Is the death spiral starting to happen now?!!! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!

[huggzy]

Sounds like most places in Richmond to me

It's difficult to deny that the accelerated rate of house price increases in the past couple of years was fueled by foreign investment. That being said, many people were already bitching about prices increasing too much long before that. Many people have been predicting (wishing) a collapse for years. Has it happened? No, and it won't.... The Vancouver market is extremely unlikely to have a major correction. It may flatten, it may go down 5-10%, but a major correction? hell no. It's not any different than any other desirable and popular city around the world. The advent of the foreign buyer tax has caused everyone (even locals) to pause which, when added to a traditional seasonally slow month (august), has generated the current statistics. People want the uncertainty to settle before spending big bucks, it's only natural. We'll see sales pickup somewhat in Sept and October. By the spring, we'll see things back to "normal" - not as crazy as the last year but an environment similar to a few years ago... just my opinion....

You just said that Vancouver won't have a major correction, and then say its not any different than any other desirable and popular city around the world?!?! Yet every other city who has ever seen skyrocketing prices ALWAYS has a major crash after the fact. So the real question is - why would Vancouver not suffer a crash when every other real estate market in the world does in similar circumstances?

 

[huggzy]

Ok, that sounds like my dad when we immigrated to Canada several decades ago.

This isn't several decades ago. This is now.

And sorry but we need less immigration. This isn't being racist - this is about lowering demand for a finite supply of resources and protecting our own citizens and the future of our children.

 

[vanperb]

This isn't several decades ago. This is now.
And sorry but we need less immigration. This isn't being racist - this is about lowering demand for a finite supply of resources and protecting our own citizens and the future of our children.

You realize with globalization the odds of your children actually staying within Canada's "walls" are actually pretty low. They're more likely to end up working in the States or somewhere in Asia than anything else. And given that Canada itself is basically a country of immigrants, sans the aboriginal, I'm not sure your statement holds since we would have to exclude everyone including your entire family line in this statement. (Unless you're aboriginal.... are you?) Blocking people out is not a solution, it limits us as a country, and it removes one of the great defining charactersitics as a country. You're right though, what you said isn't racist but it doesn't address the problem. It's like fixing a leaking faucet by shutting down all the water in the city.

What I *think* you want to say is that we need stricter controls on property transactions to maintain a livability and affordability standard to individuals who continually contribute and reside in Vancouver. It's best to focus on the actual issue itself which is real estate pricing.

 

[huggzy]

Really hugzy - you are hoping to celebrate declining sales and crashing values and expect us to believe you are a developer. You sound more like a shrill racist who listened to an NW call in show and is trying to appear credible.

The chicken littles have been calling for a crash for two decades and all of a sudden are feeling vindicated by what amounts to a tiny dip recorded over the shortest of time frames.

Although no one really knows what will happen in the future, I think Cheff's projection is a more likely scenerio - unless of course we have a massive earthquake and ...

I didn't say I was a developer. I said I work in the development industry - there's a big fucking difference that most of you don't seem to grasp.

Large developers, such as Concord Pacific (owned by Chinese billionaires by the way), typically own huge tracts of land. And many of them have owned these lands for decades and sit on them until the time is right to build. For many of these developers they bought these lands for nothing.

Do the employees working for construction contractors reap the benefits of these immense increases in prices???? Fuck no. They do benefit with employment when the developer decides its time to build, but the cost of construction is the cost of construction and whether someone is earning good wages or not is a function of supply and demand of labour, whereas the cost of the dirt (and the profits reaped in from real estate profits when real estate prices go into the stratosphere) that these buildings are constructed on is separate and independent from the cost of construction. Even when real estate prices skyrocket and there is a labour shortage, the builders are still loathe to pay far greater wages for their employees because the developers aren't giving away their profits to the contractors so the contractors in the industry still have to manage tight budgets. What do you see when there is a shortage in labour? The builders don't pay more - they scream to the government that there's a labour shortage and then the government allows them to flood the market with foreign labour, suppress wages, and keep their profits in pocket.

Talk to employees working in the construction industry and ask them if they've seen their wages skyrocket over the last 10 years and most will say that REAL wages have increased less than inflation, and all of them will say that they can't afford to buy into this real estate market themselves. The only way it makes sense to own even for them is if they were already in before prices went out of control.

