Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

I dropped out of university after two years because it was stupid and I hated it and I moved to Australia, but it turns out that was stupid and I hated it too.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 02:46

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# ? May 10, 2024 09:56

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

You loving white people

You know what would have happened if I dropped out?

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:05

Ccs: Feb 25, 2011

Furnaceface posted:

Nobody wants to skip university, its just not affordable to many people and the financial barriers to entry are a very real and stupid thing. Even with scholarships I couldnt afford university and had to work full time for 4 years after high school just to go to community college.

As an American who moved to Canada, the average of $6000 per year to go the University in Canada (not counting scholarships) is hilarious to me cause each semester of school I payed $9000. And that was at a state school with scholarships.

Sorry you didn't get to go, it just amazes me that people even go to University in the States. I have friends who took out loans to go to much higher-priced schools in NYC.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:07

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Ccs posted:

As an American who moved to Canada, the average of $6000 per year to go the University in Canada (not counting scholarships) is hilarious to me cause each semester of school I payed $9000. And that was at a state school with scholarships.

Sorry you didn't get to go, it just amazes me that people even go to University in the States. I have friends who took out loans to go to much higher-priced schools in NYC.

loving this

You motherfuckers have no idea how lucky you are compared to Americans or the lol loving British

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:10

MeinPanzer: Dec 20, 2004; anyone who reads Cinema Discusso for anything more than slackjawed trolling will see the shittiness in my posts

namaste faggots posted:

loving this

You motherfuckers have no idea how lucky you are compared to Americans or the lol loving British

Tuition at the university I'm currently a grad student at is 68,000 USD a year. Thanks rich idiot undergrads for paying for me to do lots of useless poo poo :getin:

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:17

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

So what's the point of having any sort of tenancy laws or rights in BC when most landlords make you sign a lease saying you'll vacate at the end of your lease, basically negating any sort of protections? Everyone I talked to is on a lease like this, and it means at the end of your lease they treat you as a brand new tenant and can raise the rent to anything like like, or just kick you out. Why even have maximum rent increase laws when landlords just make everyone sign these leases?

I see why people are so willing to make horrible financial mistakes by buying a condo, renting has absolutely no sense of security here. At any moment the landlord could decide not to renew your lease, or decide the building needs new doorknobs so everyone's evicted.

Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:23

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

namaste faggots posted:

You loving white people

You know what would have happened if I dropped out?

C63 AMG instead of the McLaren MP4-12C?

Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:32

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

namaste faggots posted:

You loving white people

You know what would have happened if I dropped out?

Your parents would have had to increase your allowance?

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:38

Throatwarbler: Nov 17, 2008; by vyelkin

Baronjutter posted:

So what's the point of having any sort of tenancy laws or rights in BC when most landlords make you sign a lease saying you'll vacate at the end of your lease, basically negating any sort of protections? Everyone I talked to is on a lease like this, and it means at the end of your lease they treat you as a brand new tenant and can raise the rent to anything like like, or just kick you out. Why even have maximum rent increase laws when landlords just make everyone sign these leases?

I see why people are so willing to make horrible financial mistakes by buying a condo, renting has absolutely no sense of security here. At any moment the landlord could decide not to renew your lease, or decide the building needs new doorknobs so everyone's evicted.

Maybe the intent is so that you can't make a lease that goes up every year by more than whatever the prescribed amount is?

# ? Jul 27, 2016 03:40

ductonius: Apr 9, 2007; I heard there's a cream for that...

Baronjutter posted:

So what's the point of having any sort of tenancy laws or rights in BC when most landlords make you sign a lease saying you'll vacate at the end of your lease, basically negating any sort of protections? Everyone I talked to is on a lease like this, and it means at the end of your lease they treat you as a brand new tenant and can raise the rent to anything like like, or just kick you out. Why even have maximum rent increase laws when landlords just make everyone sign these leases?

That lease would get slapped down so hard in arbitration. The tenancy act applies to all tenants, even ones that sign a paper saying "the tenancy act does not apply to me". The landord is trying to treat the tenants as having moved without them actually having moved. The actuality of the facts is more important to the law than the fiction of a contract.

