Opinion And Anecdote – “We have a disenfranchised class in Vancouver from a real estate perspective. My children had to move away to own their own homes.”

Posted on 14 July 2011 | 42 Comments

Excerpted from a letter by ‘ Trevor Gibbs, Vancouver‘ published in the National Post, 21 Jul 2011 -
“My children had to move away from Vancouver to own their own homes. Meanwhile, financial institutions push mortgages like crazy. At the same time, planeloads of investors from Mainland China are buying downtown Vancouver properties that regular Canadians can’t afford. So we have a disenfranchised class in Vancouver from a real estate perspective.
Children of immigrant families are doing better in school than their peers, and as a result they are first in line for university professional degree classes. So we also may have a disenfranchised education class who may never get to university.
This could be the reason why many of the people watching the hockey game felt little hope for the future. As long as the Canucks were winning, they could still feel good about themselves. When their team lost, their one emotional crutch collapsed, and they vented their frustration, urged on by a core group of criminals in their midst.
That basic disenfranchisement is still there, and will come out again. Someone should study the effect of foreign investment in residential real estate, and how it is a threat to a cohesive and equitable society. Last week’s riot may be a clue that something more is at work behind the scenes than just hockey frustration.”

This entry was posted in 07. Avoiding Vancouver, 14. Social Effects of the Boom and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

42 Responses to Opinion And Anecdote – “We have a disenfranchised class in Vancouver from a real estate perspective. My children had to move away to own their own homes.”

  1. keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 6:33 am | Reply

    ding ding ding ding we have a winrar

  2. Rusty | 14 July 2011 at 8:16 am | Reply

    isn’t this what happens when you don’t buy real estate for your children when they’re young? I know too many people who are passing their investment property to their newly married child…or downsizing their detached home to pass the money to children so they can stay in the city. Seems buying property is the effective way of keeping your family here

    • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 8:46 am | Reply

      Why do you want people to buy so very much? And who the f*** can afford to “buy real estate for their children when they’re young” at these prices? And how does that advice reconcile with your other gem? Should all sfh owners sell their homes and move into studio apartments to subsidise their adult children’s ownership of a 2 br apartment? What kind of idiotic extremes do you want people to go to to keep buying into the ponzi scheme?
      Go on, chew, troll, chew.

    • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:03 am | Reply

      so the key to owning a home in vancouver is to have your parents buy one for you, ok, got it.

      i’m calling now, while i’m still young and they’re still alive.

    • Aldus Huxtable | 14 July 2011 at 9:35 am | Reply

      Perhaps we should all acknowledge the lunacy of this unique situation rather than justifying it through actions which continue to feed this ugly real estate hydra.

      There is no value in keeping your family in a place where they will not be able to flourish themselves.

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:52 am |

        lol ‘real estate hydra’

        i was just to call them suckers of satan’s cock, but i’ll roll with that.

        i only stick around to spite our monied interlopers.

  3. matt | 14 July 2011 at 8:54 am | Reply

    The solution is to implement quotas for admitting intellectually challenged white trash into UBC and SFU.

    • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:04 am | Reply

      how about all the kids at SFU and UBC that resort to ghost writers for their essays and thesis papers?

      in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a BOOMING industry.

      • Bruce | 15 July 2011 at 11:12 am |

        It should be illegal. Cheating in school changes people’s career paths and eventual income level; spots are taken by cheaters that would otherwise go to honest students who gained position by merit. It’s just as much fraud as if they had stolen several hundred $k, and should be treated just as seriously.

      • keeperofthederp | 15 July 2011 at 11:20 am |

        you must be new

        welcome to planet Earth

        or at least life in the Party

  4. Q | 14 July 2011 at 9:05 am | Reply

    Give up on the foreign buyer scapegoat. It’s been shown that foreigners are well below 9% of all sales. What is really driving up prices are locals screwing each other over with realtors goading them on with fearmongering of foreign buyers.

    • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:10 am | Reply

      we don’t have accurate numbers on this, due to the fact that the ‘bar’ for what defines a person as a ‘foreigner’ has been drastically lowered.

      i agree, lots of sleazeballs terrifying locals.

      at the same time, 9% can move a market not as much as 20 or 30%, but that’s a big chunk – i’m betting it’s higher.

    • rusty | 15 July 2011 at 11:42 am | Reply

      but if foreign buyers target the top 9% of all housing this creates an increase across the board at each property class. Each buyer getting displaced creates higher available income at each property class…a chain reaction. I think this effect is huge. Imagine now having to compete for housing against an income 20-30% greater than you had to in the past? I can imagine how frustrating it must be for those looking.

