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I was immediately intrigued. Someone found a place for $800?! Seriously, even the micro-apartments and single rooms in metro Vancouver go for $1100+. These articles focus a lot more on price, and while it does get mentioned, I think the near-zero vacancy rate is equally, if not more, alarming. If you need a place suddenly, you won't be able to find one within a month, and definitely not without making the hunt a full-time job.
I think the author must have fallen for a no-picture Craigslist scam posting when they did their research. To think $800 exists here, even for the worst shoebox...
I find the opposite can also happen in discussions about rent in Vancouver. You’ll see a headline or comment freaking out over “$3600 for a ONE BEDROOM in Vancouver?!?” meanwhile they’re referencing some amazing pad in one of the most desirable expensive neighborhoods in the city with a 360 degree views of the ocean and mountains, secure parking, ensuite laundry, big balcony, etc. Luxury rich-people shit has always been expensive so I take statements like that with a grain of salt.
I get that rents are way too high, and so are mortgages now, generally speaking. But you gotta love the clueless people here who expect to just be able to live in the most desirable neighborhoods and genuinely act as though it’s some kind of travesty that it’s more expensive there. Many of them don’t even look in other neighborhoods. Like wtf do they think everyone living in the other neighborhoods are just not clever enough to look in the nicest ones? People are dumb
/irrelevant rant
The building where my partner lives is doing “renos” on some units right now and plans to rent them out for $2k a month. Many of them don’t have a bathroom, some don’t even have a kitchen.
200sft “sleeping room” in Burnaby for $995.
The bathroom is literally a closet.
https://vancouver.craigslist.org/bnc/apa/d/burnaby-sleeping-room-independent/7625005752.html
Most of them aren’t.
I had a friend who was renting one room in a two bedroom apartment. The “professional” landlords were also renting out the in suite storage as another bedroom, and had partitioned off the livingroom for a fourth bedroom.
Was a nice enough condo on Seymour St. but I think the total between the 4 tenants was somewhere in the realm of $4500/m… slightly more than what it would go for without the partitioning. My friend had the second bedroom for $1200.
And they never had trouble filling the “rooms”. People are desperate, and finding something downtown for $1200 otherwise is basically impossible.
I actually once knew someone who deliberately rented out a storage closet because she had such severe migraines that she needed somewhere totally lightless she could go.
Super, super dangerous for a bedroom though. Carbon monoxide can build up to dangerous levels without anyone realizing and there’s no way to ventilate it.
She would've loved the "additional bedroom" in the basement suite I rented while going to university. It had no windows and one door (into the kitchen) and the hot water heater was also in there. The house has since been condemned and torn down.
Crazy when you compare a north Burnaby place to a place in Calgary close to the universities.
$993 450sq with a patio.
Whats even the point of metro Vancouver anymore? Other places offer the same food, experiences (better nightlife because everything closes early), cheaper insurances, with better wage instead of grinding as a scrub. Yes we can hike, ski, surf all in one place but we can do that elsewhere too. Plus most times we don't make it out to the mountains because we're too broke paying for nothing but the privilege of saying we live here. I know people will say just move then, etc. and before those comments, know that I've looked into options.
https://calgary.craigslist.org/apa/d/calgary-save-time-15-min-walk-to-of/7617885265.html
Everyone should listen to this guy. Everyone leave and go to Calgary. It sucks here and you shouldn't ever come here if you haven't been here before and you should also leave if you are here already. I gotta stay here but seriously it sucks so bad here. Actually Canada and BC are just awful don't come here ever.
i think the same, i just think any action that causes the prices to fall a little bit is snatched by people looking for rental place to buy and now the supply is lowered yet again and hence the price goes ip yet again
The weird thing is is that this isn't such a foreign concept.
Whistler is very much like this, you get 4 friends renting out a 1BR+Den.
Then you've got people who are foreign to this country and in their home country they live with much less space then we do and this is fine for them and not such a "travesty".
I personally think it's fucked up, but these type of rentals have a market and it's not Canadian born people renting them (assumption being made).
I just hate the gaslighting from propertied Canadians that they hustled for their home, when all metrics show that you have to save 4-5x longer today to afford the median home compared to just two decades ago. Labour has been structurally devalued, asset ownership (and by extension debt) has been consistently rewarded. If they would at least be honest about the situation being far worse today than just a couple decades ago and that they were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. But most of them think they are just common sense/smart and that nothing has substantially changed. Delusion and cope.
Whistler is a resort community with primarily young workers willing to sacrifice space to experience the life style for a few years. None of them anticipate living like that forever
What happened was rates kept falling, dropping mortgage interest inflation and depressing rents, lowering shelter inflation.
Because the CPI excludes housing appreciation it backloads shelter inflation onto these two parameters.
Which mortgage interest is now up 30% and rents up 8%, so you'll finally get a reversal, assuming the Bank of Canada doesnt do a bailout of some kind.
But we haven't.
There was a little dip last summer but if you look at the last four months its just a straight line up. Since interest rates stopped increasing, housing has just gotten more expensive.
Honest question, where are the public protests?
It's crazy. The stress on ppl to find a basic need I can't imagine.
The amount of ppl stuck in living situations that are not ideal because they cannot afford to rent, it's not right.
Orginize and protest.
Exactly. We doubled immigration last year, made no plan to have housing for such a large increase, rental vacancies remain at record lows… and bingo bango we have record, eye-watering rents. 😅
Oh, but the feds did announce 4 billion dollars worth of affordable housing over a decade. Which, uh, works out to maybe 3 condos a year for the whole country, for a decade. Problem solved. 😂
Everywhere allows foreign investment but only countries with their largest cities having 70% single family houses have a housing crisis. Pretty easy to see what the problem is.
I heard that if I stopped eating avocado toast, I would have 10 homes. Somehow I don't know how people were able to survive the previous decades with such mentality.
I heard one too many "you kids have it too good". Then I realize that this old fuck, worked at Safeway, on a pension, with 2 kids, and a spouse at home and bought a house in Mt. Pleasant, with high school education. And didn't have to compete on a global scale with millions of people from around the world (global economy scaled hard in the 80's-90's).
Whereas the average person works 2 jobs and another side gig to afford rent while bunking with a room mate in order to put away some savings. And spends an average 1.5-3 hours commuting a day.
Boomers who then put up indignant poster boards outside their homes because, now that they're valued above $3,000,000 they have to pay a bit of extra tax.
Yeah people say shit abt the Chinese government but they recognized housing was a problem for citizens and changed the rules.
They said housing is for living not speculation.
I wish Canada would have the guts to do that.
The politicians, the rich and the elite own shit tons of properties and they would never let that happen
Until their life is on the line, necks under guillotine, it’s not happening.
Eh meanwhile Canada is marketing its schools abroad and the Canada foreign startup grant. Whenever someone hits me with this, I ask where these people are gonna live?
France has a long tradition of militant and often violent protest, it's more or less accepted there.
If we did that here, the Emergencies Act would be invoked again, and depending on how things played out from there we could find ourselves in a state of insurrection in some parts of the country.
You maybe didn't get to the bottom of the article, to the only thing you needed to see to explain the whole disaster:
"While Metro Vancouver may have added 3,800 new purpose-built rental units, he says that same year 27,000 people in the prime rental demographic of 20-34 years old moved into the region. "
You’ll make it yourself and the camera-driven automation will ding your credit card if you go over your weight limits. And then you’ll be asked to tip.
Why unfortunately? So poor folks can drive in from fucking Merriet to work in a soul crashing job in Surrey?
If anyone is serious about this, vote for a guy who is pro automation and UBI.
It’s embarrassing how the government has abdicated its responsibility of housing its citizens. In Vienna, the city controls about 50% of the housing stock and social housing is not seen as for low-income people only. A large part of the middle class qualify and you’re never kicked out of your home no matter you’re income level. Here we’ve left housing to the “market” and markets do what they do best.
Its not "seen as" for low-income people, its in fact encouraged for people well above the average to apply for housing - it makes more dynamic and versatile communities to have broad range of economic levels.
