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Mandibular Fiasco posted:The gap between incomes and cost of living has become so precipitous that I don't think people realize that economically, this stupid country is just barely hanging on. Wife and I went to Vancouver in December for a hockey game and shopping, we stayed downtown at the Fairmont. First time we left Vancouver Island since pandemic started. Anyway while I was there, I often thought where exactly do these people live that would serve us, from the high-end steakhouse to the nice lady at the coffee shop. Can't imagine anyone having a short commute to downtown to do min wage work. Then I think of those that work at say VGH, sure your a nurse making say 120k....but your probably spending almost 2 hours a day in a vehicle or transit on top of a 12shift?
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Jan 20, 2022 03:06
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Joink posted:Wife and I went to Vancouver in December for a hockey game and shopping, we stayed downtown at the Fairmont. First time we left Vancouver Island since pandemic started. Anyway while I was there, I often thought where exactly do these people live that would serve us, from the high-end steakhouse to the nice lady at the coffee shop. Can't imagine anyone having a short commute to downtown to do min wage work. Then I think of those that work at say VGH, sure your a nurse making say 120k....but your probably spending almost 2 hours a day in a vehicle or transit on top of a 12shift? VGH has huge problems with recruitment and nurses don’t earn that kind of coin without serious overtime. Often, many commute in from Langley. I did SkyTrain from New Westminster to downtown for 5+ years…two hours round trip. So glad I don’t do that anymore.
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Jan 20, 2022 03:11
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You think housing prices can be stopped? it shall rise eternal, with only True Canadians being able to savour the Pride of Home Ownership
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Jan 20, 2022 03:18
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Real estate is 13% of our GDP - that's rookie numbers. Anything less than 30% we won't be able to transition our Prime Minister into the Prime Realtor.
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Jan 20, 2022 03:21
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quote:P.E.I. senior can't find housing after name picked at random for eviction Lol gently caress them all, I'm sure this fucker has ample space in his basement for his goddam son.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:03
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mik posted:Lol gently caress them all, I'm sure this fucker has ample space in his basement for his goddam son. First class citizens don’t make sacrifices. That is for the poors.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:14
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For the "housing only goes up", "we're entering a new era of neo-feudalism" crowd, I can see what they're on about if we're talking about detached homes. There are many cities that are completely built out and redevelopment of those existing detached homes will be required for any new growth, which will further reduce the amount of detached homes, increasing exclusivity and price. The only way to keep a lid on prices of this sort of product is severe land value taxes to effectively make it so expensive to own a detached home that no one would ever want to. Now in contrast there's really no limit to the amount of apartments we can make, only arbitrary political limits. You can carve up land, add more height and make apartments anywhere. I expect we're going to continue to do so at an increasingly rapid pace. It feels like we're close to a breaking point where governments finally capitulate and reign in the nimbys. If this happens we're gonna see the pace of apartment development kick up a notch. With apartments there's little to differentiate between them beside location, and with density you can really pile them into a certain "hot" location. All this means there should be a lid on prices with the more we make. Already we've seen that prices for Vancouver apartments in Olympic Village/Mount Pleasant, the area that has seen the most amount of apartment growth in recent years, has been pretty much flat since 2019.
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Jan 21, 2022 00:24
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Femtosecond posted:For the "housing only goes up", "we're entering a new era of neo-feudalism" crowd, I can see what they're on about if we're talking about detached homes. There are many cities that are completely built out and redevelopment of those existing detached homes will be required for any new growth, which will further reduce the amount of detached homes, increasing exclusivity and price. The only way to keep a lid on prices of this sort of product is severe land value taxes to effectively make it so expensive to own a detached home that no one would ever want to. I think I am skeptical of this because apartments require more of things that people consider shared resources than single family homes, like parks, and less shared resources than SFHs that aren't generally considered shared resources, like roads. Lots of apartment dwellers are going to want a local park they can go to (or even let their kids go to relatively alone). So we'll need to make sure they aren't homeless encampments by building public housing, have solid police presence which probably means reforming policing in the US (maybe not Canada, I dunno), and have low traffic routes for park access by building out public transit or just closing streets to cars. All that sort of stuff has been given short shrift in the post-war/-car period even though it was the norm before that time. The Strong Towns argument that density begets these services by reducing costs for roads, sewers, and the like is convincing to me (and probably you), but the public at large hates it. You'll have to win the density battle on so, so many fronts. My guess is that the metaphorical war will eventually be won, but I don't particularly care if affordability and livability become priorities in 2050 or whatever.
