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Baronjutter posted:I've still never heard why a Vienna model couldn't work here or anywhere not Vienna. Because Vienna had the advantage of owning a quarter of the rentable real-estate directly and also have a controlling stake in another quarter of privately run companies that still follow strict instructions from the city. So it basically the city has control or at least indirectly influences of 50% of the entire real estate market. It's sort of tough to switch down the road once a majority of the housing is in the hands of private companies short of doing a crazy nationalization plan. So pretty much Vienna had the advantage of buying up a majority of stock and leveraging with a tightly controlled private sector the rest of the housing assets in a plan that started in the 1920s. It's a really attractive model especially given the vast improvement vs. horrible US style public housing since you have real free market competition and brilliant building designs to win over the city approval.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:08
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It's seems like it's something cities should be getting into more of. Specially poorer cities that have already had their local marketed devastated, good time for the city to jump in and start socializing that poo poo.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:12
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Baronjutter posted:It's seems like it's something cities should be getting into more of. Specially poorer cities that have already had their local marketed devastated, good time for the city to jump in and start socializing that poo poo. Yeah it's not something that happened overnight, more like years and years of carefully buying up property and also working with private rental companies to provide quality housing at a reasonable price. It's a good example of shared costs and a tamed free market providing something better for the end user. It's also neat how in the Vienna model you can inherit a good rental deal from your parents and are also allowed to upgrade your housing.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:46
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Baronjutter posted:It's seems like it's something cities should be getting into more of. Specially poorer cities that have already had their local marketed devastated, good time for the city to jump in and start socializing that poo poo. What is Vienna doing differently from what metro Vancouver is doing, other than the scale of it? While I haven't been a renter for awhile, I kind of doubt that the rental market in Canada could be legitimately described as "devastated". It is right hosed if you are trying to buy something within a budget or without expectations of +20% returns, however you can still rent a house/suite/apartment here much as you always have. The only difference is that due to the bubble, people that would normally have purchased for their stage in life, have had to stay in a rental. That said, the city has always been wretched for housing if you are on social assistance or fixed income. You won't get any arguments from me about that, and both the city and the province are deserving of all the abuse directed at them.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:49
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Case in point of how Vancouver has priced itself out of reality: I graduated med school in 2006 and residency in 2008, both in Edmonton. I had always wanted to live in Vancouver or Toronto, as I'm much more... socialist... than the average person here in Alberta. The reason I wanted to live in either of those places (or Montreal, but that's a hostile environment for family docs) is that I prefer a low-commute urban lifestyle to living out in the burbs. I also prefer older neighbourhoods, most of which have heritage/character homes in them. Unfortunately, there essentially wasn't (and isn't) any housing that I'd call remotely affordable in either of my preferred cities. Certainly not on a resident's salary, but even as a staff doctor I'd be paying substantially more than 33% of my income servicing the mortgage on a crack shack. This is clearly insane, and unsustainable. Edmonton actually turns out to have some very nice neighbourhoods which still have some properties (if you're lucky) for reasonable prices. I lucked out and was able to find a good condition heritage home in a walkable neighbourhood, 10 minutes by car or 30 minutes by transit away from my office, for less than half a mil. Similar properties don't exist given commute times in Vancouver or Toronto, but if you got a bit farther out you'd be paying ~1.5 in Toronto or 3 million plus in Vancouver. Incomes certainly aren't any higher in BC or Ontario, so I presume the bubble has to pop soon. Because loving nobody can afford real estate anymore.
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Mar 27, 2013 05:13
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Albino Squirrel posted:Edmonton actually turns out to have some very nice neighbourhoods which still have some properties (if you're lucky) for reasonable prices. I lucked out and was able to find a good condition heritage home in a walkable neighbourhood, 10 minutes by car or 30 minutes by transit away from my office, for less than half a mil. Similar properties don't exist given commute times in Vancouver or Toronto, but if you got a bit farther out you'd be paying ~1.5 in Toronto or 3 million plus in Vancouver. Incomes certainly aren't any higher in BC or Ontario, so I presume the bubble has to pop soon. Because loving nobody can afford real estate anymore. I don't know about Vancouver but there are still homes in the downtown core of Toronto that are well under a million. A friend of mine just bought a house for $635K within walking distance of a subway station, for example. And, of course, there are thousands of condos for sale within walking distance of any hospital, even though I know you said you wanted a house.