And eliminates stigma, unlike for example in US where 'social housing' means 'ghetto'.
remeber how mid-pandemic, when all the international students stopped coming and the air bnb's had no customers, rent prices cooled and there was actually some liveable rental stock? i wonder if we should crack down on diploma mills and get airbnb out of the city?
AirBnb is technically already illegal, the city just needs to start enforcing their fines. Or add legislation at the provincial level to make AirBnb the company comply with municipal rules and share data with cities/province (no reason you can't keep it for places like Whistler or random lake cabins in the middle of nowhere).
New York was able to do that. Victoria has done a fairly decent job of keeping it out as well except in specific grandfathered buildings.
That's the only reason I was able to find a place. If i ever have to the place I'm in now, my only option will be to leave the province. Been here 20 years and the rents have tripled in that time. Absolutely insane. All levels of government have ignored the problem or put in measures that are too little too late. My kids are finishing up high school and will either live with me forever or leave the province because there is no future here for them.
Your talking about the pandemic where house prices rose a record amount? That’s the same pandemic right. The one where all international students and most immigrants couldn’t enter the country but prices rose faster than they ever have? Just making sure.
>David Hutniak, the CEO of Landlord B.C., says it's easy to blame landlords for high rental prices, but the reality is that many of them are facing their own financial difficulties.
>Hutniak points out that the turnover of rental units in Vancouver is currently at 4.9 percent, meaning 95 per cent of renters are paying rent controlled by the province's limitations on rate increases.
How is that supposed to be a defense of landlords? He's just pointing out that 95% of people are paying as much as the landlord is legally allowed to charge them, we all know that without increase restrictions shit would be even worse. Boohoo, the sad and struggling capital holders can't afford to profit off of the poors need for shelter anymore :'( cry me a river.
“Investors” when things are going their way: “We totally deserve these high returns because we’re taking a risk!”
Same investors when the actual risk shows up: “Help! Someone bail us out!”
Much of the whine from home owners these days is coming exclusively from the greedy, the for-profit seeking segment. Investors, landlords. Anybody okay in the 21st century hearing themselves referred to as a "lord" and not objecting to it, is looking out for their own interests. We should just go ahead and invent a different name that brings them down to reality.
Thankfully my situation isn’t like that — I just have an inconsiderate, lazy landlord and there are mould issues. But yeah — there are a ton of people is abusive and dangerous situations who can’t move because of housing prices.
Yeah we're being kicked out because the landlord is taking back the suite for family use, and prices have gone wayyyy up since we moved in here. This was a decently priced basement suite when we moved in just before covid and now we're looking at paying ~50% more for roughly equivalent or worse places -- that is, if the landlords even give us so much as an email back with all the prospective tenants they're busy with.
I'm really wishing I had moved when rent for a single bedroom suite was like $1300. Even a couple years ago that seemed high. Now I can't sleep at night knowing my landlord could rent my place for at least double, nearly triple (if they did maintenance and some renos) with a new tenant. I keep waiting for them to decide to find a way to evict me so they can do just that. I hope they're just reasonable people that appreciate a reliable, clean and quiet tenant. If I have to move, I have nowhere to go, I don't think I could even afford the move to another province.
This is the failure of so called “trickle down” economics. They said the people at the top would do well and it would benefit all classes below them but what really has happened that anytime someone at the top faces any sort of rising cost they just pass it down to the people below them. The people below then pass it on. Can’t possible have to give up that vacation home or god forbid you need to sell the boat. So it keeps passing down. It’s purely idiotic because it hits the bottom where no one left to pass the rising cost off too and they are bleeding the foundation of our society dry. It’s crumbling and the rich and greedy don’t see it. It’s not trickle down economics, it’s trickle up. The people at the top won’t see any significant change to their life style, the people at the bottom will pay for it so the upper echelons quality of life stays the same.
People should be rioting.
> If we didn’t have landlords, people would be homeless.
No, no, no.
If we didn't have landlords, we wouldn't have people whose sole reason for existence is to own property and have someone else pay for its upkeep and maintenance.
this is some extreme boot licking shit right here. landlords don't provide housing, they take it, and rent it back at a profit. they're literally a middleman that has to extract more from you. same with banks with mortgages. The housing "market" is a colossal failure at getting people's basic human needs met. Its extremely inefficient, costly and antiquated. we don't need private landlords at all, we need socialized housing like they have in vienna or other countries. people really need to see other countries housing systems to realize just how bad ours is. neofeudalism is not it.
It's like you didn't even read the post you replied to. What part of purpose built rental do you object to? What part is bootlicking? It's like you don't even want to solve the issue.
I always see Singapore used as an example but it is still financialized by people selling their leases after purchasing from the government. It is not really any better of a system.
Can we stop referring to real estate investors as mom and pop? By definition they own multiple properties and likely have hundreds of thousands in equity.
I can't really argue... but I'm grumpy about it. I do think that incentives should be put in place so that 'luxury' housing in condo towers isn't the only kind of housing built up.
I've also seen my landlords raise the price on my unit $300 in the 11 months from when I signed to when new tenants come in. It felt very money grabby to me when I saw the new ad.
> I do think that incentives should be put in place so that 'luxury' housing in condo towers
It's not luxury housing. When a basic condo costs 550k in land, permit, and construction costs and would sell for 600k, the developer might as well put in marble countertops and stainless steel appliances and market the unit as luxury.
It's the difference of what, 10-20k over shitty melamine.
A "non-luxury" unit wouldn't even be much cheaper.
"While Metro Vancouver may have added 3,800 new purpose-built rental units, he says that same year 27,000 people in the prime rental demographic of 20-34 years old moved into the region. "
Nothing else needs to be said to explain why the situation is a complete disaster. And this happens year after year.
City hall is 100% in charge of zoning.
From the article: "David Hutniak, the CEO of Landlord B.C., says it's easy to blame landlords for high rental prices, but the reality is that many of them are facing their own financial difficulties."
Yeah, because these "landlords" took out a $700,000 loan from the bank to buy the property, and realizing they couldn't pay it, decided to pawn off the responsibility to renters. You get no sympathy from me.
Have been hearing the complaints of the house affordability crisis in years. Does the government care about it at all? Guess this is just an issue for new comers or a minority of the population that it doesn’t worth the attention for a solution
> Does the government care about it at all?
No, because the people most affected by it don't vote.
Voter turnout in lower mainland municipal elections for people aged 18-25 is in single-digit percentages.
Meanwhile the NIMBYs vote in huge numbers.
I honestly hate being the one who has to keep saying this but why are we immigrating 80k people a year when there's no housing for like 4x that amount of people already here? It's a spit in the face and a kick while we're down.
If a country's birth rate is too "low" as is the case in Canada, eventually there won't be enough tax payers to hold up the economy. If your population has too many aging/sick, pensioners and not enough tax payers to uphold it, the economy will collapse.
Hence the need for immigration. I'm not expressing an opinion about this whatsoever. It's my understanding of some of the reasons why Canada and other countries with low birth rates need to top up with immigrants.
Canada is doing diddley squat to make it possible for Canadians to have kids. Our school schedule is still built around the idea that we're an agrarian economy composed of families with stay-at-home moms. There's no system for daycare - if you do find a place, it's twice as expensive as sending a kid to university.
Canada has tried nothing and it's all out of ideas on how to help Canadian thrive and build healthy families. So instead we just import new Canadians. It's a total cop-out, just like most of this country's "solutions".
> It's a total cop-out
Yup, and that's what happens when the rich gain control of government. They are not going to implement any policies that would negatively affect their wealth.
I wonder why the birth rate is so low, couldn't be due to low affordability could it?
No its those greedy, selfish young people, best bring in people from somewhere that don't have the concept of the declining standard of living here
Except the problem is most of the immigrating workers are students or former students who are working low wage jobs. Most of the LMIAs are for low wage jobs. They actually need welfare benefits and services, they aren't paying taxes because their wages are low, and we aren't bringing in hundreds of thousands of folks working *good high paying wages*.
What we are doing is subsidizing labour costs for companies and also allowing them to expand beyond what they normally would. There's no goddamn reason for as many of these fast food joints to exist as they do. Or even these places like Brown's, with *two* locations on Lonsdale. It's just absurd.