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Jan 21, 2022 00:39
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I wonder what will happen if we don't build any family friendly housing and millennials hit their mid 30s and start forming families?quote:As Vancouver Shrinks, the Suburbs Swell Yan is right to point out that there's more to this than just family formation. In building highrises on brownfields Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond are shedding industrial space, and that means industrial growth in the valley. That means more blue collar jobs shifting there too. Surrey and Langley have substantial South Asian communities, and continued immigration growth from that area of the world is likely to find its way to communities that already have strong cultural connections already. Still, even though people are always to be moving to the burbs in search of more value for their dollar, you gotta figure it can't hurt for Vancouver to be building some more townhouses here. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 01:36
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Femtosecond posted:With apartments there's little to differentiate between them beside location I mean you could differentiate by having literally anything other than a 0 - 2 bedroom in a 50 year old building available for rent.
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Jan 21, 2022 02:51
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MickeyFinn posted:I think I am skeptical of this because apartments require more of things that people consider shared resources than single family homes, like parks, and less shared resources than SFHs that aren't generally considered shared resources, like roads. Lots of apartment dwellers are going to want a local park they can go to (or even let their kids go to relatively alone). So we'll need to make sure they aren't homeless encampments by building public housing, have solid police presence which probably means reforming policing in the US (maybe not Canada, I dunno), and have low traffic routes for park access by building out public transit or just closing streets to cars. All that sort of stuff has been given short shrift in the post-war/-car period even though it was the norm before that time. The Strong Towns argument that density begets these services by reducing costs for roads, sewers, and the like is convincing to me (and probably you), but the public at large hates it. You'll have to win the density battle on so, so many fronts. My guess is that the metaphorical war will eventually be won, but I don't particularly care if affordability and livability become priorities in 2050 or whatever. It's worth noting that Vancouver has, very slowly and very carefully, been replacing roads with parks in quite a few locations around the city. Happy to link examples if you're interested. The planned St George Rainway is a pretty exciting one.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:45
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I recall seeing that Toronto's population also went down by something like 17,000 this year? I think that has to keep going right? The non-wealthy will abandon these places in increasing numbers until the richies start to wonder where all their artisan baristas have gone.
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Jan 21, 2022 14:24
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While I do think an exodus of the poor from the overpriced metros is coming, I don't know if we can really extrapolate anything from population movement trends over the past two years though. But yeah, inflation is going nuts, and while salaries are increasing for professionals, the minimum wage ain't likely to increase again soon.
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Jan 21, 2022 18:44
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Fidelitious posted:I recall seeing that Toronto's population also went down by something like 17,000 this year? I think that has to keep going right? The non-wealthy will abandon these places in increasing numbers until the richies start to wonder where all their artisan baristas have gone. where are you getting this? quote:The current metro area population of Toronto in 2022 is 6,313,000, a 0.93% increase from 2021.
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Jan 21, 2022 19:11
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Typo posted:where are you getting this? ("metro area Toronto" = GTA) != (Toronto = pre-amalgamation "metro Toronto") https://twitter.com/globeandmail/status/1481801274819584003 Or since the article is paywalled: https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1481621571261419526 tl;dr from other summaries: the 905 area had net population growth because immigration exceeded migration losses; that was not true in the 416. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 20:00
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I'm kind of surprised that Peel and York are seeing net outward migration as well. They don't suffer quite as badly from Toronto's problem of "your career will buy you a better home literally anywhere else on the planet except for a number of cities you can count on one hand."
