools really taking off, especially with WebRTC currently on billions of devices, I have this unfounded belief that city centers will become less important over the next decade. There will always be work which is better suited to in-person setups. Maybe it is more of a hope than a belief - but having a decentralized workforce has implications for cost of living and quality of life that are e…

> I have this unfounded belief that city centers will become less important over the next decade.

People have been saying this for years and the opposite seems to be true.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#215

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #205

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…

That is, frankly, a very small part of the problem. The housing that does tend to get built in these cities is almost universally luxury housing.

[deleted]

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#216

Post by ZenoArrow » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #205

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…

That is, frankly, a very small part of the problem. The housing that does tend to get built in these cities is almost universally luxury housing.

Yes, and that won't change until we have something like a land value tax that is based on active use of the land. There needs to be a mechanism in place to stop wealthy investors buying up property they barely use. At the moment luxury property in a large city is seen as a safe investment (for the most part).

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#217

Post by 3pt14159 » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #196

pkaler wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm standing at my desk in my apartment that I pay $1589/month for. An equivalent apartment in SF or NYC would be $3500 or higher. The problems are two-fold. 1) Vancouver hasn't created a single-family detached home lot since the 1970s. There is an ocean to the west, the US border to the south, Burrard Inlet and mountains to the north. There just isn't any land. The only way to expand is east into the Fraser Valley.…

If property values were tied directly to incomes, as they are in any normal market, and what you are saying is true about salaries being low, the Vancouver market would not be as hot as it is right now. The market is being artificially inflated by foreign buyers. Don't forget that Vancouver is a very attractive destination for wealthy Chinese multi-nationals. This is the same phenomenon that has wealthy Chinese buyin…

Yeah, let's see some sources on how foreign buyers are propping up the Vancouver market. Last time I looked (around 2010) all the studies were claiming that immigrants that were buying homes had borrowed money from their Chinese parents, and thus this was foreign money. But almost everyone under the age of 40 borrows to buy.

I think the real problem lies in interest rates. They show a clear correlation between sustained low interest rates and asset inflation.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#218

Post by moron4hire » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:46 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #210

illumin8 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If property values were tied directly to incomes, as they are in any normal market, and what you are saying is true about salaries being low, the Vancouver market would not be as hot as it is right now. The market is being artificially inflated by foreign buyers. Don't forget that Vancouver is a very attractive destination for wealthy Chinese multi-nationals. This is the same phenomenon that has wealthy Chinese buyin…

I saw an answer on Jeopardy! recently that described Vancouver for one of the daily doubles. Oglethorpe math professor Philip Tiu apparently had a long enough brain fart before responding correctly that I had time to yell at the television, "How do you not know Vancouver?! You're Chinese!" My spouse immediately informed me, "That's racist." We then had a short discussion about the ways in which the Chinese nouveaux r…

It's not racist, but it is prejudiced. Racism is basically "prejudice + power". You don't have any power over the person on the screen, so your comment is just prejudiced. If, on the other hand, you were using your hypothetical sway on social media to besmirch him in some way, that would be racism.

I'm American but I've never read "To Kill a Mocking Bird". "How could you have never read an iconic piece of American literature that literally every public school child between the 70s and 90s was forced to read in highschool?!" Easy: I didn't go to public school, and I wasn't in highschool until the new millennium.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#219

Post by pnathan » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #180

This seems to be a direct result of capital flight from China. Wealthy chinese who are able to get their money out (through corruption, money laundering, or otherwise) are looking for somewhere safe to park their money for the inevitable decline in value of the yuan. China can only artificially peg their money to the dollar for so long, until they run out of dollars, and they are drawing down their reserves at a reco…

This is anecdoteally part of the reason for the Seattle area house price rise.

Re: Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities

#220

Post by sospep » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #58

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…

> Or we have more remote jobs, and/or satellite offices.

So much this. Especially for the "tech industry". A good portion of Vancouver's startups and tech companies are "downtown". Why not move out of the core? Why not add a satellite office somewhere affordable? Why not start to offer remote work options?

This is not an industry where you need to be physically present to get the job done, for the most part, yet the tech companies here(and elsewhere) aren't/don't seem to be looking at work options other than the status quo.