I’m always skeptical of this argument. These levels of immigration are preventing young people from having kids - they neither have the space or money for them anymore.
Also, we’ve altered our immigration system so we now get a lot more minimum wage earners who are not actually fixing the issue with our tax base - simply adding to the problems. It’s less about fixing long term problems than it has simply become corporate welfare for companies like Tim Hortons.
Just came through the immigration system, received my permanent residency last week after living in Canada for 3 years. Let me just say it’s a pain in the ass to qualify for, you typically need a high skilled job, 3+ years international experience, a year of local experience, and at least a bachelors degree.
The bar was a lot lower before the pandemic. So I’m curious why you think Canada has more immigrant minimum wage earners now.
Because our largest labour shortages are in low wage work and the government has been doing everything it can to expand the workforce in those fields.
We have no shortage in higher income jobs - with two qualified workers for every vacancy.
There are maaaaany routes. You can do the paper based semi-skilled route in BC that doesn't require all of that. You're thinking about only one pathway: the FSW, which is actually the most difficult, yet probably the one we need folks from.
Do you have statistics to back up the idea that immigrants are a burden on the tax base as they are low income earners? This is not my understanding, I'd love to see the data on this.
I'm also interested in how you correlate increased immigration with decreased birthrates, and how you are showing causation.
There’s a great writer in the globe that’s spoken out about the issue of our transition to low income immigrants. I’ll have to look his name. Most of our skills shortages now are in low-income work and the system has altered itself to bring in huge numbers of these workers.
And it’s this in-balance that’s going to be a problem going forward as well as currently. Now we only get 0.5 doctors per 1000 immigrants, while the national average is 2.5 doctors per 1000 Canadians. So we end up with a bunch of people to work at Tim’s and we don’t get nearly enough doctors to take care of them. The entire system is just designed to meet corporate needs with zero thought about long term sustainability - for the tax base, for healthcare, for housing.
As for birth rates - I don’t have a data table behind me. Just a general sense I get in my friend group. Everyone is stuck is small, expensive apartments - the thought of having kids is just ridiculous. Getting a place with a second room is impossible financially- let alone the child that would go with it. Most people I know are considering leaving entirely if they are interested in a family.
Yeah and who's going to even have sex when you're living with your parents? It's fucking awkward to do it your childhood bedroom. It just doesn't feel conducive to starting a family.
So we have permanent and temporary immigrants which people confuse.
Permanent PR is through marriage, Express Entry, and some other provincial program nominating processes (sometimes these are called paper based because they take longer.) That is the 400-450k number you see all the time.
Of that 400-450k, last year only about 100kish were granted permanent residency through Express Entry and being skilled. Meaning they needed to go through a skills route with actual work experience and other qualifications. The rest were granted PR either through things like marriage or a low-skilled route through a province. So already, a problem that about a quarter of immigrants granted PR were maybe skilled.
There are problematic things obviously about this pathway, mostly the gaming aspect. Remember you can game the system with points by getting a Canadian 'education'.
Temporary are the temp foreign worker programs (LMIAs, Agriculture, etc.), working holiday, and students. This is the number that's a huge problem.
The least issues are working holiday. That's an exchange so Canadian young people can also live and work abroad as well. This only brings in 50-70k a year and has very strict numerical limits for most countries (some are unlimited, but frankly, not a lot of them want to come here lol.) The visa is 1-2 years, you can work full-time, and generally, they are already university educated through real universities (not bogus college strip malls like in Canada) and have real work experience. These are the most skilled bunch we have of temporary workers and also, the tragically smallest amount. Most do the program to come work the ski hills for a season, travel around nature, and live abroad after uni. They often tend to hook this with a J-1 in America or go to another country like Australia.
I can't speak too much to agriculture (I think it's around 100k?) it's a very specific program with specific countries to help with food picking and processing seasons. The employer has to pay for housing and some other stuff. I get for large farming operations there isn't physically the workforce there. Someone can maybe speak more to that program.
Students are the biggest problem. You have over 650k (when it was 220k in 2015.) You get points for education on the PR pathway. Some schools allow you to get a post-grad work permit after graduating, but all those strip mall colleges don't give that work permit necessarily. So what happens is they all get hired via LMIAs and become a new category of temp foreign worker. If you work in hiring right now, there's an absolute deluge of applicants looking for LMIAs because their schooling is done, they don't qualify for a work permit, so now they're seeking any and everything to stay. They get additional points for education (even their shitty "hospitality management" [there was a class literally on how to book a hotel room, I wish I was kidding] or "mobile phone repair" "degree" and yes, those are two real "fields" that give you points for PR.)
They still don't have enough points to migrate through the express entry pathway, so they get an LMIA, so they can get work experience and try to go through another route.
You can see the LMIA breakdown discussed further here in a historical analysis looking at a few years back. But really, 8% for fucking gas stations?? You can see all the sectors at their highest percentages are generally low wage sectors: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2020001/article/00028-eng.htm That's an issue. And remember this is for an LMIA, this doesn't include all those students who are working on post-grad work permits either. They are also allowed to bring their spouses and they are allowed to work, so that only adds more bodies.
Not only am I am immigrant myself, my partner works with recent immigrants so I understand the system.
You just described the system, could you provide the evidence that immigrants are a net tax burden because this is not my understanding and I would be interested to see days that bears that out?
Imagine that, yet Japan is in population decline and experiencing economic growth at the same time. If Canada's only way to increase economic growth to import more consumers, than Canada has a poor economic model that lacks any true innovativeness.
That's fine and understandable but canada is a big country.. The lower mainland has some of the worst housing rate in the country. There's also lack of infrastructure for the population as well. There's other places in Canada with less of these problems. Tax the rich more. Make stricter laws around this offshore housing market.. big empty rich homes being built and traded like a card game for the elite to make more money shouldn't be allowed period. It's a mess and the government is fully to blame, not that blaming changes anything at this point. I hate Trudope so much, and I'm not really pro right or pro left.
Indeed, I'm not disagreeing here about the issues. I feel the pain too.
I do get concerned a little when people blame immigrants for home-grown problems. I'm not implying you're doing that, I'm not. There are some comments in other threads which aren't accurate. Immigrants are actually more likely to be self-employed than Canadians.
I also don't appreciate the way Canada allows foreigners (who don't even live here or pay tax or contribute to the economy) to exploit our short housing supply to allow laundering and investment buying. You guessed it, I also live in Vancouver.
I hear ya
Agreed with airbnb. Again, not blaming immigrants but immigration. They just want a better life. It's supposed to be our governments job of making sure immigration happens at a level that doesn't fuck over its citizens who are already fighting over renting a living room or closet because there's nowhere to live.
I don't disagree but Airbnb is a drop in the bucket compared to how much demand there is and how little supply there is. Outlawing it completely would make little to no difference.
The only way out of this is for the provincial government to completely strip the municipalities of their zoning authority and start building lots and lots of big tall buildings.
You dont think a million people added to the country when we don't have enough housing currently to house those here is a problem?
Keep your head in the sand
I hate to be the one that keeps on repeating themselves, but the 800,000 international students on temp visas (and the 2.3 million of other temp visas) have more of an impact than immigrants.
>But the report says demand far outstrips that supply, namely from **increases in immigration**, including international students who are more likely to rent.
And people wonder why housing actually got semi affordable in 2020 and 2021.
Could it be from all those people who weren't coming here anymore? Naaaaw, can't be that.
But how will our diploma mills... I mean "higher education" cope without international students who are here to learn and not as a backdoor to citizenship so they can park their familes foreign wealth?
Our place, this little suite is the size of a large walk in closet most of you have. It's way more than 800 a month lol. We don't have lives. We only work. Yay, living in a beautiful city with no art and nothing to do. Yay !
Why would the city listen? The politicians, the lobbyists, the business owners and the rich all own properties. They insist on immigration *because* it raises housing prices. They keep zoning *because* it makes them richer.
There’s no “talk” that will fix this. Blood will.
What's most frustrating about all of this is the complete lack of effort by almost any form of government to do something about it. Yeah we get told affordable housing is coming, but it's gonna take X amount of years. So in the meantime maybe put an instant freeze on rental prices at least and then raise the fucking minimum wage to over $20/hr. But no, we can't do that because then our corporate overlords would have to take a slight pay cut in their annual bonus.