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Mar 27, 2013 15:18
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Albino Squirrel posted:Case in point of how Vancouver has priced itself out of reality: I graduated med school in 2006 and residency in 2008, both in Edmonton. I had always wanted to live in Vancouver or Toronto, as I'm much more... socialist... than the average person here in Alberta. The reason I wanted to live in either of those places (or Montreal, but that's a hostile environment for family docs) is that I prefer a low-commute urban lifestyle to living out in the burbs. I also prefer older neighbourhoods, most of which have heritage/character homes in them. Just out of curiosity, what district in Edmonton did you end up in? I've been pretty averse to moving out there even though it's the "Promised Land" for my field. Part of it has been politics, but another part of it has to do with racism. I'm not really sure how they treat black people out there; in rural Nova Scotia they seem to see them primarily as farm workers and as a nuisance.
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Mar 27, 2013 15:23
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jet sanchEz posted:I don't know about Vancouver but there are still homes in the downtown core of Toronto that are well under a million. A friend of mine just bought a house for $635K within walking distance of a subway station, for example. And, of course, there are thousands of condos for sale within walking distance of any hospital, even though I know you said you wanted a house. A $635,000 house in the downtown core is probably about half the size it should be for that price, like just about everything else in the GTA housing market at the moment.
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Mar 27, 2013 19:23
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Isentropy posted:Just out of curiosity, what district in Edmonton did you end up in? I've been pretty averse to moving out there even though it's the "Promised Land" for my field. Part of it has been politics, but another part of it has to do with racism. I'm not really sure how they treat black people out there; in rural Nova Scotia they seem to see them primarily as farm workers and as a nuisance. Depends! There are a lot of Somali refugees, and everybody is pretty racist about them as layabouts. If you don't have a Somali accent, well, you're basically a unicorn, because there are barely any other African people in Edmonton, so nobody has an actual opinion otherwise, honestly. I think the racism is a little overstated about Albertans except for the First Nations, where it is as bad as people say, really. 
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Mar 27, 2013 19:33
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The difference between provinces isn't as pronounced as the difference between urban and rural as far as racism goes. Rural Ontario is just as bad as rural Saskatchewan, or BC, or Alberta.
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Mar 27, 2013 20:49
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tagesschau posted:A $635,000 house in the downtown core is probably about half the size it should be for that price, like just about everything else in the GTA housing market at the moment. I thought that too but it is a fully detached house with a garage. I should say that it was north of Bloor but, yeah, I was just as surprised as you.
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Mar 27, 2013 21:24
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jet sanchEz posted:I don't know about Vancouver but there are still homes in the downtown core of Toronto that are well under a million. A friend of mine just bought a house for $635K within walking distance of a subway station, for example. And, of course, there are thousands of condos for sale within walking distance of any hospital, even though I know you said you wanted a house. Hahahaha holy poo poo that is so goddamn much money. What does your friend do for a living? Does he play for the loving Blue Jays or something?
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Mar 28, 2013 00:23
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Hahahaha holy poo poo that is so goddamn much money. What does your friend do for a living? Does he play for the loving Blue Jays or something? Seeing that the Major League minimum is $480,000 and most lenders will approve 3 times annual income for a mortgage they don't have to make nearly that much.
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Mar 28, 2013 00:29
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Dusseldorf posted:Seeing that the Major League minimum is $480,000 and most lenders will approve 3 times annual income for a mortgage they don't have to make nearly that much. Well that's my concerns put to rest!
