etalian posted:

HookShot posted:

I think there are approximately 50k registered realtors in Canada, but I honestly can't remember where I read that number so it might be way off.

Franks Happy Place posted:

The Toronto real estate board alone has over 40,000 members.

quote:

A growing number of B.C. renters are facing a crisis of affordability and paying too much of their income on scarce, expensive rental accommodation, according to new statistics to be released today by the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association.

Approximately 45 per cent of renters are paying more than the recommended maximum of 30 per cent of their gross income on rent, the housing association says.

Twenty-three per cent of people are spending more than half their income on rent, a level that leaves renters at risk of not being able to afford other basic living needs, said Tony Roy, the association's executive director.

"That group of people, it doesn't matter what income group you are in, are at risk of all kinds of other issues, from bankruptcy to homelessness to crime," said Roy.

The statistics are part of a new interactive rental housing index map that the housing association will launch today at bcnpha.ca. It's the first comprehensive look at the costs facing B.C.'s 517,430 renters, a quarter of whom earn less than $19,500 a year.

The interactive map crunches half a billion pieces of federal data into a clickable format that shows the average rent, affordability, income gap, overcrowding and unit shortage for B.C. communities and regional districts. Each town and city is profiled and scored.

"There's lots of data out there on home ownership, but this is the first major study which has looked specifically at the incomes of renters as well as how much they are spending on rent for different size suites," said Roy. "This is a chance for British Columbia to look at the province through the eyes of renters.

"There's a reason why housing affordability is the top issue in the municipal elections; it's because the rents are getting very high and the supply just isn't there."

West Vancouver has one of the highest proportions of people spending more than 50 per cent of their income on rent, and also the highest average rent at $1,555 a month, because of high land values and low rental stock, said Roy.

Smaller communities are also affected, including rural locations and those with high populations of immigrants, temporary workers, students and seniors, he said. Few private developers build rental housing, instead opting for higherend condos they can sell on the open market to realize a more immediate profit, said Roy.

The supply of rental units isn't keeping up with the growing demand, and the problem is compounded by the end of federal government rental unit subsidies that have existed on some properties for the past 10 to 30 years but are coming to a close and won't be renewed, said Roy.

"We're hearing from private sector landlords that they don't have enough incentives

to build," he said. "We're hearing from social housing providers that there's no new money coming into the system to build social housing, and we're hearing from municipalities, who are all going through an election, that say they don't have a lot of data out there to understand how many renters they have in their communities, what the incomes are of those renters, and how many more units or bedrooms they need to build or zone or plan for."

The non-profit housing association used a $125,000 grant from Vancity credit union to help create the online map.

The association estimates B.C. needs an additional 150,000 to 200,000 units of rental housing by 2036, with as many as 65,000 of those units requiring some sort of support, subsidy or supplement to make them affordable for renters.

NDP housing critic David Eby said the B.C. government has to find ways to encourage the construction of rental housing, because increased subsidies are wasted in a market where a rental shortage keeps driving up the rental rates.

Cultural Imperial posted:

i hope all y'all motherfuckers go bankrupt

melon cat posted:

Even though we're sitting at the edge of a bubble market, I really don't think that this is a taste of things to come. All of the towns listed in that snippet are all smaller cities/towns that people really aren't drawn to, in the first place. They're all just bedroom communities.

Cultural Imperial posted:

winnipeg

ottawa

e: actually, what the gently caress am i thinking, those are worthless cities by any global measure. yes, SJWs, loving beta cities

Whiskey Sours posted:

http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/F&Ereview13.pdf (page 12)

That puts FIRE and construction at 31.2% of BC's economy.

etalian posted:

triplexpac posted:

Just curious, are there any easily accessible charts like this for other countries? For comparison.

melon cat posted:

Even though we're sitting at the edge of a bubble market, I really don't think that this is a taste of things to come. All of the towns listed in that snippet are all smaller cities/towns that people really aren't drawn to, in the first place. They're all just bedroom communities.

LemonDrizzle posted:

Without wanting to be a total jerk, it really isn't that hard to google something like '[country] gdp by sector'

triplexpac posted:

True enough!

Here's another question: why were mortgage rates so high in the 80s? Ratehub has the rates being as high as 20% back then, seems crazy.

Lexicon posted:

Because the general level of inflation was high back then.

