As an established middle-aged software developer with a family living in Burnaby who cannot move now because of custody issues, I'm going to give you the same advice I give to all of the engineering co-ops I work with. You should move out of the
Vancouver area as soon as you get your degree.
I don't think that you're ever going to have a problem finding 1 bedroom accommodations in Vancouver because that's what developers predominantly build. Eventually you'll probably want to get married and have kids, and then you'll realize that the GVRD has nothing for you.
The detached home market now largely belongs to rich Chinese immigrants who made their millions outside the country; you'll never be able to compete with these folks working in the Canadian economy and paying Canadian taxes. That will largely rule out Vancouver, Burnaby, and by the time you graduate, New West, Coquitlam, Poco, and Port Moody. This isn't even a matter of stretching anymore - this market is completely isolated from CHMC policy now because the prices are beyond what Canadian home buyers could ever leverage.
Developers have little incentive to build 3 bedroom family-friendly condos, so you'll have a hard time finding those, too. I wanted to buy one recently and it was going to cost about $700000. My current 2 bedroom would sell for about $400k, but I don't think that I want to stretch that far on a single income, even though it would mean I could get my kids their own rooms.
And really, is Vancouver so great? The mountains are nice, and the downtown is nice if you're young. But it's a trap for the young - through well-intentioned tolerance and bad public policy we've created a city that is hostile to young families. Live anywhere else in North America and you'll enjoy a more favourable cost of living and/or a better lifestyle.
I moved to Vancouver shortly before the .com crash. Worked for a number of companies, primarily doing low-level system programming, climbing from 50K to 120K in 5 or so years and periodically trying to do my own thing. One of the attempts worked, got a good exit, at which point started looking at upgrading from our pretty decent Burnaby condo to a house.
Being a true nouveau riche, we scouted everything, including most expensive areas like UBC, Point Gray and West Vancouver, talked to the agents, looked at the building lots, spoke with architects - the whole shebang. It became absolutely crystal clear that the Vancouver real estate is just one big parking lot for Chinese money. And they don't just park them there, they also bring their gambling habits with them, constantly flipping what they have and perpetually warming up the prices. It is in-your-face obvious once you take a close look at what's going on. You don't even have to prompt agents to relay the stories of how they guide groups of Chinese government suits through dozens of properties, all of which they end up buying above asking. It is absolutely INSANE. As it is ultimately disgusting.
In any case, we looked around once again, said "fuck it" and moved elsewhere. Mountains and good restaurants can't offset the fact that you feel like a lower middle class even when you don't have to work ever again in your life.
It's a nice place when you are young, renting and have no attachments, but I would strongly discourage from trying to settle there on a more permanent basis.
The US is broken, politically and socioeconomically. The Senate will block any bills for a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics, and a Constitutional Convention will mean all amendments will be on the line, including the 1st Amendment (libertarians will cry "freeze speech") and 2A (gun owners will cry "the gubmint is taking our guns away"). I really don't see a bright side to America's future. Canada has been a well-run country, even under Harper, and I am optimistic about what Trudeau Jr. will be able to accomplish.
Calgary represents everything that I think is wrong with Canada--sorry, Nenshi, I like you, but the people of your city are holding Canada back. (the CPC, putting the economic eggs into the oil basket, and so on.) Plus, Calgary has less dev opportunities than Vancouver since everything is dependent on oil and gas.
I don't like the weather in eastern Canada. The winters are too cold, the summers are too hot and humid. By the way, it's much more common to have sleet, ice storms and hard-packed dirty slush/ice than freshly fallen snow. The rain keeps everything green and the temperatures in summer rarely gets above 25 degrees. So much better than 30 degrees (with 40 humidex).
Toronto too sprawling of a city, and amalgamation (just like it did in Ottawa and Halifax) has pitted suburbanites against urban dwellers, as manifested in Rob Ford and John Tory. Also, the 905 belt carried Mike Harris (Ontario PCs) in the 90s, and his "Common Sense Revolution" permanently sabotaged Toronto's public transportation infrastructure.
Quebec is a beacon of corruption. Remember that SQ officer who wasn't charged for a fatal hit-and-run with his cruiser? Montreal is owned by the Mob. Mr. Sidewalk, the Big Owe, etc. The infrastructure is literally crumbling (like the Highway 19 overpass collapse in Laval in 2006) because of how corrupt the city of Montreal is.
I'm young and I don't want kids. I do not believe that yellow peril is the driving factor in housing costs. Certainly it's a factor, but no one can say how much of a factor it is without solid data. I'm staying, and you can't stop me!
I'm young and I don't want kids. I do not believe that yellow peril is the driving factor in housing costs. Certainly it's a factor, but no one can say how much of a factor it is without solid data. I'm staying, and you can't stop me!
