The Decline of Vancouver.

imo the number one issue here is housing affordability - and blame that on offshore money.

Your blame is misdirected. Blame it on the Canadian owning classes for enabling it and enriching themselves in the process.
It just another example of how Canadians allow themselves to be fleeced.
Just like we pay more than south of the border when in reality there are actually few items tariffed at a rate requiring a higher Cdn. price.

Remember 15% mortgages? edit: I know this is the bank rate and not mortgage rates.

Yup, things were tough in the early 80s.

My parents had a mortgage that was about 20% and then due to the resource economy tanking, my dad was unemployed for a while. Things were lean around the house.

When my wife and I bought our house we made sure that we could cover the mortgage on one salary, even if the rates climbed. We were pre-approved for 3 times what we ended up actually using.

The banks will give you a large enough mortgage to hang yourself if things go south.

Yup, things were tough in the early 80s.

My parents had a mortgage that was about 20% and then due to the resource economy tanking, my dad was unemployed for a while. Things were lean around the house.

When my wife and I bought our house we made sure that we could cover the mortgage on one salary, even if the rates climbed. We were pre-approved for 3 times what we ended up actually using.

The banks will give you a large enough mortgage to hang yourself if things go south.

Which is very smart. I feel that you might be in the minority. I suspect there are lots of Vancouverites just getting by with mortgage rates as is, if rates were to jump to 5% it would result in hardship, 8%-10% = game over.

Your blame is misdirected. Blame it on the Canadian owning classes for enabling it and enriching themselves in the process.
It just another example of how Canadians allow themselves to be fleeced.
Just like we pay more than south of the border when in reality there are actually few items tariffed at a rate requiring a higher Cdn. price.

You lost me at "owning classes".

I'm sure someone will label me racist for this, but the author of that sure like to blame foreign money a lot, especially for someone who looks awfully foreign to me.

That said, it isn't just the City of Vancouver that is suffering from this issue. All of the suburbs are in the same boat. The best and brightest pack up and leave to go somewhere that they can reasonable afford to make a life for themselves. In my experience, many of the people that stay cannot afford to get out of their parents basements, let alone think about purchasing a house in the near future. A very good friend on mine initially moved back to Vancouver after we graduated, with an excellent paying job in the city. He quickly realized that he wasn't ever going to get ahead there, so he negotiated to be hired out of their US office and commute from Bellingham (when he is needed in the office - he more typically works on site somewhere), where he was able to afford to buy a house for less than his share of the rent was in a shared apartment.

imo the number one issue here is housing affordability - and blame that on offshore money.

this X 100000000………

i love how that graph attributed the high mortgages in the 80's to Trudeau. Did he cause the high US mortgage rate also?

Which is very smart. I feel that you might be in the minority. I suspect there are lots of Vancouverites just getting by with mortgage rates as is, if rates were to jump to 5% it would result in hardship, 8%-10% = game over.

A drastic rise in interest rates is going to hammer the average Joe long before it hurts the super rich foreign owner. How does that fix the problem of the average Joe not being able to afford his house with yard and white picket fence?

imo the number one issue here is housing affordability - and blame that on offshore money.

offshore might be fuelling it but the fact is that anyone who is is sitting on equity in their house dosnt want the market to drop

A drastic rise in interest rates is going to hammer the average Joe long before it hurts the super rich foreign owner. How does that fix the problem of the average Joe not being able to afford his house with yard and white picket fence?

What I said is that for 'someone' (i.e. gov't) to seriously re-evaluate the policies that got us to the "Decline of Vancouver", it might take a major event, such as a housing crash. If a lot of 'average joes' lost their homes, or at least were forced to sell, it might be a critical mass of people with a common agenda to force the city to change where its headed.

One of the problems with the foreign money is just how many people are in the 1% in China for example (it's about 10 million) Therefore if they all decided to invest in off shore properties it is easy for a market like the lower mainland to be over subscribed the internet tells me their were 100,000 new housing starts in BC in 2014 so it is easy to how the market become oversubscribed. I've no idea how many lots Vancouver is subdivided into but it is not many.

The NY times article that he links to is a pretty interesting read too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/nyregion/stream-of-foreign-wealth-flows-to-time-warner-condos.html?_r=0

I wonder what kind of gems someone would find if they would do the same type of research on some of the empty west side homes and Coal Harbor condos we have here?

Well written article but it doesn't say anything that we all didn't know. The question is what can be done about it? We don't even have the data on how big of an issue this really is so I don't see action around the corner. Maybe we need to find out what the numbers are first.

It seems to me that taxing empty houses at a higher rate is an easy first step. The Chinese owners are making millions on us, maybe they can pay for some new Skytrains. Quid pro quo.

i love how that graph attributed the high mortgages in the 80's to Trudeau. Did he cause the high US mortgage rate also?

That IS pretty funny. Nothing about oil shocks and OPEC. It was all that silly French Canadian. Bast*rd.