DWANG at VREAA 17 May 2011 11:25am – “My family lived in Vancouver for around 4 years. We are not the millionaires from China but professional couple. I had a decent job at bank as IT engineer in Vancouver since we arrived 3-4 years ago, but my wife she couldn’t find any chance to work back in her field. She was a physician and has medical doctor’s degree. My family moved from Vancouver to Calgary just within 1 month. I got a higher payed job at Calgary before we moved in. And within 1 week, my wife got a offer at Alberta Children’s hospital as a medical researcher. Now she is happy and waiting for the new job started at the end of this month. Now we could relief a little bit and start enjoying the life. We are planning to shopping around within 1-2 years in Calgary to find a house for my family. Before it was ridiculous in Vancouver and we don’t want to pay the bubble price to buy a tiny shaky box there.”
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- cash loans on South Granville SFH Example – Price Rise Of 120% In Two Years
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- payday loans on Peppy Ads – “Buying a Home Is Like A Sport. Meet Your Coach. Win The Real Estate Game.”
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- 19. BlastRadiusPostCards (17)
- 20. The Limitless Demand Argument For Ongoing Market Strength (70)
- 21. Vancouver RE-Verse [Found Poems] (8)
- 22. RE References In Popular Culture (41)
- 23. Jumping The Shark (1)
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- 01 Vancouver Condo Info
- 02 AmericaCanada [retired, no archive]
- 03 Housing Analysis
- 04 RealEstateTalks BC
- 05 Vancouver RE and then some
- 06 Whispers from the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest
- 07 Greater Fool
- 08 Canada Bubble
- 09 Rob Chipman's blog
- 10 YatterMatters
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- 13 Agent Will's Stats [retired]
- 14 Landlord Rescue
- 15 The Economic Analyst
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- 18 World Housing Bubble
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- 20 North American Economics
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Chat Thread
- Taking A Break
- “My best guess: this property is now an ‘investment hold’ and will be built ‘when prices recover’. Good luck on that!”
- Man Loses $745,000 Vancouver Condo Deposit
- Graphic – Degrees of Housing Overvaluation in Canada
- The Rare Individual With A Negative Ownership Premium
- Advice Regarding Renting In Vancouver, Please – “Unfortunately, the Vancouver rental stock is absolutely atrocious. It just seems like every landlord is looking for someone to pay 100% of their mortgage on a crappy place through rental income.”
- “I just visited Manhattan for a week, and happened to snap some real estate ads on both the Upper West and Upper East sides of the island. Compare to Vancouver. It simply doesn’t compute.”
- Ben Rabidoux In Vancouver Next Week
- “The mortgage company told me they were calling in my 40-year, 0-down mortgage. I have paid nearly sixty thousand dollars towards it, but, nearly five years in, I have yet to touch the principal.”
- ‘Vancouver City Hall: Housing Report Card 2012′; Plus Revised Version
- “My folks find themselves at 65 still owing half the value of their home and recreation property to the bank. After almost 30 years of ownership in the BPOE and a number of boom markets, they have very little to show for it.”
- “Rent for $2,200 a month or buy and have a mortgage of $4,310 per month. Why would anyone buy?”
- “They were talking about two couples they knew who had recently bought a lot and planned to each build a house on it and live as neighbours.”
- Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association Annual First-Time Buyer Seminar Attendance Plummets
- Mom and Pop Get It Wrong In All Markets, Time And Again
- The average British Columbian homeowner is not going to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire.
- “He’s sold all his properties except his current one, which is now for sale. He explained that the market’s currently in crash mode, worst that he’s ever seen.”
- “One of my old high school buddies finally got her mother to sell the family home in Kitsilano – sold for over $1M, monies realized after debt paid off $185K.”
- “I know someone who just declared bankruptcy because her condo was assessed at $150k and she bought it presale north of $250k in 2005 or 2006.”
- Sturdy, With Views – “Calling Froogle Scott!… Is Dr. Scott ‘In The House’?” [Not In This One, Certainly]
- “She said the market was dead in Victoria and that it would remain so for a very long time. I asked how she knew. Her answer was fascinating and should scare the pants off the real estate crowd.”
- Kits Notes – “I’m pretty sure that this is the first 3+ bedroom property of any type that I’ve seen in the 5 years I’ve lived here that is priced below $700K.”
- “A beautiful Belfast home, in the equivalent of 1st Shaughnessy, bought at their RE peak in 2007 for £3.5 million, has now sold for £800K, almost 80%-off. The market didn’t suffer any significant economic shocks. Rates & unemployment didn’t skyrocket. They didn’t build more land. Sentiment just changed and the prices fell and fell.”
- “Two family members of hers are trapped, underwater, in condos on the East Side.”
- “Interprovincial migration is not saying good things about BC’s economy.”