A landlord renovicting after losing a lease arbitration would be treated very unfavourably by further arbitration and/or the courts.

ductonius fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 04:00

blah_blah: Apr 15, 2006

namaste faggots posted:

loving this

You motherfuckers have no idea how lucky you are compared to Americans or the lol loving British

British tuition fees are a relatively recent thing. I think their tuition fees are pretty much in line with what Canadian tuition fees have risen to over the same timeframe. Looking at Queens in particular (because it's actually a pretty mediocre school that is way too expensive and that people think is actually an ~elite institution~ for some reason) an ordinary degree is 7.5k/year, an engineering degree is 13k/year, and an undergraduate commerce degree is now 18k/year.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 04:01

Ccs: Feb 25, 2011

If I ever have kids I'll recommend they go to school in Germany. They'll pay no tuition and maybe even get EU passports out of it (if the EU still exists).

Though who knows what Europe will be like in 25-35 years. Or the rest of the world for that matter.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 04:15

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

blah_blah posted:

British tuition fees are a relatively recent thing. I think their tuition fees are pretty much in line with what Canadian tuition fees have risen to over the same timeframe. Looking at Queens in particular (because it's actually a pretty mediocre school that is way too expensive and that people think is actually an ~elite institution~ for some reason) an ordinary degree is 7.5k/year, an engineering degree is 13k/year, and an undergraduate commerce degree is now 18k/year.

yet some dumb motherfucker is going to take a look at this cost and say hmm this is way too expensive and there's no gurantee i'll find a job lol might as well buy a new car instead

# ? Jul 27, 2016 04:16

blah_blah: Apr 15, 2006

namaste faggots posted:

yet some dumb motherfucker is going to take a look at this cost and say hmm this is way too expensive and there's no gurantee i'll find a job lol might as well buy a new car instead

I mean, some dumb motherfucker is probably going to look at the 18k and assume that it must be better than the degree in math, statistics, or CS that costs about 40% as much.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 04:49

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

e: this was meant to go to CanPol. Pretend this is a rant about foreign capital or something.

Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 05:14

upgunned shitpost: Jan 21, 2015

Being half a pound heavier than Blaikie the Younger

# ? Jul 27, 2016 05:18

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

namaste faggots posted:

yet some dumb motherfucker is going to take a look at this cost and say hmm this is way too expensive and there's no gurantee i'll find a job lol might as well buy a new car instead

Our education system sucks at preparing kids properly for post-secondary. I should know, Im a walking loving example of it. I didnt buy a car or anything dumb like that, but I did see friends going into art/english/psych degrees only to find out that their best job options afterwards boil down to picking between Starbucks and Tim Hortons. This caused other friends and family to just ask "Why bother if we just end up at the same point in the end"" instead of asking "Well, what else is out there?". There are tons of lovely degrees that are set at super low cost just to hoover up all these people and its not doing anyone any good, it just puts people into debt with a lovely degree in gender studies or whatever.

blah_blah posted:

I mean, some dumb motherfucker is probably going to look at the 18k and assume that it must be better than the degree in math, statistics, or CS that costs about 40% as much.

This kind of ties into the problem. Had I known back then what I know now I could have just gone into Math or Pharmacology for half the loving cost instead of railroading myself into an unreachable goal. But that was never cleanly presented to me as an option. Hell I didnt really know I had options. It was just "Pick a career before you graduate high school! Here is your budget, OK now go!".

# ? Jul 27, 2016 06:09

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

namaste faggots posted:

You loving white people

You know what would have happened if I dropped out?

My mom has 4 bachelor's degrees (and she's done all the coursework for a fifth but they wouldn't give her a second BSc), a master's degree and a phd in biology. She spent the next five years occasionally sadly asking if I was ever going to go back to University, and then realized I wasn't and gave up. I'm pretty sure she's still actually supremely disappointed that I never even got a bach degree.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 06:39

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

Anecdotal I know but my wife works in a major north shore (Vancouver) notary and a bunch of people have changed their closing date to avoid the new foreigner purchase tax in August. They're swamped.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 07:16

blah_blah: Apr 15, 2006

Furnaceface posted:

Our education system sucks at preparing kids properly for post-secondary.

