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Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

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Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#141

Post by CountSessine »

trapperkeeper79 wrote: post #133
CountSessine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand; this column simply re-iterates what I said. Needless to say, developers once burned have now tightened up the contracts. Buyers must realize that developers get their financing on the basis of pre-sales and rightfully expect and deserve all pre-sales in their development to complete. So, the pre-sale game changed. But probably for the better. Builders offer the 'pre-sale discount' because th…

In Toronto, I heard stories of brokers buying 5-10 pre-release condos and selling them all before taking possession. These people didn't have cash to pay more than the deposit and became millionaires overnight. I don't know how pervasive this was though. There are not too many asset classes where one can pull this off .. so I guess kudos to those people.

I think having tighter contracts to keep people from weaselling out of their pre-sale commitment is a Very Good Thing; anyone who makes a such a commitment should be bound to it.

But here in Vancouver there are people who are upset that pre-sales sometimes don't include the general public. There are builders who've restricted pre-sales to friends and families, and this is perceived as 'unfair'; when these units do show up on the market, they'll be more expensive than the pre-sale price (of course! they no longer get the discount and the market rose in the 8 months that it took to finish the project!). I think there are Vancouverites who then assume that this difference is cumulative across the market and that it is the cause rather than the symptom of the ridiculous increase in cost of housing here.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#142

Post by 1024core »

mhurron wrote: post #66
lmm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think those phenomena might be related?

No, the issue in Newfoundland is the collapse of the fisheries, not because more kids went to college. This isn't towns having an issue because more kids don't want to do fishing, this is because there are no fish to bring in.

Somewhere it's the collapse of the fisheries. Somewhere else it's shuttering of factories. And somewhere else it's consolidation of farming. Basically, it's the same thing: dwindling opportunities in the rural areas, and growth in the cities.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#143

Post by CountSessine »

trapperkeeper79 wrote: post #129
CountSessine wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating watching the carnage on mls now, with the 15% tax in place. No one can sell their houses now. And everyone seems to have a story about holding an open house that no one attends. The money is just gone. It's just like the market collapse back in the late 80's when interest rates climbed into the double-digits; no discretionary seller wants to lower their price from $1.3 million when that was a feasibl…

It doesn't look like TO will implement the foreigner tax. Just hear talk but no action. Frankly, the amount of the tax is so tiny, it makes me believe that there is something else afoot. In any case, I'm dreaming of the day housing becomes affordable in Canada once again.

Frankly, the amount of the tax is so tiny, it makes me believe that there is something else afoot.

It won't make any difference at all to the dozen or so billionaires who are looking to buy their Nth house in Vancouver. But it has devastated the detached housing market below $5 million here and that will ultimately put pressure on condos and townhouses. I think the only reason it's working is that TO and Seattle don't have a similar tax; Vancouver has made itself less attractive, but only marginally so.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#144

Post by ersii »

tjl wrote: post #117
ersii wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd seriously be fine with that. I would not mind giving up all social services, especially not if I got a cashback. That said, I would expect this to come with 'no taxation in the future' as well. That said, I am not everybody.

Would you be seriously fine with the nearest grocery store being an hour away (over deteriorating roads) and it possibly being 3x as expensive? Plus, what are you going to do about garbage? People forget that is also a social service.

Not that those things would necessarily apply or happen just because the collective solution would go away, but yes - I would actually be fine with that.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#145

Post by CountSessine »

abz10 wrote: post #108
acveilleux wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how Canada works. We're way to the left of the US. Furthermore, that's outside the power of the provincial government to do.

I understand that it's not politically viable. But I don't think that disqualifies it from a suggestion worth exploring. Politics can change, especially when the money starts running out.

Ack! I wish our political system were so flexible as to permit this sort of exploration!

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#146

Post by tjl »

greggarious wrote: post #127
tjl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social services like health care, I'd assume.

It's not as easy as you'd think to immigrate from Canada to the US. (Especially since it's difficult to be considered a rockstar ninja whatever if you went to a very good school like University of Toronto instead of Stanford)

I do know. I've been trying to find a job and I have an Engineering Ph.D. from University of Waterloo which is considered one of the best in the country. Companies in the US often hire from UW (Microsoft has traditionally been a big hirer), but I'm overqualified in one sense, but I don't have the work experience people want.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#147

Post by tjl »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #132
tjl wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be seriously fine with the nearest grocery store being an hour away (over deteriorating roads) and it possibly being 3x as expensive? Plus, what are you going to do about garbage? People forget that is also a social service.

Garbage collection is not a social service, it is a commercial paid service in most of the world. In Europe I don't pay taxes for garbage collection, I pay the garbage company for the quantity they pick up.

In Canada, it's generally the case that your taxes go to pick up the garbage. They might hire a company to do it, but it's usually the municipal government that pays. I'm living in a co-op and we get a tax break since we contract ours separately. Even if it's a commercial paid service, how many companies are going to do that in a dying community?

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#148

Post by NotSammyHagar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #128
msbarnett wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another? To me, saying " The Canadian government is doing X", is a statement about the activities of the Federal government. The use of the definite article implies singularity. A provincial government is not the Canadian government -- it's one of many in a federal system. It might in some narrow sen…

Texas is a bad example. The US is a federation of what are essentially 50 different countries, or at least different sovereign governments. Texas is not part of the US federal government, not even a subset. It's its own government with its own constitution and areas of absolute authority (See 'states rights'). Canada is under a single sovereign, with the provincial governments being smaller pieces without absolute au…

Enumerating the rights of states in the US is hard. The things that are clearly states rights is unclear. People assert various things as being states rights, but I think they are incorrect that this is an answerable question. There is usually an assertion that something is in that category, but others will not agree. Is the right to marry with restrictions a state right or a federal right or both?

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#149

Post by jhbadger »

sandworm101 wrote: post #140
jhbadger wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not really much difference between the idea of states and provinces. Just like US states, they have laws and elected officials to themselves. It's the same in many other countries as well. It's pure American exceptionalism to think their "states" are somehow unique in this.

Does any other country have separate courthouses for the local and federal governments? Courthouses that hear virtually identical cases, but apply different rules of evidence and procedure depending upon in which states the litigants reside? Courthouses that literally cannot be allowed touch each other? There are four or five standard courses at US law schools virtually dedicated to state/fed splits. The American sys…

Yes. Provincial courts are a thing in Canada in addition to Federal courts. I'm not sure about the "not touching" rule, but they are separate, because many offenses at the provincial level (i.e. not having a sign in French for your business in Quebec) aren't offenses at the Federal level.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#150

Post by NotSammyHagar »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #138
blackbagboys wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely it would be legally difficult for the government to shut off services to the area if any residents remained.

What exactly are those services? There is no public education, no fire department, there is probably nothing, but they cannot just recognize "we give you nothing but we want you to pay taxes, so move somewhere else where we can give you something so you continue to pay up". It's a tax game, not a service game.

Ferry service
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