Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which then allows you to get a passport....
If you move to Canada and maintain residency for X number of years.
You just need to make it look like you actually are resident.
Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
291–300 of 629 posts
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem in Vancouver is the house prices are not driven by economic activity in the city itself. Bay area and Manhattan prices are a product of the local economies. Vancouver prices are a product of speculation and wealthy people who live/have property there but don't work there.
So why do speculators choose Vancouver of all places to speculate in?
When HK was getting turned back over to China, there was a lot of concern and Canada (Vancouver, Toronto etc.) became destinations of choice for many people.
This obviously isn't the only contributing factor but I know lots of people that have gone through this migration pattern.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that the OQLF works on a complaint basis.
Pretty sure no one complained about this. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/burgundy-lion-oqlf-1.... Also, as soon as my friend's company who does most of her business to the States got to a certain amount of employees, they had their agents come in to switch out all of the keyboards and software into French, and advised to make internal emails communications in French as well.
From that article:
>A spokesman for the OQLF said the letter is only for information purposes, and there are no penalties involved. The agency's goal, Jean-Pierre Le Blanc said, is to let business owners know that French-language versions of such promotional stickers exist.
>"This is one of about 300 to 400 letters we sent this month to businesses," said Le Blanc. "It's not an investigation. It's not a complaint. It's an incentive."
I suspect that the keyboard anecdote is inflated.
However, the official work language is French, but that is only because we don't want the majority to become second-class citizens..
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Homesteading is giving unclaimed land new residents. What you're talking about is squatter's rights.
Except I'm not - there already exist squatters rights to occupy someones elses property and eventually claim it their own if they can avoid detection long enough. All that takes is the minimum effort to police the property you own to insure nobody is squatting. What I'm saying is that unconditionally whether or not someone is illegally occupying your property you only have a fixed amount of time to make use of it bef…
My recollection of squatter's rights is that the owner has to know you are there, and do nothing for years. If you are hiding, you can't lay claim.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#295I'm curious how this problem is unique to Vancouver. Berlin's real-estate values have risen some 40% in just the last 7 years or so. New York City, in the 10 years I lived there, had an enormous escalation in what you get for the same rent payment, even adjusted for inflation. Big cities deal with this all over, so how do they deal with this "problem," or is Vancouver somehow unique in other ways?
I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Real estate in DC is very high and did not suffer as much in the Great Recession, due to the extremely limited supply of available housing. But I don't think our problem is foreign investors. Many people who moved into the burbs in the 80s and 90s now want to move back, as DC becomes more desirable. I see young people everywhere, even though it's hard for someone just…
DC also has height restrictions due to the 1899 Height of Buildings Act (amended in 1910 to effectively restrict buildings to no taller than 13 stories - http://www.welovedc.com/2009/05/19/dc-mythbusting-the-height...).
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prop 13 has nothing to do with real estate price inflation. If anything, shifting of property tax burdens from long-time homeowners to new homeowners would tend to suppress prices. Shifting that burden evenly across the population would tend to cause more churn as long-time homeowners get pushed out, but would do nothing to increase aggregate housing or lower aggregate prices. Although, you can get pretty far into th…
A 4-bedroom house bought in the 70s is far more affordable than a 1-bedroom condo bought today, which creates a situation where no one can afford to move out of their homes. It's a massive tax benefit for themselves, their children, and grandchildren, that instantly and irrevocably goes away when they sell the house. No matter how high the market drives prices there is little incentive to sell. I don't know how much…
Those houses are lived in though (ignoring the whole issue of unoccupied investment properties). You can have an illiquid market with a ton of housing stock. The Bay Area has a problem with insufficient total housing stock, not with tax policy. You can see this via rental market prices, which are not locked-in like property taxes are.
Imagine a Soviet grey-concrete apartment block. You get on the list when you're 18, and get your "free" apartment five years later, in which you are effectively stuck for the next 50 years. It's illiquid, there is high supply, there are low prices.