  5. TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:09 am | Reply

    I also liked this hypothesis in my initial attempts to understand the riot. But then I spoke to many of my high school/college students who told me the word was out WAY before the event: win or lose, there was going to be a riot. “Fun” and “free stuff” were the motivators. The buzz before, on the skytrains, and on the streets, kept building, towing more and more people on board when they realised the critical mass was reached where they could participate in a riot and loot with little chance of legal repercussions. Then, the first bottles were thrown at the screen and history began.

    The true question to ask is what creates the mentality that makes it ok to thieve (that was the strongest motivator for most) and ok to destroy other peoples’ property. Even a sports-scholarship holding, international standard in his field athlete I tutor said he wished he had been there so he could grab some loot.

    A loss of faith in property ownership rights – caused by incessant white collar crime without repercussions, throughout the upper strata beginning with the leaders of our great free democracies – that might be a place to start looking.

    • space889 | 14 July 2011 at 9:24 am | Reply

      My sentiment exactly. Give up on blaming the foreigners.

      I have two issues with this letter writer’s assertion about foreign money corrupting Vancouver youth.

      1 – If immigrant children works harder go to into university, how is it their fault? Immigrants already have a hard time in Canada and now you want their children to be stuck with low paying McD jobs so your kids can go to university without having to study and work hard? How do you think that will compete with the rest of the world who actually do study and work hard? Or how do you think it will do to the quality of engineers, doctors, nurses, etc when the standard for admittance is low.

      2 – We have seen that a lot of the rioters are actually local kids studying in universities. So how does that square with the writer’s assertion that it’s because the kids have no hope of a good future? Most of these kids don’t see past their midterms/finals and summer jobs. House purchasing probably doesn’t even register with them.

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:32 am |

        Good points, but don`t forget the very wealthy immigrants as opposed to the hard-working normal ones, can afford the very best tutors, hours and hours worth, as well as pay for ghostwriters to get through the tricky essay writing courses. That gives an unfair advantage over locals of every national origin who cannot afford such support for their kids`university effort.

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:48 am |

        since i have a few friends who are ‘men of letters’ i will say this – my mother’s neighbor’s son has a masters in english lit and he spent many years writing ghost papers for UBC and SFU students. he has since finally moved on from that field of work. the problem is vastly under-reported and if it were, would be EXTREMELY embarrassing for the community most responsible for the demand for this service.

        and that’s why you’ll never hear anything about it.

        just saying.

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:55 am |

        What if some of these men of letters were to go to the local press and present an interview or expose`… a kind of “tell all” after moving on from this line of work? Would that not gravely damage the reputation of the local universities? The news would quickly reach overseas, where anyone who received their degree from said institutions would hold a worthless, devalued degree… and then, the flow of students to these universities would slow to a trickle and the housing bubble qould be over just like that *snap*. It just takes a penitent Eng lit major…. any takers? Or am I overemphasizing the impact such an article would have?

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:56 am |

        without naming names of clients, of course!!

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 10:01 am |

        U know what? who am I trying to kid!! I just remembered what goes on at Beidaa and Chinghua (Don’t know how to spell them in Pingyin but they are no. 1 and 2 universities in China; I have only ever heard their names spoken.) There are ghost-coursetakers living full time on campus who are paid to take the ENTIRE course for wealthy students, including the exams. I was told by a dude from Beijing. Maybe no one cares; the degree is just a symbol of wealth, rather than ability.

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 10:04 am |

        that’s like most of china

        (looking at you, sino-forest)

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 10:04 am |

        tpfkaa, you’re right – you can’t embarrass that which has no shame.

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 10:07 am |

        but you can cause a loss of face. Seriously, apart from the person being assassinated by UBC and SFU faculty, would such an expose’ have an effect on the real estate market here?

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 10:09 am |

        all that talk about face is all just bullshit, it’s just social conditioning. face is for the peasants and middle class, the politburo and the thousands of princelings don’t give a shit about face.

        they make a big show of kowtowing AFTER they’ve been convicted of murder. don’t you watch Fairweather?? it’s what they throw back at us to imply that we aren’t decent humans. look at the hospice mess.

    • matt | 14 July 2011 at 6:11 pm | Reply

      Seriously? You think high school and college students give a shit about ownership rights? How many echo boomers do you think know what bond yield is?