The first big project I worked on I remember walking into the office and I literally couldn't understand what most of the people I was working with were saying (most of them were from Ireland and Scotland with VERY thick accents, with some also from Hong Kong). I felt like a foreigner working in my own country. And now you see job ads posted for project manager jobs where they want applicants to be able to speak Cantonese or Mandarin...in my own fucking country. This really pisses me off.

The developer owning land will eventually build on it - or sell the land to someone else that will build on it. The rise and fall of the price of the real estate simply determines who can buy it - from either local or foreign demand. If there is a crash what you will see is a lot of foreign workers probably leaving here to go back to where they came from as well.

 

[huggzy]

You realize with globalization the odds of your children actually staying within Canada's "walls" are actually pretty low. They're more likely to end up working in the States or somewhere in Asia than anything else. And given that Canada itself is basically a country of immigrants, sans the aboriginal, I'm not sure your statement holds since we would have to exclude everyone including your entire family line in this statement. (Unless you're aboriginal.... are you?) Blocking people out is not a solution, it limits us as a country, and it removes one of the great defining charactersitics as a country. You're right though, what you said isn't racist but it doesn't address the problem. It's like fixing a leaking faucet by shutting down all the water in the city.

What I *think* you want to say is that we need stricter controls on property transactions to maintain a livability and affordability standard to individuals who continually contribute and reside in Vancouver. It's best to focus on the actual issue itself which is real estate pricing.

Globalization is a problem for us if you are allowing citizens of other countries to inflict their overpopulation problems onto us. Canada seems to be happily importing the overpopulation problems of China here.

I have said all along that Canada should not allow foreign citizens to purchase residential real estate here in Canada. That is our number one issue.

Does immigration affect real estate pricing as much as the lack of controls on purchasing real estate? Not as much. But it does certainly affect us when we are importing foreign workers so that they can better deal with the foreign buyers who are buying up all of our resources rather than allowing demand pressures to increase Canadian born citizen's wages and look forward to possibly having their own retirement down the road.

 

[huggzy]

You realize with globalization the odds of your children actually staying within Canada's "walls" are actually pretty low. They're more likely to end up working in the States or somewhere in Asia than anything else. And given that Canada itself is basically a country of immigrants, sans the aboriginal, I'm not sure your statement holds since we would have to exclude everyone including your entire family line in this statement. (Unless you're aboriginal.... are you?) Blocking people out is not a solution, it limits us as a country, and it removes one of the great defining charactersitics as a country. You're right though, what you said isn't racist but it doesn't address the problem. It's like fixing a leaking faucet by shutting down all the water in the city.

What I *think* you want to say is that we need stricter controls on property transactions to maintain a livability and affordability standard to individuals who continually contribute and reside in Vancouver. It's best to focus on the actual issue itself which is real estate pricing.

And further to your comment - do you really think that the globalization of our world, which is clearly pushing members of families to move all over the world and thus blow up family units, is progress? Most people don't choose to move away from where they grew up unless they have to do so. Anyone over 40 who remembers how life in Canada used to be compared to how it is now knows that life in Canada has gone to shit. Times were far better for our parent's generation.

 

[huggzy]

Really hugzy - you are hoping to celebrate declining sales and crashing values and expect us to believe you are a developer. You sound more like a shrill racist who listened to an NW call in show and is trying to appear credible.

The chicken littles have been calling for a crash for two decades and all of a sudden are feeling vindicated by what amounts to a tiny dip recorded over the shortest of time frames.

Although no one really knows what will happen in the future, I think Cheff's projection is a more likely scenerio - unless of course we have a massive earthquake and ...

A shrill racist huh? I couldn't give two shits about a person's skin colour. I know, and have worked with, many ex-pats from all over the world and have loved many of them. I've also found reasons to dislike many Canadian's born and bred regardless of their skin colour. I'm an equal opportunity hater. And lover too.

What I don't like is overpopulation which will affect my ability to retire and have serious implications on my children's future. What I don't like are foreign people who flood our cities and neighborhoods and impose completely different value systems than what we know and grew up with and having it forced down our throats. We have people moving here from other parts of the world - for reasons you would assume were because they don't like where they were coming from - yet they want to change our country to make it more like where they came from.