Now imagine you can swap apartments by paying a huge bribe. It's still illiquid, there is high supply, there are low average prices, there are high marginal prices.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I am sure you paid more in income taxes in London. Which policy do you prefer? In my opinion taxing wealth is always a better idea than taxing income..
I am generally inclined to agree with your last point, however it is possibly to be wealthy but to have very little liquidity. It has been the case that folks in the US who are on a fixed income (e.g. Social Security or disability) end up losing their home simply because they can't pay their property taxes and eat at the same time. It's rare but it has happened and will continue to happen as long as property taxes re…
Many jurisdictions have worked around this by allowing elderly homeowners to defer property taxes on their residence until they move/sell/die. It's a great concept, but can cause a liquidity issue should a large percentage of total property taxes be deferred for years or decades.
Where I live, you have to be 65+ and own 60+% equity in the home. The problem is that some old rich people are moving in, paying cash for property, and then deferring. They aren't exactly the intended beneficiaries of the scheme.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#298As someone who just moved from Vancouver to the Bay Area, it's obvious the issue isn't housing. It's income. My apartment in trendy yaletown was $2350/month for a very nice 2 bed, 2 bath place within 10 mins of anything in downtown. Try finding something even remotely as nice around Silicon Valley. The issue we should be tackling is the low wages seen in the area. The same developer who could make $100k USD in the va…
San Francisco housing is expensive BECAUSE of the incomes. Vancouver housing is expensive DESPITE the incomes. It's more of a housing issue than an income one. If incomes were higher, rents would only go up as well.
I would argue the opposite, SF is expensive in spite of the incomes (consider across the board instead of just programmers).
I'm willing to bet if you were to map the relative rate of increase of income vs. property values over time that you would see that property values are increasing at a much higher rate than income.
I earn what could be considered a good salary, there's less than zero chance in hell that I could afford property in Marin today short of winning the lottery or massive liquidity event.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#299I live in Vancouver. Well, Burnaby.
Like many Vancouverites on HN I am studying for a comp sci degree, and want to work as a developer.
I accept that I have to make sacrifices to keep living in Vancouver, such as:
-Living in a suburb (like Burnaby) -Getting roommates/a shared room -Living on a bus route instead of being a 5 minute walk from Skytrain
With those sacrifices, I can find rents for $750-1000/month. $750 is the lowest one will get for a place relatively close to Skytrain, not too far from downtown (e.g. Burnaby/New West), and in a clean, low property crime area.
More and more companies are paying $70K+ for new grads (something I wouldn't have admitted in say 2012), which is about $45-50K take home assuming you max out your RRSPs. Assuming a "35% of take home salary on housing" rule, you can afford rent of $1350-1450/month (higher if you gross more).
You can get a lot for that kind of money, like a big 1 bedroom (full lease) that's 15 minutes to downtown by transit. I dare you to find something similar in the Bay Area or Seattle, especially with commutes as short and crime rates as low as Vancouver's.
If you absolutely must live in the downtown core, studios start at $1000-1200/month in the West End. There is lots of shared accommodation in Yaletown for I was watching CBS This Morning on Wednesday on the Seattle channel (KIRO), and there was a story about the nuns having the rent on their soup kitchen in San Francisco increased by 50%. In BC, the provincial government restricts annual increases to 2.7% (for 2016) and Vancouver does not have a ward-based system of city councillors, limiting the influence of NIMBYs far more than in SF.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#300The price-to-income ratio, a good indicator of affordability is quite ridiculous here. It should be around 4, i.e your home value should be 4 times your gross household yearly income, its closer to 12 here. I believe in this, and though my family makes a good income, in order to meet this ratio I had to move further out to Richmond. Don't regret it at all, since it eases the stress of requiring two well paid jobs jus…
Does the fixed price-to-income ratio actually hold meaning across a wide range of mortgage interest rates?