Originally Posted by Jsmth321

Rent control brought in back in the 70's screwed up the BC rental market and does make it unattractive to build dedicated rental buildings. Landlord-Tenant rules are provincial so the no allowable rent increases on existing tenants is applicable province wide.

Rent control is the reason you say drive around Vancouver and you see lots of rental apartment buildings from the 1960's to 1970's, but then you start around the 80's and now its condos and very little apartments being built, same into the 90's and 2000's and 2010's, very little incentive to build rental apartments due to rent control, its frankly not a good investment and its what has led us to now where there is a severe shortage of rentals and jacked up rent even in small towns and city's, population kept growing but rental units did not get built at the same pace and supply got smaller and smaller and rents went up and up and up.

Federal government also in that span of time stopped funding social housing and downloaded much of it onto provinces but forgot to download the funds needed, which is existing social rentals tend to be buildings from the 70's and 80's and then not much and why for example it takes eons in BC to get into social housing if ever, people waiting over 10 years is not uncommon, we are over 7 years on the list which isn't far off from 10 years.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

Opinion piece regarding housing in the financial post.

https://financialpost.com/opinion/op...hing-else-poor

Originally Posted by Siouxie

House prices in my blue collar worker city have gone through the roof.......

https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...nt=firefox-b-d



To put that it context - a family member purchased a 3 bedroom detached bungalow in a good area 10 years ago for $197,000 - one of many they had seen in that price range (and cheaper).

Originally Posted by Shard

The prices in Canada do seem very high. I was watching a video on Austin. As you know there's a bit of exodus of Californians heading for Texas, and I think they said the average house price was US$ 400K. That seemed low, but even if it were double, it wouldn't touch major Canadian cities.

I wonder if the political pressures in Hong Kong are now feeding into the Canadian market. There's speculation that many in HK may finally leave for good, and if so they will end up in Canada, Australia and the UK.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

It might play a role but likely not a large role at the moment.

Saw this article this morning about Hong Kong residents transferring money to Canada at record levels, and this is only funds that are tracked by FINTRAC, doesn't include transfers under 10,000, cryptocurrencies, or transfers between banks and of course doesn't track money laundering. The amount recorded apparently represents 1.9% of total deposits in Hong Kong.

"Capital flows out of Hong Kong banks reaching Canada rose to their highest levels on record last year, with about C$43.6 billion in electronic funds transfers (EFT) recorded by FINTRAC"

https://globalnews.ca/news/7720628/h...a-money-china/

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

Not even freehold. Strata 2 bed 2 bath rancher, built in mid 1990's, listed for 820,000. Last year a similiar house in the complex sold for 770,000.

110 showings over 5 days, with 20 offers. The accepted offer came in at 500,000 over asking price.

Apparently also broke a record in Fraser Valley for highest price sold in a strata property.

Sucks for those who don't have a high income or already own a property they can sell and buy another.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/red-hot...king-1.5361284

Originally Posted by Stumpylegs

Interesting idea, feel its the wrong approach though - for me the vast majority of Police interactions with destitute/homeless is positive, serves as a check in and a care in the community piece, granted if they see crime as part of this they will act on this.

You would need to replace that with something (Community worker?) who could offer that welfare check and guiding words, but with firm advice rather than the deterrent of punishment.

The destitute/drug dependant/mentally ill crisis is one that doesnt get enough attention and is easily solvable(even more so in times of COVID) re purpose hotels into halfway houses/semi permanent living - subsidised, low cost, would need some hard ground rules in place but would provide shelter, a place people can be kept an eye on (for their health/welfare) get the support they need and take the first steps towards building or rebuilding their life - that is in my eyes a much easier problem to solve than the minimum wage folk who need their own place in a country they are being priced out of.

Take Vancouver, If the government where to purchase hotel Patricia or book it out at an agreed rate for 3/5 years, its run down, scabby and hardly a tourist hotspot (always had loads of rooms available even in tourist time pre COVID) - could likely fit most of the homeless living in downtown eastside into that one hotel.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

Patricia Hotel has been bought by the government, this is in addition to the various other hotels and hostels the government has bought recently including The Ramada Hotel at 435 W. Pender St.

https://www.bchousing.org/news?newsId=1479156927194

The Patricia Owners made out nicely.

• $63.8 million for the Patricia Hotel and parking lot;
• $4.9 million for the hotel at 956 Main St.; and
• $6.8 million for the hotel at 1012 Main St.

Hopefully the government doesn't forget about the non-homeless low income people such as those on disability who need housing they can afford.

Originally Posted by Shard

Are those hotels currently tourist hotels ?

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

The Ramada, Howard Johnson, Day's Inn, HI Hostel on Granville and a few others were tourist hotels, once tourism starts again, Vancouver will have quite the shortage of budget-mid tier hotels going forward.