Shard

Watched the first few minutes. If Vancouver if the No.2 least affordable globally, what's the No.1?

By way of contrast, a YouTube came up showing the sudden housing boom in Austin TX making it difficult for buyers to purchase, a flustered couple was looking at fairly normal houses and the price tag was $450K. It does seem quite a disparity.

CanadaJimmy

Hong Kong. https://www.bloombergquint.com/busin...-for-11th-year

Siouxie

I lived there for a number of years in the 70's and 80's.... prices were horrendous even then.

scrubbedexpat091

Vancouver incomes are also not great.

dbd33

Apart from the awful accent, it's a well delivered, well reasoned, speech. Except for the part about the price of houses. His solutions don't address the problem.

Firstly "allow building everywhere" that's what kept Hazel McCallion in power for so long, revenue for building permits meant lower taxes for existing houses. The result was the godawful housing projects that stretch north from the QEW halfway to Lake Simcoe. Not sustainable and, obviously, not a means of preventing high prices. No help at all in the region of Vancouver where there's nowhere to build anyway. Easy issue of building permits is a bonanza for the builders, problematic for the environment and a routine tory position.

Secondly, "Stop printing money", maybe that's sensible in general but his criticism, that it's inflationary, doesn't hold. There isn't general inflation, there's just a rise in the price of houses (and horses but that's a minor market). Why have house prices risen? He doesn't tell us but a common guess is that:

1. Canadian house prices were very low compared to the rest of the world.
2. There is a lot of capital sloshing around the world looking for a place to rest.
3. Canada is an economy stable to the point of boredom.
4. Canada is lax compared to the ROW in issuing residency permits.
5. All that money came to rest in Canada.

The reason that Canadian cities feature as being unaffordable is that people working in Canada aren't paid very much. House prices have risen to the point that, in Vancouver, houses cost as much as they do in tube zone 2 but, in London, lots of people make big money and can afford zone 2. People can even live in zones 3, 4, and, perhaps, 5, and still have satisfying lives, it's not like having to go north of Bloor.

The answer for people who care about Canada is to build an economy here, not just digging things up and cutting things down but actual service businesses. The answer for most people is to move somewhere else.

scrubbedexpat091

If I were single, and had the means, I'd pack up and leave tomorrow, but I am neither, so stuck in Canada I shall be....but there really is no future in Canada really at least for us, even with training, best I would do is 40k-45k a year which is still too little for a house.

Guess maybe if we were a double income normal household, where we could both earn 40k-45k each after taxes, but my wife will never be able to work full-time or consistently.
The world's most livable cities 2021, Vancouver dropped out of the top 10, ranking 16 this year, highest of any Canadian city.

• 
  
  1. Auckland, New Zealand
     
• 2. Osaka, Japan
  
• 3. Adelaide, Australia
  
• 4. Wellington, New Zealand
  
• 4. Tokyo, Japan
  
• 6. Perth, Australia
  
• 7. Zurich, Switzerland
  
• 8. Geneva, Switzerland
  
• 8. Melbourne, Australia
  
• 10. Brisbane, Australia
  

Shard

Thanks. I wonder if recent tensions in HK means it Vancouver will switch places in coming years.
I didn't know Aukland was on the list too.

Shard

What kind of service businesses ? Even tech business seems hamstrung by the fact that access to capital and customers are far greater south of the border or accross the pond. Although data centers and/or crypto mines seems like something Canada could develop further ?

scrubbedexpat091

Vancouver seems to be having success in tech attracting US companies to open offices, Amazon has quite a lot of office space opening over the next 2 years and something like 6,000 jobs are expected from their expansion in tech (I think its mainly their AWS division) the redeveloped Canada Post building downtown Amazon has leased 17 floors in one tower and 18 floors in another tower for their operation.

The headline on this article from last fall sums up Vancouver well.

Amazon Plans Vancouver Expansion Where Talent Is Cheap and Smart

"The average wage of a software developer in Vancouver last year was $92,726, compared to $141,785 in San Francisco or $128,067 in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, according to a July report by real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. Once rental costs are folded in, the cost of running a 500-employee operation in the Canadian city is half that of a similar-sized operation in the Bay Area, it found."

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/amazon-p...mart-1.1500394

CanadaJimmy

That's the case for where I work, they have stated a big reason they have the office here is the salaries they have to pay are much lower than in the states. Still pay comparatively well though and decent perks.

scrubbedexpat091

A fair number of years ago I worked at a call center in BC that handled inbound calls for a couple US companies who outsourced their call centers, one of the selling points was cheap and plentiful labor, which was true at the time, the company built their call centers in places with limited options for locals, and basically had a revolving door of employees on the cheap, most of that call center location is gone now though, seems its not cheap enough anymore.

Before the pandemic, there were times I had thought about just commuting to Pt. Roberts, there are usually a handful of jobs there at the grocery store, or parcel places, usually min wage to $14 per hour, $14 US is about $17 CAD$ so not a bad deal really for pretty easy jobs, Pt. Roberts grocery store is pretty slow and laid back environment compared to any in BC.

Being paid in US$ is always helpful too when you have ties to the US and often need US$. With Washington and California upping their min wages over the last couple years, low end job wise, BC's $15 CAD really sucks considering CAD$ lacks the buying power of the US$,

scrubbedexpat091

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/millio...live-1.5464205

Millions of people will move to Canada in the next 20 years, but where will they live?

Moses2013

These most livable ratings never make any sense and it really is a joke. Why not add Andorra la Vella, oh sorry it doesn't have a train station.................
So much for Auckland:-) https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...port-struggles

Jingsamichty

Totally agree, these lists are just nonsense. I recall one from a few years ago that alleged that Calgary was one of the most eco-friendly cities in the world.

Who in their right mind would want to live in New Zealand?

abner

True dat.