...

This kind of ties into the problem. Had I known back then what I know now I could have just gone into Math or Pharmacology for half the loving cost instead of railroading myself into an unreachable goal. But that was never cleanly presented to me as an option. Hell I didnt really know I had options. It was just "Pick a career before you graduate high school! Here is your budget, OK now go!".

I think the biggest problem is that most high schoolers get their advice from parents/trusted adults who in many cases have cushy jobs/seniority that will never exist for people of this generation, and from guidance counselors and teachers who have no clue what the normal working world is actually like. A lot of this is actually researchable, but asking a teenager to sift through this on the internet and arrive at a correct conclusion, or resist the external influence/biases of their parents is a pretty tall task.

Then, even if you do pick a good discipline, there's really no guarantee that you're actually ready to study it. I've taught at the postsecondary level, and there are a lot of students with astonishingly poor math fundamentals that probably need at least a year or more of remedial study before they can pass basic first-year math/stats courses -- which effectively rules out math, stats, (quant-y) economics, CS, physics, engineering, etc as majors. And even beyond that a lot of 18 year olds have atrocious study habits and work ethic and just need to generally grow up a bit before they can function effectively at the postsecondary level.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 09:11

Professor Shark: May 22, 2012

ductonius posted:

That lease would get slapped down so hard in arbitration. The tenancy act applies to all tenants, even ones that sign a paper saying "the tenancy act does not apply to me". The landord is trying to treat the tenants as having moved without them actually having moved. The actuality of the facts is more important to the law than the fiction of a contract.

A landlord renovicting after losing a lease arbitration would be treated very unfavourably by further arbitration and/or the courts.

Living in a lovely apartment in a university town taught me that whatever piece of paper the landlord had you sign isn't worth poo poo, it's only slightly more legally binding than the contract used car dealerships have people sign saying that they're interested in buying a car today

# ? Jul 27, 2016 14:02

a primate: Jun 2, 2010

Career counselling in high school is a joke and leaves 17 year olds woefully unprepared to decide their education and work goals. I have a masters and most of a PhD in psychology from a good school and am working as a contractor right now due to being essentially unemployable. Very few employers will ever call you if you mention you've gone to grad school (not sure why). I could have gone to college for the stuff I'm doing now and been working in 3 years rather than busting my rear end in low paying teaching assistantships and random jobs. Don't be like me, kids.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 14:03

Guy DeBorgore: Apr 6, 1994; Catnip is the opiate of the masses; Soiled Meat

Professor Shark posted:

Living in a lovely apartment in a university town taught me that whatever piece of paper the landlord had you sign isn't worth poo poo, it's only slightly more legally binding than the contract used car dealerships have people sign saying that they're interested in buying a car today

My lease says I can't have a visitor stay for more than 14 days per year without the landlord's "express written consent." Even better, they made me sign a separate piece of paper when I moved in saying they could kick me out if they suspected any illegal activity, "including smoking marijuana," even if they don't meet the legal standard of evidence.

I'd love to see them enforce those provisions, but of course I pay my rent on time so they don't give a poo poo about how many visitors I have over and all the weed I smoke. I do worry a bit about all the people in the building with worse language skills than me who don't understand all the rights Canadian tenants have, they're the ones who could really get shafted.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 14:25

EvilJoven: Mar 18, 2005; NOBODY,IN THE HISTORY OF EVER, HAS ASKED OR CARED WHAT CANADA THINKS. YOU ARE NOT A COUNTRY. YOUR MONEY HAS THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND ON IT. IF YOU DIG AROUND IN YOUR BACKYARD, NATIVE SKELETONS WOULD EXPLODE OUT OF YOUR LAWN LIKE THE END OF POLTERGEIST. CANADA IS SO POLITE, EH?; Fun Shoe

a primate posted:

Career counselling in high school is a joke and leaves 17 year olds woefully unprepared to decide their education and work goals. I have a masters and most of a PhD in psychology from a good school and am working as a contractor right now due to being essentially unemployable. Very few employers will ever call you if you mention you've gone to grad school (not sure why). I could have gone to college for the stuff I'm doing now and been working in 3 years rather than busting my rear end in low paying teaching assistantships and random jobs. Don't be like me, kids.