:-)
Fair enough; its a nice city if you're young and you don't have kids. I think a lot of your criticism of other places has to do with things that don't affect you on a day to day basis; America's lax gun laws aren't going to have nearly the same impact on your life as the much better software dev work you'll find there, the higher pay your work will garner, and better housing opportunities you'd have in the US.
I just hope you don't wind up like me; 20 years of C/C++ dev experience in desktop and embedded, and I have no idea what I would do if my current company here in Vancouver went under. There just aren't a lot of job opportunities here, and moving would mean giving up custody of my kids.
> I think a lot of your criticism of other places has to do with things that don't affect you on a day to day basis;
When Obama was running for president in 2008, his stump speech included this line (paraphrased): "If a child can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If a senior citizen can't afford his prescription drugs, that makes my life poorer, even if he's not my grandparent."
I would be be living in a city (SF, Portland, Seattle, SD, Austin, Boston, NYC, Chicago, take your pick) with massive social, racial, and economic disparities that make Vancouver look like one of those Nordic wundercountries. I would be living in a city, and a state, and a country, with levels of political dysfunction and gridlock only seen in countries like Korea or Chile. That dysfunction is holding the country back in overall quality-of-life. The rich have magnificent lives, but for the poor, it's hell to live in America. That makes my life poorer, even if I'm making $100K and drive a Tesla P90D with Ludicrous Mode. (That is if I live in a state that hasn't banned Tesla sales!)
As a person who moved from Victoria to Seattle and then SF, that kind of stuff doesn't actually matter in practice.
What the gods of Mt.Olympus do does not matter to the common folk. Macro policy decisions to do things like go to war in Afghanistan only indirectly effect your tax bill, and if the news didn't report it and if refugees didn't immigrate, would you even know it was happening. That is real effect of what your worrying about.
Go live & work in Seattle for a year and you'll quickly come to learn there is no real difference between there and Vancouver. If you change the street signs and some brands, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. If you really don't like it, you can always move back. But as a learning experience, you'll find it valuable for your world view, your career back in Vancouver and your wallet. If you have student loans, that exchange rate will be amazing to pay them off, and you could collect a down payment for a Vancouver 1 bedroom condo far faster. I used charles schwab debit cards and I paid no exchange fees paying off my canadian student loans.
Bread and Circus crap like guns and such are an entertainment sideshow and policy makers will do whatever they actually care about without much fanfare. In practice you will never see a gun on a civilian in NYC, SF or Seattle and people speak whatever is on their mind. The weather is also amazing in SF.
I'm not sure that the problem has ever been how many Chinese have immigrated, but how many rich people who happen to be Chinese have immigrated. For starters, we have an entirely misguided and wrong-headed 'immigrant investor program' that allows rich people to jump the immigration queue.
I think the problem is deeper than this, though. Most people in Vancouver actually want prices to stay high; there are a whole lot of home owners in Vancouver who are counting on that $3M cheque for their house to pay for their retirement. Its the provincial government that wields the legislative cudgel here, and they're going to listen to those home-owners waiting for their Chinese-exit. Worse, much of the BC economy is now based on real-estate; selling it, buying it, rebuilding it, and renovating it. We've built our economy on selling rich Chinese people our homes. If the provincial government intervenes and fixes house prices, it would probably harm the construction and real estate business; it would be political suicide.
I don't think that you're ever going to have a problem finding 1 bedroom accommodations in Vancouver because that's what developers predominantly build. Eventually you'll probably want to get married and have kids, and then you'll realize that the GVRD has nothing for you.
The detached home market now largely belongs to rich Chinese immigrants who made their millions outside the country; you'll never be able to compete with these folks working in the Canadian economy and paying Canadian taxes. That will largely rule out Vancouver, Burnaby, and by the time you graduate, New West, Coquitlam, Poco, and Port Moody. This isn't even a matter of stretching anymore - this market is completely isolated from CHMC policy now because the prices are beyond what Canadian home buyers could ever leverage.
Developers have little incentive to build 3 bedroom family-friendly condos, so you'll have a hard time finding those, too. I wanted to buy one recently and it was going to cost about $700000. My current 2 bedroom would sell for about $400k, but I don't think that I want to stretch that far on a single income, even though it would mean I could get my kids their own rooms.
And really, is Vancouver so great? The mountains are nice, and the downtown is nice if you're young. But it's a trap for the young - through well-intentioned tolerance and bad public policy we've created a city that is hostile to young families. Live anywhere else in North America and you'll enjoy a more favourable cost of living and/or a better lifestyle.
I'd leave in a minute if I could.