Simple way to fix the housing marking. You can only own one home and have to be Canadian citizen. Anytime you have more than one then that's consider as an investment and you have to pay 4x the property tax. this rules apply to business as well. Oh and no foreign investment not even through investing in local companies. Or special restriction applies like Singapore such as foreign investor can only purchase apartments after is been in the market for 2 months and no brand new developments. Or restrict foreign investor to only able to purchase certain areas (IE Hope only).

Singapore Property Purchase Procedure, Expat Buying Condo or House in Singapore ? Singapore Expat Guides

But our gov will never do it coz there is too much money to be made. Why would they care about us when they can making money.

I can say I will never be able to own a house in my lifetime. If I didn't get on early I wouldn't even be able to purchase an apartment.

Agreed 100%. If our government cared about future generations of Canadians they would have implemented a financial penalty on those pillaging the market as soon as it started going absolutely crazy, however when all of the politicians that would do such a thing are relying on their overvalued homes as part of a cushy retirement, they'd rather just watch it climb. Its a gross conflict of interest, because simply by luck of when most of them were born, the purchase price came much more in line with salaries when they were of home buying age.

The problem is that something like this needs to be done by the Federal government, and this crazy RE market is really only affecting a few cities out of the WHOLE country.

Any legislation of this sort will have consequences.

And then you have the Federal and provincial governments trying to be like the Sedin twins and passing the buck to each other.

I am not mad about anything. If anything, I'd be one of those silver spoon kids that got to where I am with help from my parents. However, I do care about the rest of society and not just myself as I see the benefits of a society where people are generally well off. Also, I was unaware that working hard to go through schooling in order get a decent job with a modest home is a luxury? I'm pretty sure mud diggers in some 3rd world country could do less and own a home.

I think you are too sheltered and I would rather question your humanity if you think that the basic welfare of your fellow man is below you. You want to see a sad situation? Come to Hong Kong and see the 70-80 year old half crippled grannies who have to collect cardboard all day just to be able to pay for basic rent and food. Oh sure, they're just not working hard enough, except the day they stop working they starve to death.

Sometimes, not everyone can "work harder" and are limited by education, skills, intelligence, physical ability etc. It'd be like telling a 5 foot midget to work harder so he can outrun Usain Bolt, and then saying he's a lazy whining bitch cause he obviously sees that it is impossible.

Coming to Hong Kong, which is the ground zero of housing unaffordability gave me a lot of new insight into what happens when you price out the middle class. People who can leave, leave. People who can't, raise families of 8 in a 300 sqft apartment with their parents and grandparents, while their kids have no hope of ever starting their own family.

All this leads to widespread unhappiness and social unrest, which is what you're seeing with occupy last year. Now there's radical groups making home-made bombs as more of the disillusioned flock to radicalism. This was unheard of since the riots of 1967. I only expect it to get worse. If that is what you want happen to Vancouver, keep preaching "work harder" and disregard social issues. Blame it on the "lazy youth". Sooner or later, the smarter upper middle-class will realize they're getting the shaft and move away while the rest pick up the pitchforks and torches.

The difference between smart upper class and those who got their heads cut off throughout history, is that the smart ones knew how to manage the lower classes. Don't give them too much, but also don't give them nothing. Give them something to look forward to, otherwise just go read your history books to see what happened to those rulers.

Man... kids nowadays really need to learn history.

I am not sure why the regional surges in RE prices should be a federal issue though. If a phenomenon has potential consequences that affects the whole country, then of course it needs to be a federal issue. When the insane RE prices are affecting mostly the Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto areas, it is bigger than the municipal scale, so I expect the provincial government to come up with a strategy to deal with it.

Of course, Crusty Clark has done absolutely nothing. Not even a minimal amount of lip service.

There's too many people involved in the real estate industry. Our economy would be nothing without real estate. This is particularly acute now that commodities are in the tank and people are truly hurting in places like Calgary.

What's the solution? I prefer to swim with the tide rather than against it. What people should be doing is getting involved in the real estate industry, and saving the proceeds outside of RE companies so they are secure against a future crash. That's what I would do if I didn't have a stake in the market.

US planning to raise interest rates to 2.35% by 2017.

I'm eager to see how things will go!

We are talking about kids in Canada mother fucker. Might as well start talking about kids in Africa....

Kids in Canada have a huge opportunity and they don't know it. Understand?

Which is? More opportunities than one of the leading financial center of the world? More opportunities than a city that has $100 billion US just sitting in the bank? To put that in perspective, that is one tenth of the total government debt in Canada.

Yes let's compare Hong Kong to Africa. Because they're even close to being the same.

Never go full retard sir.

I'm not sure what this thread is about anymore.

All I know is the financially poor social outreach worker can be just as happy with their life as the financially successful investment banker.

It's all perspective.

My uncle was a skilled architect for over 10 years. Then he got hit by car and went on LTD. He ended up committing suicide while his wife raised 5 kids.

It's also important to remember that shit happens which can alter your perspective.

I like how this thread derailed into a class struggle argument

this thread was actually a troll thread to begin with..

Shelter is a basic need along with food, clothing, etc. When it becomes the luxury of a minority, then it eventually becomes a class struggle where the mob eventually wins. Availability of basic necessities have always been correlated with class struggles throughout history. When the balance is skewed to either extreme, then problems occur (especially when it skews unfavorably to the lower classes because they are the majority).

When is owning a house a basic need?

it's been a class struggle argument since the first post.

When is having a place you can call home not a basic need?

Renting isn't acceptable? Paying 650-800 a month to house a family seems pretty reasonable to me

Where is that a possibility? A dumpster in poco? People I know that are in government subsidized co-ops pay double that. I 100% agree renting is an acceptable way to live, but shitty 1 bedrooms are 1400 in this city.

:okay:

go on craigslist and see the rents some of these landlords are asking and tell me if renting is acceptable as a longterm strategy. sooner or later some one needs to buy instead of dealing with landlord every month.

home prices have far far far outstripped the growth in income. Ricky Tan's premise that you can't afford a place because you are a lazy bum sounds logical; however, when there are engineers who can't even afford a place in this town then its not a matter of work ethics.

To be clear ICEBOY, I'm not calling all places in POCO dumpsters. Just likely what you can rent for $650 to house a family to be a dumpster.:)

It's all about circumstances. If you can't afford to rent in Van, you have to go east, regardless of your profession.

If you have a family of 5 and can't afford to buy a home, it was probably the choices you made in having that family that put you in that situation.

I have zero time for these people who go on the news "I have 3 children and we both work and I can't afford to live in Vancouver"

Yea..you can't, period.

I swear I've typed the same few posts in this thread like 10 times :okay:

I've been checking out rent prices in Port Moody recently, with an eye towards something in the 900 - 1000 sq ft, 2 bedroom type of suites. Seems pretty reasonable to me that this is something a regular family of 3 - 4 could find themselves comfortably living in.

But holy crap... something like that is easily in the range of $1500+, and those are the older apartment units at less desirable locations. The newer, fancier stuff around Ioco are easily in the $1700 - $1800 range.

Guess I might as well go back to live in the basement cave at my parents' place. At least they wont' charge me for food & rent, right? :badpokerface:

The thing is I don't disagree with you for the most part. Its just that I think you haven't acknowledged HOW ridiculous its gotten. There are going to be serious negative consequences when teachers, police officers, nurses, chefs, etc. can't/won't afford to live here.
Either wages go up, or housing goes down. There is a breaking point.

For $2000 i have a 1200sqft 2 bed/2bath + den apt you can rent in that area :badpokerface: