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The decline of Vancouver

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Re: The decline of Vancouver

#101

Post by fit2rule »

The same story could be told about a number of Western cities.

Perth, Australia - for example - is another city that has gone through massively over-inflated property prices as, over the last few decades, foreign investors come to the place, see its beauty, and - because they have the context of other major, metropolitan wasteland-cities - heavily invest.

To me this really means that those of us who live in the privileged band of Western civilization really need to get out of our little bubbles and go and see how the rest of the world really lives. If you're in some safe, comfortable city on the edge of it all - go pierce the heart of human civilization, and see what life is like in Hong Kong, Shanghai, or any other major metropolis in Europe for example. Being ignorant of the teeming masses is how these over-inflated bubbles occur in the first place - if you think your lifestyle is great, beware the attention it will gain from those who have managed to accrue substantial wealth, in lesser circumstances ... complacency and decadence will always be exploited by those who have run the gauntlet of human civilization.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#102

Post by krrrh »

dennispi wrote: post #69

I live in Vancouver, and have for many years.. as such, I hope I can try and help inform an otherwise misinformed set of posts. I suspect they're off-base largely because a lot has changed since some of the authors of other posts have lived here. First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritat…

> due to the large number of homes which are owned by foreigners and are vacant. I'm not aware of a concrete way of measuring this.. but anecdotally, I suspect it's close to 30-40% of the downtown residential core.

There have been studies out of UBC that estimate 30%+ van can't condos in the downtown area by using anonymize do BCHydro electricity usage data. As far as I know this number has been increasing. This has gone on for so long that the city, province, and federal government (all three are implicated) are between a rock and a hard place. Canada has one of the highest levels of personal debt-to-income ratios because property prices are overvalued. Anything they do now to try to correct for affordability, and bring down property values would result in a large number of defaults for domestic owners, and big hit to the economy.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#103

Post by twic »

rbobby wrote: post #100

> One problem was that its figures excluded the tens of thousands of Canadians (30-50% of whom estimated to buy property in Vancouver) who bought their residency through the recently defunct Immigrant Investor Program. Hold on a second. I think it's pretty rude, and bordering on xenophobic, that the author wants to call these folks foreigners. Especially if you turn it around and say outright what he's suggesting: Pe…

The article does touch on this:

> According to our Immigration Minister “There is little evidence that immigrant investors as a class are maintaining ties to Canada or making a positive economic contribution to the country”. Indeed, there is an estimated 300,000 – 400,000 Canadians living in China, the majority of whom are ethnic Chinese.

If someone who started life as a foreigner, with no ties to Canada at all, comes along and essentially buys Canadian citizenship, then continues living in China, do they stop being a foreigner? Whilst they are indisputably Canadian citizens, i would say they aren't Canadian in any other sense, and so yes, they are still foreign. They aren't even immigrants, as they never immigrated!

Whereas, of course, someone who moves to Canada and makes a life there is a real immigrant, and becomes a real Canadian. I don't think the author of the article would dispute that.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#104

Post by hluska »

jmspring wrote: post #30
spitfire wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early/mid 2000's Vancouver had a healthy games industry. Not sure about now. But your point is valid. Vancouver doesn't really have any technology industry that's in a virtuous cycle yet.

Google / Microsoft / others are building office complexes in Richmond, Surrey, and other places close to the border because of "US immigration" limitations, but those aren't going to help build industry. Until the mid 2000s, I was looking for a viable company / excuse to move to Vancouver (meet the required points/immigration first bar), but never felt like tech was taking off there. I was involved in the identity ar…

So....you had bad experiences in Vancouver a decade ago so its tech community is not vibrant today??

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#105

Post by lewisl9029 »

dennispi wrote: post #69

I live in Vancouver, and have for many years.. as such, I hope I can try and help inform an otherwise misinformed set of posts. I suspect they're off-base largely because a lot has changed since some of the authors of other posts have lived here. First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritat…

I was living in Vancouver until I moved to Waterloo for University, and will be graduating in a few months. It seems like everyone here is comparing Vancouver with US tech hubs like Seattle and SF, when there's a much more comparable target: Toronto.