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Mar 28, 2013 00:36
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Dusseldorf posted:Seeing that the Major League minimum is $480,000 and most lenders will approve 3 times annual income for a mortgage they don't have to make nearly that much. So this guy is making a minimum of $211k per year? Doing what exactly? Isn't $211k per year a shitload of money in Canada, or am I just poor and retarded?
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Mar 28, 2013 00:46
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:So this guy is making a minimum of $211k per year? Doing what exactly? Isn't $211k per year a shitload of money in Canada, or am I just poor and retarded? It is a shitload of money. The median household income in Toronto is just shy of $70,000. You can get almost nothing for $210,000, and there's still not much worth looking at if you go up to $280,000. Housing prices cannot go up independent of income forever. A 40% drop is not unrealistic. tagesschau fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 00:55
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tagesschau posted:It is a shitload of money. Yeah, I saw a median household income of $70k on the google. $635k is a ton of money. Let me guess, it is a crack shack.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:11
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Yeah, I saw a median household income of $70k on the google. $635k is a ton of money. Let me guess, it is a crack shack. It probably looks really nice from the outside, and in a year they will be on Mike Holmes' show talking about how the previous owner plastered over a foundation made of old Q-tips.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:13
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:So this guy is making a minimum of $211k per year? Doing what exactly? Isn't $211k per year a shitload of money in Canada, or am I just poor and retarded? If only I had gone to medical school, then I too would have been able to fulfill my dream of living in a crack shack in East Vancouver. Just on the wrong side of the tracks from the DTES though, Strathcona is crazy expensive.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:23
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Hahahaha holy poo poo that is so goddamn much money. What does your friend do for a living? Does he play for the loving Blue Jays or something? Well, he and his wife each earn a little over a hundred grand a year so $635K doesn't seem too outrageous. They were approved for close to a million, is that unusual though? Plus, I was responding to a guy who is a doctor, doctor's make a ton of money. I have a friend who is a doctor and he is married to another doctor and they purchased a house last year that was $1.2 million but in a really nice neighbourhood. This is all in Toronto.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:24
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At least what I was getting at is although they are rich it's not an outrageous amount of money for educated DINKs.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:39
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Just for the hell of it, this is a link to the real estate agent's site with the photos of the house. I made one mistake, it actually sold for $625K, which was the asking price. And it looks like it might be a two car garage. It is about a 5 minute walk to Eglinton West subway station. http://homesite.obeo.com/Viewer/Default.aspx?tourid=772419&refURL=youtube
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Mar 28, 2013 01:50
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Dusseldorf posted:Seeing that the Major League minimum is $480,000 and most lenders will approve 3 times annual income for a mortgage they don't have to make nearly that much. I thought lenders approved mortgage payments under ~1/3 of your income, not mortgages 3x your income·
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Mar 28, 2013 02:16
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Baronjutter posted:It's seems like it's something cities should be getting into more of. Specially poorer cities that have already had their local marketed devastated, good time for the city to jump in and start socializing that poo poo. I think this would be a great idea, but I'm wondering if Canadian municipalities are handicapped from doing that (By the law)?