Career counselling at the university level is just as laughable.

When most majors ask what their degree can be useful for the answer is quite often 'Teach, I guess'.

I'd really like to see how many people with degrees in anything but medical or engineering fields actually end up applying their degree for anything other than teaching.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 15:05

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

quote:

Canada’s economy is hostage to the housing bubble
macleans.ca | July 27, 2016
When one of the real estate industry’s largest lobby groups, Mortgage Professionals Canada, released a report last month analyzing the state of the country’s housing market, it found, to absolutely no one’s surprise, zero evidence of a bubble that would warrant political intervention. “Now that the energy sector is no longer a major economic driver, a healthy housing sector is even more essential,” the organization’s chief economist, Will Dunning, warned in a statement. “It would be tragic to unnecessarily impair this key economic force.”

If that sounds like a ransom note, it more or less was: do anything to jeopardize the housing boom, bub, and the economy gets it. Obvious self-interest aside, Dunning and others who have issued similar warnings are right, to a point. Canada’s economy is hostage to the housing market. Rising house prices and the accompanying wealth effect, courtesy of ballooning equity lines of credit, have kept the economy from faltering as business spending retrenches and exports disappoint—last year real estate was by far the largest contributor to GDP in seven of 10 provinces, including B.C. and Ontario.

Meanwhile the chart below shows Canada’s economy has never been more reliant on residential real estate and household spending. (It’s actually an update of a chart former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney used in 2012 to highlight the extent to which the economy had come to depend on households. As the forecast at the time showed, the Bank firmly believed this would slowly improve over the ensuing years. Instead, it exploded higher.)

Deep down every homeowner, speculator, realtor, Bay Street financier, mortgage broker, bricklayer, central banker, car dealer, politician, regulator and kitchen countertop installer in the country is worried by the prospect this game might end. As B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong said earlier this year, “You’ve got to be careful about having the state intervene to try and regulate pricing, or depress pricing. That will have consequences for a lot of families.”

Yet the din of calls for politicians and policy-makers to tackle affordability problems in red-hot markets like Vancouver and Toronto has grown deafening. Which brings us to the flurry of announcements coming out of B.C. First the province moved to end the self-regulation of the real estate industry after multiple reports of shenanigans. It then started tracking and releasing data about the scale of foreign buying in Metro Vancouver (about 10 per cent of the value of all deals, equal to $885 million over a five-week period). Now the provincial Liberals have introduced a 15 per cent tax on foreigners who buy property in Metro Vancouver. That’s a $300,000 tax bill on a $2 million home. It takes effect Aug. 2, and already Ontario is considering a similar tax, saying it’s concerned foreigners rebuffed by B.C. will shift their focus to Toronto.

Even though the real estate industry in B.C. has long argued foreign buyers are a small part of the market, it has come out strongly against the tax, arguing it “needlessly injects uncertainty into the market.” But will these new measures really bring affordability back to the Vancouver market? And by that we mean bring an end to double-digit price gains, bring about a steep correction in house prices to levels the city’s lowly middle-class incomes can afford, bring about an end to staggering household debt levels and ultimately, bring about the end of housing as the economy’s engine of growth?

I’m not convinced. The new tax is, relatively speaking, a politically safe and mild measure. It lets the government be seen to be doing something about high real estate prices at a time when polls overwhelmingly show voters want action on the issue. Conveniently, it also lets the province fill its coffers without the customary backlash that usually accompanies a tax grab. After all, if there’s one tax people can get behind, it’s a tax that targets filthy rich foreigners (the Liberals said the funds will go to new spending on “housing and rental programs”).

But the tax itself may also prove ineffective. Will a 15 per cent tax matter to an offshore speculator who is convinced the value of the house he or she buys will grow by double that rate in one year? If $2 million for a rundown bungalow seems reasonable, might not $2.3 million? Also, if indeed foreign buyers (read: mainland Chinese) are shunting their money out of China and away from the reach of an increasingly authoritarian government, might the tax simply be seen as an unfortunate but necessary fee given the alternative?

