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I'm sure there are many here who envy you, but not everyone can become an accountant. Why would a tradesperson working in Vancouver leave and work in Europe where wages are likely to be similar? I suppose you can chalk it up to an inherent mediocrity that Vancouverites have, but as you said yourself, how many other places would you live in Canada? Or perhaps in North America? Not many others, unless you want to live in a gated community. The thing is that most people are average and all they will ever be is average. If you're average and can "make it" in Vancouver, it's not such a bad place to be. Posted via RS Mobile |
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Lived in Burnaby for well past a decade and I've never bothered to go in most of the places in that area. The kid's in for a hard ride if it's not for immigration reasons. |
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if you can't learn a new language (western to western) then you're just not trying. i'm not saying it's easy, but how hard is it to learn a couple of sayings and about 100 words? that's all you really need to get around in any european cities. Also, western to western, it's not that big of a difference in culture and ways things are done - small differences, little things you'll pick up very quickly - eastern to western, couldn't agree more, that's a much harder (but still doable in my view) transition. Back to the language thing, so many words in european language are derived from english, so you can learn 20 of them easily. you need about 20 verbs, understand how to conjugate them appropriately for i, you, he, we, they, add about 80-100 pieces of general vocabulary and you're good - sentence structure you'll figure out in time, but the important thing is to get a message across. you don't really need past or future tenses - you can survive on present. not sure what the big deal is, you just have to look at things from a real world standpoint. I want to learn enough of this new language to be able to say hi, ask simple questions, directions, etc. i certainly don't plan on having in depth business discussions outside of english as english is the language of business, i do and will speak the native tongue so people know i'm one of them, i'm integrating, making an effort. furthermore, this foreign language ability will be for the benefit of the shop keeper, the taxi driver, the everyday person who will probably speak better english than i do my foreign languages, but again, they'll treat me as one of their own rather than an ignorant foreigner. I know some of the ladies at my office love the fact that i'm trying - that's all they want is the effort of 1 course, they know how hard it is to become fluent as an adult - no one says fluency is required uprooting a family? i did it twice as a kid (and i have a relatively big family), not that big of a deal - depends on the person. i get the concern, but different strokes for different folks. I'd rather see the world throughout my life than stay in one place... then again, i'm not that person that needs to be surrounded by stuff that reminds me of my childhood - i'd rather experience new things than reminisce about old, make new friends in new places whilst still holding onto the strong relationships i have in my old home nations - we're all busy people, who can honestly say they see all their important friends every week? and if so, i can't fathom how between work, hobbies, family... overall, i'll agree with you whole heartedly, it's all about the person - for me, these are all no brainers, but some others are too weak (my view) to take risk, to get out of their comfort zone, to endure the pain that is being away from loved ones, but when you take risks, you get BIG rewards... and if it doesn't pay off you can always move back, that's the beautiful thing about having a canadian passport, you're always welcome home! |
learning a few words isn't that hard i suppose. we all learned the swear words and pick up lines from diff languages from our buddies in school right? :P i remember seeing a documentary of a young family moving to europe as the husband found work there. i think it was france or germany. they had a 3 year old and the wife had go to the doctor and get meds from the pharmacy. they really struggled and had issues there in that regards. i'd say stuff like that could become an issue. i always thought of learning a language similar to learning an instrument. it uses a portion of the brain that not everyone is strong in, everyone's different. but if i could get by on 100 words like you say, that shouldn't be hard for most people, as we all had to take french in high school and i assume everyone here passed that |
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Yeah publicity this and bidding war that, but the type of people who are making stupid decisions on property prices are not the ones who will be interested in this property. We are talking about going above assessed value by almost 300k, over 50% of the property's assessed value. As stupid as some buyers may be, the ones looking into 'bargain priced' Vancouver real estate won't have deep enough pockets to go that far above and beyond the assessed value. My point was that this particular owner wasn't starting his asking price low in hopes of drumming up offers above what it's assessed to be worth--he already started the price there. |