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Mar 28, 2013 02:23
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Dusseldorf posted:At least what I was getting at is although they are rich it's not an outrageous amount of money for educated DINKs. jet sanchEz posted:Just for the hell of it, this is a link to the real estate agent's site with the photos of the house. I made one mistake, it actually sold for $625K, which was the asking price. And it looks like it might be a two car garage. It is about a 5 minute walk to Eglinton West subway station. If they both make over $100k that $625 isn't too outrageous, but approved for $1million is crazy. I know nothing of Toronto neighborhoods. Is this house in an extremely desirable location? I ask because my wife and I just bought our first house, and it has nearly identical specs, in a highly desirable neighborhood. In 2007 the house was $250k, and we got it a month ago for $160k. edit: for question marks Grand Theft Autobot fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 04:02
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Nah there's plenty of cities in Canada that have directly owned or managed housing. My city recently bought some old hotels to turn into homeless shelters. It's more of a cultural thing, it would be seen as an intrusion into the private market. Doesn't matter if they built amazing affordable housing that was managed efficiently, it would be seen as government "over stepping" and SOCIALISM. I mean the goal of government is to be as privatized as possible right? But, given a socialist enough council they could get the ball rolling and if they didn't gently caress it up the next council might not totally destroy the program after 4 years. But who cares if it's an intrusion into the private market. Good. Why should housing be a for-profit market? Roads aren't, schools aren't, healthcare isn't (yet). Why is the city driving down housing prices and putting private developers out of business a bad thing? I hear that argument a lot, "If government provided X service cheaply and efficiently it would run the for-profit guys out of business". Good. If government can provide a "good" to society cheaper or more effectively than the market it should be doing so. Construction crews would still be working, project managers and architects would still have jobs, they'd just be working for the city/region rather than a capitalist employer. Hell, it would probably result better wages for most everyone involved. If a few fairly paid civil servants can do the work of dozens of filthy rich developers, where is the loss to society? You could even get some economies of scale going where the city would be a big enough buyer of construction materials that they'd be able to get better deals with suppliers. A very large part of construction costs is all the red tape and design aspects (a 10 million dollar condo building might cost 6 figures in architectural and engineering fees alone). The city could have an extremely streamlined approval process, as well as design process. Could even look at some tasteful pre-fab or modular construction options. Just because the soviets built ugly pre-cast panel housing doesn't mean it all has to be ugly. Eliminate the profit motive, cut the red tape, have banks of standardized or modular designs, and we could see some huge savings as a society when it comes to housing. But we won't, because neo-liberalism.
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Mar 28, 2013 04:10
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You have mentioned Vienna before in the thread. What are they doing that is different from what most of the larger metros are currently doing? Is it just the scale of it, or is there more too it?
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Mar 28, 2013 04:17
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Baronjutter posted:You could even get some economies of scale going where the city would be a big enough buyer of construction materials that they'd be able to get better deals with suppliers. A very large part of construction costs is all the red tape and design aspects (a 10 million dollar condo building might cost 6 figures in architectural and engineering fees alone). The city could have an extremely streamlined approval process, as well as design process. Could even look at some tasteful pre-fab or modular construction options. Just because the soviets built ugly pre-cast panel housing doesn't mean it all has to be ugly. This sounds all well and good until you realize that you've given a bunch of small time politicians total control of billions of dollars worth of economic good with little oversight. Aside from the "government hires workers directly" part, it's how things are done in China, and it has resulted in rampant bribery and roughshod trampling of safety and environmental concerns. Baronjutter posted:Why is the city driving down housing prices and putting private developers out of business a bad thing? Because many people who vote have put their life savings into housing. I think the research shows that people who don't own houses show up to vote at a much lower rate than homeowners as well. Baronjutter posted:Eliminate the profit motive, cut the red tape, have banks of standardized or modular designs, and we could see some huge savings as a society when it comes to housing. The building cost is actually pretty small for these expensive cities. Looking around, it's only $100-200 a sq ft to build your average city building, but value is maybe $2000 sqft and up in top cities because of land prices. Government would have to be pretty creative to lower land prices greatly. shots shots shots fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 04:26
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:If they both make over $100k that $625 isn't too outrageous, but approved for $1million is crazy. I know nothing of Toronto neighborhoods. Is this house in an extremely desirable location. I ask because my wife and I just bought our first house, and it has nearly identical specs, in a highly desirable neighborhood. In 2007 the house was $250k, and we got it a month ago for $160k. It is very close to the subway and it is a decent neighbourhood with good schools so I guess that makes it desirable but I wouldn't say extremely desirable. It is a safe area and, from the photos, the house looks pretty nice to me. Roncesvalles Village is extremely desirable and houses are way over valued, in my opinion. My sister bought her house in 1999 for $320K and it is now valued at $1.1 million. It is a really nice house but the area is trendy because of cool coffee shops and whatnot but the schools suck and there is a pretty bad neighbourhood, Parkdale, bordering it. I am amazed that people are dropping crazy amounts of money on homes just because it is trendy. My doctor friend that I mentioned above lives in Leaside and the homes there are big and beautiful and it is close to downtown as well as the subway, I can see the value in that neighbourhood. His neighbours are all professionals and probably most of them own their houses outright, just as my friend does. In Roncesvalles, I think a lot of the people are "house-poor", which could be a big problem once the correction comes as interest rates are likely to go back up.
