The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires • Hacker News Board

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#91

Post by mahyarm » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:13 AM UTC

dottedmag wrote: post #28

jackcosgrove wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think you had to live in an "it" city to make it. Then I realized that I could make my life whatever I wanted to be more easily in a less expensive place. The chains were in my head.

Yes, until you have a family. Then suddenly you need a good school nearby (and good luck bringing children to school in car if they have serious case of motion sickness).

Canadian small towns of 100-300k have good schools. Most of Canada lacks much of any kind of ghetto area. The few ghetto areas that exist are pretty easy to avoid. The good school worries that exist in the USA are pretty much nonexistent in Canada.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#92

Post by jholman » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:27 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #61

jackcosgrove wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm figuring for the down payment.

In Vancouver, $500k is more plausible. The minimum downpayment for >$1M properties is 20%, and the average selling price for a detached house in Metro Vancouver last month was $1.8M; in the City of Vancouver proper, it was well over $2M.

Hang on, I thought we were discussing whether the area is "closed off from those without at least quarter of a million dollars saved up". Isn't that the topic of this thread?

First of all, someone buys the below-average homes, right? So it's hardly "closed off" just because someone can't afford the mean (or median?) detached home value. What's the twentieth-percentile home value?

Second of all, what do detached home prices have to do with this? Live in a condo, like reasonable people do.

The minimum down payment for a 2 bedroom 2 bath condo in my East Van building would be around $40k.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#93

Post by Fifer82 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:28 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #75

Very surprised Bloomberg would put out such a fluff piece about the Vancouver Real Estate market. There are very serious issues in Vancouver, and some suspect Canada is in for a ruder awakening than the US. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/meet-the-wall-street-short-se... 1) Canadian Real Estate is being used as a money laundering facility http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ike-awgu/canadian-real-estate-f... . 2) Canada also…

Carney's ability to stoke a housing bubble was what got him the job in the Bank of England.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#94

Post by RandyRanderson » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:32 AM UTC

As a vancouverite, and a person that's lived in Toronto for over a decade, I can say that while vancouver has about half the population (of T.O.) it has maybe 1/4 or 1/8 of the tech jobs. Also Canada is not like, say, the US, where there are many different industrial centers (ie Entertainment in LA or Finance in NY). In Canada, most corp headquarters are in Toronto and a small fraction are in Calgary and that's it. Vancouver has little significant industry that isn't tied to real estate.

Even if a crash does happen, the largest crashes to date have only been maybe 30% in '82 (prices recovered in 7 years) and 15% in '08 (prices recovered in 1 year).

What could change the course of the current deluge of chinese capital?

1 Canadian Regulatory change - the federal liberals and the provincial liberals have significant political contributions from real estate agents (look it up). They won't impl any meaningful changes. This new 15% tax will affect few and change little; it is just election season and our Premier, Christi has to look active. 2 Interest rates - The US basically sets our rates and the US is likely going to reduce the rates driving more capital to look for better returns. 3 Chinese cash - are you going to stop buying chinese shit? No, in fact most can only afford chinese made products these days. 4 Chinese Regulatory change - This could happen but most of the cash used to buy homes in BC is likely illegally moved out of china anyhow so...

TL;DR- In the 1-2 year timeframe tho, my advice - mortgage your house and buy as much BC real estate as you can afford. Good luck on finding 25%+ yoy low risk returns anywhere else.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#95

Post by ido » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:42 AM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #60

ido wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what I meant, was just saying it seem to apply mostly to Vancouver (maybe Victoria, to a much lesser extent) and not BC as a whole. But that's not how jokes work I guess!

But that's where almost all the people live. BC is a huge place and it's almost all uninhabited.

Yes, that's what I said above about BC being "vast and mostly empty" (and also inexpensive).

And so FreedomToCreate's joke should still be about Vancouver, not BC.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#96

Post by tener » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:50 AM UTC

linkregister wrote: post #83

pedalpete wrote: post #75

Very surprised Bloomberg would put out such a fluff piece about the Vancouver Real Estate market. There are very serious issues in Vancouver, and some suspect Canada is in for a ruder awakening than the US. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/meet-the-wall-street-short-se... 1) Canadian Real Estate is being used as a money laundering facility http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ike-awgu/canadian-real-estate-f... . 2) Canada also…

Fluff piece? Did we read the same article? It covered at length the issue of the young couple essentially trapped in Surrey, unable to get enough space to have a child. The author really went out of the way to emphasize the wealth of the investors, describing the buyer wanting a nonexistent car. The only remotely fluffy portion was describing the ecosystem of luxury services associated with the lavish spending. I thi…

The requirements this young couple have is mind boggling. The have 111 sq meters and think they cannot have a kid in this space? A lot of my friends live in ~40 sq meters and are happy to have their own place at all. With a kid, even two. Surely they would like to move to a bigger places, but this isn't a showstopper. They would love to have 111 sq meters place.

Rising prices of properties is a real issue, but this particular couple is way above the standards I am used to.

What is the socially accepted minimal living standard for a couple with kids in the US / Canada?

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#97

Post by cia48621793 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:52 AM UTC

Chinese new moneys' are nothing good but harmful. They see housing as an investment, not an asset, or something that can live with. They just want to rock more money and everybody is suffering with huge housing price after all.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#98

Post by mastazi » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:55 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #31

lpaone wrote: post #30

What isn't talked about in this article is the effect this is having on the other industries in the city aside from real estate. I believe that Vancouver has potential to be THE tech hub in Canada. Unfortunately, wages are very low compared to the cost of housing, and so the cost of living is super high. Combine that with extremely low vacancy rates, and it is very hard to attract talent from out of town. In fact, ma…

Perhaps Montreal can do the same, if the city finds some way to sidestep the provincial language laws.

Learning a second language is a great thing - your mind becomes more flexible and you get access to movies, books and songs which you wouldn't be able to enjoy otherwise - having to cope with language laws, though, sucks big time.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#99

Post by mrec » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:06 AM UTC

Fifer82 wrote: post #93

pedalpete wrote: post #75

Very surprised Bloomberg would put out such a fluff piece about the Vancouver Real Estate market. There are very serious issues in Vancouver, and some suspect Canada is in for a ruder awakening than the US. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/meet-the-wall-street-short-se... 1) Canadian Real Estate is being used as a money laundering facility http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ike-awgu/canadian-real-estate-f... . 2) Canada also…

Carney's ability to stoke a housing bubble was what got him the job in the Bank of England.

Absolutely this. Please, please take him back. Seriously, we'll pay you, just take him back.

Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires

#100

Post by linkregister » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:06 AM UTC

tener wrote: post #96

linkregister wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fluff piece? Did we read the same article? It covered at length the issue of the young couple essentially trapped in Surrey, unable to get enough space to have a child. The author really went out of the way to emphasize the wealth of the investors, describing the buyer wanting a nonexistent car. The only remotely fluffy portion was describing the ecosystem of luxury services associated with the lavish spending. I thi…

The requirements this young couple have is mind boggling. The have 111 sq meters and think they cannot have a kid in this space? A lot of my friends live in ~40 sq meters and are happy to have their own place at all. With a kid, even two. Surely they would like to move to a bigger places, but this isn't a showstopper. They would love to have 111 sq meters place. Rising prices of properties is a real issue, but this p…

Fair enough, it's more space than I have for two children. It's a bad example that trivializes the actual extreme difficulty Vancouver families face getting affordable housing.