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with technology, it's a lot easier than it ever was, even on the go. |
You know, I'm starting to change my some of my thoughts on the whole foreign money thing. I use to think that they play only a minor factor, but I hear anecdotal stories all the time. Most of my friends work in real estate, including me. I have friends that work with the cities, the developers, realtors, real estate lawyers and at Land titles offices. These are people that I trust and most of them have given me "unofficial data", ie. they take a sample of how many deals in the last while were purchased by mainland chinese buyers as a % of total, and the number appears to be around 30-40%. Even with my own EYES I was able to see it myself, and yes it seems to be around 30-40% myself. Now I understand it's still all hearsay as I cant quote my sources and provided data for obvious reasons . But usually theres some truth to these stories. Most people would lead you to believe that its 2-3% and it isnt a factor. But that's what they want you to think. If I own a few property that's worth $1million each, and I know foreign money will be paying me 20% more than the local guys, why would I want to prevent this gravy train. Yes I know the locals are screwed, but what do I care? And lets face it, there's many many ways to get that money to canada and have a "canadian" purchase it. |
foreign money has an material affect on vancouver RE or not, we have no hard data to analyze this stuff. even i don't think the government has hard data in front of them to give a definitive yes to say that the rich Chinese is having a material impact on Vancouver RE. the bigger impact with regards to foreign money having impact on Van RE is through psychology. the investor immigration program had a 50k backlog of people waiting to come to this country mainly to Vancouver of course. what the news story don't tell you is that some of them have already committed their capital into our real estate market. second of all this information was pretty public if you are in the loop of RE so this has created a massive urgency on the vancouver locals to get in front of this buying stampead if IIP was going to reopen with a higher loan amount. my mom's colleague bought her house specifically for that very reason because she thought house prices would go up into the stratosphere if she doesn't get in front these 50k millionaires. i think she will look back 5 or 10 years from now and think how foolish she was. you didn't buy your house for investment on sound fundamental analysis or enjoyment but purely for a idiotic reason like this. |
oh fucking shit, where would be a good place to buy a house for reasonable price? |
OMG Timpo posted here... I thought this is not a GT-R thread... :D Quite frankly though, I think Canada is suffering a classical case of Dutch disease. The description fits perfectly to what my econ class has taught me. Our commodity export is keeping CDN dollar much higher than it should, while killing our manufacturing sector as it has become very expensive to produce goods in Canada. Hence, housing has become a shelter for investment as there is really no other reliable method to store money without losing value to inflation, at least for our domestic market and those who can't work their way around investments. Nevertheless, this is not healthy and it's bound to collapse sooner or later. Moreover, high CAD also leads to offshore investments. Meaning CDN companies and/or people who actually know a thing or two about investments would much rather invest elsewhere because their return on investment locally doesn't make any sense when the same amount of investment can yield a better return elsewhere. Heck... people who simply exchanged their CAD for USD at parity already gained 10% this year alone (when seeing in CAD sense), let alone those who now are receiving income in USD from their US or USD denominated investments. Sadly though, it's us who live locally who will suffer the consequences... and by the time it actually blows up, there is nothing that can be done. The economy would have to collapse into a level where investing locally start making sense again. It's going to be painful, but it gotta hurt before it would be cured. We are like a patient suffering acute appendicitis. The right way is just have an appendectomy done, but instead, we give painkiller so the patient doesn't feel the pain. |
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Don't say it so loud or 4444 will fail you, because his world view is the North American continent will turn into the next Atlantis. I had great experiences with the hotel franchises eg Best Western, Holiday Inn Express in the Idaho and the Dakotas. Energy companies prefer to rent rooms that can be done over the Internet, a lot of them are more than happy with 10 months bookings without asking for discounts! As for Timpo, there are plenty of places within a hour drive from Vancouver that are affordable Hope, Agassiz etc. or there are plenty of affordable housing on the Reserves eg Musqueam in South West Marine Drive. You just don't own the deed to the land. (You will need to pay utilities and taxes to the band), but beggars can't be choosers... on the upside some zoning regulations might not apply. Quote:
