Politicians offer no real solutions: Update to the petition today

no .......... this kind of thing called flipping


Yes, the market is high

It always has been high in Vancouver and some of the suburbs. People were complaining back in the 60s and 70s that house orices were ridiculous.

In Vancouver, it all comes down to the fact of the land base ......... there is no more land that Vancouver can develop into housing. All the land available is what there is.

North Vancouver and West Vancouver can really only go further and further up the mountains!

And it becomes a domino effect that has now gone all the way out to eastern Fraser Valley....Lower then Vancouver but still not really all that affordable, same with Squamish.

How much would that house have sold for thirty years ago ? Maybe $300K?

It doesn't seem that expensive considering a good North Shore neighbourhood. It probably had a major refurb.

Just to add to that. If people have a problem with house prices and really want a nice affordable house, why do they actually bother staying in that location. Unless it's for family reasons, there's nothing stopping people from moving away and surely no location/job is great, if you can't afford a home.

Lots of reasons that may stop people from moving beyond just family, could be friends, could be lack of money to move, lack of mobility job wise because of the type of job one does which may result in starting over at the bottom at lower pay, and so on.


We would move within BC tomorrow if:

1) We had mobility job wise.

2) Could arrange a job to start in February as we have a lease so limited to moving only in that 1 month when we can give notice and move, otherwise we are stuck in a 1 year lease.

3) Had the money, moving is a pricey thing to do, and doing it to make the same as one does now, just for lower housing, may not be worthwhile.

There is also the whole where housing is cheap, jobs tend to be less available which results in lower housing, but harder to find a job.

Ok, someone with no education or qualifications would struggle anywhere, but we're talking about a couple or someone with a bit of work experience and who is willing to work. If someone is in the city for the nightlife, shopping, they will have to live with higher property prices, but their priority is not housing. If you want a house with garden, then you might have to leave the city or area. If your priority is a decent home, then why stay in the city for a job/career that actually doesn't get you that? If it's lack of money to move, then you could start downsizing for a year and really save every penny. It's not always the case that where housing is cheap, jobs tend to be less available. You might just have to be more flexible and I don't see a problem starting at the bottom earning less, if in return you get the house with garden you wanted. And where there are less people, you also have less competition, so maybe only 5 people applying for the job instead of 50. You also have the option of commuting, so I think there are many options. I know you are limited to Canada and the US, but even there you have options and might have to sacrifice something.

In today's Globe and Mail:

The country has a looming housing problem that is going to require action from all levels of government, according to a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The study says the long, steady decline in federal subsidies for social housing has left provinces, territories and municipalities struggling against market forces that are making it increasingly difficult for low- and modest-income renters.


Looming House Problem: Ottawa needs to act

Vancouver Affordable Housing Rally this Sunday 24th May



https://www.facebook.com/events/419315721574615/

NOW I understand why you're so concerned about house prices - you're a buyer!

(saw your other thread)

i think the problem now is going to be where to find the land. so much has been snapped up by developers already.

There is no doubt that the removal of federal programmes for funding social and low rental housing has resulted in a drastic decline of such units being available. And, yes, it is country-wide.

There just is not the land in Vancouver, there are no large tracts of land available for development anywhere.

The nearest you would come is the site on Main Street that was social housing until a few years ago. The 15-acre Little Mountain site is bounded by Main, Ontario, 33rd and 37th and was owned by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) from its development in ca 1954 until it was transferred to the Province in 2007.

The Provincial powers-that-be declared that it had to be upgraded .......... houses were old, much land was "wasted" and many more units could be built. No federal funding, of course. So the land was sold by the Province to a developer, who made promises about what he was going to put on there in a huge development of mixed market and non-market housing (as they describe it). All residents moved out and their houses demolished EXCEPT for 1 building consisting of 4 side-by-side units that are still lived in.

The developer, a scion of a very wealthy Hong Kong family with long experience there but not here, appears to have bitten off far more than he can chew, not least in the fact that the site is considered heritage, it is part of the Musqueam lands, and there are more controls on buildings here than in Hong Kong! The land sits there, surrounded by fencing, with these 4 houses in a little enclave of their own near Main Street.

Rich Coleman, BC's Minister of Housing, opened a 53 unit social housing development there in early April ............ 8 years since they sold the site to Holborn Developers. The people in the 4 old remaining units have apparently been moved into this new building. Everything else is still in the drawing stages.


Vancouver does have a policy where a developer wanting to build new apartments or townhouses for sale also has to include a certain number of social housing and/or market rental

Sometimes the developer has bargained down the number of low rental units in return for providing extra public space or community facility within the building.

Then, you get something like happened in the Olympic Village area last year where one building was designated for homeless and social housing, BUT no support was provided. People in surrounding buildings had paid very high prices for their units and naturally objected to the events that followed ......... burglaries, anti-social behaviour in and around their buildings (drinking, defecating etc), constant police calls to that building, etc.

OR what was being talked about a couple of weeks ago ........ separate entrances having to be provided in a high rise that had been divided into two. One half was for high price rental and sale while the other was low rental. The low rental side was actually funded separately from the other and thus there had to be a clear demarcation between them ....... never the twain should meet!

300,000 might have been on the high side 30 years ago, between $200K and 250K might have been closer to the mark.

But I thought it was a pretty good price for the neighbourhood it was in, and the size, plus the fact that it had a "garden suite" with 2 bedrooms that could presumably be rented out as a mortgage helper.

Re the Little Mountain site .............

I've just read a little piece where the developer says that, apart from other problems such as the 2008 recession ....... they have been "preoccupied" by building their $350+ million Trump hotel in downtown Vancouver. He's not offering any excuses "of course"

Social-housing project on site of Little Mountain reopens - The Globe and Mail

That hotel seems to be taking forever to finish...