I'm just fine with diversity. What I have a real problem with is having our way of life being completely obliterated.

If you can't see the difference between that and being a "racist" then there is no point in talking to you.

 

[summerbreeze]

probably not a matter of canada trying to take on other country's population issues

western nations are in a zero to negative population growth, to allow economies to grow they need to have more bodies in the workforce

when you remove race restrictions or quotas from your immigration policy, you get who ever can afford to immigrate and meet the immigration conditions

naturally if you want to upgrade your standard of living and you have the disposable income to immigrate, this is an option for you

a recent anomaly is the cashed up mainland chinese coming over here and looking for places to park their investment capital, real estate of course is a favorite and we have inflation in that sector caused mainly by immigrants, good if you own property, bad if you want to buy

governments are doing something to appear to be sympathetic to the problem, (get in vavour with voters) this keeps them elected

problem a bit more complex than the solution so naturally the solution is controversial in terms of meeting everyone's needs, but then it is mainly a political issue for government

popular with land owner voters...... get more money in government from immigrants, curb real estate inflation

will need some time to evaluate total return to our community but I always think when government interfere with free markets that the cure can sometimes be worse than the problem

just some thoughts to share.....

 

[huggzy]

probably not a matter of canada trying to take on other country's population issues

western nations are in a zero to negative population growth, to allow economies to grow they need to have more bodies in the workforce

when you remove race restrictions or quotas from your immigration policy, you get who ever can afford to immigrate and meet the immigration conditions

naturally if you want to upgrade your standard of living and you have the disposable income to immigrate, this is an option for you

a recent anomaly is the cashed up mainland chinese coming over here and looking for places to park their investment capital, real estate of course is a favorite and we have inflation in that sector caused mainly by immigrants, good if you own property, bad if you want to buy

governments are doing something to appear to be sympathetic to the problem, (get in vavour with voters) this keeps them elected

problem a bit more complex than the solution so naturally the solution is controversial in terms of meeting everyone's needs, but then it is mainly a political issue for government

popular with land owner voters...... get more money in government from immigrants, curb real estate inflation

will need some time to evaluate total return to our community but I always think when government interfere with free markets that the cure can sometimes be worse than the problem

just some thoughts to share.....

You mentioned zero to negative population growth, and then described our society's need to see the "economy grow". This is a case where most people use statistics such as GDP as their measure of progress metrics without understanding at all what the statistics actually means.

If population growth is zero, then if the economy doesn't "grow" (in REAL terms of course) then is that really a problem? If the population declines, then if GDP declines is that a REAL problem? The measure of REAL GDP has as its most basic factor will be a function of the size of the population - assuming that the currency it is measured in is constant (which is also a major problem and major smokescreen all on its own). I've often stated that it is a fundamental flaw that we measure the health of our economies in terms of GDP.

Governments love GDP because they can manipulate these metrics in so many ways. Financial institutions also love GDP metrics because they can control the money supply through the greatest money-making Ponzi scheme ever invented by man - the creation of money out of thin air system called the fractionalized reserve system.

We should be measuring the state of our economies in terms of ownership of tangible, life giving assets per capita (including in terms of the lower net worth individuals in our population), inventory of natural resources, the state of the national infrastructure, health of the population and health of the environment, and leisure time. GDP means dogshit when the value and supply of currencies can be manipulated, never mind that GDP doesn't measure or describe the flow of who is actually receiving fiat currency.

 

[Horn_dawg]

This isn't several decades ago. This is now.

And sorry but we need less immigration. This isn't being racist - this is about lowering demand for a finite supply of resources and protecting our own citizens and the future of our children.

Ah ha, the truth starts to come out. When you said foreigners, you really meant foreigners AND immigrants.

My last name hasn't changed just because I have lived in Canada for decades, nor my children's. When their name shows up in the your list of buyers, to you they are just foreigners buying up properties. I get the picture.

With Canada's aging population and low birth rate, we actually need immigration to keep the economy from contracting. Perhaps you would be happier if we only allow immigrants with little to no money to come.

 

[Ray]

It's too simplistic to dismiss this discussion as being based on racism. It's more complex than that. It's also good that we're having this conversation and talking about the issues.