Of course, this is anecdotal, but for every one of my 6 co-op terms in Waterloo, I always made finding a job in Vancouver one of my highest priorities, but in the end I always ended up choosing a job in Toronto over the Vancouver ones because the quality and selection of interesting places to work is just so vastly different ever single time.

Once you factor in the costs of living, it's ridiculously difficult for a young professional working in tech to justify choosing Vancouver over Toronto (and trust me, I tried, Vancouver is still by far my ideal city to live in), let alone SF/Seattle where the salary disparity comes into the equation.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#106

Post by quipp »

krrrh wrote: post #102
dennispi wrote: post #69

I live in Vancouver, and have for many years.. as such, I hope I can try and help inform an otherwise misinformed set of posts. I suspect they're off-base largely because a lot has changed since some of the authors of other posts have lived here. First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritat…

> due to the large number of homes which are owned by foreigners and are vacant. I'm not aware of a concrete way of measuring this.. but anecdotally, I suspect it's close to 30-40% of the downtown residential core. There have been studies out of UBC that estimate 30%+ van can't condos in the downtown area by using anonymize do BCHydro electricity usage data. As far as I know this number has been increasing. This has…

> Anything they do now to try to correct for affordability, and bring down property values would result in a large number of defaults for domestic owners, and big hit to the economy.

Structural changes are always painful in the short term. It's the long term total return value that counts.

Also, domestic owners in downtown vancouver would be just fine. If the place is worth over 600k (which they all are) then they are already/mostly rich enough to absorb the hit. Note that the larger the price tag of the home then the larger the hit will be, but on that end it's filled with people who really can afford that hit. The smaller the price tag of home then it's also a much smaller hit taken and the odds are then extremely high for them to regain that value back over time.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#107

Post by edwinnathaniel »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #105
dennispi wrote: post #69

I live in Vancouver, and have for many years.. as such, I hope I can try and help inform an otherwise misinformed set of posts. I suspect they're off-base largely because a lot has changed since some of the authors of other posts have lived here. First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritat…

I was living in Vancouver until I moved to Waterloo for University, and will be graduating in a few months. It seems like everyone here is comparing Vancouver with US tech hubs like Seattle and SF, when there's a much more comparable target: Toronto. Of course, this is anecdotal, but for every one of my 6 co-op terms in Waterloo, I always made finding a job in Vancouver one of my highest priorities, but in the end I…

A friend of mine who works for blackberry in mississauga feels otherwise about TO, he said the highest paying tech jobs are mostly in financial industry.

You're definitely right that housing price is affordable in TO but there are people who still want to go back and prefer Vancouver over TO. They don't mind to pay more for the quality of living in Vancouver.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#108

Post by canekong »

doublerebel wrote: post #93
canekong wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver and graduated from UBC, now working in Seattle and regularly commute to SF (once a month) and almost twice a month to Vancouver. I've been observing this for quite a while and try to put my finger on where the problem is for Vancouver. Have been trying to talk to people up and down the coast who are similar as well to understand more. It's a complex comparison because: - SF has…

Fair description. I would say the quality of life will easily be higher in Vancouver depending on what you value, despite the slightly lower wages. Healthcare is much more affordable than the States, the public transportation blows Seattle out of the water. Housing is much more affordable than SF and on par with Seattle. Skiing, biking, and outdoors in Van is closer and cheaper. Easily as diverse as Seattle, just dif…

i stand to be corrected on the subsidies part! Did some more research this morning. It seems that the reports are generally focused more on how other cities are providing more subsidies than Vancouver, rather than Vancouver stopped providing subsidies.

Definitely agree Vancouver is awesome to live in. To be perfectly honest, I'd love to move back to Vancouver. It's a very nice city, nice enough that I'd want to visit twice a month! I have to be honest, for the right job and at the right time in my life, I wouldn't mind taking a slight pay cut to enjoy the life style here. I'd love to still enjoy a place of my own though. :(

Funny last weekend I was in SF Mission and a friend recently bought a new condo there. $600K, and small just like the Vancouver ones. However our sentiment is that SF can support that kind of market because the price is mostly backed by the crazy tech money. Unlike Vancouver where the housing price don't seem to be backed by any economic boom.