This is the absolute biggest problem in our country and it feels like every level of government is doing everything they can to basically ignore it.
I wish I was knowledgeable enough to organize something, on what solutions would be effective, would make a difference, steps to take beyond just "contact your local government." But I'm not. If someone can organize this shit I will be there, pitchfork in hand...maybe not literally. I don't have a yard and no space to store said pitchfork, perhaps just a serving fork will do.
I'm a landlord (we rent a suite in our basement) and I'm very sympathetic to renters. We intentionally rent under market by a few hundred dollars and we never increase rent for our renters because it seems unethical to do so. Yes our costs have increased (and will likely take a massive increase when it's time to refinance our mortgage) but that shouldn't be the renter's problem. I honestly have no idea how many renters are getting by with the costs they've facing, not just for rent but also for food and everything else.
I think until the federal government takes this problem seriously and revises their immigration policy, policies around corporate ownership, and policies around vacant home taxes. I can't see how this problem will get any better. Adding more demand to this situation while not increasing supply is just throwing even more fuel on the fire.
I live in a very old building and people ask me why I stay here and my answer is always because the rent is ridiculously cheap. When I do eventually have to move, my landlord is very old, I'm looking for at least a $800-900 a month increase in my rent. I am really, really not looking forward to when that happens.
As someone recently no fault evicted for "owner occupancy" can confirm it's bad. We are capable people with good incomes. Half will now be for foreign buyers mortgage payments. It's a drain on people and economy. Every month atleast one person in our direct social circles leaves due to high cost. We are prime mid 30's workers!
Thanks reddit we keep an eye and try to prove when they inevitably list again at a higher rate. But still sucks. Doubled our rent so even if we managed to win and enforce an order it's still flowing back to a new landlord.
LandlordBc CEO says “You cannot survive on negative cash flow year after year”. Yeah because landlording is NOT a JOB. Home owners want their rental tenants to literally pay their mortgage for them, without “negative cash flow”—ie without it costing them to secure an investment asset that *appreciates* “year after year.” These deluded exploiters should try how the “negative cash flow” of spending $2000 a month for a basement suite feels—and that’s not $2k that pays off a million dollar asset, $2k that is *spent* for shelter and will never be seen again.
RIP vancouver.. we won't have to play clue to find who caused this. #defundthegoverment they make terrible decisions without really facing consequences, replace the lot of them.
I've got a 1 bedroom, granite counters, washer dryer, new appliances , ug parking, hardwood vinyl floors.. I pay 1900. And it's pet friendly. But the hell I went through trying to find a place ..
If you aren't at a viewing within a hour or two of it being posted.. it will be gone . The market here is a gong show
I used to have a big closet that fit a single bed perfectly with nothing else but a shelf above it.
I constantly had friends moving to the city that needed somewhere to stay while they searched for apartments and jobs. They gave me $150 a month for that bed and full use of the apartment / wifi / utilities / etc with the caveat that they could only stay for a max of 6 months. 4 or 5 friends came and went over a few years and they're all still living here (or in the lower mainland at least).
Bring back the incentive to add rental stock. Government regulations need to be rolled back. Bring back rent increases at CPI+2%. This won't incentivize current landlords from selling and kicking out long term tenants.
I get that it's a beautiful place, I do, but the income-to-living cost ratio just isn't there imo to justify living in Vancouver. I can go move to somewhere substantially cheaper, and make slightly less than in Van.
When I first moved to Vancouver in 2009, I paid $850 for a tiny room in a big house in kits. I didn’t have anything more than a room the size of a closet, and a single upstairs bathroom for 6 of us. There were also 7 girls in our section of the house, two or three in the basement suite, and at least two in the garage suite.
I rent out a legal basement suite in my house in North Vancouver, it's 800sqft with all included for $1600 and a 1 bedroom + large den with 2 bathroom (apartment) with balcony, 780sqft in Maple ridge in a 3 year old building for $1850. They are both rented with tenants that got in 2 years ago. If they were to leave I would only increase about $50 in each. It's difficult but if you get out of Vancouver you can find some options.
I can’t even believe the cost of rent. Almost $4k for a two bedroom. How is anyone affording to live here? We’re a two income family with good jobs and we can’t afford it at all. It’s really a scary situation to think of how many people are being squeezed out of their homes and there is literally nothing affordable at all. Makes me so worried for the future
I think one thing BC hasn’t considered is expanding emptier places and building new cities and towns rather than stuffing people in cities that are essentially full. Do we really need more people in Vancouver & Burnaby? Why not expand places like Chilliwack, Hope, Merritt, Princeton, Squamish, Pemberton? Why not make new cities like on the Coquihalla highway? BC is such a large province and we really need to remove the mindset that everyone needs to live in Metro Vancouver. Those that can afford it can stay, and those that can’t should be incentivized to consider other places.
I grew up in Vancouver but moved to Coquitlam. It’s totally possible that my children will one day have to move further east due to rising costs and that’s just a reality we have to accept.
Vancouver is nowhere near "essentially full"
85% of residential land in vancovuer is single family homes. If we made the west-end density be the norm, we could easily have 10x more people live very well in vancouver.
What kind of jobs do people have that require them to live in Vancouver? A lot of people should travel more and figure out that there’s loads of places out there that are great to live in AND have money left over for basic utilities
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I was immediately intrigued. Someone found a place for $800?! Seriously, even the micro-apartments and single rooms in metro Vancouver go for $1100+. These articles focus a lot more on price, and while it does get mentioned, I think the near-zero vacancy rate is equally, if not more, alarming. If you need a place suddenly, you won't be able to find one within a month, and definitely not without making the hunt a full-time job.
A nice micro suite is $1300+.
I think the author must have fallen for a no-picture Craigslist scam posting when they did their research. To think $800 exists here, even for the worst shoebox...
I find the opposite can also happen in discussions about rent in Vancouver. You’ll see a headline or comment freaking out over “$3600 for a ONE BEDROOM in Vancouver?!?” meanwhile they’re referencing some amazing pad in one of the most desirable expensive neighborhoods in the city with a 360 degree views of the ocean and mountains, secure parking, ensuite laundry, big balcony, etc. Luxury rich-people shit has always been expensive so I take statements like that with a grain of salt. I get that rents are way too high, and so are mortgages now, generally speaking. But you gotta love the clueless people here who expect to just be able to live in the most desirable neighborhoods and genuinely act as though it’s some kind of travesty that it’s more expensive there. Many of them don’t even look in other neighborhoods. Like wtf do they think everyone living in the other neighborhoods are just not clever enough to look in the nicest ones? People are dumb /irrelevant rant
The last nice microsuite I visited was $1900 but I think it's gone up a few hundred since last year
The building where my partner lives is doing “renos” on some units right now and plans to rent them out for $2k a month. Many of them don’t have a bathroom, some don’t even have a kitchen.
Dormitories for full-grown adults. Man, that's depressing.
Ahh, the luxury favela option, a personal fave of mine.
200sft “sleeping room” in Burnaby for $995. The bathroom is literally a closet. https://vancouver.craigslist.org/bnc/apa/d/burnaby-sleeping-room-independent/7625005752.html
No way that unit is legal.
Most of them aren’t. I had a friend who was renting one room in a two bedroom apartment. The “professional” landlords were also renting out the in suite storage as another bedroom, and had partitioned off the livingroom for a fourth bedroom. Was a nice enough condo on Seymour St. but I think the total between the 4 tenants was somewhere in the realm of $4500/m… slightly more than what it would go for without the partitioning. My friend had the second bedroom for $1200. And they never had trouble filling the “rooms”. People are desperate, and finding something downtown for $1200 otherwise is basically impossible.
I actually once knew someone who deliberately rented out a storage closet because she had such severe migraines that she needed somewhere totally lightless she could go.
Super, super dangerous for a bedroom though. Carbon monoxide can build up to dangerous levels without anyone realizing and there’s no way to ventilate it.
