scrubbedexpat091

Eventually the federal government and provincial government in BC are going to have to deal with housing problem.

scrubbedexpat091

Gotcha. I thought it was something like leasehold land.

I know some realtors do rentals in BC, but doesn't seem super common, at least at our rent range.


The basic collapse of the Airbnb market in Vancouver seems to have a led to a flood of short term rental listings for furnished apartments, some of which the people renting out don't understand the tenancy laws and asking for things like 6 months rent upfront, or first and last month rent, neither of which are allowed in BC, not that there is a super huge demand for furnished places to begin with, interesting times.

Siouxie

Could be useful for anyone arriving from overseas that need to self isolate / quarantine for 2 weeks

DandNHill

I would hazard a guess that foreign buyers account for some of that. With the Non Resident Tax that foreign buyers have to pay in the GTA its very expensive for them to buy. But in NS they can still invest and get a return in their money.

scrubbedexpat091

Our old apartment isn't listed yet, but there are 2 other units in the same building currently listed for 2,400 a month and 2,900 per month, so I figured our old place will rent somewhere in that range. We were paying 1,750 per month.

Rent's climb so quickly in Vancouver, having a tenant stay more than a year ends up costing the landlord a fair bit of money, they can't raise rent on existing tenants to market rent as rent increases are capped.

scrubbedexpat091

I suppose this plays a role as well as well.

https://financialpost.com/pmn/busine...gh-real-estate

" $5 billion was laundered through British Columbia’s real estate market in 2018 comes as no surprise to experts, as Canada’s weak money-laundering laws make it an attractive spot to park ill-gotten cash."

Compared to the US, Canada is money laundering heaven for criminals.

MikeUK

not just criminals, even when i was in Canada the Vancouver real-estate market was seen by many as stable with a long term growth trend, so it had become a home for overseas investors who were based in less stable countries, putting there cash into BC bricks and mortar rather than there domestic banks..
but then again before it was illegal, the local BC weed economy was supposed to be generating an income similar to that of Telus... that too is a lot of money that silently slipped into the economy under the books

Teaandtoday5

Another property boom?

caretaker

There goes the neighbourhood. I say hard no, pump the brakes on that right away. We already have too many nazis.

scrubbedexpat091

California centric, but they face similar housing issues there as BC faces and I thought was fairly interesting. This was from 2015 so likely is even worse now vs 5 years ago as costs have continued to rise at rates higher than wages.


"40 percent of those born in 1960 owned a home at age 30 where only 27% of those born in 1980 owned a home at age 30."


"a household headed by a 30 year old born in 1960 spent, on average, 33 percent of its income on housing, compared to 37 percent for a household headed by a 30 year old born in 1980."






https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/120


From what some realtors say, seems a good chunk of younger buyers have significant help from parents/family, which makes sense, we know a few people who worked for everything blah blah, but mommy and daddy bought their house for them, or provided a huge down payment.....

scrubbedexpat091

It's not just the big city's becoming affordable, rents increasing in smaller city's due to people having to move. Not entirely sure Canada holds a future for those not on a high income.

Abbotsford, BC used to be one the most affordable city's in the region, and has quickly seen rents increase over the last couple of years, seems Hamilton in Ontario is in a similiar boat.

Where rents in Toronto seem to have fallen a bit and Vancouver is flat, smaller city's are seeing some significant increases.

Home owners who haven't rented in decades likely really don't understand what renting is like these days, and how stressful renting has become.

Article.

JamesM

The only certainty with any market is that it will always crash.

It's just a question of when rather than if. I remember in the UK (primarily the South East) people telling me that the market couldn't crash and that they were too smart for it now. That all changed in 2007 after 15 years of double digit growth. The market always corrects.

The reality is Canada is ****ed. Commodities aren't doing well and people are living off consumer debt often guaranteed by their over priced property. Successive Canadian governments from all sides need the market to not crash so will do what they can to prop it up. Even the pandemic of homelessness and rise of tent cities won't prompt them to do anything sensible in the long run to damage the price of housing in the short run. However the market always out runs policy in the end.

Locally where I am- the Air B'n'B ban in Toronto is having an effect on the downtown rental market (rents down 15% in my neighbourhood in the last 3 months) and I also know several people quitting the city as they no longer need to be near the Bay street towers due to being able to remote work thanks to COVID. I expect the desirability of condo ownership to take a pretty big hit with these two factors in play- they will not look like attractive rental investments soon. If the pandemic lasts into 2021 I could see Toronto hollowing out and the value of homes quite quickly with it.

It will end and when it does it will not be pretty.

Stumpylegs

But generally post crash it'll recover and exceed pre crash levels.

If I could but property in the SE for 2007 value now and sell it at todays prices I'd be living the high life

scrubbedexpat091

Remove affordable housing from a countries housing stock, nobody should be surprised tent city's and homeless populations rise, it should not be a shock to anyone.

Rents have just been increasing well beyond inflation and wages nowhere near keeping up, add in the rising food costs, and rising electric costs etc etc, and nobody should be surprised there are more and more tent city's.

Chilliwack was the first place I lived when I came to Canada. Rent was $475 per month, my first job paid $10.50 per hour, so took about 45 hours (using gross pay) to earn $475. (min wage at that time would have needed to work 60 hours)

Account for inflation that rent would now be $620, and at current min wage would take about 43 hours to earn that amount.

But we all know rent increased far more then inflation, and that apartment building today in 2020 rents for 1,250 per month, and they didn't even do any upgrades, looks the same but now instead of it taking 60 hours for a min wage worker to earn rent, it now takes 85 hours. (again all gross, so reality is it takes more than 85 hours to actually take home 1,250.)

I personally for our income level see no future in Canada, its just hardship and nothing but hardship really, we will never have the earning power to be able to afford a quality life in Canada.

Hell in California at our income level we would be getting food stamps, where in Canada there is limited help to obtain food, food banks are not on par with the US food stamp program.

So same rent in California, same wage in California, can get healthcare in California pretty cheaply at our income level due to the state medi-cal program which is on par with Canadian healthcare really cost wise, + food stamps, I honestly think we would better off in California at this point.

JamesM

Your post is an excellent analysis of the declining living standard for people in this country.

If you're from another G8 country I don't believe that financially Canada is an attractive immigration option anymore and probably hasn't been since 2010ish. I even know people who've moved from places like India who stayed a few years then gave up and went home.

There's a lot of things I like about living in Toronto but if income and cost of living was the only factor I'd be back in London yesterday.