Monday Misc: Starts, Polls, Taxes & More!
Here’s an odd jumble of news from today’s Vancouver Sun. It looks like housing starts did a suprise rebound in May with more than expected increases in single family and multiple dwelling sectors. The biggest jump was a 22% increase in Ontario, the smallest was actually the opposite of an increase.. A whaddyacallit? Oh yeah, a decrease. BC housing starts dropped 5% and are now near record lows. Are developers seeing tough times ahead, or have they over-reacted and are we going to run out of condos?
Meanwhile Vancouver has been named ‘the most livable city‘ by the Economist Intelligence Unit when it comes to the combination of health care, stability, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. According to the poll, the main problem Vancouver faces is “petty crime and the availability of good-quality housing.”
Here’s someone who might disagree with that assesment and add ‘taxes’ to the list. A BC realtor has been extradited from Mexico and charged with tax evasion after he filed claims of ‘no income’ for 2001 to 2004. His argument to the court? He claims his activities as a real estate agent were not taxable since they were conducted in his own capacity as a “natural person”.
Meanwhile, you better enjoy those stories of celebrity foreclosures while you can, because the OECD has just declared that the downturn has hit bottom in Canada. Guess it’s a good thing we’ve got that big jump in National housing starts huh?
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June 11th, 2009 at 12:01 am
I agree with most here – who cares how many museums, art galleries or outdoor patios there are if you have no chance of buying a single family home even in a burb like Burnaby. When you eventually have a family it’s a bit of space and a garden for your kids to play in that really start to impact your quality of life. The weightings on EIU’s rankings are out of whack.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Someone even wrote a song about how ugly Vancouver is:
http://tinyurl.com/nqsf5y
June 10th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Patriotz,
Its not just the monster houses. I find that Vancouver houses are either too plain or too busy. We can’t seem to get it just right. Its like Vancouver has no sense of style.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
DualCitizenship:
I lived in both Seattle and Vancouver, and frankly, Seattle’s an ugly city.
Have you taken a drive down Kingsway lately?
As for residential areas, Seattle wins hands down. No infestations of ugly monster houses. And needless to say way more affordable too.
I will concede that downtown Vancouver looks better, but BFD.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
K-Money:
Where are your figures – i’d like to see them.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“DualCitizenship Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I lived in both Seattle and Vancouver, and frankly, Seattle’s an ugly city.”
Ahhh but what about West Seattle or Waterfront Kirkland or Mercer Island or Bellevue. All gorgeous IMO.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I asked my landlord why he’s spending so much time working on his rental properties. His other business (in financial services) is slow. So slow he’s taking the summer off. Me, I get new bushes, pretty flowers and a repaired walkway. As for my rent, no increase this year after a whole 1% increase last year.
Problem is my great deal may not seem so great next year. At some point, I’ll start negotiating or just find an even better deal. Thank you, all you real estate fanatics, for going into crushing debt so I can continue to have affordable rent.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:56 am
The Vancouver vacancy seems to have at least tripled what it was only a few months ago, and now stands at 1.9%. As others have mentioned previously, the CHMC figures are only for rental buildings (mainly older, purpose-built), and don’t reflect individually rented condos and basement suites. The real rate is much higher, but what’s interesting here is the trend.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/briti.....-rate.html
June 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I lived in both Seattle and Vancouver, and frankly, Seattle’s an ugly city.