Isn't the cause of rapidly rising real estate prices also caused by devaluations of currencies, so people with a lot of money are looking for relatively safe places to park it? In the USA real inflation is much higher than our government admits.
The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
131–140 of 247 posts
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately in Canada we've gone for easy money (real estate in Vancouver, oil in Alberta) before trying to establish actual industries. We'd rather just grab US and Chinese cash then vacation in Mexico than actually work.
> We'd rather just grab US and Chinese cash then vacation in Mexico than actually work. I would also like to grab cash and vacation. What's so honourable about working?
> what's so honourable about building a future for your country?
FTFY
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I put the possibility of them massaging the data in some way at very remote. This study had a lot of eyeballs on it so risk of getting caught would be too high for them to entertain. Moreoever, the CoV grunts who do the actual work, like doing studies, seem both competent and of high integrity, and I don't think they'd be willing to betray their duty to the public and try to create a false impression of the unoccupan…
They've been willfully ignorant to the numbers for some time. What is to say they aren't misinterpreting the data, fudging it, or ingoring factors like "more houses" or "more energy usage" while the number of people are dropping? This kind of thing goes on all the time here in Beijing, the only reliable way to determine vacancy is to count the lights that come on at night. All the other metrics, including energy cons…
They explain their methodology:
http://council.vancouver.ca/20160308/documents/rr1presentati...
Does not look easily gameable, and the authors don't strike me as being disingenuous.
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apprendre une deuxième langue n'est pas le problème, mais la Loi 101 derange beaucoup de gens
Exactly, how many people coming to Montreal would be happy that their kids could only go to school in French?
Probably about as many parents who are fighting to get their kids in French Immersion in the rest of Canada. I can't speak about anywhere other than Toronto but here it's quite sought after, second language for children.
Especially amongst first generation immigrants like myself.
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing wrong with language laws, people just need to stop being lazy. Learning a second language isn't that hard.
Try having a startup in Montreal. Our has been targeted by the language police, and is being forced to translate not just our front end, but our blog and social media presences. It doesn't matter that 0.01% of customers are in Quebec, and that we have determined that there is no market for our product in french. Anyone can send an anonymous message to this government agency and it will audit your business to make sur…
This is accurate.
The company I work for had to put French stickers on every key of every keyboard. They had to put stickers on the microwave oven as well...
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#136Isn't the cause of rapidly rising real estate prices also caused by devaluations of currencies, so people with a lot of money are looking for relatively safe places to park it? In the USA real inflation is much higher than our government admits.
> In the USA real inflation is much higher than our government admits
Care to explain?
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#137Isn't the cause of rapidly rising real estate prices also caused by devaluations of currencies, so people with a lot of money are looking for relatively safe places to park it? In the USA real inflation is much higher than our government admits.
Do you have any supporting evidence to your claim that real inflation is much higher?
I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I'm genuinely curious. My impression has been that inflation has been relatively low, with the exception of housing. Though housing has gone up much faster in large metros than the rest of the country
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#138The Chinese buyers are paying on average $900k for a house, which is what the average Canadian is buying. The percentage of Chinese buyers is anywhere from 4% to 8% in the market. What upsets me here more than anything else is that no one mentioned the CMHC. I suppose people would be more willing to believe that aliens are using mind control on people to drive a real estate frenzy rather than believe that there are i…
What is the "CMHC"?
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh. But aren't they biased? They were going through a lot of effort to show that there wasn't a bubble, or that the market wasn't being targeted by the Chinese.
I put the possibility of them massaging the data in some way at very remote. This study had a lot of eyeballs on it so risk of getting caught would be too high for them to entertain. Moreoever, the CoV grunts who do the actual work, like doing studies, seem both competent and of high integrity, and I don't think they'd be willing to betray their duty to the public and try to create a false impression of the unoccupan…
So...I looked at their methodology, and I noticed one thing right off the bat:
They define a home as "unoccupied for the year" if its electricity usage is low during the non-heating months - aka. summer. This strikes me as flawed: summer is when you're most likely to be in Vancouver!
Re: The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
#140What 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…
>> In fact, many young, smart and talented people just head south to Seattle or the valley because the wages are so much higher, and the economics of staying in Vancouver just don't make sense.
Your claim is especially true if those people have families. 60% of Families said they planned on leaving the city in the next year due to the problems surrounding housing. Rental rates are also a problem with only a 0.6% vacancy rates and of those available only 16% are 2 bedroom and less than 1% are three bedroom.(1)
(1) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/familie...