Vancouver third most unaffordable city, says international housing survey

That's what filthy government subsidies always do. Read de Jouvenal's account of post-WWII Paris, and the crap housing that followed there for decades. NYC as well, during the 70's and 80's.

As always, government is the problem.

Can't afford it then look somewhere else.

Do you use the same whine at the supermarket? "These tomatoes are too expensive! It's because other people are paying full price for them! I only want to pay 20% of the listed price! Waaahhhh!"

Many Vancouverites interpret these high prices as a mark of economic success. They're not about to do anything that would bring about lower prices since to do so would involve reducing their own wealth.

Mortgage fraud on a massive scale. When you look at the numbers, nobody should be able to afford a home at those median costs. People are lying on their mortgage applications and the banks don't care. As long as the prices keep escalating, the party won't end.

The Vancouver residential real estate market is the financial laundromat of Chinese communist money and BC drug money.

Do you know what the per capita income is in China? It is USD $3,678. See this link: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/18902.htm . The Chinese who can afford to buy homes in Vancouver are communist party members who get rich filtering money from hard working Chinese workers and putting the funds in their pockets. When the communist members worry about repercussions within China, they simple get the money into politically correct Canada which is too worried about taking care of scumbag criminals to protect its own responsible citizens. Vancouverites who actually get an education and work hard are thanked with a marginal income tax rate of 43.7% that kicks in absurdly early. So, Canadians have to earn money in a high tax jurisdiction. Meanwhile foreigners who earn money in low tax environments are able to come here and price locals out of their own market. Why does the government not tax these foreigners at substantially higher rates in an effort to protect its own? Foreign capital buying residential real estate should be subjected to a huge luxury tax.

Now the local scumbags. The exact scale of the drug industry in BC is unknown but in May 2009 The Economist estimated the annual activity to be $7 Billion; see this link: http://www.economist.com/node/13740305. With this being Canada, of course there is no political will to seriously fight the drug trade, and the industry is lucrative for all kinds of should-have-been-abortions. So the drug trade is one of the largest industries in the province, and guess what: the income earned is tax free. Yeah, one reason provincial income taxes are so high is because law abiding citizens have to subsidize services (health care, etc.) for the drug dealers who earn huge tax free incomes, draw on public services, and contribute nothing! Then when the dealers earn their money, they want to launder the money so they buy real estate, further escalating prices out of affordability for regular law abiding hard working Canadians.

Now, some suggest the reason residential real estate prices are sky high is because Vancouver is such a beautiful city that is supply constrained. These idiots believe that Vancouver is the only city in the world that people want to live in. Really? People all over the world are really tripping over themselves to live in the rain half the year in a centre referred to as No Fun City with citizens being amongst the most stuck up in the world? People don't want the rain over the sun. Criminals do however want a jurisdiction with the political will to tolerate dirty money. Let's be clear here: an expensive condo or home requires either A) A large amount of cash. Wages in Vancouver are unbelievably low before even discussing high income taxes and outrageously high commodities (gas, alcohol, etc.) that are the function of huge embedded taxes. The probability of actually saving any money is very low for the vast majority of Vancouverites. The other option is B) A huge mortgage. Well guess what? The mortgage has to be serviced? How can massive mortgage payments be made when gross incomes are so low?

The impact is that educated, law abiding Canadians are slowly starting to leave the province. That's okay though. The left wing nut jobs here blame us educated professionals for their problems. Well, as me and my educated peers are walking away from our six figure jobs and taking our intellectual capital outside of BC, they can rest assured knowing it won't take long to replace us with more foreigners having dirty money or drug dealers. This province is getting exactly what it wants. Vancouver is a perfect example of not to judge a book by its cover. Trudeau's dream, our nightmare.

It should be noted that not all countries are included in this study. For example, most European coutries are excluded (except for the UK and Ireland). Here are the countries that the survey looked at:
- Australia
- Canada
- China (Hong Kong)
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- United Kingdom
- United States

@RF and "Second Nation" – something tells me neither of you were at the top of your class...maybe you never attended class? Both of you are in competition for the Georgia Straight's "mental midgets from the peanut gallery competition". And I think its a tie. @Second Nation: comparing buying a house to picking up tomatoes at the supermarket? Erm....I rest my case, your clearly an idiot whose never purchased neither.

Both of you offer myopic, ignorant suggestions: "shut up/get out/stop whining". If either of you took the time to actually think before opening your mouths and do a little research there are numerous instances where staying put, speaking out, and organizing have resulted in many solutions to high housing costs in cities all over the world (housing co-ops, low income housing legislation being passed, rent control, and in the USA federal assistance for first time home buyers).

Whining, staying put and organizing have made great achievements for mankind throughout history. "Shut up or get out"? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard, little wonder everyone dissed your stupid comments LOL.

Those that nay-say the complaints of unaffordability claim that it's the complaints who are "elitist"; but it takes a position of great, blinding privilege to say "You don't like it, move somewhere else". It takes a complete lack of cognizance to retort that the solution to conservative-fostered unaffordability is to undergo the extremely expensive process of moving to another city. If you don't find it expensive, then you're speaking from armchair comfort and have no idea what you're talking about.

This city wasn't always this way; and it's a very old and unconvincing trick of politicians to change everything, and then say in their own defense, "Hey, this is just the way it is, we have to accept it." Ridiculous.