You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
i live in a non-english native language country. took about 2 weeks to adjust. it's not hard to learn another language when you're immersed (western to western language, that is)
people need to stop being so closed minded, ironic given that vancouverites claim to be so open minded!
And some need to be realistic about one's ability to learn a new language, to learn a new culture/ways of doing business, and to uproot their family (no, not just talking about a spouse) to pursue a higher paying job.
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
i appreciate all the comical rhetoric, and completely agree with it, but would be interested to see the front page spread / attention this got in the province and sun, because, you know, this is front page new - asian (canadians) buying real estate
Don't think this made it to the Sun/Province; at least I hope. I was able to google it in the Burnaby Now (http://www.burnabynow.com/business/r...-stay-1.922578), which nobody in their right minds bother to read.
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.
And some need to be realistic about one's ability to learn a new language, to learn a new culture/ways of doing business, and to uproot their family (no, not just talking about a spouse) to pursue a higher paying job.
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
i'm not an accountant - i don't want that tag!!!
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
Yeah, and you understand that the publicity given by this stupid article is going to start a bidding war that will quickly get out of hand and result in the purchase price being way over market value, right? I've seen plenty of houses SUBSTANTIALLY shittier than that go for 800. Honestly, it looks incredibly well kept which is more than you can say for most of the vancouver pre war crackshacks. Also its about 3x the square footage of the next lowest priced detached home in metro vancouver. Not to mention you have an amazing view of that stupid fucking east van sign on 6th and clark so you can east van represent hard as fuck.
Well I'd be willing to take you up on your bet of it even getting close to 800k; I realize you are being facetious, or hope you are anyways. The 100 year old house on this property is virtually value-less, it doesn't matter how well kept it looks from the wide-angled well lit pictures taken. The crap-shacks you've seen go for over 800k have likely been priced up there due to their land value, which this particular property doesn't have a ton of relatively speaking. The small lot size is not going to appeal to those buying the property for land value and knocking the existing house down to replace it with a 4000sf house with a legal suite, a non-legal suite, and a laneway house.
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.
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
translate.google.com was also, and currently remains, an extremely helpful friend.
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.
OMG Timpo posted here... I thought this is not a GT-R thread...
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.
OMG Timpo posted here... I thought this is not a GT-R thread...
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.
yea bought a house in US in early 2013 when loonie and dollar was pretty much still at parity. 10% currency appreciation and 10% house appreciation are a winning combination. I don't lose any sleep over my investment in US simply because states are in a much better shape than Canada in so many areas. the low energy cost associated with hydraulic fracturing could create a pretty big manufacturing resurgency in states and potentially export the LNG to around the world.
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:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson
yea bought a house in US in early 2013 when loonie and dollar was pretty much still at parity. 10% currency appreciation and 10% house appreciation are a winning combination. I don't lose any sleep over my investment in US simply because states are in a much better shape than Canada in so many areas. the low energy cost associated with hydraulic fracturing could create a pretty big manufacturing resurgency in states and potentially export the LNG to around the world.
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:
Originally Posted by Slifer
Is it easy for a Canadian to buy properties in the US? What are the implications?
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!
I think 4444 had properties in the USA.
The hampton inn in williston ND in the rare event they have a vacancy charge more than a ritz carlton. 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.
Is it easy for a Canadian to buy properties in the US? What are the implications?
One shitty thing is that you cant DIY any renovations/improvements on your investment property in the USA. You must hire an American. You can get deported and banned from entry if caught which is really easy if you have a fall out with a renter.
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
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.
See, you are the reason I hate people, because you're an idiot.
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.
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.
Mortgages down there for cdns suck.
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
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.
it's pretty to easy to say yes or no. they have the data. anyone can look into the data at the land titles office can run a study. I think the government also doesnt want to know. It's easily attainable. We just dont have any systems in place to gather it and analyze it.
Here's an article in the globe and mail today regarding more access to data (although more related to mortgages):
Spoiler!
Canada’s financial leaders are under pressure to provide a clearer picture of the housing market, in the face of conflicting opinions about the health of a sector that is crucial to the national economy.
