“Three friends are planning on moving away due to the disproportionate cost of living:income ratio. One is going to Calgary and the other two are going to UK and Australia.”

Posted on 22 July 2011 | 12 Comments

Vansanity at vancouvercondo.info 19 Jul 2011 3:40pm –
“This week I’ve had the conversation with 3 friends that are planning on moving away due to the disproportionate ratio between the cost of living:income.
One is going to Calgary and the other two are going to UK and Australia (Australia has its own housing bubble to deal with but it sounds like the incomes are higher in their field).”

This entry was posted in 07. Avoiding Vancouver, 14. Social Effects of the Boom, 15. Misallocation of Resources and tagged Anecdotes, British Columbia, Bubble, Canada, Fundamentals, Housing, Real Estate, Relationships, Vancouver. Bookmark the permalink.

12 responses to ““Three friends are planning on moving away due to the disproportionate cost of living:income ratio. One is going to Calgary and the other two are going to UK and Australia.””

CanuckDownUnder | 22 July 2011 at 7:08 pm | Reply

Anyone who is talking about leaving Vancouver to come to Australia because the cost of living:income ratio is too high is talking pure bullshit or they’re in for a real surprise when they get here.

Wages might be higher if by field they mean barista since the minimum wage is about $16-17/hour but they wouldn’t make any tips so maybe that’s a wash. Real estate is just as or more expensive to buy, rents, food, clothing etc are much more expensive.

The whole economy is propped up by a) exporting stuff from the ground to China and b) real estate. Real estate is already suffering, just wait for the bubble in China to burst and Australia is in serious trouble.

The real reason someone would be moving here is that when the weather is 18C and raining it’s winter, not summer.
Nemesis | 22 July 2011 at 7:33 pm | Reply

“The real reason someone would be moving here is that when the weather is 18C and raining it’s winter, not summer.”

If you keep that up, CDU – I’m hopping on Quantas tomorrow to give you the thrashing you so richly deserve.

Earlier this week the evening low in the CrowsNest was 36F. Two days prior on Highway3 at Allison Pass/Sunday Summit the ‘high’ was 58F.

July.

Right.
CanuckDownUnder | 22 July 2011 at 10:05 pm | Reply

I do laugh whenever I see the first scarf of the season, it’s always when the daily high is about 20-21C. To be fair you do acclimatise awfully fast, it’s not as if the winter feels warm. 🙂

Not sure if this media will play overseas.

I mean what bus driver doesn’t plan his retirement around a 10% deposit on a $1.56 million investment unit? “We’re not millionaires.” So why would you borrow $1.4 million to get into ground zero of the Australian property bubble?

http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/video/watch/26011557
- Bailing in BC | 22 July 2011 at 11:12 pm | Reply
  
  Well I don’t think anyone saw it coming.
  - keeperofthederp | 23 July 2011 at 1:44 am |
    
    lol
  - CanuckDownUnder | 23 July 2011 at 10:19 pm |
    
    I guess that means it does play overseas. “I thought property was going up…”
    
    I’ve never watched Today Tonight but I’m guessing they lack journalistic integrity. I did a search and found this property piece they ran less than 2 weeks ago:
    
    Hot Property – If you had heeded Australian Property Investor Magazine’s advice twelve months ago, you would be well on your way to being a millionaire.
    
    http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/money/article/-/9822395/hot-property/
    
    Just look at their amazing predictions! I love the grin on this bimbo as she says that house prices went up over 58% in Stuart Park in the last 12 months.
    
    I checked out sales in Stuart Park – there have a been a total of 6 house sales so far in 2011! What a joke, there’s absolutely no statistical significance in these sales prices and that’s the best they can come up with?
Patrick | 22 July 2011 at 10:29 pm | Reply

Canadian Government realizes that asian investor wealth is contributing to overheating our real estate market and they are taking measures to cool it down to protect the average working class of Canadians.

1. Canadian Investor program limits of 700 people per year starting July 1, 2011. Chinese immigration companies are panicking and saying that quota will be met in a matter of days. By the way, this annoucement was made June 24, 2011 so that gives it 7 days notice. I think I gave my mother in law a longer notice about last weeks BBQ.
2. Yesterdays news. Canadian Gov. announced 1800 Canadian citizenship passports will be revoked. Guess what ethic group?
3. USA announces to all Chinese immigrants. BUY a HOUSE, get a GREEN CARD!

Connect the dots and see what is really happening.
- keeperofthederp | 23 July 2011 at 2:09 am | Reply
  
  i heard the quota was met in 1 day
  
  Sinification of the US would be significantly more difficult than in Canada.
  
  i use my middle finger a lot these days, and folder #2 track 1 is always turned up to level 30.
  
  for the sake of irony, not that they have any.
  - keeperofthederp | 23 July 2011 at 2:11 am |
    
    at 1:25 they’re all black panthers
Don't Prop Up the Ponzi | 22 July 2011 at 11:33 pm | Reply

CanuckDownUnder, agree with everything you say. Anyone coming here to Australia to find a real estate bargain is in for a rude shock, with Australia being one of the most expensive places in the world to buy property. Our interest rates are much higher than Canada’s too, and it also seems that rents are higher as well. However, the good news is that housing sentiment has started to turn negative and the bubble is finally letting out some air. As long as the government doesn’t interfere in an effort to prop up prices, then housing will become more affordable in the years to come.
matt | 23 July 2011 at 8:00 am | Reply

One of those pundits was seriously blaming the carbon tax for depressing the housing market. Kind of like the HST right?
Don't Prop Up the Ponzi | 23 July 2011 at 8:38 am | Reply

The carbon tax is certainly reducing consumer confidence because nobody knows yet just how much we will be affected by hidden costs. I think your HST is like our GST which has been in place here for several years now. In any case, the threat of the carbon tax (to be introduced next year) is not the only factor affecting the housing market Utility bills have gone up a lot over the past year. We had several interest rate rises last year, and generally wages are not keeping up with the increased cost of living. Government intervention during the GST caused real estate prices to blow out when interest rates were cut very low (not as low as yours though) enabling people to take on huge debt, tripling the first home owners’ grant, relaxing laws on foreign ownership and bringing in huge numbers of migrants. We also have negative gearing tax laws which meant investors were bidding against homebuyers, also pushing prices up. As expected, our housing bubble grew substantially, and newspaper articles boasted that homeowners were growing wealthier to the tune of hundreds of dollars per day. Now that the market has started to turn down, many people think this is just a temporary set-back, and it’s going to take a while for vendors to realise that the high profits they could have gained a year ago were based on a government sponsored Ponzi scheme which was unsustainable. The full force of the downturn will probably not be noticed by many for perhaps another year (though many have been affected for months now, especially in Queensland), and when it does become apparent that this bubble has burst, it will probably be around the same time as the carbon tax is introduced, so many will probably blame the carbon tax.