This all assumes that the tax works as planned. B.C. has commenced a cat-and-mouse game with people with extremely deep pockets and access to very smart accountants and lawyers, a valid point the provincial NDP raised. Nor will the tax apply to buyers who come to B.C. by way of Quebec, which maintains an investor immigrant program that sees wealthy newcomers “invest” $800,000 in exchange for visas. De Jong, who earlier dismissed the suggestion that foreign buyers were driving house prices, has also dismissed this line of thinking as “conspiratorial,” though the numbers suggest it’s worth consideration: last year just under 5,000 foreigners and their family members entered Quebec through the program, and historically close to 90 per cent have made their way to B.C.

Ultimately B.C.’s new tax will likely fail to cool the overheated market for the same reason every other effort to date—tighter mortgage lending standards, larger down-payment requirements, jawboning bordering on pleading from the Bank of Canada—has failed. The world is awash in cheap debt, and whether we’re talking about wealthy foreigners or local residents desperate not to be shut out of the market, the siren call of fast-rising house prices is too powerful to ignore. Until that changes, Canada’s economy will continue to be captive to the bubble.

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/canadas-economy-is-hostage-to-the-housing-bubble-2/

# ? Jul 27, 2016 15:12

leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

ductonius posted:

That lease would get slapped down so hard in arbitration. The tenancy act applies to all tenants, even ones that sign a paper saying "the tenancy act does not apply to me". The landord is trying to treat the tenants as having moved without them actually having moved. The actuality of the facts is more important to the law than the fiction of a contract.

A landlord renovicting after losing a lease arbitration would be treated very unfavourably by further arbitration and/or the courts.

Except it's quasi-legal in BC?

http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/residential-tenancies/ending-a-tenancy/tenant-notice

quote:

If a fixed-term tenancy agreement (or a lease) has a move-out clause that requires the tenant to move out at the end of the term, the tenant can move at the end of the term without giving the landlord notice.

http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/02078_01#section44

quote:

(b) the tenancy agreement is a fixed term tenancy agreement that provides that the tenant will vacate the rental unit on the date specified as the end of the tenancy;

# ? Jul 27, 2016 16:15

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

namaste faggots posted:

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/canadas-economy-is-hostage-to-the-housing-bubble-2/

I like that they mention de Jong repeatedly by name but awkwardly not the seven houses he owns.

I guess Macleans' libel insurance isn't what it used to be.

Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 16:36

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The CEGEP system in Quebec always seemed to give students a solid footing for university compared to the students from out of the province who didn't have the same school system.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 18:07

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-aware-of-26-baby-houses-as-birth-tourism-from-china-booms

quote:

Health ministry investigators are aware of more than two dozen so-called birth houses in B.C. offering pregnant foreign mothers temporary room and board before and after giving birth in local hospitals, according to Freedom of Information documents obtained by Postmedia.

The baby houses, as they are called in Asia, are used by women seeking instant Canadian citizenship for their newborns.

The internal briefing document, titled Birth by Non-B.C. Residents, was created in response to a Vancouver Sun story last year about the three-fold increase since 2009 of non-resident births.

A department in Victoria called the Audit and Investigations Branch, Eligibility, Compliance and Enforcement Unit (ECEU) knows about 26 private residences offering hospitality services to foreign pregnant women. It said the residences are used by two groups.

The first includes those in Canada on a temporary resident document, such as a tourist visa, work or study permit. They come to deliver a baby �who by birth is then granted Canadian citizenship status.� They do not access Medical Services Plan-funded benefits and �they declare themselves as self-pay at hospitals and to doctors.�

The second category includes permanent residents properly enrolled in MSP, but at some point cease to meet the definition under the Medicare Protection Act. They return to their country of origin but remain enrolled in the MSP. They then return to B.C. to have a baby and since they still have MSP coverage, bills related to the mother and baby are billed to the plan. They stay long enough to obtain a birth certificate, a Canadian passport and enrolment in MSP for the baby before returning to their country of origin.