  6. TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:28 am | Reply

    And by the way, I have seen some people on these sites questioning the veracity of the claim that the modus operandi of the incoming foreign families is to have the dad work overseas while the mom and kids stay here. I can only add my little anecdote – that I can name 7 such families off the top of my head. One is particularly entertaining as well as fresh in memory: They drive a Mercedes Benz C300, and another family member, for whom the dad works, is one of the wealthiest men in HK. During the 08 stock market correction the son told me how the dad was fuming because he had lost 10million in equity. I knew them when they first immigrated. The dad was resident at first; until they got a HUGE shock when his tax bill of $400,000 arrived. He quickly became un-resident, and the past 6 years his two sons receive special assistance for low income families with children with special needs. I don’t want to give too much detail, but for example they get certain supplies as well as an assistant that sits in class and takes notes. At the same time, the mom negotiates fiercely for everything as cheaply as possible. They have been good clients of mine and are not especially bad people, but the system should not allow these kinds of loopholes to be exploited. If the family paid that first year`s tax bill, then they have likely paid well enough for all the taxpayer funded services they have received here since then. But others were not so ignorant when they arrived, and it is inherently unfair that very wealthy people are further subsidised as though they were low income, without even paying mimimal taxes.
    Discalimer: anecdotes do not prove statistical trends, and the 7 families I know *may* be unique.

    • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:36 am | Reply

      PARK AND RIDE

      for the record, my landlords have not given me a receipt in all the 4.5 years i’ve lived here, and they do not declare what they earn, and it is an illegal suite.

      nearly 40 years (i thought it was only 30, lol) in canada and still barely any english.

    • Aldus Huxtable | 14 July 2011 at 9:41 am | Reply

      I purchased a new pair of glasses last year and whilst purchasing mine a woman in a brand new Mercedes E Class (over $70,000) pulled in in front of the store, entered with her son and asked the clerk which were the glasses she could get for free from the government for her son, to which she was directed to an area of the store. There was not an inflection of shame in her voice either.

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:42 am |

        i remember that, that was hilarious.

      • TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:47 am |

        this reply was supposed to be to aldus. Child climbed over keyboard and something went wrong:

        it`s just a game. “Look at this, they are giving this stuff away for free!` But you can hardly blame human nature when not tempered by the social construct known as `good manners`.

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 9:56 am |

        erhm talk to an adult esl teacher (the ones that teach the free classes) and you’ll hear all kinds of insane things hurled at them in re: to this issue.

        “canadian government is bribing us!”
        “canadian government is stupid!”

        and many sentences start with “you white people..” etc etc.

        it’s entertaining, if not a bit horrifying.

    • space889 | 14 July 2011 at 2:19 pm | Reply

      Yeap and these leeches give all the hard working immigrants are super bad name. I’m an immigrants as is my wife but truth be told our opinion of any rich recent immigrants automatically drops a few notches as we auto assume they got their riches illegally and is leech of the system with benefits that we don’t qualify and actually need even though we actually pay a lot of taxes! Sad state of affair.

      With regard to tutors and such, that’s a common problem between the rich and poor regardless of immigrants or local. We certainly had private schools before Chinese immigrants and don’t tell me those private school students are disadvantaged relatively to rich immigrant kids!

      • keeperofthederp | 14 July 2011 at 4:07 pm |

        that’s why the investor immigrant program should be scrapped.

        write your MP – mention your situation and your demographic and that it is a topic of discussion amongst your peers – you’d be surprised what some letters from constituents can do.

  7. TPFKAA | 14 July 2011 at 9:45 am | Reply

    it`s just a game. “Look at this, they are giving this stuff away for free!` But You can hardly blame human nature when not tempered by the social constructs known as `good manners`.

  8. Sterling | 14 July 2011 at 11:17 pm | Reply

    This is indicative of the further vanquishing of the middle class. And we naive Canadians think we’re soooo much better then piggish Americans with their unwholsome plutocracy. Look at whats happening in our own backyard. UBC is turning into an Ivy League Uni. And now Vancouver is turning into some kind of cash haven for foriegn dirty money. I see a new niche forming in the business world “Real Estate Tourism”.

  9. Peter Pan | 15 July 2011 at 2:14 pm | Reply

    Easiest way to get rid of landlords who don’t declare their income would be to give tenants a small tax credit for their rentals… The tax credit would be more than offset (from a macro POV) with all the landlords forced to claim income because there’s no way tenants wouldn’t want to claim the credit. Something similar happened during the renovations tax credit period a few years back. All of a sudden, the contractors had to provide receipts… Very useful for future reference for CCRA.

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