The issue came to the forefront Thursday after Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce economist Benjamin Tal released a strongly worded note, titled “Flying Blind,” in which he said “the gap between the importance of the real estate market to the economy and the lack of publicly available information on it is mind-boggling.”
MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY
Vancouver house sales, prices rise on below-average volume
Home sales, prices in GTA jump in March
BMO slashes key mortgage rate
REAL ESTATE
Video: Why is London's property boom leaving homes empty?
One of Canada's top economists is warning about the dangers lurking from the lack of solid data on Canada's housing market. Pamela Ritchie reports.
REAL ESTATE
Video: CIBC economist calls for transparency in housing data
MARKET VIEW
Video: Market View: Canada's new hottest housing market
His laundry list of information that’s missing includes the share of foreign investors in the condominium market, the distribution of mortgages by credit score and the average down-payment.
Canada’s housing market information is not nearly as detailed as that available in the United States and the lack of data has contributed to strongly opposed views about the health of the market, with some commentators saying home prices are in bubble territory, while others insist there is nothing to worry about. Mr. Tal chose to speak out about his concerns because he believes new financial leadership in Ottawa provides an opportunity for change.
“The time to act is now,” he wrote. “With fresh players steering our policy ship, the new Finance Minister, the new Governor of the Bank of Canada and the new head of CMHC have an opportunity to chart a course that [will] reduce any risk of a real estate bubble by making data availability a top priority.”
Mr. Tal is not alone in his frustration.
“It would be useful to have more information about personal debt and the mortgage market,” says Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist Craig Alexander. “If we think that Canada has a problem with excessive personal debt, you need the data to actually assess the vulnerability and what the associated risks are. But the reality is we actually have quite limited information.”
John Andrew, a real estate professor at Queen’s University, agrees more information is vital. “True, we’re not in any sort of crisis now, but that’s only because interest rates are so low, and it would be very much in the public interest to have all of that data that Benjamin Tal is talking about released publicly,” he says.
He’s calling on the banks to make the first move, suggesting that CIBC, for example, could get the ball rolling. “Most of what would be very useful to consumers and to the residential real estate industry could be released without surrendering any significant competitive advantage,” Mr. Andrew says.
Finance Minister Joe Oliver said in an e-mailed statement Thursday that one of the government’s key objectives is ensuring the long-term stability of the housing market. “In this regard, the government has access to – and very closely monitors – a wide variety of housing data,” he said. “I continue to closely monitor Canada’s housing markets, and stand ready to implement further measures if necessary.”
He noted that Canada’s banking regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, has been asking banks for more data about the housing market.
Not all of that data is publicly available. But a spokesperson for OSFI the Superintendent noted by e-mail Thursday that the regulator has forced banks to publicly disclose more information in areas such as home equity lines of credit and amortization periods.
Observers still have to go to multiple sources to build up a picture of the residential housing market. The Canadian Real Estate Association, which represents realtors, tracks sales and prices of existing homes, while Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., a Crown corporation, monitors indicators such as housing starts. Statistics Canada watches consumer debt, the Bank of Canada looks at how much mortgage credit the banks have given out and private research firms examine the new home and condo markets. But notable gaps remain.
“Because there is a bit of a void on housing data we do have a lot of ill-considered opinions on the real estate market, and it’s hard to completely refute some of the wild talk we’ve had in recent years because the data set is limited,” says BMO Nesbitt Burns chief economist Douglas Porter.
He cautions, however, that more information is not a panacea. Deeper U.S. data did not prevent a housing boom and crash in that country.
Nevertheless, economists say that better information would help to ensure the proper steps are being taken to keep the market healthy.
“If we want well designed public policies, they should be based on sound data,” Mr. Alexander says. He noted that compiling good information can be expensive and pointed to budget constraints at entities such as Statistics Canada as a problem. “In my mind, we’re actually going the wrong direction,” he says.
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.
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.
After hearing about the earthquake in Chili, all it takes is a major earthquake and I can see prices dropping 10% + in a year.
this is an incredibly valid point, to a degree.
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
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
Yes you can, we have earthquake insurance for our condo.
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
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.
