https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/2...school-surtax/

Eating cake much?

They've basically gained 6.35 million from the house and they're unable to find a way to pay a measly 12k?

I'm sorry, but them going to the media is going to do nothing but get them hate.

^
Agreed.
If they had invested $400k into a solid investment that averaged a 5% return, they would be sitting on $1.4 million right now.

Fuck these folks right in their white asses.
I couldn't care less about their golden situation.

Lol sell your point grey mansion, move into a fucking nice place for $2 mill.... hell even leaving the extra $5mill in a god damn ING account doing literally nothing would make you $50k a year income lol

I thought the interest on tax deferrment is very, very cheap -- to the point where if you take the money that you would have used to pay for the taxes, but instead invest it into a GIC or something, the interest from the GIC would likely be higher than the interests charged on the deferrment.

I sympathize with their situation, esp since my parents are kind of in a similar boat as well. However, I think the practical and prudent thing to do would have been to just defer the taxes, and let their daughter decide what she wants to do with the inheritance when both parents have died. They are in their 70's, so I suppose it is typical to expect them to be around for another 15+ years? Over the next 15 years, the taxes would amount to $400k - $500k, but the house value would likely increase as well. At that point, the daughter can decide whether she wants to realize the capital gains (should be tax free, right? since it's her parents' primary residence) and pay the taxes off, or whether she wants to take on the house and assume that debt.

Looks like a bunch of dump hippies.

1) Reverse mortgage that shit
2) sell and move a few blocks east into a brand new home for 3mill as people have already said
3) sell and move the fuck outta this crazy city and live like a king w/ 6 mill on hand and rent.
4) sell for 6mill and rent next door 3k per month. 70 years old how long can you last anyways

LoL, actually my case was the opposite and the main reason why I had multiple offers. Plus I had double parking to accommodate the 3 bedroom condo.

When I bought it, I knew it would be different and separate me from the tons and tons of 2 bedrooms condos elsewhere. I had a lot of prospect buyers who wanted single level and 2 parking spot condo. Instead of multi tier levels in a wood townhome. I think , the lack of 3 bedrooms and such, is more because developers can sell the 2 bedrooms easier and make more money.

Person, I sold it to came from a 3 level townhome and sold it. Retired person, who got sick of the stairs :P

Lots of old people who live in these multi-million dollar homes refuse to defer their property taxes because they don't believe in paying interest. They also believe that once they have paid off their property, they deserve to live there in perpetuity with no changes to the zoning, character of the neighbourhood, or the property taxation regime. The unfortunate thing for everyone else is that these people have too much time on their hands and are willing to make their voices heard in the media and at the ballot box.

That's why Vancouver is such a shitty city to live in when it comes to political policies and rules.

Can't wait until a majority of the baby boomers die off.

I get the attitude though - once you begin to accumulate wealth, you become protective of it. I won't inherit my parents' wealth - my children will and you can be damn sure that I will do my best to protect it for my kids.

Another thing that irks me about the real estate discussion in Vancouver is the whole idea that demand-side measures are a panacea. In other words, there are people out there who believe that if we just cut foreign demand or "speculation", there would be enough housing for everyone who wants it. It's such a bullshit premise - anyone who has lived here over the last two decades has seen the rapid changes and the population growth that has occurred in the Lower Mainland.

If they had 400k in 1987, I can guarantee you they can afford the taxes today. They just don’t feel like paying them probably for reasons tapioca lined out.

Fuck em, sick of these sob stories

^^this.
it's turning into LA, minus the nice weather. Its greatest attribute lol

^
LA is a smog filled concrete dump.
Try again at knocking Vancouver.

If you can manage to have your life outside Vancouver proper, and avoid having to spend too much time downtown I can’t imagine many better places to live. The best thing I’ve done was move to north van. The second best was getting a job there. If you can manage that in a place like Port Moody, NV, etc the stresses of daily life in Vancouver go away and make it seem a lot better again.

Lol. Looking at the rate of population growth, give it another ten or fifteen

I stepped foot in Vancouver for the first time in 6 weeks since moving on Saturday. Holy shit I was about to explode after driving around for and hour in the kits/downtown. Fuck that place lol. Too bad I told my fiancé we can move back someday hahaha.

As per the taxes. I mean, I feel bad for the rediculous high taxes. My father in law purchased their house in a very nice area in the 90’s. He had a pretty decent job, but single income and had to make some pretty signicant hermit style living to afford living there. Now retired they rent their basement to cover the taxes. Now live on the small nest egg they’ve built, in one of the nicest parts of town while also helping out the rental scene.

Agreed.
The differences between Vancouver and LA are becoming smaller as time goes on. Our population is growing at a rate that our infrastructure can't keep up with. All the talk about the lack of available real estate combined with the huge population makes me think we're better off having foreign money parked here. Imagine if the 20% of empty homes had people living in them, and how bad traffic would be then.

Most people prob didn't make it to the bottom of the article.
" My wife and I have collectively worked 70 years to be debt-free. Their solution is to put us back into debt"

I sincerely hope those are the kind of problems I have when I'm retired.

Well personally I would be living in one of those empty homes within walking distance to work instead of clogging up traffic with my bicycle :badpokerface:

I think a College instructor pulls in ~$80 - 90k a year. Each of them working 35 years means they are both collecting their full pension -- ie. 70% of their income. The college instructor pension plans is the nicest, gold-standard pension you can get, and it has provisions to occassionally account for inflation indexing. So this means they are roughly pulling in $110k+ combined from their pensions before taxes.

Not just the congestion but the people.
I remember growing up in East Van, it was close knit. Small world. Everybody directly or indirectly knew each other.
Those days are long gone. Safe to assume they won't be returning.
Seemingly hard pressed to find people born and raised there these days. I guess it's the same fate to fall most major cities. Like LA and most of California where the cost of taxes and housing have forced natives to leave in droves.

No reason it should take more than 1-2 weeks (can rush for $50 more usually). But they do cost a pretty penny especially from larger groups like Rancho etc.
I've sold 2 of my own units and Rancho or Petersen type size property managers usually charge:
- $2 / meeting minutes (quarterly or monthly)
- $5 / bylaws - what you can do or cannot
- $35 / information cert
- $2 / current financials and pro-forma
- $5 / strata plan - common area arch drawings

While it's a PIA to go through I'd suggest you go through as meeting minutes can reveal type of owners & tenants are in the building and frequent issues. I've go through units where I found for clients units that were above grow ops, etc.. really help people dodge a bullet.

As always, buyer beware. No point in suing the company/realtor afterwards really.

I know alot of us look onto this couple as a bunch of complaining millionaires.... but think about it this way...


Back in their era you could raise a family with multiple kids on one income. They went and both worked for decades only to find out that they can't even pass on their legacy/home to their offspring.


Great they are sitting on millions... but nowdays to get by the average husband wife each need 1.5 jobs. Does that really sound like a quality of life improvement?

My parents immigrated here so they could "keep what they worked for" yet it appears what they worked for isn't as much as they thought. They rarely took vacations or sick days and for what? I probably missed more school days then they did work days.


Sure it's better than the communist hell hole they came from but .... is this the direction we want to head down?

If being back in debt is such a major issue then sell your golden nest egg and downsize into something slightly smaller. The extra 1-2 million from downsizing will cover your taxes for the rest of your life.

Like Traum said, a college professor makes a pretty penny for their salary, so if they both worked then they'd have easily pulled in 6 figures. It's not the government's responsibility that they're unable to learn the concept of saving money with an income level like that.