If the population declines, then if GDP declines is that a REAL problem?

It is if you have a pension plan. CPP. It's also a problem when you have an aging population and the number of caregivers and hospital workers are declining, because a declining population can't raise enough tax dollars to maintain staffing levels.

why would Vancouver not suffer a crash when every other real estate market in the world does in similar circumstances

Our prices still haven't caught up to other major waterfront cities.

The builders don't pay more - they scream to the government that there's a labour shortage and then the government allows them to flood the market with foreign labour, suppress wages, and keep their profits in pocket.

True. I'm seeing this in many sectors of the economy. The law of supply and demand states that if you can't find enough workers at the current pay scale, you raise the wages until the job becomes attractive to more people. This isn't happening. When employers can't find staff at current rates, they lobby the government to bring in foreigners at an even lower cost.
This is a different topic from immigration, where someone moves here to become 'one of us', and brings needed skills to contribute to our society. From what I recall, one needs to demonstrate a skill or ability to contribute to be able to immigrate here. We didn't allow illiterate labourers to immigrate, unless things have changed. The refugee topic is different as well. This was a humanitarian effort.

Anyone over 40 who remembers how life in Canada used to be compared to how it is now knows that life in Canada has gone to shit. Times were far better for our parent's generation.

As someone at 50, and having lived all my life in Canada, my life is a lot better than my parents. Much higher standard of living. But my kids will never be able to buy their own house.

 

[summerbreeze]

some key issues brought up here

if tax base shrinks and we have baby boomers retiring. then where is the support for the baby boomers going to come from?

you think an economy chasing growth is bad? what happens when rampant inflation begins because of labour shortages and supply and demand force prices to skyrocket

no perfect solutions in this world and economics is a very complicated engine in practice, governments no longer know how to tame this evolving beast so they do stop gap measures or band-aids to get us by

in 2007-2008 the US banking system collapsed...... pretty scary

even more scary is the massive debt the governments are racking up to keep things functioning

given all of these factors, keeping productive immigrants coming into the country is not all that bad

after all, we are an entire nation of immigrants (except first nations of course) hard working and hungry immigrants built this country

 

[huggzy]

Ah ha, the truth starts to come out. When you said foreigners, you really meant foreigners AND immigrants.

My last name hasn't changed just because I have lived in Canada for decades, nor my children's. When their name shows up in the your list of buyers, to you they are just foreigners buying up properties. I get the picture.

With Canada's aging population and low birth rate, we actually need immigration to keep the economy from contracting. Perhaps you would be happier if we only allow immigrants with little to no money to come.

I have ZERO problem with immigrants coming into the country legally particularly pre-2000 when we weren't necessarily getting flooded out. But please, stop the strawman arguments.

Yes - we get it, you're Asian and this is going to come across as an attack on you. It isn't. I have every bit of an issue with an Englishman coming here as I do a Mexican as I do a Brazilian. The problem though, is that we are getting flooded by the Chinese, not English.

And as I mentioned in a previous post - GDP is a poor measure of the state of an economy. Who cares if GDP goes up 5% when the cost of living increases by 50%.

 

[huggzy]

It's too simplistic to dismiss this discussion as being based on racism. It's more complex than that. It's also good that we're having this conversation and talking about the issues.



It is if you have a pension plan. CPP. It's also a problem when you have an aging population and the number of caregivers and hospital workers are declining, because a declining population can't raise enough tax dollars to maintain staffing levels.

CPP is never going to support later generations at all. The aging population, the boomers in particular, is the generation currently holding all the wealth in this country. How about having that generation support their own instead of putting it on the future generations. When you sell out all the real estate to foreign interests all you are doing is putting a larger burden on the Canadian citizens to support the aging because foreigner citizens won't be taking that responsibility on.

Our prices still haven't caught up to other major waterfront cities.

The "affordability index", the ratio of average house prices vs. median income, is the highest in the world.

