May 31, 2016

The Mayor Talks to The Walrus

From The Walrus

Walrus 2
 .

Affordability is, without question, the biggest issue facing Vancouver. The Walrus’ feature article by Kerry Gold, along with commentary by editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay, attempts to answer the question of the disconnect between housing prices and the people who live here. Both believe that the answer is simple: buyers from China are swallowing up our real estate—and politicians are ignoring it. The end result, they argue? A hollow, cultureless city devoid of millennials and families. …

What pundits get wrong is that they assume anybody with a Chinese name who is buying a home in Vancouver must not be from Canada. It is an outdated and tired assumption, especially in Vancouver, one of the most multicultural and diverse cities in the world. You can’t determine someone’s citizenship by their name—and you certainly can’t make informed public policy decisions based on it.

To say that political correctness is stifling a public debate on foreign investment in Vancouver is not only absurd, it’s false. There is no other issue more talked about, more reported on in print, on TV, on radio, or across social-media channels than the speculated impact of offshore money on Vancouver’s housing prices.

The state of Vancouver’s housing market today didn’t happen overnight. Vancouver is feeling the impact of decades of slashed federal co-op housing funding and the elimination of incentives for new rental apartments, leaving a dearth of housing available for people on low and modest incomes. Planning decisions in the 1990s that prioritized condo towers over townhomes and row houses have resulted in a lack of choice available to today’s buyers, leaving millennials and families feeling particularly pressured with a lack of options to put down roots in the city.

So what’s to be done?

Go here.

Posted in

Support

If you love this region and have a view to its future please subscribe, donate, or become a Patron.

Share on

Comments

  1. This is self-serving nonsense pushed by a millionaire mayor protecting his lack of action two terms of do-nothing!

    If a few multi-million dollar Shaughnessy homes were sold to off-shore absentee Chinese I could understand.

    But NO! The market is saturated by the renmimbi, thousands of perfectly good residences empty!!

    Is the man a fool? He’s not in the market! What does he care?

    1. “….thousands of perfectly good homes empty!”

      Here is the best data available so far on the number of empty homes. The evidence clearly does not support the hyperbole.

      The analysis of electricity consumption data in the City of Vancouver (CoV) between 2002 and 2014 reveals:

      The Non-Occupancy rate across all CoV housing units has been flat (4.9% in 2002, 4.8% in 2014)

      The CoV’s Non-Occupancy rate is consistent with and tracks the Non-Occupancy rate for the rest of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (not including the CoV)

      The number of Non-Occupied housing units has grown from 8,400 in 2002 to 10,800 in 2014. This increase has been driven entirely from the growth in the overall housing stock

      Apartments, which represent 60% of CoV’s residential housing mix, are driving Non-Occupancy in the City at 7.2% in 2014

      The Non-Occupancy rate for Apartments has been consistently 2% higher in the CoV than in the rest of the GVRD

      Single Family and Duplex Housing Units show low and relatively stable Non-Occupancy rates of 1% between 2002 and 2014. [The CoV rate is in-line with the rate for the rest of the GVRD.]

      Similarly, Rowhouses also show low and relatively stable Non-Occupancy rates of 1%. [The CoV rate is in-line with the rate for the rest of the GVRD.]

      All five of the city geographic sectors analyzed show similar rates of Non-Occupancy by housing type, with no significant divergence over time with the exception of the Downtown Peninsula that has seen a drop in Non-Occupancy from 6.9% in 2002 to 6.0% in 2014

      Non-Occupancy rates increase as the period of Non-Occupancy shortens from 12 months (4.8%) to 4 months (6.0%) to 2 months (10.3%) [The non-Occupancy rates for each of these periods has remained stable between 2002 and 2014.]

      An analysis of Non-Occupancy intensity (days per month that a unit is unoccupied) shows that there are 2x as many units that are unoccupied at least 15 days per month over 12 months as there are units unoccupied for at least 25 days per month

      This report provides an extensive analysis of electricity consumption data on housing occupancy in the City of Vancouver, and the findings are consistent with those from other studies by the Urban Futures Institute and Andy Yan at BTAworks. However, the findings are not comprehensive and bring forth additional questions that may warrant additional research using complementary sources of information.

      Source: “Stability in Vancouver’s Housing Unit Occupancy: Analysis of Housing Occupancy in the City of Vancouver Using Electricity Meter Data Analytics”

      Prepared for the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency, February 2016 by Ecotagious Inc.

      http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/stability-in-vancouver-housing-unit-occupancy-empty-homes-report.pdf

      1. Cum on MB we’ve bin over the electric switch before. The fact is, other than our millionaire mayor and a few of his cronies, no one, especially millennials, can afford to live in Vancouver anymore!

  2. Gregor sure doesn’t do much to address the crazy jump seen in the last year… 30% increases doesn’t just happen one year for no reason, all the reasons he listed have been around for a long time.

    If anything it’s the combination of all the following factors:

    1) Hot asian money buying up the top end and newer developments, and being very obvious about it. Every time I see a Rolls Royce, Ferrari or Bentley I’m reminded that this supply of money is flowing in.

    2) Older, settled money moving to away from the West Side, driving up prices in the Burbs, the East Side and beyond.

    3) Banks financing anyone and everyone way beyond what they should be. They don’t care that you may default, because they pass the risk on to investors of mortgage backed securities and to the CMHC.

    4) 2.5% mortgages which younger buyers seem to think will last forever. Mortage brokers that will happily pretend it will.

    5) Lack of city plan, CAC’s, viewcones, and NIMBYs put the pinch on supply though fewer, smaller, buildings which have to prioritize existing residents over the long term good. The supply doesn’t catch up with the demand.

    6) The above factors and everyone’s boomer relatives telling new buyers the jingoism that “real estate can only go up”. Why would you worry about being underwater?

    7) People being convinced that there’s not much land to develop because of the ALR, the ocean and the mountains. Fair enough, but a dense multi-nodal city could easily fit many times the current population.

    8) Politicians that personally profit from having their real estate greatly increase in tax-free capital, and get donations from hugely profitable developers.

  3. I agree with the spirit of the Mayor’s points. Runaway housing prices are the result of a lot of decisions made at the city, federal, provincial, and personal levels; and not, as many armchair pundits would believe, due exclusively to nefarious Chinese hucksters. But to say he’s doing ‘everything’ in his power to help contain housing costs – while just batting the whole issue back onto the province – is both weak and not credible.

  4. While I appreciate the mayor providing a much needed rebuttal to the breathless, panicky narrative and questionable interpretations in pieces by Kerry Gold and Jonathan Kay in The Walrus, I would also appreciate it of he would follow up and finally unlock the multiple square kilometres of land frozen in the RS zones to low rises and ground-oriented town/rowhouses. That is one major policy that is completely under his control.

Subscribe to Viewpoint Vancouver

Get breaking news and fresh views, direct to your inbox.

Join 7,284 other subscribers

Show your Support

Check our Patreon page for stylish coffee mugs, private city tours, and more – or, make a one-time or recurring donation. Thank you for helping shape this place we love.

Popular Articles

See All

All Articles