The ECEU conducts regular reviews of individuals who cease to meet the definition of a resident under the Medicare Protection Act, according to the documents. The next paragraphs were censored by government for fear of harm to law enforcement. The documents say the cost of non-resident births was $693,869.20 in the 2014-2015 fiscal year:

�The health authorities recover approximately 50 per cent of their amount outstanding, Pharmacare and MSP costs are recovered by the Ministry of Finance.�

Investigators have found no evidence of �forged or counterfeit� Care Cards or B.C. Services Cards, nor did they find evidence to warrant a referral to law enforcement.

Earlier this month, Postmedia reported 295 of the 1,938 babies born at Richmond Hospital for the year ended March 31 were delivered to foreign Chinese mothers. According to the documents, the number of non-resident births at Richmond Hospital �increased dramatically� beginning in 2011. Non-resident births at hospitals in the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) region account for 1.5 per cent of births, according to confidential briefing notes, but at the Richmond Hospital, they accounted for 15.22 per cent, based on the latest fiscal year statistics.

Visiting pregnant mothers must pre-register with a VCH physician and pay $7,000 to $8,000 to the hospital for a vaginal delivery and $12,000 to $13,000 for a Caesarian. Doctors charge patients separately for their fees. The Ministry of Health sets the fees hospitals can charge non-Canadians for medically necessary services. The fees are set to a cost-recovery basis, not intended as a revenue-generating stream because hospitals are, by definition in the Hospital Act, non-profit institutions, according to the FOI documents.

According to an internal email from a health ministry official named Meghan Duesterwald, the idea of expanding medical tourism within B.C. has been explored. �Opportunities to generate revenue from in-bound medical tourism has been investigated by ministry staff, leading to the conclusion this is not currently feasible, for reasons of cost competitiveness and availability of medical and hospital resources.�

�Hospitals are already operating at higher than optimal capacities and health authorities would be challenged to expand capacity. Given public concern about current wait times and access, the optics of foreign patients getting access to taxpayer-funded public services, even on a patient pay basis, would be difficult to manage.�

Gavin Wilson, spokesman for VCH, said there are no plans to raise prices for maternity services. And he debunked any notion that there may be too many birth tourists in Richmond.

�We operate a hospital in a community where over 60 per cent of the residents are immigrants, some of whom are at different stages of their immigration/residency process,� he said. �Some patients are newly landed immigrants who are processing their papers, which can take months to a year. Some are here on temporary visas, studying at a university, for example, and have their baby while they are here. Some have a second home here and choose to give birth here rather than � in China.�

While B.C. Women�s has strict controls on birth tourism, Wilson said that is a unique hospital since it specializes in high-risk births, while Richmond is a community hospital.

Richmond�s Kerry Starchuk launched an online petition to the House of Commons in June, hoping the federal Liberal government will eventually ban birth tourism unless one of the parents is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. Canada and the U.S. are the only G7 countries that still allow automatic citizenship for such births.

Starchuk lives next to a suspected birth house catering to mothers from China. The petition needed only 500 supporters in order to be introduced in the House of Commons, but has garnered about 5,800 to date, with more than two months before the Oct. 14 deadline.

The documents released by the health ministry also include a Jan. 22, 2015 email from a male, whose name and address were redacted, asking about requirements �so I may establishment (sic) maternity tourism business in Richmond. What are the fees that I would have to pay to the province? What are the requirements I�d have to meet to open a facility.�

An email between ministry staff mentioned that a licence under the Community Care and Assisted Living Act would be required.

�The person must be legally in B.C. as a resident (not a visitor) for three months before MSP/hospital insurance kicks in,� said the Feb. 23, 2015 email by Tricia Braidwood-Looney, director of diagnostic services. �If they come legally into B.C., have the baby and then go home, that is certainly acceptable.�

The value of Canadian citizenship has created quite a few brokerage businesses catering to birth tourism customers. An agent located in Shenzhen introduces a list of B.C. hospitals and local Mandarin-speaking doctors who can assist with delivery. Local doctors Caroline Wang and Brenda Tam are mentioned as popular doctors for birth tourists, according to Chinese websites.