True. I'm seeing this in many sectors of the economy. The law of supply and demand states that if you can't find enough workers at the current pay scale, you raise the wages until the job becomes attractive to more people. This isn't happening. When employers can't find staff at current rates, they lobby the government to bring in foreigners at an even lower cost.
This is a different topic from immigration, where someone moves here to become 'one of us', and brings needed skills to contribute to our society. From what I recall, one needs to demonstrate a skill or ability to contribute to be able to immigrate here. We didn't allow illiterate labourers to immigrate, unless things have changed. The refugee topic is different as well. This was a humanitarian effort.

I will always support refugee immigration particularly those from war torn countries. I hate that we allow so many workers to come here on visas when demand increases rather than allow the (supposed) free market forces to work. It seems that those that influence our policies only supports "free market" forces when it suits their needs.

As someone at 50, and having lived all my life in Canada, my life is a lot better than my parents. Much higher standard of living. But my kids will never be able to buy their own house.

And why these people that are screaming "racist" can't see that this is what we are complaining about is beyond me.

 

[huggzy]

some key issues brought up here

if tax base shrinks and we have baby boomers retiring. then where is the support for the baby boomers going to come from?

How about the boomer generation themselves. They hold all the wealth and all land assets (that they haven't sold off on us at least)

you think an economy chasing growth is bad? what happens when rampant inflation begins because of labour shortages and supply and demand force prices to skyrocket

We already have rampant inflation. However the way government measures inflation doesn't reflect the biggest cause of this - the cost of real estate isn't included in their inflation statistics. Our REAL quality of life has been plunging dramatically as a whole. As I said earlier, who gives a shit if the GDP is rising by 5% a year if the cost of real estate is jumping by 40%?

And as far as labour wages skyrocketing due to supply shortages?!?! Good. Because the way things are going right now, many of us have no hope of ever being able to retire as it is. So we might as well get paid if we have to work until we're 80.

no perfect solutions in this world and economics is a very complicated engine in practice, governments no longer know how to tame this evolving beast so they do stop gap measures or band-aids to get us by

in 2007-2008 the US banking system collapsed...... pretty scary

even more scary is the massive debt the governments are racking up to keep things functioning

The world of economics is a complicated place because we've allowed private interests to make it a complicated place in the world of finance, debt and currency exchanges - all to the simple man's detriment and to the advantage of those who already possess most of the world's capital. And yeah, the US banking system nearly collapsing (it didn't actually implode - they got bailed out by the governments at the expense of the common man) really was scary...scary to those that hold all of the world's wealth.

They say we live in a free market?!?! Pfffftttttt...they should have allowed the banks to collapse and let the wealth be redistributed and the financial system be overhauled. The whole reason our markets get so out of control is because we allow our financial systems to create instability and their own money with fractionalized reserve systems.

given all of these factors, keeping productive immigrants coming into the country is not all that bad

after all, we are an entire nation of immigrants (except first nations of course) hard working and hungry immigrants built this country

Again - that is all a matter of perspective isn't it? Those original "hungry" immigrants had an entire blank canvas with which to work when they came into this country - and they took everything into their possession. The generations that follow are the ones who are struggling.

And saying that "we are a nation of immigrants" is such a crock of shit argument. Let's start looking after our own first before giving away the farm at the expense of our children.

 

[vanperb]

Globalization is a problem for us if you are allowing citizens of other countries to inflict their overpopulation problems onto us. Canada seems to be happily importing the overpopulation problems of China here.

I have said all along that Canada should not allow foreign citizens to purchase residential real estate here in Canada. That is our number one issue.

Does immigration affect real estate pricing as much as the lack of controls on purchasing real estate? Not as much. But it does certainly affect us when we are importing foreign workers so that they can better deal with the foreign buyers who are buying up all of our resources rather than allowing demand pressures to increase Canadian born citizen's wages and look forward to possibly having their own retirement down the road.

I'm glad we're back to focusing on the housing pricing versus immigration. There is a caveat on preventing foreign citizens from purchasing property here is that it does make Vancouver a less competitive market for businesses to come here to set up shop. Many companies want their own people to initially help setup shop here and the fact they can't settle down here until their citizenship passes does make it very hard for companies to encourage their people to help. Of course, could we live without SAP, and Best Buy in Vancouver? Absolutely, but there should be some consideration on how we can keep Vancouver an attractive place to do business as well.