Baronjutter posted:

You know what's really unfair? Property owners only getting 1 vote in elections. Shouldn't they have more votes based on their properties? What if you live in Saanich but own a rental condo in Victoria, shouldn't you be entitled to a vote because money? What if you live in Langford but own a chain of stores in Victoria, Saanich, Langford, and Oak bay? You should obviously get 4 votes since you have a connection to each city.

This is currently a serious discussion going on on the right/libertarian Victoria BC forums I read. It's absolutely appalling that a bunch of left wing renters and retired people can keep voting in left wing candidates when most of the city's business owners would vote right wing but can't just because they don't live in the city. What hosed up world do we live in where some "student" who only RENTS in Victoria gets to vote but a rich person who lives in Uplands but owns an office in Victoria is limited to just 1 vote. This is why things are bad!

quote:

Emanuel Arruda, who in November was ordered by the court to be removed from League’s senior management along with chief executive and co-founder Adam Gant, has penned a letter to some of the 4,200 investors who could lose as much as $370 million when League completes restructuring under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act.

In his lengthy letter obtained by the Times Colonist, Arruda said he is in the same boat as investors and, in fact, has been “rendered effectively homeless” by the process. Arruda said he also used two personal lines of credit to borrow $150,000 to invest in League, and used a $45,000 bank overdraft to lend money to League when it faced financial difficulty.

quote:

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the monitor overseeing League’s restructuring, said the investor group is expected to lose most if not all of the $370 million they invested. The monitor said League owes $186 million in mortgages to 26 secured lenders and has 460 trade creditors, considered unsecured lenders, owed $19.5 million.

quote:

“I handed the keys to my apartment over to a tenant who will pay my mortgage for at least the next year. Rendered effectively homeless, I am now staying in a friend’s spare room,” he said.

quote:

The company is trying to sell 11 of its 22 properties by June 28 to satisfy secured lenders who are owed $186 million. Total sales are not expected to fetch that price.

eXXon posted:

Wow, that is brutal. I would have thought finance would be a bigger chunk of FIRE than that.

Isn't it ironic that construction, real estate and rentals make up 25% of the economy and there's still a dire housing shortage. GO FIGURE.

ocrumsprug posted:

In Vancouver completed units have outpaced population growth by several percent for years now. Seems to be a much smaller version of the empty cities that China is building, it is just that some % of every condo building is just empty.

LemonDrizzle posted:

So you're going to get cheap condos for all when the crash hits and/or a plague of badly maintained skyslums. One of the two.

LemonDrizzle posted:

So you're going to get cheap condos for all when the crash hits and/or a plague of badly maintained skyslums. One of the two.

Baronjutter posted:

Part of me loves the boom and bubble because it's greedy idiots subsidizing future affordable housing.

ocrumsprug posted:

Not even sure you can characterize it as a housing shortage. The housing is obviously there, it is just sitting empty and idle since speculation has removed the need for it.

In Vancouver completed units have outpaced population growth by several percent for years now. Seems to be a much smaller version of the empty cities that China is building, it is just that some % of every condo building is just empty.

eXXon posted:

Do you mean in Vancouver proper or the GVR? I would think that a lot of people living in Richmond/Burnaby/Surrey would move closer to Vancouver if they could.

eXXon posted:

Do you mean in Vancouver proper or the GVR? I would think that a lot of people living in Richmond/Burnaby/Surrey would move closer to Vancouver if they could.

Baronjutter posted:

I guess that just leads to the question if it's supply or price that's keeping them out of the city. Hanging out downtown at night you need a lot of mostly dark towers as the owners are out enjoying the nightlife they richly deserve for being an astute investor in a downtown condo.

Brannock posted:

Given how shoddy the construction is on a lot of those buildings, I'm not so sure that they'll be affordable for the low-income crowd. Is the government going to be on the hook for maintenance?

triplexpac posted:

True enough!

Here's another question: why were mortgage rates so high in the 80s? Ratehub has the rates being as high as 20% back then, seems crazy.

Baronjutter posted:

Part of me loves the boom and bubble because it's greedy idiots subsidizing future affordable housing.

JawKnee posted:

it seems much more likely it's going to be greedy idiots one step up the ladder fleecing other greedy idiots, ruining the economy, leaving a bunch of shoddy run-down and useless-in-30-years overpriced ugly and rent-unfriendly condos that cost more to tear down and replace than they do to just leave there