In the same Facebook thread noted in the post below, this post by blogger Spencer Thompson was thought to sum up the problem of the high (and disconnected) cost of housing in Vancouver:
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I’d like to structure this article into three separate sections:
- Why house prices won’t go down
- Why the price of a house is actually a secondary issue
- What to do about it.
The secret that no-one actually wants to talk about is that the quality of a city is mostly determined by a simple factor — the number of smart, ambitious people who live there. These people are the ones who want to drive that city forward by investing in opening businesses, donating their time to the arts & community, participating in city planning, etc… Without them, growth wouldn’t happen and you wouldn’t get all of the benefits that great cities enjoy. …
The mind boggling thing about Vancouver is that the benefits are massive — insanely good city planning, great safety, a great climate, one of the most beautiful nature-driven places on earth, etc… And yet a single cost — housing, threatens to get rid of all of these good things.
The biggest factor we need to address is our priorities as a city. Building a new bike lane isn’t a problem — who cares. The number one concern for our city should be to invest in the right kind of people for the future.
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More here to find out how he would do that.
Great article! And about time that we start talking about these issues. Because I would like to have my kid be able to continue to live and proposer here and not to have to move in search of a real job.
Oh gawd, not another op-ed about “These People.”
There are too many things wrong about this piece and not enough time to rebut every detail, but here are a few observations:
-Thompson makes an egregious error by lumping detached housing prices in with apartments. The median detached house price is now actually well over $1 million in this town, but that includes a pretty generous chunk of land
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-Hong Kong, Manhattan, London — the places Thompson compares Vancouver with — do not have a plethora of detached houses on 4,000+ ft2 lots, and if they did they would be orders of magnitude higher in price than here. The author needs to compare apples to apples, that is, condos to condos.
-The vast majority of condos were built without the traditional price escalators of waterfront location, views, and luxury amenities and are therefore pretty average in price. Where is his housing price analysis for the thousands of West End or False Creek non-waterfront buildings?
-The value of detached housing in Vancouver is in the land on average lots, not always in the structures. Land value increase is the common denominator in cities that have strong economic centres of gravity and demographic trends, and limitations in land supply. To its great advantage over the other cities he mentions, Vancouver has millions upon millions of square metres of open space available in the form of generous setbacks in the areas currently zoned for detached housing.
-The huge majority of condo sales are NOT to “These People” (wealthy foreigners). They are to average Canadians who exert a high demand on the supply and who cannot afford or are oriented away from starting businesses in their life path, especially if they are seniors downsizing to condo life, or single women settling in after an earlier life of unsalaried, unpensionable child-rearing. The views of 20-year old Econ 101 students do present some shortcomings.
-Thompson makes another egregious error by choosing to make this into a hot button immigration issue instead of a rational, neutral planning analysis. I don‘t see any way opinions will not be inflamed by this piece.
The above and other reasons prove Thompson’s research was exceedingly poor and comes up short, and therein his “solutions” should be taken with two huge grains of salt accompanied by a double shot of Tequila.
From afar —across the Strait— I’ve watched how this conversation about Vancouver housing costs some time ago abandoned any need to base opinion on hard data. A lot of these pieces are what you might politely call subjective but this one stands out. It’s based more than anything on “a drive around most expensive areas” to observe that “the homes are empty.” Asking Vancouverites about solutions to the “housing crisis” is a lot like asking motorists if we need more roads. They can’t quite see the whole picture.
Great article. No way! This is just more hysterical spin!
“The mind boggling thing about Vancouver is that the benefits are massive . . . While that is arguable let’s not get carried away with the hyperbole!
I arrived in Vancouver as a well educated, ready to romp, young twenty-one year old in May 1951: the, then, sleepy city was barely rousing!
I am not sure if an inflation-led real estate market translates into “massive benefits”
Indeed, I sell my home at an inflated price and whooah within a couple of months, looking for a condo, the price has sky-rocketed yet again.
Anyway I have my own resources and I don’t need a round table of paid flack to bolster my spirits.
After wandering Canadian cities writing . . .
http://www.press.uottawa.ca/the-canadian-city
. . . and of what I saw: two years living in Centro Historico . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/7mexicocity/mexicocity1.htm
. . . in Mexico enjoying the privilege of lecturing at UNAM’s, graduate school of architecture, I came back to sailing the Salish Sea.
I now live across the water and have the advantage of seeing the city from an objective point of view . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/webmaster-nonpareil/Thu%20Horror/thu.horror.html
. . . to wit: the incessant carping of the real estate and development industries tells me all is not well with Canada’s, west coast, largest sea port’s massive benefits benefits.