Also there are talented and skilled immigrants that we want in Vancouver, who have come over here to try and make a better life. Any controls that we put in place for property purchases could leave them at the mercy of their landlords. This can create an entire grey market for proxy purchases at best or an entire exploited population at its worse. Any controls we put in place needs to address how it would effect our economy as well.

As a side note, let's say we do pass a law that says that "no foreign citizen can purchase residential real estate". Though I'm not a lawyer, deep in my gut I feel like that it can be something that can make it to the Human rights tribune of BC or can be seen as a Charter challenge. Someone with more law experience could speak more intelligently about it.

 

[huggzy]

I'm glad we're back to focusing on the housing pricing versus immigration. There is a caveat on preventing foreign citizens from purchasing property here is that it does make Vancouver a less competitive market for businesses to come here to set up shop. Many companies want their own people to initially help setup shop here and the fact they can't settle down here until their citizenship passes does make it very hard for companies to encourage their people to help. Of course, could we live without SAP, and Best Buy in Vancouver? Absolutely, but there should be some consideration on how we can keep Vancouver an attractive place to do business as well.

Also there are talented and skilled immigrants that we want in Vancouver, who have come over here to try and make a better life. Any controls that we put in place for property purchases could leave them at the mercy of their landlords. This can create an entire grey market for proxy purchases at best or an entire exploited population at its worse. Any controls we put in place needs to address how it would effect our economy as well.

As a side note, let's say we do pass a law that says that "no foreign citizen can purchase residential real estate". Though I'm not a lawyer, deep in my gut I feel like that it can be something that can make it to the Human rights tribune of BC or can be seen as a Charter challenge. Someone with more law experience could speak more intelligently about it.

Vancouver is not, and never has been, a haven for foreign business investment. Never mind that I truly do believe that the same arguments for allowing foreign buyers to buy residential real estate can also be used for other sectors of the economy too. Do we actually want foreign investment to become huge and start earning directing all our revenue away from Canadians? Its the same freaking thing and we're all blind to it.

And why do we want to cater to foreign investment by giving away our residential real estate to do it? What good is catering to foreign investment if it means that the cost of buying a home is unreachable?

And you've mentioned that you have concern that any controls we put in place might leave them at the mercy of landlords?!?! So therefore you're going to allow foreign citizens become landlords to Canadians and leave us at the mercy of them?!!?!? C'mon. At least they can choose to go back to their country of origin if they don't like living here - most of us Canadian citizens can't just pack up and move to another country even if we wanted to unless we have some capital to invest - which many of us don't now. Personally I'm sick of paying rent to people that don't even live here.

And why would we need to put in controls to address how it would affect our economy? And protect them from what? The economy would correct itself back to how it would naturally have been and allow people who have suffered for the past two decades due to this imbalance have a sense of hope going forward.

And lastly, how on earth would banning foreign citizens from buying residential real estate be subject to a human rights tribunal born from the Constitution? If anything, the fact that the Canadian government doesn't protect its poorest citizens (who are taxpayers too remember) from the effects of allowing foreign buyers blow up our cost of living like this and put their lives at risk because they can't even afford to survive in their own country is a better argument for a human rights case than that.

 

[vanperb]

And further to your comment - do you really think that the globalization of our world, which is clearly pushing members of families to move all over the world and thus blow up family units, is progress? Most people don't choose to move away from where they grew up unless they have to do so. Anyone over 40 who remembers how life in Canada used to be compared to how it is now knows that life in Canada has gone to shit. Times were far better for our parent's generation.

Globalization is a tricky topic that are full of nuances that go beyond what occurs within an escort review board. I will say that it does give people the mobility they need to try and go somewhere to make a better life for themselves and for their families. It's a hard path for them, and odds are they're doing it for their kids, not for themselves. It 'sucks' for the region they're moving into because suddenly there a population of people they see struggling for limited resources they feel they're entitled to because 'they were there first'.

Moving around the world looking for jobs isn't a new thing. It's been happening lot for a long time. Even Canadians move between cities to where the jobs are. The fact that Vancouver had a few generations where it wasn't necessary was really nice but things change. Vancouver isn't getting worse. It's growning up. We can reminesce about how nice and sweet our kid "Vancouver" was 40 years ago, but she's not the same anymore. These are growth pains, the result of hard partying (Expo 86, Olympics, etc), and flirting with kids in our neighbourhood we should have been more leary about.

As for anyone over 40 in Canada, I don't quite meet that requirement but for myself things have gotten better for myself and I've been around for a few decades. Food choices has gotten a lot better, I don't have to drive down to Chinatwon to get noodles anymore, and everyone loves sushi now. I see a lot less obvious racism and discrimination against sexual orientation, travelling to small towns I still get a few stares and disapproving muttering. Entertainment wise there's a lot more pretentious clubs, but I still get to have a nice scotch with friends when I want. There's a couple of nice shiny skytrain lines which is nice, and new bike and car sharing services. Kids have ton of places to go for activities now, and the parks are still a plenty. Life is actually pretty good, though I would like property prices to come down a bit.

I'm curious, beyond property prices how have you seen Vancouver going to shit?

 

[summerbreeze]

agree completely, life is pretty good

some people see the glass half empty, some see it half full......

 

[huggzy]

Globalization is a tricky topic that are full of nuances that go beyond what occurs within an escort review board. I will say that it does give people the mobility they need to try and go somewhere to make a better life for themselves and for their families. It's a hard path for them, and odds are they're doing it for their kids, not for themselves. It 'sucks' for the region they're moving into because suddenly there a population of people they see struggling for limited resources they feel they're entitled to because 'they were there first'.

Moving around the world looking for jobs isn't a new thing. It's been happening lot for a long time. Even Canadians move between cities to where the jobs are. The fact that Vancouver had a few generations where it wasn't necessary was really nice but things change. Vancouver isn't getting worse. It's growning up. We can reminesce about how nice and sweet our kid "Vancouver" was 40 years ago, but she's not the same anymore. These are growth pains, the result of hard partying (Expo 86, Olympics, etc), and flirting with kids in our neighbourhood we should have been more leary about.

As for anyone over 40 in Canada, I don't quite meet that requirement but for myself things have gotten better for myself and I've been around for a few decades. Food choices has gotten a lot better, I don't have to drive down to Chinatwon to get noodles anymore, and everyone loves sushi now. I see a lot less obvious racism and discrimination against sexual orientation, travelling to small towns I still get a few stares and disapproving muttering. Entertainment wise there's a lot more pretentious clubs, but I still get to have a nice scotch with friends when I want. There's a couple of nice shiny skytrain lines which is nice, and new bike and car sharing services. Kids have ton of places to go for activities now, and the parks are still a plenty. Life is actually pretty good, though I would like property prices to come down a bit.

I'm curious, beyond property prices how have you seen Vancouver going to shit?

If you weren't here 40 years ago then you have no idea. And I completely disagree with you when you describe what is better now than what it was like before. Who cares if you can pick up some sushi or some noodles a little easier than before? You think that is even close to par with being able to have and build a home for yourself and a family? And all the experiences, comforts and memories that go with it?!?! Better than being able to build an asset so that retirement will actually be a reality?!?! You know what would be nice is to be able to build a home and a life, and then be able to afford to travel so we can buy some authentic sushi or noodles in Japan or China.

And I would argue that the current situation breeds more resentment against certain nationalities than builds bridges. Was there racism in our parent's generation? For sure. But I think that Gen Xers were as a rule very accepting and even the baby boomers weren't too bad, hence the reason why this all out assault on our real estate resources by foreign buyers hasn't had a whole lot of resistance.

Every time someone complains about housing affordability you will hear people start yelling "racism" as a counter and so many Canadians are so sensitive to this and are afraid to be labelled as such so they shut up rather than stand their ground. The funniest part is that some nationalities are so racist - such as the Chinese - it can make your head spin. There are so many Chinese that will only support their own, they do everything they can not to integrate with the rest of Canadian ways of life, and they use our sensitivities to being called racists against us and its a joke and they know it. Some of them find it comical how sensitive we are to it.

How has Vancouver gone to shit??!?! The density and wall to wall people is suffocating and dirty. Monster houses instead of friendly, nicely designed homes and neighborhoods. People are extremely unfriendly and cold. Things are beyond expensive now. The environment is going to shit. Traffic sucks ass. I could go on and on and on. This place sucks compared to what it was before.