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Mar 28, 2013 04:36
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I think it was after the great war, but in Vienna there was huge demand for housing and "the market" wasn't up to the task of providing it. At the time socialism and outright communism was growing in popularity and a socialist council was elected. They bought up tons of distressed property along with built tons of new stock. It wasn't lovely "affordable housing" it was just housing. They put pride and artistry into their buildings and made sure everything was run and managed very efficiently. After years of doing this, a majority of the housing in the city was city owned and it owned. Prices were low and fair, buildings were maintained to the highest levels, and a system of semi-ownership was created. You were basically leasing the apartment for life, so it was like buying a condo in a way. I'm not sure the details, but you could renovate your units and everything, pass them down through the family even. Basically what ever they did worked, not in theory but in practise. So there's no reason other than political will that cities here couldn't learn from that example and copy it. It would have to be a well designed system though with good oversight to avoid 'the china problem'. But like I said, Vienna managed it so why can't we? http://www.scibe.eu/vienna/preface-red-vienna-%E2%80%A6-forever/ Here's a study on it. Even today it's viewed as a "best practise" to be exported throughout europe. The methods are there, the system is demonstrably successful. The only thing standing in its way are decades of neo-liberal propaganda that have turned the public against any sort of large government schemes. Man, read that report. The whole scheme came about after a period of entirely liberal housing development that surprisingly led to grossly inflated prices, speculation, and horrible conditions for all but the rich. It's almost like "the market" is loving awful for delivering housing. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 04:43
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How is a system that implicitly and maybe explicitly disfavors immigrants and newcomers acceptable for a large, immigrant-heavy city?
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Mar 28, 2013 04:58
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Isentropy posted:Just out of curiosity, what district in Edmonton did you end up in? I've been pretty averse to moving out there even though it's the "Promised Land" for my field. Part of it has been politics, but another part of it has to do with racism. I'm not really sure how they treat black people out there; in rural Nova Scotia they seem to see them primarily as farm workers and as a nuisance. There aren't a whole lot of black people in Edmonton (most of the ones I know are either professionals or refugees at my clinic so my perspective is necessarily skewed) so I'd say it's more 'curiosity' than 'rampant racism.' There's a large South Asian/East Asian population in Edmonton so it's not as though someone who's black is the Only Minority In Town (unless you live in Spruce Grove); TBH any prejudice is much more likely to be economic than racist in nature. jet sanchEz posted:Well, he and his wife each earn a little over a hundred grand a year so $635K doesn't seem too outrageous. They were approved for close to a million, is that unusual though? Speaking of condos: I bought into the market in mid-2006, just as the price runup was starting and when I had to outbid people for a two-bed, two-bath place on the ground floor near the university. I put it on the market this past year and couldn't get a bite within about 40K of what I'd paid for it, so at least for condos the price has come down significantly in Edmonton. I wound up renting it out for the cost of the mortgage + condo fees + a modest profit so it's not too bad, but there's a lot of people gonna be hosed if mortgage rates go up significantly.
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Mar 28, 2013 05:55
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Hahahaha holy poo poo that is so goddamn much money. What does your friend do for a living? Does he play for the loving Blue Jays or something? Toronto Maple Leaf Ben Scrivens lives in a basement apartment. Toronto's a pricey town.
