The Decline of Vancouver.

Posted by: Kenny

So what do you suggest? Since you clearly can observe how terrible all of these dirty scheming lazy homeowners are, who don't work for a living and just live from tax loophole to tax loophole, screwing over the working class, from your elevated perch of socioeconomic superiority? 

In case the sarcasm is lost here, I think I speak for a lot of homeowners who own homes simply because they worked hard, set goals, and made sacrifices for something they felt was worthwhile long-term, when I say its annoying when people classify us as some type of silver-spoon/lottery winner/had everything handed to them/got in early /speculator/ tax evader or whatever in an attempt to discredit the notion that some people just figure it out however they can. Either do it or don't but whining won't solve it.

Well it's important to continue to do nothing.  Look how well it's worked so far. 

I mean Taleeb was elected in Van-Granville so...

Anyway; "Global city! Serfdom! etc"

There's only 1.34 million vacant homes in Canada.  Maybe we can get a "2MilX2025" campaign going or something?  So long as we continue the path of global wealth being stored in Canada it should be an easy task.

https://www.straight.com/news/cibc-says-vancouver-homebuyers-receive-average-of-340000-gift-from-mom-and-dad-for-property

Posted by: Couch_Surfer

https://www.straight.com/news/cibc-says-vancouver-homebuyers-receive-average-of-340000-gift-from-mom-and-dad-for-property

Sort of makes sense, their parents would have bought for super cheap when housing was cheap, maybe bought a second property for good measure. Sell the second property and end up with 2M in the bank, sprinkle 340K per kid and still have a healthy retirement lined up with a fully paid up principal residence.

Posted by: Endur-Bro

Taleeb .... Van-Granville so...

Soul mates, eh?

"Global city! Serfdom! etc"

Monaco-by-the-sea

Monaco is already by the sea.

Posted by: Adam-West

Monaco is already by the sea.

He got you on that one, Tungsten, lol.

Pretty good racket these developers have going. They promise a certain amount of affordable rental housing in the planning phase then when it's almost done cry that they're not gonna make enough money and have to sell everything as condos.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/burnaby-market-rental-housing-policy-changes-risk-cancellation

This is also the site I happen to be working on. I hate my job.

Posted by: Stuminator

Posted by: Adam-West

Monaco is already by the sea.

He got you on that one, Tungsten, lol.

Oh boy, are you two ever dumb?

Posted by: Endur-Bro

Posted by: Kenny

So what do you suggest? Since you clearly can observe how terrible all of these dirty scheming lazy homeowners are, who don't work for a living and just live from tax loophole to tax loophole, screwing over the working class, from your elevated perch of socioeconomic superiority? 

In case the sarcasm is lost here, I think I speak for a lot of homeowners who own homes simply because they worked hard, set goals, and made sacrifices for something they felt was worthwhile long-term, when I say its annoying when people classify us as some type of silver-spoon/lottery winner/had everything handed to them/got in early /speculator/ tax evader or whatever in an attempt to discredit the notion that some people just figure it out however they can. Either do it or don't but whining won't solve it.

Well it's important to continue to do nothing.  Look how well it's worked so far. 

I mean Taleeb was elected in Van-Granville so...

Anyway; "Global city! Serfdom! etc"

The first sentence in my post is "what do you suggest?". Your response proposed nothing and simply complained more, so thanks for proving my point, I guess? 

Everyone seems to miss that it's supply and demand at the core of it. 

Therefore, in my mind we should probably ban detached zoning like they're looking at doing in parts of new Zealand and densify everywhere they can. But then everyone complains about real estate developers.... 

The other problem o  that front is building costs. Last I checked it costs about 600k just to build a typical detached house in Vancouver. So how are you going to slash prices by the percentages people are talking about here? Even if the land was worth nothing, you can't even build a house for that.

Posted by: Kenny

Posted by: Endur-Bro

Posted by: Kenny

So what do you suggest? Since you clearly can observe how terrible all of these dirty scheming lazy homeowners are, who don't work for a living and just live from tax loophole to tax loophole, screwing over the working class, from your elevated perch of socioeconomic superiority? 

In case the sarcasm is lost here, I think I speak for a lot of homeowners who own homes simply because they worked hard, set goals, and made sacrifices for something they felt was worthwhile long-term, when I say its annoying when people classify us as some type of silver-spoon/lottery winner/had everything handed to them/got in early /speculator/ tax evader or whatever in an attempt to discredit the notion that some people just figure it out however they can. Either do it or don't but whining won't solve it.

Well it's important to continue to do nothing.  Look how well it's worked so far. 

I mean Taleeb was elected in Van-Granville so...

Anyway; "Global city! Serfdom! etc"

The first sentence in my post is "what do you suggest?". Your response proposed nothing and simply complained more, so thanks for proving my point, I guess? 

Everyone seems to miss that it's supply and demand at the core of it. 

Therefore, in my mind we should probably ban detached zoning like they're looking at doing in parts of new Zealand and densify everywhere they can. But then everyone complains about real estate developers.... 

The other problem o  that front is building costs. Last I checked it costs about 600k just to build a typical detached house in Vancouver. So how are you going to slash prices by the percentages people are talking about here? Even if the land was worth nothing, you can't even build a house for that.

It's not a supply-side issue.

There's a reason the provincial Liberal party never even entertained the idea of an iron-clad beneficial ownership registry and instead leaned on, "That's Racist!" whenever anyone mentioned foreign ownership.

They make most of their money from property developers.

Until we have iron-clad provincial and federal beneficial ownership registries we'll continue being a dumping ground for ill-gotten gains from abroad and we will all suffer from it.

Most new builds in Vancouver (outside of large lots on west side) are attached duplexes these days. Zoning changes (a few years ago?) allow this pretty much everywhere. Makes sense for developers to knock down $1.5-1.8M junkers on 33x122 lots, build 2x 1500sq ft 3bd/ba high-end duplexes and sell for $1.5-1.8M each (in desirable neighborhoods). That's helping with densification, and there is a push to allow the city to push 6-storey density on major roads and 4 storey on adjacent streets, see the anger in Kits about that right now. On the one hand, I'd be pissed as a home owner on those streets, but on the other I would be stoked to sell at a premium on a land assembly and just buy somewhere else.

With two young kids we are trying to buy in Van right now (current 2bd rental feeling small). We're super lucky to have high incomes, but the road to one of those incomes involved $250k of debt which took several years to pay off in addition to saving. Had some windfall gains from property in Calgary, but unless you've ridden up 10-20 years of the Vancouver market it's tough to have capital to get into the market. This is the magic of leveraged investing, especially when people could jump into condos with 5% down and double up. Factor in absurdly low "emergency" rates for 13 years and there has been a lot of wealth created that is detached from typical  market fundamentals. I'm not confident overall in the market, but for an actual house on dirt in Vancouver on a normal lot is probably reasonably safe from massive corrections, especially while governments in power will do anything they can to prop up housing markets including BS punitive income tax measures that others have highlighted in this thread. Principal residency exemption should be axed long before cap gains inclusion goes up from 50% to 75%.

I know surgeons who had to get family "gift letter" off the books down payment loan to buy their homes because while they have insane cashflow, it still takes years to save up $900k in after tax cash to buy a $3M house. So it's not even an easy road for 1%'ers unless you have capital. Should've just YOLO'd TSLA from day 1.

Posted by: ReductiMat

It's not a supply-side issue.

There's a reason the provincial Liberal party never even entertained the idea of an iron-clad beneficial ownership registry and instead leaned on, "That's Racist!" whenever anyone mentioned foreign ownership.

They make most of their money from property developers.

Until we have iron-clad provincial and federal beneficial ownership registries we'll continue being a dumping ground for ill-gotten gains from abroad and we will all suffer from it.

Two sides of the same coin though? The other way to look at it is foreign buyers created and capitalized on the supply issue. 

It sounds like you are saying supply is fine we need to eliminate demand by restricting foreign investment.  

Problem is, if you try to drive down prices via that method it will still all equalize, because people will just stop selling as people would rather hold than be upside down $500k+ so supply will dry up and prices will stay fairly high anyways. 

If you start flattening all of these 1930s Crack shacks and making land assemblies and apartment buildings,  affordability will improve. 

That said our infrastructure is under capacity for the current population, so densifying is no easy task either.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/10/29/Density-Good-Towers-Parks-Not-Good/