“I did the whole ‘go-away-and-make-money’ thing. Saved over $1 million in 5 years working abroad. Had a fantastic client situation, was making amazing money. Came back for what was supposed to be career advancement. Didn’t pan out. Making 65% less, doing same job, working longer hours. Real Estate also went way way up and now – So – even though I could get “something” it just makes no financial sense to own. Renting a penthouse downtown for a 1.5% cap rate.
So – now looking to go back on the world circuit. Vancouver is nice – but if you have a choice of where to be – there is no reason people should make a professional career here . . period.
I have a very deep skill-set from my experiences abroad that are just not available from others in the local market – however – the local market won’t pay for it.
People are leaving all the time but Vancouver as a city will not progress and attract any outside talent because if they are mobile, the amount that would have to be paid to be here is so high that nobody will pay.”
- ZRH2YVR at VREAA 10 December 2011 1:08 pm
“Today I got the call I thought would come one day. It took almost 5 years of being in Vancouver – however – My old company/client in Switzerland called and wanted to know if I would move back there to work for them. Immediate 100% increase in salary, 6 weeks holiday again, living in truly the best place on earth, no street people begging from me on my walk in every day, 50 world class cities within 2 hours flying, 30 ski resorts within 3 hour drive, perfectly on-time and clean and spacious public transit, unbelievable career potential, international Global 100 company. Um – – – – let me think about it . . Absolutely no weekend working. Or – – – slaving it out here waiting for the market to crash while working 70 hours a week trying to get ahead…”
- ZRH2YVR at VREAA 27 Dec 2012 10:35pm
We hear this news with mixed feelings: Almost definitely good for you, ZRH2YVR; but not good for Vancouver.
We wish you all the best in all future endeavours.
Many thanks for all of your posts on these pages.
The pressure on sensible folks to leave is not good for our town.
- vreaa
PS: There is no place that is ‘best place on earth’.
Or said another way, there is more than one “best place on earth”. I have lived in several major cities across North America and I have visited many more around the world – in every place it is easy to find people that consider where they live to be the best place on earth. The best place on earth is less a geographic location than it is a state of mind. Clearly Vancouver does not have a lock on this title.
For individual there is, as a general statement? Nope.
Exactly, why do people have to make such boastful claims about their city/country. Get over yourselves. BPOE is such a myopic falsehood.
The allure of Vancouver will tip the wrong way if prices start to drop. All the more reason to rent I guess.
Good for you. My wife’s career hit a brick wall in BC. I’d forgotten that people in Supernatural Best Place On Earth are accustomed to being told that they should both pay more for everything and work for less money because it’s so much better here. And they do it.
Obviously, not everyone given the number of wage earners leaving.
I posted on a different thread how we had to hire a guy in Calgary and pay him 105k when the same role in van would be 65k. Company wants to move hq to van but we can’t just hire all new staff and a number of key employees won’t move here due to housing costs.
The latest is that they are now thinking Houston tx! Good one Canada.
I think Vancouver real estate is a bubble which I hope will burst, but it may not, or it may pop and reflate again quickly. Given that Vancouver will structurally attract rich Asians for the foreseeable future (if not China, then India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam as well as Hong Kong and Singapore etc), the job and business opportunities are probably going to be those that are geared towards servicing high net worth immigrants. While these jobs or businesses are not for everyone, anyone who wants to live in Vancouver ought to think about being in or creating first class services or sell luxury goods, rather than anything industrial. If ZRH2YVR was a private banker (a common job in Switzerland), I would have thought Vancouver was a great place for him/her.
So you saved $1million in 5 years and took a 65% pay cut to return to Vancouver? That’s still a lot of money. What say the people who claim there are no opportunities in this city?
[shrugs] I say a 65% paycut is pretty damn crazy and proves how screwed up this place is, even if the reduced salary is still very high. Did I miss something?
Interesting to piece together some of my stories. We’ll see how it goes and it will be a summer move – however – i think the most relevant info to the blog is the economics of my renting since arriving and how this would have compared to buying. You know real estate always go up so this renting thing must have been a real bust.
Property info – 1400 sq ft unobstructed 270% view of English Bay south down granville street and up and around to the mountains east approx to My. Seymour. New building 2007.
Rent paid from move in to June 2012: $196,000
This is a true consumption cost and was well within our means.
Value of property in 2007 on move-in – approx 1.4M.
Value today – estimated – 1.4-1.5M . Let’s say 1.5M just to be conservative.
Cost of ownership – Assume 100% leverage and ignore investment opportunity cost.
Interest rate – Let’s sat 5% even though in 2007, it may have been more.
Strata and property taxes amount to approx $1050-1100 per month.
So – Cost of ownership over this period is $395,000. But wait – the property went up in value right? !!! Well
Purchase cost would have been approx $1,430,000 with all up front costs.
Selling at 1.5M and subtracting costs would net say- $1,450,000 – so there is a gain of $20,000. Fantastic . . . Offset this agains the cost of ownership of $395,000 – that gives you net $375,000 (ignore taxes). Compare this to cost of renting of $196,000 – we are up approx $200,000 – - I believe me we notice this!!!
So – - For all you property virgins out there – the numbers above may be outside your normal range but divide this by 3 for a 500000 property and you will be in about the same place – - up by $60,000 over 5 years. I would never buy at the current market. –
Now the funny thing is that in order for us to have broken even, the purchase price would have been close to $600,000 initially -and that is over 50% fall from where we are. Good luck to all of you. A house is a place to live first – invest second and anyone who is investing right now is completely out of their mind. You would have much more fun going to Vegas for a month – and would probably be better off.
Bon voyage and thanks very much for all the good posts!