Kristy Anderson, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, said the government doesn�t endorse or support the marketing of birth tourism services. However, health care providers are �committed to providing care to patients in need and no woman will be refused care she needs during labour and delivery.�

She said the main role of health authorities is the �provision of insured or medically required services to eligible beneficiaries who are residents of B.C.�

The matter of foreigners coming here for the sole purpose of giving birth and obtaining citizenship for their babies is a federal matter. She said she doesn�t know if the province has ever raised its concerns with Ottawa.

at least when the bubble bursts we'll still have another source of industry

# ? Jul 27, 2016 19:24

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

lmao

# ? Jul 27, 2016 19:28

Barudak: May 7, 2007

namaste faggots posted:

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-aware-of-26-baby-houses-as-birth-tourism-from-china-booms

at least when the bubble bursts we'll still have another source of industry

To be fair, these are also all over California. Thanks new world countries pretty much all giving citizenship by blood or location.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 19:37

triplexpac: Mar 24, 2007; Suck it
Two tears in a bucket
And then another thing
I'm not the one they'll try their luck with
Hit hard like brass knuckles
See your face through the turnbuckle dude
I got no love for you

So if the CMHC is finally seeing a "moderate" problem in the Canadian housing market, does that mean the whole thing is about to burn to the ground?

# ? Jul 27, 2016 21:52

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

quote:

Some Vancouver area realtors are getting creative in an attempt to help foreign buyers avoid the new 15% additional property transfer tax that takes effect next week.

Real Estate Specialist Mike Stewart sent an email, as seen below, to his clients letting them know they could assign the pre-sale purchase contract to a Canadian citizen or resident.

�So we are saying transfer the ownership or assign the ownership rights to a family member or trust your friend. Or in the case where that is not an option to potentially sell the contract to a Canadian resident or a Canadian citizen, so effectively increasing supply in the market.�

Perfectly legal

Stewart says he wants to make it clear it�s not illegal because the client bought pre-construction, meaning they haven�t actually registered yet at the Land Titles office.

The province say tax avoidance could net up to a $200,00 fine, a penalty and jail time.

Investigation opened

In a statement, the Real Estate Council of B.C. says it has asked the licensee and brokerage to stop circulating the advertisement.

The Council says it has opened an investigation into the ad, and �will be looking into the matter very closely.�

It�s also reminding people to get legal or accounting advice before entering into any transaction promoted as a �solution� or measure to avoid payment of taxes, like the property transfer tax.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 22:12

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

It always shocks me how most realtors are barely literate. It shouldn't.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 22:40

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

50 years ago, the same people who are realtors today were probably blue collar mill workers or miners. We should thank our lucky stars that the housing market has provided this much social mobility. dat gini coefficient

# ? Jul 27, 2016 22:47

Ccs: Feb 25, 2011

I've heard of those birth houses in California before. Apparently they really screw over the kids who are born there but then return to China, because they don't have identity cards in China, and may never be able to get them. So unless the parents of these kids have connections or can bribe people into getting their kid an identity card, that kid is going to have a hard upbringing inside China until they get old enough to move back to the US. So it fucks up their childhood and then get pressured into moving away from family once they come of age.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 22:49

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

http://www.vancourier.com/news/repercussions-from-b-c-s-new-15-real-estate-tax-feared-1.2311083

quote:

Real estate professionals are decrying the unfairness of the B.C. government springing a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers of Metro Vancouver homes with no notice.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong, however, seems to be treating the feedback with a shrug, as he reiterated on July 26 that he would provide no special consideration for deals that were signed before August 2 and that all residential property transfers that involve foreign buyers, starting August 2, will be subject to the tax.

Industry first voiced concerns yesterday and that continued today.

�It�s unfair to the buyers and it�s also unfair to the sellers,� said Urban Development Institute CEO Anne McMullin.

�People sold and bought in good faith, knowing what the rules were. Now the government is coming in and completely changing the rules.�

She said that the move raises questions about the reliability of government policy for all investors, regardless of the asset.

�You could buy something and then, two years later, they�re going to completely change the rules with no warning, consultation or grandfathering. There could be economic fallout.�

Lawyers, meanwhile, are scrambling to get deals done by July 29 so the contracts can be complete before the tax kicks in on the first business day after the long weekend.