At the end of the day, I guess money still talks. Especially if one tried to raise a family or do anything significant in life like owning a home.

I definitely think Vancouver has great transportation... As long as you live close to a Skytrain station. Many new developments in Vancouver outside of DT seem to emphasize on walking distance to the Skytrain. Some are even built on top of or next to the Skytrain stations, like the ones around the Cambie Canada Line! Otherwise, I don't think Vancouver's bus system is any particularly better or worse. Also, with some of our light link rails and street car projects coming online in the next 24 months, the situation will definitely improve in Seattle. There is already planning into extending the LLR to the Eastside to Redmond/Bellevue areas.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#109

Post by canekong »

hackerboos wrote: post #94
canekong wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver and graduated from UBC, now working in Seattle and regularly commute to SF (once a month) and almost twice a month to Vancouver. I've been observing this for quite a while and try to put my finger on where the problem is for Vancouver. Have been trying to talk to people up and down the coast who are similar as well to understand more. It's a complex comparison because: - SF has…

> I think the biggest problem with Vancouver is that there isn't enough venture capital flowing in. To be honest the same can be said for London. Despite an abundance of capital available, investors this side of the Atlantic are far more conservative than in the US. I don't know what it is in the US that makes investors take a punt on risky ventures, in the UK they just don't. If you're not making revenue in 12 month…

IMHO low interest rate can drive a lot of people to making insane decision up and down the financial food chain. It's essentially "free" money, except the principle has to be paid back.

Much of this has been the seed of the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Funny how crisis in one industry turned out to be a boon for another.

Re: The decline of Vancouver

#110

Post by rbobby »

twic wrote: post #103
rbobby wrote: post #100

> One problem was that its figures excluded the tens of thousands of Canadians (30-50% of whom estimated to buy property in Vancouver) who bought their residency through the recently defunct Immigrant Investor Program. Hold on a second. I think it's pretty rude, and bordering on xenophobic, that the author wants to call these folks foreigners. Especially if you turn it around and say outright what he's suggesting: Pe…

The article does touch on this: > According to our Immigration Minister “There is little evidence that immigrant investors as a class are maintaining ties to Canada or making a positive economic contribution to the country”. Indeed, there is an estimated 300,000 – 400,000 Canadians living in China, the majority of whom are ethnic Chinese. If someone who started life as a foreigner, with no ties to Canada at all, come…

Kinda doubling down on the whole "they're not real canadians" thing aren't ya?

Here's an interesting study from U.Ottawa in 2010: http://sciencessociales.uottawa.ca/grei-rgei/fra/documents/W...

Of interest: 1986-2010 only 130,000 individuals gained citizenship via the immigrant investor program. Of those about 32,000 were the primary applicant, and 97,000 were family members (on average 3... so wife + 2 kids).

This bit is also pretty telling:

> Contrary to popular belief, a majority of respondents (82%) reside in Canada on average between 10 and 12 months a year (Table 4). In addition, another 11% of respondents indicated that they stay in Canada for 7 to 9 months a year. The only official and comparable figures on this topic come from the province of Quebec, where about half of all immigrant investors who landed in Canada since 2003 still lived in the country in 2007 (Figure 12). Our survey results give a higher estimate on a national basis of the proportion of immigrant investors who reside permanently in Canada compared with statistics from the province of Quebec

Trusting the Conservatives to tell the truth about immigration issues is foolish. The minister's comments are directly refuted by this study. Especially his "or making a positive economic impact"... here's a quote from the start of the study:

> The Program clearly constitutes a positive economic initiative for Canada. Considering that about 2,500 immigrant investor families enter Canada each year, this means that the Program provides an annual economic contribution of $1.9 to $2 billion to the Canadian economy

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