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Jan 22, 2022 17:16
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Fidelitious posted:I recall seeing that Toronto's population also went down by something like 17,000 this year? I think that has to keep going right? The non-wealthy will abandon these places in increasing numbers until the richies start to wonder where all their artisan baristas have gone. Unfortunately, if other major global cities are anything to go by, most minimum-wage-paying businesses in Vancouver or Toronto probably won't face major issues finding labour without raising wages substantially (at least once we're past this current late pandemic labour crunch). The reality is that low-wage workers will simply move farther away from their work to be able to continue living on low wages and accept that longer and longer commutes are just a fact of life. Eventually you'll have a situation like Manhattan, where the only people who live in the city proper are super wealthy, were lucky enough to inherit property, or are coasting on some sort of sweet rental situation (the last of which is of course unlikely in cities like Vancouver, given the lack of rent control).
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Jan 24, 2022 08:28
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BC has rent control that is generally okay with the major problem of it being tied to the renter instead of to the unit.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:28
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MeinPanzer posted:Eventually you'll have a situation like Manhattan, where the only people who live in the city proper are super wealthy, were lucky enough to inherit property, or are coasting on some sort of sweet rental situation (the last of which is of course unlikely in cities like Vancouver, given the lack of rent control). There is life north of 50th Street, you know. There are plenty of non-wealthy people in Manhattan, and in the rest of the city.
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Jan 24, 2022 15:47
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Fidelitious posted:BC has rent control that is generally okay with the major problem of it being tied to the renter instead of to the unit. Lol, how does this work? The person looking through the unit says "oh by the way, I will be paying $500.00 in rent"?
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Jan 24, 2022 16:50
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Rents in BC can only increase a certain percentage each year, unless the tenant moves out, when you can jack up the rent as much as you want for the new tenant.
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Jan 24, 2022 16:57
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Yeah, landlords then do everything to hope to have a high turn over in tenants. A new person every year or two means they can jack the rent up 10-20% every year. A single person staying for many years might mean they're only sucking $1200 out of them instead of $1800 and that's basically the same as the tenant stealing $600 a month from them. So to bring justice and balance to the world landlords just announce they have to do renovations or are moving a family member in. Most tenants are too busy scrambling for a new place to live to actually launch any sort of formal fighting back or investigate a year later if the landlord actually has his 2nd cousin twice removed living there. I've known some landlords with big families who have a few family members who are used to evict anyone who's rent get too low. They then live in the unit for the minimum amount of time needed by law for the eviction to be legal, and the landlord gets to jack the rent up by like $1000 sometimes. One weird trick to bypass all tenant protections through the purity of landlord bloodlines. Landlord blood is better than renter blood and this is correctly enshrined in law.
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Jan 24, 2022 17:03
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if I was rich I would simply enjoy my life and not move in & out of different houses all year long
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Jan 25, 2022 03:19
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/condominum-toronto-owners-repairs-1.6323195 This is a funny article. Hard to know all the facts but it seems to be typical of a lot of stratas. Almost $10million in debt and having been put off basic repairs for decades, suddenly the building is on the verge of collapse because of the neglect and a special assessment is applied to all owners under threat of lien. In response, the owners are demanding that the strata take on more debt instead of them having to pay the special assessment. I guess that sucks for them, but guess what, if you continually push for lower fees, don't turn up to meetings other that to complain about random things, don't be surprised when the building is suddenly one day dilapidated and the cost of repair is orders of magnitude greater what it should have been had the strata just been forced to be on top of it.