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Mar 28, 2013 06:00
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Does anyone read Garth Turner's blog? He seems to have some interesting ideas: http://www.greaterfool.ca/
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Mar 28, 2013 15:31
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jet sanchEz posted:Does anyone read Garth Turner's blog? He seems to have some interesting ideas: http://www.greaterfool.ca/ There's better analysis at Ben Rabidoux's blog. Turner is too much of a huckster and light on analysis for my taste.
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Mar 28, 2013 15:41
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Albino Squirrel posted:I make substantially less than the average doctor in Alberta since I work at a homeless clinic, and when I got the mortgage for my house the bank told me I would be approved for $1.4 million. Which would be on top of the $140K I still owed on my condo. I politely told them that was loving insane and proceeded to get a house that my wife and I could afford. I think a substantial part of the housing bubble is that the banks are still WAY too eager to lend enormous amounts of money to people for very little down. Yeah it was one of the main factor the 2009 recession since banks through all risk vs reward analysis out the window in their pursuit keeping the loan machine going.
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Mar 28, 2013 20:08
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Signs of a Canadian housing downturn are everywhereNational Post posted:The Canadian economy is highly levered to the real estate market and its derivative industries, such as construction. These housing-related industries account for 27% of the Canadian economy, compared to 24% at the peak of the housing boom for the U.S. In other words, employment in construction and real estate is generally much higher now in Canada than it ever was in the U.S.
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Apr 7, 2013 12:47
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shots shots shots posted:Curtailing short-term speculative behavior is possible (high taxes on gains and such), but it's basically impossible to stop most of the other behavior. It's extremely easy to lie about property occupancy, and arbitrary restrictions on foreign ownership are bullshit at best and downright racist at worst. I'm personally ambivalent about foreign-ownership restrictions. However, I fail to see why they are "bullshit" or "downright racist". We restrict plenty of things to our own residents and citizens (jobs for instance - though that has been weakened somewhat recently with Temporary Foreign Workers, the point remains). Why would a policy restricting home ownership to our own citizens be racist? Of course, I get that there's a perception (if not actual reality) that tons of Mainland Chinese are buying up properties. But the "race" of said people is incidental, no? There would be similar calls to restrict foreign ownership if it was widely believed that throngs of Danes or Swedes, for instance, were bidding up prices. Not trying to be inflammatory in any way - just genuinely curious why you think this.
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Apr 7, 2013 15:51
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The arguments for restrictions typically have the following features: 1) no one can say how much of foreign ownership there actually is, but it is a HUGE problem because 2) the German and American foreign ownership seem to be fine, but the problem is all the crooked mainland Chinese 3) doesn't contain any policy goals that Canada gains by restricting foreign ownership, just that something magically get fixed for Canadians (with the subtext being that it is fixed for the correct type of Canadians) I am not sure how anyone can listen to someone proposing restrictions, and not know it isn't 100% racist motivated. If you have been hearing a non-racist version of it, I would love to see a link.
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Apr 7, 2013 17:49
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ocrumsprug posted:The arguments for restrictions typically have the following features: Like I said, I'm personally ambivalent about such proposals, mainly because of reasons (1) and (3). I'm certainly not advocating it, though it would certainly reduce the pool of buyers - that much is certain. Whether it would increase affordability for the average Canadian due to the various unknown unintended consequences is entirely a mystery - and until that's settled, it's likely a bad idea to implement. I simply disagree that such a proposal, in the abstract, is axiomatically racist. One certainly could advocate this for racist reasons, and doubtless that happens (perhaps in a widespread manner). But like I said - we exclude foreigners from plenty of things - indefinite residence (outside of immigration channels), jobs, owning banks - and I don't think that's racist to do so. Part of the benefit of being a nation state is the ability to give your own citizens preferential treatment in various aspects of life (whether it's a wise policy decision in any of those is an entirely separate matter). For the life of me, I don't see why property ownership is any different on the face of it (even if certain advocates may have racist leanings themselves). Lexicon fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Apr 7, 2013 |
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Apr 7, 2013 17:58
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