Another perfectly sound family home demolished to be replaced . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/theyorkshirelad72/OMG/omg.html
. . . by a monster!
Ick. Yet another person that has decided that The Yellow Menace is the source of all our ills, in spite of the evidence which has shown that the vast majority of overall sales are to locals.
When I read any article that purports to offer solutions, I pay close attention to what the author thinks are the problems and the causes. Yes, Vancouver prices are high. But so are Toronto’s. Prices are up hugely all across Canada. And Australia. And parts of Europe. Are they all victims of the Chinese? What about timing – why did housing prices shoot up so much when they did? Many countries got hit by a housing crisis in 2008, was that totally unrelated to our issues?
Blaming the Chinese is easy but frankly it doesn’t pass the sniff test. The author has made no effort to defend his position and instead talks about the “right” people. Kind of disgusting. Not worth the attention it’s getting from appearing here.
“The mind boggling thing about Vancouver is that the benefits are massive — insanely good city planning, great safety, a great climate, one of the most beautiful nature-driven places on earth, etc. . . . ”
Who falls for this? OMG, . . . insanely good city planning . . .. Something is really missing in blogger Spencer Thompson’s life if he believes that: ditto readers of Price Tags!
For example . . . http://henriquezpartners.com/work/oakridge-centre/
. . . what will happen to the existing, perfectly serviceable, buildings that already occupy the site: many built within the last decade. Is this “insanely good city planning. Is this environmental sustainablity?
Although I have more respect for the resilience of contributors to Vancouver’s various media I expect its proprietors to be a little more queezy and accordingly I will distribute this message far and wide. Some have a self-interested penchant for blocking from the public what they consider to be offensive. Debt, urban chaos and youth unemployment are the mark of our dream world.
Vitruvius, centuries ago, defined the city as commodity, firmness and delight attributes missing in this city of “insanely good city planning” and the sooner we call this nonsense out the better!
MB and Alex T, I know you mean well, and feel uncomfortable having a visible group singled out, but I suggest you have frank talk with a realtor about where the money to purchase single family homes in Vancouver is coming from. You ask why it is prices in Toronto and Australia are also rising, it is much the same answer. Europe is not quite the same degree, but foreign ownership there from the Middle East and Russia is also playing a part. In an era of low rates of return we have foolishly let the roofs over our heads (a basic human need) become part of the globally traded asset mix.
MB, you point out that condo prices are still affordable. Are you saying that we should be happy for the scraps left? That we should feel grateful we can squeeze our families into them, in order that a part time resident might enjoy a home on a leafy street?
You might have caught the story about the Shaughnessy home that recently sold for $2 million over asking. A nice but dated property that looked like it had been owned by the same family for decades. The new owner of this $6 million home: Mrs. Xiuhua Li, “housewife.”
Great points Bob. If I hear one more discussion about micro suites and how I am suppose to adjust to living in a 300 sq foot cubical (Now talks of down to 180 sf) I’m going to puke. It appears that everyone is going to have to leave for the provincial government to get a goddamn clue. Ok, enough with the rhetoric time to act:
Sign the petition (which has rocketed to 7,700 supporters this week):
https://www.change.org/p/premier-christy-clark-mayor-gregor-robertson-mayors-and-city-councillors-of-the-gvrd-restrict-foreign-investment-in-greater-vancouver-s-residential-real-estate-market?just_created=true
Rally:
https://www.facebook.com/events/419315721574615/
Bob, you missed the point.
How on Earth are Shaughnessy mansions on big inner city lots relevant to the supply of average-priced condos? Moreover, the “single family” detached home on a 4,000 ft2 lot are simply not viable in any of the comparison cities cited by the author. Where will you find a 33’x122’ lot in Manhattan to compare to South Vancouver? Higher prices cannot be singularly pinned to failing to build a Great Wall against hordes of Those People, but is largely a byproduct of normal urban growth. Cities are not static. I believe a shortage of land is being conflated too much with rich foreign real estate purchases, and no one has adequately separated the two through neutral and higher quality research than the inflammatory junk posted above.
Further, the array of housing alternatives between detached homes and condo towers has barely begun here.
For a far, far better analysis on the economics of cities I highly recommend “A Country of Cities” by Vishaan Chakrabarti and “Triumph of the City” by Edward Glaeser.
The elephant in the room is the RS-1 zoning. Plain and simple.