- Vancouver RE: Not As Expensive Provided You Don’t Think – “It’s clear that our perception of affordability has been coloured by living on a continent where housing is unusually inexpensive.”
- More Undisclosed RE Industry Insiders Publicized As Clients – “In 1995, Allan and Karin Hoegg were mortgage-free. But no more. Today their Vancouver home is a valuable source of income as they plan for full retirement.”
- Rumor that some OV units will be reduced by 20%.
- Downside Weights On The Vancouver RE Market – “One of the older guys (over 60) mention to the guy beside him that he and his wife were thinking about selling their family home, and renting, in order to get some of the money that was locked up in the house.”
- “My buddy was looking to upgrade to a house in the Coquitlam area. With 200k extra for a home, that’s half of lifetime saving between him and his wife.”
- “I was walking in the Fraser neighborhood yesterday, I noticed that the population, on average, seem to be composed of workers. I belong to the top 5 percent in terms of income. Nevertheless, I cannot afford any of the houses for sale in that neighbourhood.”
- “Vancouver is an urban resort whose value mostly resides in its real estate and not much else.”
- “Rogers Communications is expanding into RE; aiming to relaunch website; providing critical data that can help potential buyers assess the value of a property from the comfort of their home computer.”
- I’m only 50 and I can just about retire if I want to, all because of a single simple decision – “When prices rebounded to their former highs, then rocketed another 30% higher to what I considered to be totally unsustainable levels, I decided that only a fool would pass up a second opportunity to harvest such a massive non-taxable capital gain, and in 2011 I sold my place.”
- The Vacant Lot of Versailles, Richmond.
- “I don’t think that most people think things are going to crash, just that there is going to be a slight correction, but it was amazing to me how sentiment has changed, and the fact Vancouver RE is too high was just understood.”
- “The ‘investor’ who purchased our house put it up for sale two months later, in January 1981, but the bubble had burst.”
- For A City To Have That Kind Of Vacancy, It’s Like Cancer – “Downtown, the vacant unit rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – all empty.”
- “What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t pay your mortgage, so sell your house! No fear.”
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A lot of these stories have two components: lousy job market and ridiculous house prices. Friends of mine that leave Vancouver often mention both as causes.
I can tell you that I have not found a job in this town in four years that paid market rate (that is, rate outside of this “world class city”. I have mostly worked remotely for companies in the US or Toronto and the “call of the east” is still strong, I just got another email with a tantalizing job offer in Toronto with a number I could only dream of being offered by a local company.
I am a bit on the fence if I want to go back east, but the thought comes up more and more.
I a few moths ago I applied for a pretty advanced software engineering position at a local company, thinking I can get away from traveling east for doing consulting work. I was surprised that one of the questions that was asked in the interview was “Why do you want to live in Vancouver?” I thought it was a strange question but then right after that we talked about salary expectations and discovered my expectations and their were off by about 30K to 40K. That is when I realized that if a potential employer in Vancouver asks you why you live in Vancouver they are just setting you up to expect a crap pay. I think employers in this town think oh why yes you live in Vancouver you should be happy so shut up and accept crap pay because baby you are in Vancouver!
well it’s also i think to do with the fact that there is in, in regards to IT positions (i don’t know how advanced you are but my brother is a Perl programmer – and about 10 other languages as well) it seems like often there is a surplus locally – it could be more to do with the fact that the city is just flooded with new people.
a friend is a programmer and fled to Edmonton – make $80k now – happy and inviting the rest of us to flee – from Lebanon to Edmonton – that’s the story of a real Canadian
$80k is a normal salary for senior sofware engineer in Vancouver. There are companies that pay less and some that pay much more. But $80k is standard.
The quality of developers is often not that great, but I don’t think that’s a local problem.
i’m not sure if my buddy is the greatest coder
and that’s probably why he left
but he has no regrets, even though it’s -50 in the winter, he’s made a good go of it and is better off for leaving. though i miss my drinking buddy – he’s got 1000x the character of any of our new friends.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/city/2011/05/20/leading-realtor-calls-vancouvers-housing-market-unhealthy
see, sensible chinese people don’t like it, either.
thumbs down to the idle rich
Again, the issue is that locals who went to school here, have roots haev little economic choice because of the high prices. They can move out to the burbs’(Langley, Surrey, Maple Ridge etc) and commute more than likely for 45 minutes each way. Also how much money is being circulated into the economy from HAM – Chinese investor buys house – taxes on that to gov’t. May buy a luxury car for the wife and kid. Kid may go to school so its good for teachers, but after that……?? I just don’t care who is buying, but the bottom line is it is a foreigner, and they are paying little taxes or gov’t fees so the locals cannot compete, and it seems like an “open shop”. I have many Asian friends(Canadian born) who feel the same. even they have little choice but to move out of Vancouver. Has anyone done research for a Canadian buying in Beijing, or Paris, or Tokyo? The other issue here is that many locals have had trouble finding jobs in their field