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

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

#201

Post by guyzero » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:17 PM UTC

myth_drannon wrote: post #143

pjonesdotca wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not because of French language, they would try even if it had Zulu immersion. It's just that it's cheaper than private schools, but you still get good students and quality environment

A Zulu-immersion charter school is my new Toronto-based startup idea.

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

#202

Post by run4yourlives2 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

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…

As a Vancouverite (well, metro at least) who moved here from Toronto 15 years ago, one of the things that has bothered me most about BC and Vancouver specifically is how reliant the economy is on a few distinct sectors.

In BC, it's resources and literally nothing else. In Vancouver, since resources overall are declining, we run the economy via real estate investment. That's moronic.

As you say, we could become a tech hub easily if we leveraged our easy connection to Seattle and the gateway to Asia that we are. We could become a medical tech hub as well. We could be a centre for finance as well if we invested properly, particularly since oil is now on a downslide.

Our local governments simply have no vision. Our residents are too afraid of change to actually do, well anything really, and all our innovators simply move elsewhere.

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

#203

Post by Kluny » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

mastazi wrote: post #153

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know mandarin and English. Wait, I have to learn French also? Pass. I had the same problem in Lausanne, though French wasn't required for my job. I just couldn't completely devote myself to my research AND learn another language concurrently.

> Yes, I know mandarin and English. Wait, I have to learn French also? Pass. Is there a government that makes it mandatory? Because otherwise we're not talking about the same thing. I speak 4 languages and I learned each of them for different reasons... None of which was "because otherwise I would be breaking the law".

All services that serve Quebec have to be available in french. So if you're making an application front end, you have to provide a french version even if your userbase doesn't care. It's just extra overhead.

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

#204

Post by guyzero » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #197

jellicle wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "free" you mean "at the cost of learning anything else".

I went to French immersion in Canada. We didn't 'miss out' on anything that kids did in English school. They still had to take a second language class (we didn't since we already had English + French). We just had classes like science, math and social studies in French as well. We still learned English, and of course live in an English-speaking region, so we missed out on nothing.

You miss out on special education support. Have reading troubles? Behind the curve in math ability? Have motor skills issues that make writing difficult? You're told to drop out of French immersion and return to the main English stream. It's a de-facto removal of anyone with any academic problems at all.

And by extension, English schools that overlap with French immersion schools become biased towards kids with learning difficulties which makes them that much less attractive to high-achieving parents. The TDSB elementary system isn't supposed to be streamed but effectively it is.

(I had two kids in TBSB French immersion until grade 4 when we moved away)

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

#205

Post by guyzero » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

chocolatebunny wrote: post #159

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…

I don't understand how Seattle hasn't had a big housing problem compared to the valley or Vancouver. They have a decent tech sector and they're in close proximity to Vancouver.

It's much less geographically constrained than Vancouver and it has fewer tech millionaires than the Valley. It has also had fairly significant price gains over the last few years though.

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

#206

Post by Kluny » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

kejaed wrote: post #124

raverbashing wrote: post #85

Earlier 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?

Anyone wants to work for the federal government or in politics needs French, beyond a certain level. So making sure your kids learn it opens some really valuable opportunities for them.

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

#207

Post by guyzero » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

mikhailfranco wrote: post #65

jackcosgrove wrote: post #3

The whole Pacific coast of North America is becoming a gated region, closed off from those without at least quarter of a million dollars saved up. Unfortunately I think the mild weather and beauty of that area mean prices will never go down. Middle class people are seemingly bound to live in places that are too hot, too cold, or too flat.

It is interesting to look at the map of California and wonder at that huge gap between Carmel and Santa Barbara. No development, no population, its even hard for tourists to find a place to stay, or even a campsite. The tech industry pays all the state's bills, mostly captured by tenured public sector workers, in true socialist fashion. If there's a tech crash, and a few years pass without IPOs, the state will collap…

There's no water.

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

#208

Post by run4yourlives2 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

chocolatebunny wrote: post #159

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…

I don't understand how Seattle hasn't had a big housing problem compared to the valley or Vancouver. They have a decent tech sector and they're in close proximity to Vancouver.

Simply: It's more difficult to emigrate to the US as a foreigner in many key ways, coupled with the fact that it's a slightly larger city with a much stronger and more diversified economy.

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

#209

Post by lpaone » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

aminok wrote: post #115

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #111

Earlier 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…

I think you are naïve if you believe that a government wouldn't fudge a study to support their best interests (best interests in this case being that most of their top campaign contributors are in the real estate business (1)). Let me give you an example of this happening recently in regards to the Vancouver real estate market.

The provincial government released a study on July 7th, stating that only 3% of real estate transactions across BC were from foreign buyers (2). Nobody believed this number, and plenty of people called foul (3). Every single person I talked to involved in the market laughed at those numbers (it is hard not to know someone involved in the market here). The government used these numbers as proof that foreign buyers were not an issue in BC.

Only 3 weeks later on July 26th, the exact same ministry in the government released new data that said that foreign buyers accounted for more than 10% of the value of real estate transactions in Metro Vancouver, which is by far the largest real estate market in BC (4). They used this as proof that foreign buyers were indeed a problem.

This is a prime example of the ridiculous politics that are at play here.

Also of note, if you look at (4), you will see that foreign buyers aren't just buying houses in the exclusive and expensive West Side Vancouver neighbourhoods. According to the data, Burnaby and Richmond, both had 18% foreign buyers.

(1) - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/campaign-dono...

(2) - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/bc-government-releases-p...

(3) - https://www.biv.com/article/2016/7/asian-real-estate-confere...

(4) - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-rea...

*Edit - formatting

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

#210

Post by mrtron » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

49para wrote: post #183

mrtron wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you are saying, but so far things are going very well. By 2010 CMHC had an annual financial surplus of more than $2 billion.[6] CMHC is the largest Crown Corporation in terms of assets with some $26 billion in holdings as of 2008-2009. If you think this insurance can cause Canadian banks to be more risky in their lending - I don't think that is currently the case.

So $26B in holdings to insure $1.372T in outstanding mortgages, that seem pretty low but since the taxpayers will cover the rest, I guess it's fine to continue handing out subprime mortgages.

I havent looked in detail lately - but I believe they issue bonds and the bond holders would be covering the impact of a market crash.

You would prefer if there was not such an insurance system required for home owners putting less than 20% down?