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Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

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Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#391

Post by vkou »

louprado wrote: post #274
gorkemyurt wrote: post #211

One 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…

Renters pay property taxes, too - indirectly through their landlord.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#392

Post by oldmanjay »

1stop wrote: post #361
pjc50 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another disadvantage is that it's regressive because the bands are quite limited: "The poorest lose 8% of their income to the Council Tax system whilst the richest only lose 2%." ( https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-regressive-our-tax-syst... ) "Europe tells UK to reform ‘regressive’ council tax system": http://www.localgov.co.uk/Europe-tells-UK-to-reform-regressi...

Curious why you are getting down votes... Your post is good. Seems HN group think favours regressive tax?

There is a very enjoyable irony to the notion that you would accuse a community of groupthink for a perceived lack of accepting your opinion as the one true way.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#393

Post by kilroy123 »

CountSessine wrote: post #371
neptunespear wrote: post #299

I 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…

As an established middle-aged software developer with a family living in Burnaby who cannot move now because of custody issues, I'm going to give you the same advice I give to all of the engineering co-ops I work with. You should move out of the Vancouver area as soon as you get your degree. I don't think that you're ever going to have a problem finding 1 bedroom accommodations in Vancouver because that's what develo…

Why does / did the Canadian government let so many Chinese come in and buy property like that?

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#394

Post by CountSessine »

throwaway23333 wrote: post #389
yelnatz wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really painful. Having average home price of $1.8m while the median salary is at $60k. Something really needs to be done to help out Vancouverites.

I don't understand why everybody keeps talking about the "average home price" and comparing it to salaries. Homes in good neighborhoods in Vancouver are nowhere near that price unless you want to live in a little mansion. And I'm fairly certain that the median salary is largely comprised of the service industry. The other thing I keep seeing is "in Quebec it's much more affordable..." Yes, and your salary would be mu…

Are you on MLS? Base house price west of Cambie is $2M (and it goes soooo much higher). Base house price in the rest of Vancouver is $1.5M. Base house price in Burnaby is now $1M. In Poco/Coquitlam/Port Moody you can find a few 'gems' for about $800k. I think the person you were responding to was pretty much spot-on.

I make about 100k. I've had job offers for Quebec that are 100k. Seriously - there's absolutely no payscale advantage or allowance for living in Vancouver. And provincial taxes in Quebec aren't much different at that tax bracket either.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#395

Post by vkou »

gearoidoc wrote: post #356
vkou wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Those GlassDoor salaries are cash. Stock and bonus add another 50-100%. My anecdotal experience with Vancouver is that some employers will throw you 15%, on a good year.

Microsoft pays a bit less, but also employs ~30,000 people in the area.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#396

Post by tangentspace »

neptunespear wrote: post #346
mjevans wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in the Seattle metro area; rent here is just massively out of balance. There is a total lack of regional urban planning and competition in the form of sufficiently available housing to keep prices low. All of that development went to the improperly supported suburban exodus movement of the 80s and 90s.

I hear that even in the more conservative suburbs, support for rail is increasing, just because the traffic in Seattle is so bad. Is this true? I think Washington state's regressive tax pyramid and dependence on plebecites will still stymie progress, though; in Canada, provincial and federal governments have much more centralized power to levy taxes and spend.

Yes, support for light rail is increasing. Construction is now starting on a new rail line from Seattle to Bellevue/Redmond, although it won't open for many years.

I attended many government planning meetings in the 1990's, and people were definitely anticipating the steadily increasing road congestion we've been experiencing since then. One of the big issues is that the topography in this region drives up costs. The densest urban areas are wedged between Puget Sound, Lake Washington, and Lake Sammamish, and in between there are steep hillsides and environmentally sensitive areas. Transit expansion therefore involves building bridges, purchasing land in areas with expensive view homes, and tunneling. We could raise taxes to pay for more rail expansions, but higher taxes combined with the rapidly increasing housing costs would price out many people, especially families.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#397

Post by goldbrick »

infinite8s wrote: post #272
zanny wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No developed country supports anything remotely like squatter's rights.

Incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#398

Post by goldbrick »

infinite8s wrote: post #306
Symbiote wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the UK: https://www.gov.uk/squatting-law/squatters-rights-to-propert... I suspect several other European countries have similar rights.

From that site: "Land Registry will decide if your application is valid and will let the property owner know. The owner has 65 days to object - your application will usually be automatically rejected if they do." So basically you'll only get to stay if the property is effectively abandoned.

Which is what squatting is...

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#399

Post by fleitz »

brc wrote: post #377
gorkemyurt wrote: post #211

One 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…

It's even worse in Australia, which most properties do not have a yearly property tax. So you pay a 'stamp duty' when you purchase the property, based on a % of the sale price. This means you have people living in Sydney with multi-million dollar properties - which are just modest houses in now-desirable suburbs - who haven't paid any property tax since the 60's, and who can't move anywhere because they'd be up for s…

Its the exact same thing here in Vancouver, there are even protests because someone is going to tear down a small house that fits one family and build a bigger house on the same property that fits multiple families.

We have a low interest rate fuelled asset bubble and 1%'ers are complaining that they can't afford detached housing in Vancouver, never realizing that if everyone in Vancouver live in detached housing we'd need 150% of the available land in Vancouver (like no roads, offices, parks, pools, etc just detached housing)

It's stupid to expect to be able to live in detached housing in a world class city. The other thing is that Vancouver isn't really a 'city' in the way that many others are, the 'burbs are separate cities so we get this 'most unaffordable' label when its really much better than many other cities.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#400

Post by shawn-furyan »

wrong_variable wrote: post #331
kareemm wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1BR inventory is not really an issue. Most of the new builds consist of small 1BRs so that developers can maximize their $ per square foot. rents on 2 or 3BR places have shot through the roof because there's very little supply being added. The real problem is that prices have become decoupled from incomes. The median home price is 10x more than the median household income (this includes condos and townhomes). The onl…

> The only reason for this is outside capital driving up prices. Also known as inflation OR debt issued by your govt returning home.

This is an insufficient explanation. Canada's debt to GDP ratio is in the 60-70% range where that of the US is in the 90% range. Yet the situation in Vancouver is significantly more acute than those of New York and San Francisco.
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