I lived in Vancouver from 2000 - 2005. Left when I got married and worked as a software engineer in southern California until the end of 2010. Got fed up waiting for the green card so moved to Australia (my wife is an Aussie) and currently live in Melbourne. Reading articles like this I'm very, very glad I chose not to move back to Vancouver. Sure it's expensive to buy a house in Australia, but rent is relatively cheap. We're paying $1700/month for a 3-bedroom house in a nice neighbourhood 15 minutes by train from downtown Melbourne. Now that we have 3 boys I would never consider moving back to Vancouver. Low salaries, very high housing costs and non-stop rain in winter. Makes no sense at all if you have kids.
Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
351–360 of 629 posts
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#352One of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is Prop 13 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197... ) Prop 13 basically keeps the property taxes constant (or 1% increase) as the value of your house increases (doubles or triples). Your tax gets re-calculated only if you sell your house and the new owner starts paying potentially multiples of what the previous owner has been payin…
A Canadian who invests in single-family homes recently told me that the U.S. state of Indiana charges double real-estate taxes if the home is not owner-occupied. As a Californian who owns rental property in Arizona, I am all in favor of this, provided that means my primary residence would be taxed less. Real-estate taxes on your primary residence is the equivalent of paying rent. It has become so high in some states…
California does give a homeowners exemption on property tax; but it's in the constitution at $7000 of value, so it's only a $70/year discount, and there's a lot of rules to follow if the legislature wants to change it, it looks like they have to also increase the renters credit, and be revenue neutral for local governments; I don't expect it's likely to be increased by legislative action.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#353One of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is Prop 13 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197... ) Prop 13 basically keeps the property taxes constant (or 1% increase) as the value of your house increases (doubles or triples). Your tax gets re-calculated only if you sell your house and the new owner starts paying potentially multiples of what the previous owner has been payin…
Another thing to keep in mind regarding prop 13 is that it also affects commercial real estate - commercial landlords tend to set up a company to own/insure/maintain a building, and then rather than selling the building they just change the beneficial ownership of the company, preserving the low property tax rates.
As a homeowner myself I'm being a bit hypocritical here because we bought at a low point in the market and now pay a fairly low rate of tax relative to the change in the property value, but on the other hand that outcome was the result of years of waiting for an opportunity to time the market.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are not interested in learning French you'll have a hard time finding a job in Montreal.
I'd love to improve my French, but would probably like to do it while working at a new job, not before a job
If you are in Quebec once, try to speak French even if you struggle. You'll see most people will go pretty far to help you.
In any cases, feel free to message me in French if you need practice.
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#355I 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…
Are these amounts expensive for a developer there? I pay $1150 monthly rent ($1600 CAD) for a so-so house outside of Houston.
I'd say $750-1000 CAD is per month is on the low end. In general I find that renting near the train system is about $1200-1300 CAD for 1 bedroom, but that's on eastmost side of the city which is about 15-20 mins out of downtown (by train). Average dev salaries are maybe 60k CAD?
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd love to live in your world! How much do you think senior engineers earn? Most people would do well to save 20% but even assuming people save 33% then you reckon senior engineers earn over 300k?
Senior engineers at Microsoft/Amazon/Google earn ~200-400K USD. (All-in) If you can 'live well' in the more expensive Vancouver at a 110K CAD salary, you could easily save an extra 100-200K USD by moving to Seattle.
Those companies are very much outliers. Does those 3 all have development operations in Seattle?
Your figures don't seem to stack up RE Google:
https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/Google-Seattle-Salaries-EI_I...
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#357I wonder how much of this and similar cases are based on low interests. You can't keep your money in the bank because you won't get any interests and at the same time leveraging your money and buying housing is cheaper. So maybe the solution to housing prices is significantly higher interest rates?
I think that's one of the causes, the other is the excessive money supply: https://positivemoney.org/issues/house-prices/ The issue described is not unique to Vancouver, it's a worldwide phenomenon, lots of desirable locations across the globe are facing the same (from Auckland to London to Sydney to Zurich), even in my hometown in Montevideo, Uruguay, houses are going for ridiculous prices. A good measure on whether…
>As someone who doesn't own any property, I really hope the housing bubble explodes.
Where were you 5-7 years ago?
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm basing my judgment on hearsay. I was under the impression that HK property prices were through the roof, so I stand corrected.
They certainly are in plenty of neighborhoods - especially compared to other cities in China. The thing is that despite the tall buildings there isn't actually that much supply on HK island itself because it's so tiny. Still, I think there's a much bigger range relative to overall quality of urban life compared to, say, SF. And things get a lot more affordable across the harbor in Kowloon and in the New Territories.…
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Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't it discourage long-time owners from selling, thereby limiting supply and raising prices?
In theory, yes. In practice, if you own a currently 4+ million dollar home built in the 50's, you are paying at least 15-20k on it anyway. Here's an example currently for sale: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Los-Altos-Hills/27446-Black-Mounta... They are paying 18.2k. If it was reassessed today, they'd be paying 40-45k. If they do what most people who have lived in a home forever do, and are downsizing to something smalle…
wow- the price on this house was dropped $500K in the last 6 months. Looks like the bay area prices are finally crashing /s
Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are these amounts expensive for a developer there? I pay $1150 monthly rent ($1600 CAD) for a so-so house outside of Houston.
I'd say $750-1000 CAD is per month is on the low end. In general I find that renting near the train system is about $1200-1300 CAD for 1 bedroom, but that's on eastmost side of the city which is about 15-20 mins out of downtown (by train). Average dev salaries are maybe 60k CAD?
If you extend your search to Burnaby/New West, you can easily find 1 bedrooms for $700-1000 that are close to a frequent bus route (e.g. 106, 123). You're not paying a premium to live close to Skytrain, but commuting to downtown doesn't take an hour by transit either.
There's actually not a lot of data on Vancouver dev salaries out there. I've heard ranges from $50K to 70K depending on the source.