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Jan 25, 2022 04:03
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If you earned 100k with a remote job and had no other constraints, what Canadian city would y'all live in? I'm thinking Halifax for some reason
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Jan 25, 2022 04:15
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I would never take a remote job willingly. Regardless of where I live that would be a significantly negative impact on my wellbeing. Like the job would have to pay me a lot more, like double at least, than an on-site role for me to even consider it. But that is just me.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:09
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:If you earned 100k with a remote job and had no other constraints, what Canadian city would y'all live in? One of those beach towns in Mexico that is lousy with hosers.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:21
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qhat posted:https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/condominum-toronto-owners-repairs-1.6323195 What exactly are they getting for $900/month in strata fees in a 10 story building? Lived in a low rise BC condo for 5 years and my strata fee was $250/month max. People thought it was steep and it was certainly the highest out of the 3 other stratas on the same complex but we also had very little debt and well maintained property. Running on a strata council sucked. Going to the AGM where all the seniors on limited income showed up in droves claiming that I’m a monster for proposing an increase to our strata fee because it would get in the way of their Tim Horton coffee. Then turned around to tell me it’s great to see young determined people on council. Sold it shortly afterward and never looked back.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:24
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quaint bucket posted:What exactly are they getting for $900/month in strata fees in a 10 story building? By the looks of it, they were paying the interest on the ten million dollar loan, probably massive insurance if anyone will even take them, plus probably the bare minimum to keep the building barely functional.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:25
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Like I can’t help but feel that this of one of those situations where they have legitimately dragged their heels on every bit of maintenance for forty something years to the point where the damage to the building is now so severe that nothing can save it. I would be surprised if any of them will even be able to find a buyer for their units, it looks the entire building could be torn down in the near future.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:29
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qhat posted:Like I can’t help but feel that this of one of those situations where they have legitimately dragged their heels on every bit of maintenance for forty something years to the point where the damage to the building is now so severe that nothing can save it. I would be surprised if any of them will even be able to find a buyer for their units, it looks the entire building could be torn down in the near future. You are absolutely correct on all points. Building maintenance is super easy; however, the healthy combination of caretaker/maintenance worker, property management group, and strata council is key to ensure a successful preventative and asset management of the facility. If you have a strata council compromised of people that enjoy a game of backgammons and crocheting on a Tuesday afternoon or office workers who never picked up a hammer coupled with an underpaid and barely qualified maintenance worker (usually $5-10/hr under market value) then it’s gonna end poorly in the long run. The maintenance guy didn’t like me because I was in a similar line of work and could call him out.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:40
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qhat posted:I would never take a remote job willingly. Regardless of where I live that would be a significantly negative impact on my wellbeing. Like the job would have to pay me a lot more, like double at least, than an on-site role for me to even consider it. But that is just me. How come? It's been so nice for me. I just have so much more time to do laundry, shop, sleep in. Also opens up stuff like working from a sailboat while cruising around the Gulf Islands I'm literally gonna leave my job if they try to make it none remote again
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Jan 25, 2022 07:00
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Yeah me and my wife are at the point where if anyone told us we had to go back to offices and commutes we'd just look for new jobs. Getting up and having a calm not rushed breakfast together after sleeping in a little every morning because no one has to rush off for an awful commute. Having a home-cooked lunch and then a lovely relaxing walk around the neighbourhood to unwind and chat. The absolutely second its punching out time simply slapping that laptop closed, standing up, and being instantly home. No forced socializing with coworkers, instead more time to socialize with my actual friends. No noise or distractions of the typical cubicle farm, just a cozy space I feel comfortable in. They get my time exactly based on the time they're paying me, not a second more as it's so much easier to just close a laptop than leave a physical office.
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Jan 25, 2022 07:58
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Alctel posted:How come? It's been so nice for me. I just have so much more time to do laundry, shop, sleep in. Because I hate it. Seriously. I cannot sit in my apartment on my own or otherwise and stay focused. It might sound weird to you but I absolutely require enthusiasm and social activity from my team physically around me to not go stir crazy. The pandemic has only convinced me for certain that I never want to work from home ever again. My experience is that 50% of people want to stay WFH, and 50% want to go back to the office ASAP, even with tech which is what I am in. I think if tech stayed WFH forever, I would get the highest possible paying job I could find and retire into another career at the earliest possibility.
