HK To Vancouver And Back – “We returned from Hong Kong as expatriates 3 years ago. As a born Vancouverite, I wanted my daughter to finish school here. Now I realize that there is no future for her here after university. She certainly will never own a property here.”

DM at VREAA 21 May 2011 4:41pm –
“We returned from Hong Kong as expatriates 3 years ago, I guess we thought we were suffering from burn-out after 8 years and felt it was time to settle down. We rented a property in West Vancouver and my husband, a financial analyst eventually landed a job after 2 years. Working for a small Canadian firm was pretty dull and after tax it was pretty much impossible to make ends meet. Our idea of living in a community where you knew your neighbours and the kids played on the cul-de-sac until dark never materialized as we saw houses being bought and sold and often left empty. House flipping here really is a sport and it certainly doesn’t build ties to the community. The only friends we have made on our street, ironically, are another expatriate family who were acquaintances from Hong Kong. Go figure.

We were certainly looking for the lifestyle of the skiing and the fresh air, but that all becomes a little stale once you have fought for parking at Grouse or are gouged doing ANYTHING in Whistler all while avoiding kamikaze stoned boarders who do not care if they obliterate an entire family. It’s all a bit overrated. The amount of time one spends in traffic here is ridiculous: I can’t understand the logic – we won’t cut down a single tree to expand a road to manage traffic but we will let everyone idle in our cars while merging from four lanes to one on the Lion’s Gate, all while we pump gas fumes into the air. And our government wants to encourage more migration to Vancouver when the citizens we have here can’t get anywhere. Nuts.

Consequently a new position in an international bank in Hong Kong came up, starting tomorrow, pays more than double the Vancouver salary. Thank god we did not buy a property here, because I am not convinced we would have sold it and broken even. While rents in Hong Kong are definitely higher, Hong Kong tax allows you to deduct 50% of your annual rent off your gross income before you calculate your 15%. And the government is so efficient that when they run a surplus (which happened at least twice while I lived there), they give every citizen and permanent resident a tax rebate. Yes, folks this is true. This year, we both got a cheque for the equivalent of $800 Cdn courtesy of the government of Hong Kong. When they ran a deficit as they did during SARS, all government employees took a 5% salary cut. Your employer pays your health care costs unlike here, where the employer deducts extended health off your income. If we need to see a specialist, I can see one the very next day. Health care is excellent and yes, you can find an excellent doctor who will take you on as a patient and give you 45 minutes if you need it. Our daughter had pioneering kidney surgery in Hong Kong 3 years ago that is still not offered anywhere in Canada.

Believe it or not general day to day living expenses (other than rent) are not more expensive than here, transit is excellent, cheap, clean and safe thereby eliminating the need for a car entirely. Hong Kong is an international airport with direct flights to numerous destinations all over the world. How hard is it to leave Vancouver and get to a sunny destination without taking multiples flights that cost an exorbitant amount? With a decent salary and low taxes, when I get fed up with the pollution, I can be on a deserted beach in 4 hours in a 5 star resort for a 1/3 of the cost of a trip to Hawaii .

As a born Vancouverite, I wanted my daughter to finish school here and make friends. Now I realize that there is no future for her here once she finishes university and she certainly will never own a property here. Will we come back ever? Yes to visit the extended family. But, we’ll never live here again, even when we retire. There are plenty of other sunny, less expensive destinations to choose from. Vancouver is a nice place to visit but living here is just not all its cracked up to be.”

Thanks for sharing your story, DM. You and your family appear to be returning to HK for a number of valid reasons, the effects on Vancouver of the speculative mania in housing are only part of the story, but important nonetheless.
We note how “she will never own a property here” has almost become synonymous with “there is no future for her here”.
We agree with commenters on various threads who continue to point out that renting in Vancouver is inexpensive and a viable option, but one has to acknowledge the powerful way in which the housing bubble has caused many who rent to feel disenfranchised. – vreaa