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Is it easy for a Canadian to buy properties in the US? What are the implications? |
It depends if who you are banking with, who you are buying as. If You are banking with eg TD, you can get a mortgage for your US property if your bank has an established network. I would say TD and RBC are strongest in that retail space. Others would require a bit more footwork but it is doable. It also depends if you are buying it as a corporation or an private individual. I chose the former as I worked there and got green card etc. It might be uncharted territory for BC'ers, but tons of people in Ontario have properties in Fl. so if you are serious go with law firms that have Eastern subsidiary / connections. Implications are you will need to file 1 more set of tax returns. Quote:
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The hampton inn in williston ND in the rare event they have a vacancy charge more than a ritz carlton. :eek: I've been looking for a limited-service franchise hotel but nobody wants to sell in the fracking areas so you have to risk a new build. Plus the east indian cartels are very competitive. For west-coast Canadians the most favourable states in terms of cost/tax implications are arizona and nevada. California is too expensive/restrictive and washington is too similar to Vancouver in terms of vacation home, but investment wise there is some good buys in up and coming suburbs of seattle such as lynnwood. |
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However, renovation companies and property management companies are pretty competitive in pricing in the states. IMO with the current rise in real estate in the USA + the currency rate, it's hard now to find a good deal in the states. You're better off saving money to buy properties in Vancouver when interest rates go up :) |
^gotta love the cheap Mexican labour in the states... simple work costs about half as much as it does here. |
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I own multiple properties in the US too, have made money hand over fist. Canada sucks balls, the US is the largest economy and the most important one (that effect is diminishing with time) to this day. Way to be given an inch yet take a mile |
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It's only easy now if ur American with ok assets already or cdn and cash rich |
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Why would u set up as a corp, or do u mean an LLC (as a cdn, llc's aren't a good idea - a better idea is an LP with a 1% LLC blocker) Tax and withholding burden is that, a burden. Easy money is gone, 70% appreciation in 2.5 yrs has been nice, but now prices are relatively flat in real terms, and rents are ok, but too risky with a high mortgage from the US. The risk/reward isn't there as an absentee owner anymore |
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Here's an article in the globe and mail today regarding more access to data (although more related to mortgages): Spoiler! Holes in housing market data have economists worried - The Globe and Mail But yes, I think the psychology and "house hornyness" is a bigger problem. Too many people thinking they need to buy now or buy never and putting themselves into huge amounts of debt just so they can buy a house to keep up with the jones' , I'm just soo surprised by how many people I talk to that think that real estate can never go down and that they need to get into the market right away. Especially with the young adults, they all seem to have this condo craze. |
After hearing about the earthquake in Chili, all it takes is a major earthquake and I can see prices dropping 10% + in a year. |
The thing is with Gen Y getting into real estate in doves now mostly has to do what happened to the RE in the last 10 years. So you are in your early 20s and for most of your 20s all you have experience is a rising housing market with uninterrupted home price gains. So on the surface it is understandable these kids want to get into the market and not paying much attention to all the bearish talk on Canadian housing. I just don't fundamentally believe what we have witnessed in the last 5 to 10 years as something of a new norm. This time is not different. Vancouver is not special. Home prices gain over the long run is basically just inflation. So basically just 2% a year? Vancouver home price gain is triple or quintuple that of inflation close to 10 years or something I think. I think it is pointless to call a top in any market but I am seeing a lot of froth in this market and it tells me to be very careful. Lots of these Gen Y kids are going to learn that regression toward the mean will be a bitch. |
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have people forgotten that if a relatively big one comes, richmond will be toast? can people in vancouver get earthquake insurance? (that's a real question) b/c if not, and it does happen, that is the definition of high risk! having said that, LA and SF have had monster quakes in our lifetimes doing lots of damage, and that doesn't really stop that - mind you, both places are much bigger cities and more importantly economies than shitcouver |
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