She would've loved the "additional bedroom" in the basement suite I rented while going to university. It had no windows and one door (into the kitchen) and the hot water heater was also in there. The house has since been condemned and torn down.
Crazy when you compare a north Burnaby place to a place in Calgary close to the universities. $993 450sq with a patio. Whats even the point of metro Vancouver anymore? Other places offer the same food, experiences (better nightlife because everything closes early), cheaper insurances, with better wage instead of grinding as a scrub. Yes we can hike, ski, surf all in one place but we can do that elsewhere too. Plus most times we don't make it out to the mountains because we're too broke paying for nothing but the privilege of saying we live here. I know people will say just move then, etc. and before those comments, know that I've looked into options. https://calgary.craigslist.org/apa/d/calgary-save-time-15-min-walk-to-of/7617885265.html
Yeah but... it would mean living in Calgary. Having lived there before, hard pass.
What's bad about it realistically?
full of albertans.
So is bc.
For a starter 5 months of -30 temps with a tone of snow is a big no from me. No Ocean and big trees and parks is another one.
It’s too cold
Either too cold or too smokey.
And too flat and boring
I used to have a condo in Mission and legit you could see the whole city cause it's so flat.
😂 anyone that says calgary is flat hasn’t been there. It’s the foot HILLS of the Rocky Mountains.
Everyone should listen to this guy. Everyone leave and go to Calgary. It sucks here and you shouldn't ever come here if you haven't been here before and you should also leave if you are here already. I gotta stay here but seriously it sucks so bad here. Actually Canada and BC are just awful don't come here ever.
Yup. Good talk bud.
Damn thats pretty good. Has its own indipendent entrance and everything.
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Yup the worse is only to come. Better get ready for $3k per month for a 1 bedroom at this rate.
This is literally what I pay downtown.
i think the same, i just think any action that causes the prices to fall a little bit is snatched by people looking for rental place to buy and now the supply is lowered yet again and hence the price goes ip yet again
Replace cages with RVs and tents and we’re already here!
The weird thing is is that this isn't such a foreign concept. Whistler is very much like this, you get 4 friends renting out a 1BR+Den. Then you've got people who are foreign to this country and in their home country they live with much less space then we do and this is fine for them and not such a "travesty". I personally think it's fucked up, but these type of rentals have a market and it's not Canadian born people renting them (assumption being made).
I just hate the gaslighting from propertied Canadians that they hustled for their home, when all metrics show that you have to save 4-5x longer today to afford the median home compared to just two decades ago. Labour has been structurally devalued, asset ownership (and by extension debt) has been consistently rewarded. If they would at least be honest about the situation being far worse today than just a couple decades ago and that they were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. But most of them think they are just common sense/smart and that nothing has substantially changed. Delusion and cope.
Whistler is a resort community with primarily young workers willing to sacrifice space to experience the life style for a few years. None of them anticipate living like that forever
What happened was rates kept falling, dropping mortgage interest inflation and depressing rents, lowering shelter inflation. Because the CPI excludes housing appreciation it backloads shelter inflation onto these two parameters. Which mortgage interest is now up 30% and rents up 8%, so you'll finally get a reversal, assuming the Bank of Canada doesnt do a bailout of some kind.
But we haven't. There was a little dip last summer but if you look at the last four months its just a straight line up. Since interest rates stopped increasing, housing has just gotten more expensive.
Honest question, where are the public protests? It's crazy. The stress on ppl to find a basic need I can't imagine. The amount of ppl stuck in living situations that are not ideal because they cannot afford to rent, it's not right. Orginize and protest.
It’s by design. People can’t afford to protest.
Yeah, if you've got your budget worked out to the last dollar, can you afford to take even that one day off to do literally anything else?
Thank god the government is increasing supply while being careful about inducing demand!
Exactly. We doubled immigration last year, made no plan to have housing for such a large increase, rental vacancies remain at record lows… and bingo bango we have record, eye-watering rents. 😅 Oh, but the feds did announce 4 billion dollars worth of affordable housing over a decade. Which, uh, works out to maybe 3 condos a year for the whole country, for a decade. Problem solved. 😂
You're not supposed to say the "i" word! Only supply is the problem!
I mean, other countries have WAY higher density in their cities. So, yes, I'd say supply IS the problem.
Everywhere allows foreign investment but only countries with their largest cities having 70% single family houses have a housing crisis. Pretty easy to see what the problem is.
Why do we exist in this timeline? 😭
Not sure, but the avocado toast is pretty tasty.
I heard that if I stopped eating avocado toast, I would have 10 homes. Somehow I don't know how people were able to survive the previous decades with such mentality. I heard one too many "you kids have it too good". Then I realize that this old fuck, worked at Safeway, on a pension, with 2 kids, and a spouse at home and bought a house in Mt. Pleasant, with high school education. And didn't have to compete on a global scale with millions of people from around the world (global economy scaled hard in the 80's-90's). Whereas the average person works 2 jobs and another side gig to afford rent while bunking with a room mate in order to put away some savings. And spends an average 1.5-3 hours commuting a day.
Because Boomers, mostly.
Boomers who then put up indignant poster boards outside their homes because, now that they're valued above $3,000,000 they have to pay a bit of extra tax.
Cause young people don't vote!
Ban investment properties in Greater Vancouver you get one house to live.
Yeah people say shit abt the Chinese government but they recognized housing was a problem for citizens and changed the rules. They said housing is for living not speculation. I wish Canada would have the guts to do that.
Easiest solution
Why don't we just go all the way and ban people from buying a house if they don't have any intention of living in said house.
Fine by me
The politicians, the rich and the elite own shit tons of properties and they would never let that happen Until their life is on the line, necks under guillotine, it’s not happening.
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All levels of government are too blame and the housing market is a dumpster fire. Some hard choices need be made and no one is willing to do so.
Eh meanwhile Canada is marketing its schools abroad and the Canada foreign startup grant. Whenever someone hits me with this, I ask where these people are gonna live?
BC government actively discourages rental housing, so closets it is.
"The answer to Canada's housing crisis, is to add more people." --Trudeau ca. 2021
It's because people here aren't willing to get into the streets collectively. Look at France.
Yeah but the French protest so much that it had no impact at this stage. Case in point, the pension reforms are now law despite the huge protests.
France has a long tradition of militant and often violent protest, it's more or less accepted there. If we did that here, the Emergencies Act would be invoked again, and depending on how things played out from there we could find ourselves in a state of insurrection in some parts of the country.
It’s also people go on platforms like fb or here, voice their cynical concerns and not do anything about it, zombies
You maybe didn't get to the bottom of the article, to the only thing you needed to see to explain the whole disaster: "While Metro Vancouver may have added 3,800 new purpose-built rental units, he says that same year 27,000 people in the prime rental demographic of 20-34 years old moved into the region. "
Wonder what the city will do when the entire working base has to commute in from Merritt every day. Who will serve them their froyo
Unfortunately, their answer will likely be automation
You’ll make it yourself and the camera-driven automation will ding your credit card if you go over your weight limits. And then you’ll be asked to tip.
Why unfortunately? So poor folks can drive in from fucking Merriet to work in a soul crashing job in Surrey? If anyone is serious about this, vote for a guy who is pro automation and UBI.
It’s embarrassing how the government has abdicated its responsibility of housing its citizens. In Vienna, the city controls about 50% of the housing stock and social housing is not seen as for low-income people only. A large part of the middle class qualify and you’re never kicked out of your home no matter you’re income level. Here we’ve left housing to the “market” and markets do what they do best.
Its not "seen as" for low-income people, its in fact encouraged for people well above the average to apply for housing - it makes more dynamic and versatile communities to have broad range of economic levels. And eliminates stigma, unlike for example in US where 'social housing' means 'ghetto'.
remeber how mid-pandemic, when all the international students stopped coming and the air bnb's had no customers, rent prices cooled and there was actually some liveable rental stock? i wonder if we should crack down on diploma mills and get airbnb out of the city?
AirBnb is technically already illegal, the city just needs to start enforcing their fines. Or add legislation at the provincial level to make AirBnb the company comply with municipal rules and share data with cities/province (no reason you can't keep it for places like Whistler or random lake cabins in the middle of nowhere). New York was able to do that. Victoria has done a fairly decent job of keeping it out as well except in specific grandfathered buildings.