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Jan 25, 2022 09:23
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Yeah I can’t wait to get back to the office. I hate using the same desk and room for work and play. If I could afford a bigger place with an actual office space maybe it’d be better. I’m also way less productive and focused not being in an environment meant for working with other people around me working. I feel less connected to what’s going on in my organization. I started a new job during the pandemic and, nearly two years in, I know far fewer people, teams, etc than I would had I been working in person. It’s all very unmotivating for me.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:53
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qhat posted:Like I can’t help but feel that this of one of those situations where they have legitimately dragged their heels on every bit of maintenance for forty something years to the point where the damage to the building is now so severe that nothing can save it. I would be surprised if any of them will even be able to find a buyer for their units, it looks the entire building could be torn down in the near future. Yeah, the article mentions the fees going up to $900/month but I think it's safe to assume that they waited way too long to do that and the accumulated maintenance and debt sucked all that extra up no problem. It seems a bit of an odd story, trying to pull on people's heartstrings with the seniors and stuff but it doesn't make much sense. Like it's a different ownership setup than a home but they all still collectively own the building and it's common areas. You don't have much room for complaint if everyone just decides to let it fall to pieces. Like is someone going to write an article about someone who didn't do any roof, plumbing, or electrical work on their house for 40 years and is then shocked when the accumulated damage is going to cost 200k to repair? If you own in a condo setup it is a standard part of protecting your property to be up to date on what is happening with it. You have the legal right to see the financial statements (to a certain degree) and meeting minutes of the council. You can't just pretend that all you need to care about is your own unit. Just part of the reason I wanted to avoid and sort of condo purchase. I don't want to have to trust that 50+ other owners are going to vote for rational costs for maintenance or practical improvements that could save money in the long run because condo owners often appear to be allergic to any sort of capital expenditure.
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Jan 25, 2022 14:36
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:If you earned 100k with a remote job and had no other constraints, what Canadian city would y'all live in? I faced this 5 years ago. It's time to bust out a classic pro/con list. Mine resulting in moving up the 400 to a place on Georgian Bay. It positioned us closing to my partners aging parents (who sooner or later will need our support), it also meant that if the wheels came off remote work I could, in theory still get a job in the GTA and decide my next move (sell, rent it out, kill myself commuting, etc). In retrospect it turned out to be a slick move (for now...), but I was absolutely making GBS threads myself and had a mini-breakdown on move in day. The idea of moving province is idealistic, but many seem to be basing it on spreadsheets and not emotions, which at some point will get to you. What's your confidence level on finding a new position if you are based in Halifax? Do you enjoy the activities that are available out there? Can you handle the climate difference? What's the internet connection like? Do you have a friend group out there...do you even need one? Do you have a partner, if so, are they into it? If you don't have partner, are you comfortable with your chances of meeting someone out there? None of these are a deal breaker, but it pays to be realistic. Your stage of live comes into it too, I uprooted my life and moved across the world in my 20s....approaching my 40s I would not do that poo poo again. If I was to make the same choice now - I'd move as remote as I could that had decent internet. I'm planning on becoming Michael Caine in Children of Men ASAP. FWIW I like Halifax and it would be on my list, as would most of Atlantic Canada... but I'm British and lovely weather makes me feel justified in my misery. midge fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 15:18
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Fidelitious posted:is someone going to write an article about someone who didn't do any roof, plumbing, or electrical work on their house for 40 years and is then shocked when the accumulated damage is going to cost 200k to repair? Back when local papers actually had editorial in real estate sections they absolutely loved writing this story lol.
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Jan 25, 2022 16:14
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:If you earned 100k with a remote job and had no other constraints, what Canadian city would y'all live in? I've been thinking about Halifax, but my entire family is entrenched in the GTA. The other issue is your kids would just end up moving back to the GTA because jobs, so you are sort of pricing yourself out of the market there the second you pack up and leave. If you do leave with equity, you can get a pretty nice house for under a million in the Halifax area.
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Jan 25, 2022 17:23
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qhat posted:Seriously. I cannot sit in my apartment on my own or otherwise and stay focused. There are plenty of distractions in my apartment, but there also plenty of distractions at work due to it being an open office plan. And when 99% of what everyone does is computer touching, my location is completely irrelevant as long as it has a good enough Internet connection. I don't want to never see my coworkers again, but it's annoying as hell to be forced into the office for the sole purpose of keeping up appearances and pretending it's still 2019. Between the hugely overpriced housing, moderately overpriced everything else, and putting the screws to workers who try to escape either of those things, Canada seems like it's leaning more and more into a company-town mentality.
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Jan 25, 2022 17:33
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