Boughton lawyer Peter Anderson told Business in Vancouver that an offshore client, yesterday, issued a request to try to get a property sale speeded up so that it closes by Friday.

Anderson is confident that the deal will close because the buyer is paying cash. Had the buyer needed extra bank financing to close the transaction by Friday, it would be unlikely that the bankers would be able to get the deal done so fast.

�The purchaser, who is offshore, has put down a 5 per cent down payment to hold the deal, but this is a 15 per cent tax,� Anderson said.

�I would walk away from my 5 per cent deposit if the property value hasn�t gone up more than 15 per cent. I�d be saving 10 per cent on that deal. In real dollars, the purchaser would be walking away from a $200,000 deposit but saving $400,000 in tax. He would still be better off.�

Anderson�s concern is that offshore investors who do pull away from deals will leave the vendors, who are locals, stranded.

Vendors are often counting on the deal to close in order to get financing so they can complete other deals.

�Definitely, anytime somebody backs out of a deal, you can take their deposit and sue them for excess damages if that is more than the deposit,� Anderson said.

�That becomes a hollow right if they are sitting in mainland China. You have to go there to sue them and you may not get the judgement you want.�

The last time the B.C. government made a significant hike in the property transfer tax, it did grandfather buyers who had agreed to buy homes before the tax had been announced.

�The act that we have now � the Property Transfer Tax Act � came out in 1987 and I started practicing law in 1985, so I remember it well,� said Anderson.

�People were grandfathered if they had signed contracts.�

He explained that, at the time, the new act brought in a 1,000 per cent increase in taxation. Buyers of B.C. homes before the act was introduced paid $ for each $1,000 in the home�s value. After the act, the tax rate was 1 per cent on the first $200,000 in value and 2 per cent on any amount above that.

- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/repercussions-from-b-c-s-new-15-real-estate-tax-feared-1.2311083#sthash.0Ro4P0mY.dpuf

http://www.rew.ca/news/foreign-buyers-have-insignificant-impact-on-vancouver-housing-market-bcrea-1.2096227

quote:

The skyrocketing demand for homes and rapid price acceleration is �largely driven by land scarcity and densification policies in the Metro region,� while foreign investment is �insufficient to impact such a large and diverse market,� according to a British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) report published June 10.

The BCREA said that although there was a scarcity of data on the topic, the available information suggests that �foreign ownership of housing is considerably less than 5 per cent of the housing stock and not more than 5 per cent of sales activity.�

It went on to say, �The proportion of vacant dwellings, as well as the proportion occupied by foreign and/or temporary residents in the Vancouver CMA during the 2011 Census, did not diverge significantly from other large Canadian or provincial urban centres.�

The report added, �Domestic investors are three to four times more active in the region�s housing market than foreign investors, adding much-needed rental accommodation supply.

�In addition, adjusting for inflation and wage growth, apartment condominiums have become more affordable over the past five years.�

The BCREA report also poured cold water on the use of average house prices as a measure of true affordability. The report said, �The average home price in the region is an inadequate yardstick for housing affordability.

�Nearly 70 per cent of all MLS� residential transactions in Metro Vancouver during 2014 were below the average price of $738,000, with 32 per cent of homes sold below $400,000 and 82 per cent below $1 million.�

The BCREA concluded in its recommendations that it �does not see a policy response to curb foreign investment as necessary for the public good at this time.�

However it did recommend the government monitor foreign investment in housing �by attaching a residency declaration somewhere in the land transfer form process, or other practical approach �[in order] to gain further insight into this market segment.�

oh uh awkward

# ? Jul 27, 2016 23:53

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

My favourite part of that second article is how the BREA report uses data from 2014 to go "nope no problems here" when that was two years ago and prices have gone up like 50% since then lol.

# ? Jul 28, 2016 00:16

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

If a Chinese buyer can flake and avoid damages, shouldn't realtors be warning their clients away from such buyers? If they're such a small portion of real estate business then it shouldn't make it much harder to sell, after all.

# ? Jul 28, 2016 03:07

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# ? May 10, 2024 09:56

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

You're acting like this market rational or something

# ? Jul 28, 2016 03:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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