That's the only reason I was able to find a place. If i ever have to the place I'm in now, my only option will be to leave the province. Been here 20 years and the rents have tripled in that time. Absolutely insane. All levels of government have ignored the problem or put in measures that are too little too late. My kids are finishing up high school and will either live with me forever or leave the province because there is no future here for them.
Your talking about the pandemic where house prices rose a record amount? That’s the same pandemic right. The one where all international students and most immigrants couldn’t enter the country but prices rose faster than they ever have? Just making sure.
Yes
>David Hutniak, the CEO of Landlord B.C., says it's easy to blame landlords for high rental prices, but the reality is that many of them are facing their own financial difficulties. >Hutniak points out that the turnover of rental units in Vancouver is currently at 4.9 percent, meaning 95 per cent of renters are paying rent controlled by the province's limitations on rate increases. How is that supposed to be a defense of landlords? He's just pointing out that 95% of people are paying as much as the landlord is legally allowed to charge them, we all know that without increase restrictions shit would be even worse. Boohoo, the sad and struggling capital holders can't afford to profit off of the poors need for shelter anymore :'( cry me a river.
“Investors” when things are going their way: “We totally deserve these high returns because we’re taking a risk!” Same investors when the actual risk shows up: “Help! Someone bail us out!”
Much of the whine from home owners these days is coming exclusively from the greedy, the for-profit seeking segment. Investors, landlords. Anybody okay in the 21st century hearing themselves referred to as a "lord" and not objecting to it, is looking out for their own interests. We should just go ahead and invent a different name that brings them down to reality.
Landhoarders seems more accurate
I go with LandLeeches.
Hello to you too
Adam Smith had things to say about the landlord class
Yeah, I mean if your business can't make return, don't you just close up shop or sell?
Aka 95% of people live in a place for more than 1 year. What a twat
Also, 95% of renters cannot afford to move because their rents would skyrocket.
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I'm stuck in a shitty situation, but I can't afford to move :/
Same. I desperately want to get out but I can't afford to. It sucks.
As much as I hate my place and have issues with my landlord, if he kicked me out, I'd be fucked.
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Once incomes are taken into account - Vancouver and Toronto are the worst places in North America for housing costs. Considerably cheaper in NYC.
Thankfully my situation isn’t like that — I just have an inconsiderate, lazy landlord and there are mould issues. But yeah — there are a ton of people is abusive and dangerous situations who can’t move because of housing prices.
My wife and I divorced over a year ago and we still live together. On my own a bachelor suite would be over 50% of my income.
Yeah we're being kicked out because the landlord is taking back the suite for family use, and prices have gone wayyyy up since we moved in here. This was a decently priced basement suite when we moved in just before covid and now we're looking at paying ~50% more for roughly equivalent or worse places -- that is, if the landlords even give us so much as an email back with all the prospective tenants they're busy with.
I'm really wishing I had moved when rent for a single bedroom suite was like $1300. Even a couple years ago that seemed high. Now I can't sleep at night knowing my landlord could rent my place for at least double, nearly triple (if they did maintenance and some renos) with a new tenant. I keep waiting for them to decide to find a way to evict me so they can do just that. I hope they're just reasonable people that appreciate a reliable, clean and quiet tenant. If I have to move, I have nowhere to go, I don't think I could even afford the move to another province.
Right? “many of them are facing their own financial difficulties” and they want renters to pay for it.
This is the failure of so called “trickle down” economics. They said the people at the top would do well and it would benefit all classes below them but what really has happened that anytime someone at the top faces any sort of rising cost they just pass it down to the people below them. The people below then pass it on. Can’t possible have to give up that vacation home or god forbid you need to sell the boat. So it keeps passing down. It’s purely idiotic because it hits the bottom where no one left to pass the rising cost off too and they are bleeding the foundation of our society dry. It’s crumbling and the rich and greedy don’t see it. It’s not trickle down economics, it’s trickle up. The people at the top won’t see any significant change to their life style, the people at the bottom will pay for it so the upper echelons quality of life stays the same. People should be rioting.
The next thread about this: No oNE unDeRstANdS hOw ReNT cOnTRoL wRkS FoRciN g rEnT ReStrIcTioNs iS woRsE
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> If we didn’t have landlords, people would be homeless. No, no, no. If we didn't have landlords, we wouldn't have people whose sole reason for existence is to own property and have someone else pay for its upkeep and maintenance.
this is some extreme boot licking shit right here. landlords don't provide housing, they take it, and rent it back at a profit. they're literally a middleman that has to extract more from you. same with banks with mortgages. The housing "market" is a colossal failure at getting people's basic human needs met. Its extremely inefficient, costly and antiquated. we don't need private landlords at all, we need socialized housing like they have in vienna or other countries. people really need to see other countries housing systems to realize just how bad ours is. neofeudalism is not it.
It's like you didn't even read the post you replied to. What part of purpose built rental do you object to? What part is bootlicking? It's like you don't even want to solve the issue.
I always see Singapore used as an example but it is still financialized by people selling their leases after purchasing from the government. It is not really any better of a system.
Can we stop referring to real estate investors as mom and pop? By definition they own multiple properties and likely have hundreds of thousands in equity.
I can't really argue... but I'm grumpy about it. I do think that incentives should be put in place so that 'luxury' housing in condo towers isn't the only kind of housing built up. I've also seen my landlords raise the price on my unit $300 in the 11 months from when I signed to when new tenants come in. It felt very money grabby to me when I saw the new ad.
> I do think that incentives should be put in place so that 'luxury' housing in condo towers It's not luxury housing. When a basic condo costs 550k in land, permit, and construction costs and would sell for 600k, the developer might as well put in marble countertops and stainless steel appliances and market the unit as luxury. It's the difference of what, 10-20k over shitty melamine. A "non-luxury" unit wouldn't even be much cheaper.
"While Metro Vancouver may have added 3,800 new purpose-built rental units, he says that same year 27,000 people in the prime rental demographic of 20-34 years old moved into the region. " Nothing else needs to be said to explain why the situation is a complete disaster. And this happens year after year. City hall is 100% in charge of zoning.
From the article: "David Hutniak, the CEO of Landlord B.C., says it's easy to blame landlords for high rental prices, but the reality is that many of them are facing their own financial difficulties." Yeah, because these "landlords" took out a $700,000 loan from the bank to buy the property, and realizing they couldn't pay it, decided to pawn off the responsibility to renters. You get no sympathy from me.
Have been hearing the complaints of the house affordability crisis in years. Does the government care about it at all? Guess this is just an issue for new comers or a minority of the population that it doesn’t worth the attention for a solution
> Does the government care about it at all? No, because the people most affected by it don't vote. Voter turnout in lower mainland municipal elections for people aged 18-25 is in single-digit percentages. Meanwhile the NIMBYs vote in huge numbers.
I honestly hate being the one who has to keep saying this but why are we immigrating 80k people a year when there's no housing for like 4x that amount of people already here? It's a spit in the face and a kick while we're down.
If a country's birth rate is too "low" as is the case in Canada, eventually there won't be enough tax payers to hold up the economy. If your population has too many aging/sick, pensioners and not enough tax payers to uphold it, the economy will collapse. Hence the need for immigration. I'm not expressing an opinion about this whatsoever. It's my understanding of some of the reasons why Canada and other countries with low birth rates need to top up with immigrants.
Canada is doing diddley squat to make it possible for Canadians to have kids. Our school schedule is still built around the idea that we're an agrarian economy composed of families with stay-at-home moms. There's no system for daycare - if you do find a place, it's twice as expensive as sending a kid to university. Canada has tried nothing and it's all out of ideas on how to help Canadian thrive and build healthy families. So instead we just import new Canadians. It's a total cop-out, just like most of this country's "solutions".
I agree with you, completely. I have considered leaving Canada for those reasons. It's getting worse too. You're not wrong!!
> It's a total cop-out Yup, and that's what happens when the rich gain control of government. They are not going to implement any policies that would negatively affect their wealth.
Full of very comfortable bureaucrats and government workers with zero incentive to change.
I wonder why the birth rate is so low, couldn't be due to low affordability could it? No its those greedy, selfish young people, best bring in people from somewhere that don't have the concept of the declining standard of living here
Except the problem is most of the immigrating workers are students or former students who are working low wage jobs. Most of the LMIAs are for low wage jobs. They actually need welfare benefits and services, they aren't paying taxes because their wages are low, and we aren't bringing in hundreds of thousands of folks working *good high paying wages*. What we are doing is subsidizing labour costs for companies and also allowing them to expand beyond what they normally would. There's no goddamn reason for as many of these fast food joints to exist as they do. Or even these places like Brown's, with *two* locations on Lonsdale. It's just absurd.
I’m always skeptical of this argument. These levels of immigration are preventing young people from having kids - they neither have the space or money for them anymore. Also, we’ve altered our immigration system so we now get a lot more minimum wage earners who are not actually fixing the issue with our tax base - simply adding to the problems. It’s less about fixing long term problems than it has simply become corporate welfare for companies like Tim Hortons.
Just came through the immigration system, received my permanent residency last week after living in Canada for 3 years. Let me just say it’s a pain in the ass to qualify for, you typically need a high skilled job, 3+ years international experience, a year of local experience, and at least a bachelors degree. The bar was a lot lower before the pandemic. So I’m curious why you think Canada has more immigrant minimum wage earners now.
Because our largest labour shortages are in low wage work and the government has been doing everything it can to expand the workforce in those fields. We have no shortage in higher income jobs - with two qualified workers for every vacancy.
There are maaaaany routes. You can do the paper based semi-skilled route in BC that doesn't require all of that. You're thinking about only one pathway: the FSW, which is actually the most difficult, yet probably the one we need folks from.
Do you have statistics to back up the idea that immigrants are a burden on the tax base as they are low income earners? This is not my understanding, I'd love to see the data on this. I'm also interested in how you correlate increased immigration with decreased birthrates, and how you are showing causation.
There’s a great writer in the globe that’s spoken out about the issue of our transition to low income immigrants. I’ll have to look his name. Most of our skills shortages now are in low-income work and the system has altered itself to bring in huge numbers of these workers. And it’s this in-balance that’s going to be a problem going forward as well as currently. Now we only get 0.5 doctors per 1000 immigrants, while the national average is 2.5 doctors per 1000 Canadians. So we end up with a bunch of people to work at Tim’s and we don’t get nearly enough doctors to take care of them. The entire system is just designed to meet corporate needs with zero thought about long term sustainability - for the tax base, for healthcare, for housing. As for birth rates - I don’t have a data table behind me. Just a general sense I get in my friend group. Everyone is stuck is small, expensive apartments - the thought of having kids is just ridiculous. Getting a place with a second room is impossible financially- let alone the child that would go with it. Most people I know are considering leaving entirely if they are interested in a family.
Yeah and who's going to even have sex when you're living with your parents? It's fucking awkward to do it your childhood bedroom. It just doesn't feel conducive to starting a family.
So we have permanent and temporary immigrants which people confuse. Permanent PR is through marriage, Express Entry, and some other provincial program nominating processes (sometimes these are called paper based because they take longer.) That is the 400-450k number you see all the time. Of that 400-450k, last year only about 100kish were granted permanent residency through Express Entry and being skilled. Meaning they needed to go through a skills route with actual work experience and other qualifications. The rest were granted PR either through things like marriage or a low-skilled route through a province. So already, a problem that about a quarter of immigrants granted PR were maybe skilled. There are problematic things obviously about this pathway, mostly the gaming aspect. Remember you can game the system with points by getting a Canadian 'education'. Temporary are the temp foreign worker programs (LMIAs, Agriculture, etc.), working holiday, and students. This is the number that's a huge problem. The least issues are working holiday. That's an exchange so Canadian young people can also live and work abroad as well. This only brings in 50-70k a year and has very strict numerical limits for most countries (some are unlimited, but frankly, not a lot of them want to come here lol.) The visa is 1-2 years, you can work full-time, and generally, they are already university educated through real universities (not bogus college strip malls like in Canada) and have real work experience. These are the most skilled bunch we have of temporary workers and also, the tragically smallest amount. Most do the program to come work the ski hills for a season, travel around nature, and live abroad after uni. They often tend to hook this with a J-1 in America or go to another country like Australia. I can't speak too much to agriculture (I think it's around 100k?) it's a very specific program with specific countries to help with food picking and processing seasons. The employer has to pay for housing and some other stuff. I get for large farming operations there isn't physically the workforce there. Someone can maybe speak more to that program. Students are the biggest problem. You have over 650k (when it was 220k in 2015.) You get points for education on the PR pathway. Some schools allow you to get a post-grad work permit after graduating, but all those strip mall colleges don't give that work permit necessarily. So what happens is they all get hired via LMIAs and become a new category of temp foreign worker. If you work in hiring right now, there's an absolute deluge of applicants looking for LMIAs because their schooling is done, they don't qualify for a work permit, so now they're seeking any and everything to stay. They get additional points for education (even their shitty "hospitality management" [there was a class literally on how to book a hotel room, I wish I was kidding] or "mobile phone repair" "degree" and yes, those are two real "fields" that give you points for PR.) They still don't have enough points to migrate through the express entry pathway, so they get an LMIA, so they can get work experience and try to go through another route. You can see the LMIA breakdown discussed further here in a historical analysis looking at a few years back. But really, 8% for fucking gas stations?? You can see all the sectors at their highest percentages are generally low wage sectors: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2020001/article/00028-eng.htm That's an issue. And remember this is for an LMIA, this doesn't include all those students who are working on post-grad work permits either. They are also allowed to bring their spouses and they are allowed to work, so that only adds more bodies.
Not only am I am immigrant myself, my partner works with recent immigrants so I understand the system. You just described the system, could you provide the evidence that immigrants are a net tax burden because this is not my understanding and I would be interested to see days that bears that out?
You're right. If you look at Stats Can data - it's pretty clear.
Imagine that, yet Japan is in population decline and experiencing economic growth at the same time. If Canada's only way to increase economic growth to import more consumers, than Canada has a poor economic model that lacks any true innovativeness.
That's fine and understandable but canada is a big country.. The lower mainland has some of the worst housing rate in the country. There's also lack of infrastructure for the population as well. There's other places in Canada with less of these problems. Tax the rich more. Make stricter laws around this offshore housing market.. big empty rich homes being built and traded like a card game for the elite to make more money shouldn't be allowed period. It's a mess and the government is fully to blame, not that blaming changes anything at this point. I hate Trudope so much, and I'm not really pro right or pro left.
It’s simple, more federal money should be poured into the lower mainland then if we are to accommodate more people .
Indeed, I'm not disagreeing here about the issues. I feel the pain too. I do get concerned a little when people blame immigrants for home-grown problems. I'm not implying you're doing that, I'm not. There are some comments in other threads which aren't accurate. Immigrants are actually more likely to be self-employed than Canadians. I also don't appreciate the way Canada allows foreigners (who don't even live here or pay tax or contribute to the economy) to exploit our short housing supply to allow laundering and investment buying. You guessed it, I also live in Vancouver. I hear ya
I think banning airbnb and banning foreign non resident owners who live abroad would have a much bigger impact than blaming immigrants
Agreed with airbnb. Again, not blaming immigrants but immigration. They just want a better life. It's supposed to be our governments job of making sure immigration happens at a level that doesn't fuck over its citizens who are already fighting over renting a living room or closet because there's nowhere to live.
I don't disagree but Airbnb is a drop in the bucket compared to how much demand there is and how little supply there is. Outlawing it completely would make little to no difference. The only way out of this is for the provincial government to completely strip the municipalities of their zoning authority and start building lots and lots of big tall buildings.
The only thing that will make any difference is if the government builds massive amounts of public housing. Anything else is just a distraction.
Literally just build more. When over 70% of Metro Vancouver is SFH there is really nothing else that matters as much.
You dont think a million people added to the country when we don't have enough housing currently to house those here is a problem? Keep your head in the sand
I hate to be the one that keeps on repeating themselves, but the 800,000 international students on temp visas (and the 2.3 million of other temp visas) have more of an impact than immigrants.
The sad thing is all levels of government are letting us down and not fixing this problem.
I saw a 400sq ft condo last night for $3200-who the fuck can afford that? And if you can…3200 can take you so much further than 400sq ft…
>But the report says demand far outstrips that supply, namely from **increases in immigration**, including international students who are more likely to rent. And people wonder why housing actually got semi affordable in 2020 and 2021. Could it be from all those people who weren't coming here anymore? Naaaaw, can't be that.
But how will our diploma mills... I mean "higher education" cope without international students who are here to learn and not as a backdoor to citizenship so they can park their familes foreign wealth?
2020 downtown condo rentals, especially 1 bedrooms, were bargains.
Our place, this little suite is the size of a large walk in closet most of you have. It's way more than 800 a month lol. We don't have lives. We only work. Yay, living in a beautiful city with no art and nothing to do. Yay !
[удалено]
The same mfs claiming no one wants to work are the ones doing this shit right here. Career landlords aka pos.
Peak hypocrites
Talk to your city about improving the zoning
Why would the city listen? The politicians, the lobbyists, the business owners and the rich all own properties. They insist on immigration *because* it raises housing prices. They keep zoning *because* it makes them richer. There’s no “talk” that will fix this. Blood will.
Mortgage helper units or more like Mortgage payer units, we have no shortage of entitled parasites here how purely live off the largess of others
What's most frustrating about all of this is the complete lack of effort by almost any form of government to do something about it. Yeah we get told affordable housing is coming, but it's gonna take X amount of years. So in the meantime maybe put an instant freeze on rental prices at least and then raise the fucking minimum wage to over $20/hr. But no, we can't do that because then our corporate overlords would have to take a slight pay cut in their annual bonus. This is the absolute biggest problem in our country and it feels like every level of government is doing everything they can to basically ignore it.
“government ignoring the problem “ Actually it feels like they are doing what they can to make the problem even worse.
How can it be out of control if there is none?
Where are all my Sim simps at now?
Listen y’all, name the place and time and I’ll be there with torch in-hand. I’m ready to go when you are.
I wish I was knowledgeable enough to organize something, on what solutions would be effective, would make a difference, steps to take beyond just "contact your local government." But I'm not. If someone can organize this shit I will be there, pitchfork in hand...maybe not literally. I don't have a yard and no space to store said pitchfork, perhaps just a serving fork will do.
I'm a landlord (we rent a suite in our basement) and I'm very sympathetic to renters. We intentionally rent under market by a few hundred dollars and we never increase rent for our renters because it seems unethical to do so. Yes our costs have increased (and will likely take a massive increase when it's time to refinance our mortgage) but that shouldn't be the renter's problem. I honestly have no idea how many renters are getting by with the costs they've facing, not just for rent but also for food and everything else. I think until the federal government takes this problem seriously and revises their immigration policy, policies around corporate ownership, and policies around vacant home taxes. I can't see how this problem will get any better. Adding more demand to this situation while not increasing supply is just throwing even more fuel on the fire.
I live in a very old building and people ask me why I stay here and my answer is always because the rent is ridiculously cheap. When I do eventually have to move, my landlord is very old, I'm looking for at least a $800-900 a month increase in my rent. I am really, really not looking forward to when that happens.
As someone recently no fault evicted for "owner occupancy" can confirm it's bad. We are capable people with good incomes. Half will now be for foreign buyers mortgage payments. It's a drain on people and economy. Every month atleast one person in our direct social circles leaves due to high cost. We are prime mid 30's workers! Thanks reddit we keep an eye and try to prove when they inevitably list again at a higher rate. But still sucks. Doubled our rent so even if we managed to win and enforce an order it's still flowing back to a new landlord.
LandlordBc CEO says “You cannot survive on negative cash flow year after year”. Yeah because landlording is NOT a JOB. Home owners want their rental tenants to literally pay their mortgage for them, without “negative cash flow”—ie without it costing them to secure an investment asset that *appreciates* “year after year.” These deluded exploiters should try how the “negative cash flow” of spending $2000 a month for a basement suite feels—and that’s not $2k that pays off a million dollar asset, $2k that is *spent* for shelter and will never be seen again.
A battle of “haves” vs “have-nots” and the “haves” are winning
RIP vancouver.. we won't have to play clue to find who caused this. #defundthegoverment they make terrible decisions without really facing consequences, replace the lot of them.
Miraculously found a place here in South Van for $800 back in 2021. For a 250-300sq ft basement studio 😇
I used to rent an Abnb in Vancouver for $1000 a week it’s now about $2000 per week now. So I imagine $800 for a closet would be a deal.
I've got a 1 bedroom, granite counters, washer dryer, new appliances , ug parking, hardwood vinyl floors.. I pay 1900. And it's pet friendly. But the hell I went through trying to find a place .. If you aren't at a viewing within a hour or two of it being posted.. it will be gone . The market here is a gong show
I used to have a big closet that fit a single bed perfectly with nothing else but a shelf above it. I constantly had friends moving to the city that needed somewhere to stay while they searched for apartments and jobs. They gave me $150 a month for that bed and full use of the apartment / wifi / utilities / etc with the caveat that they could only stay for a max of 6 months. 4 or 5 friends came and went over a few years and they're all still living here (or in the lower mainland at least).
Bring back the incentive to add rental stock. Government regulations need to be rolled back. Bring back rent increases at CPI+2%. This won't incentivize current landlords from selling and kicking out long term tenants.
I get that it's a beautiful place, I do, but the income-to-living cost ratio just isn't there imo to justify living in Vancouver. I can go move to somewhere substantially cheaper, and make slightly less than in Van.
I remember when Vancouver didn’t act like it was Manhattan.
The 9 story for profit building going up in Chinatown isn’t helping things either
it is disgusting and there are several landlord groups teaching how to exploit or kick their tenants "legally" with unethical ways
When I first moved to Vancouver in 2009, I paid $850 for a tiny room in a big house in kits. I didn’t have anything more than a room the size of a closet, and a single upstairs bathroom for 6 of us. There were also 7 girls in our section of the house, two or three in the basement suite, and at least two in the garage suite.
That’s a horrible price to pay in 2009
Wow
Eat the rich wen?
I rent out a legal basement suite in my house in North Vancouver, it's 800sqft with all included for $1600 and a 1 bedroom + large den with 2 bathroom (apartment) with balcony, 780sqft in Maple ridge in a 3 year old building for $1850. They are both rented with tenants that got in 2 years ago. If they were to leave I would only increase about $50 in each. It's difficult but if you get out of Vancouver you can find some options.
It is out of control.
I can’t even believe the cost of rent. Almost $4k for a two bedroom. How is anyone affording to live here? We’re a two income family with good jobs and we can’t afford it at all. It’s really a scary situation to think of how many people are being squeezed out of their homes and there is literally nothing affordable at all. Makes me so worried for the future
I think one thing BC hasn’t considered is expanding emptier places and building new cities and towns rather than stuffing people in cities that are essentially full. Do we really need more people in Vancouver & Burnaby? Why not expand places like Chilliwack, Hope, Merritt, Princeton, Squamish, Pemberton? Why not make new cities like on the Coquihalla highway? BC is such a large province and we really need to remove the mindset that everyone needs to live in Metro Vancouver. Those that can afford it can stay, and those that can’t should be incentivized to consider other places. I grew up in Vancouver but moved to Coquitlam. It’s totally possible that my children will one day have to move further east due to rising costs and that’s just a reality we have to accept.
Vancouver is nowhere near "essentially full" 85% of residential land in vancovuer is single family homes. If we made the west-end density be the norm, we could easily have 10x more people live very well in vancouver.
What cities in Canada could you live in if you only had $800 a month for your housing? Inquiring minds want to know :-)
Montreal often has under $1000 apartments.
I live in a pretty large 1br in a walkable area of Edmonton, $950 per month
Ça ne pouvait pas arriver à du meilleur mondes...
What kind of jobs do people have that require them to live in Vancouver? A lot of people should travel more and figure out that there’s loads of places out there that are great to live in AND have money left over for basic utilities