taxi

You've also got inflation going on. If prices were to go back to 2019 levels, that would actually be a 30+% decrease in prices from 2019 levels, in real dollars. A housing shortage plus inflation is not going to produce lower housing prices.

Lol. Definitely invest in quality skates, and get them professionally fitted too. Go to Cyclone Taylor sports. Spending an extra $200ish dollars on something you're using that much is definitely worth it. It changes the quality of your life. And yes, the difference between modern skates made from ultra light materials is night and day from old Canadian Tire specials they were selling for sub-$100 15 years ago. It'll instantly change your skating ability and the enjoyment you get out of skating. For the amount you're using the skates, I'd probably go higher than my previoius recommendation and get something in the $4-500 range. Stiffness should be a major consideration, depending on how much you use the skates. The higher skates are designed to be overstiff and work in quickly for someone using them multiple times a week. If you're just going a few times a month, then don't get those and stay mid range.

Yes. Up to a point. I got a top pair of skates (retail price was like $800) for $300. This was about 6 years ago. They made a huge difference. The new materials are just better. They fit better, they are lighter, the edges seem better etc...There was a huge leap forward in tech about 10 years ago, with new materials, but not a whole lot has changed since then. For what you're doing, a mid-range skate will make a huge difference. Your technique will get better, you'll be faster, and your exercising will get better. I'd look for a well rated skate in the $450-500ish range, that is on sale for $250. If you're buying skates within the last 10 years, the tech hasn't changed all that much, so something that is 2-3 years old and on a huge discount is the way to go.

They need housing. Whether they are renting or buying, they are contributing to the shortage. The shortage is affecting rents, which increases the demand by investors for investment properties. And also, yes, a lot of non-permanent residents have been buying properties. There are surprisingly large amount of students who can afford million dollar properties in Canada. Even under the new rules, students can buy properties priced at less than $500k. No restrictions on value for temporary workers. https://www.canadim.com/blog/can-a-temporary-resident-buy-a-house-in-canada/

You're numbers are wrong, because they just include permanent resident additions. The total number of immigrants is higher, as it would include other classes of people: refugees, the new "Temporary" settlement program, etc... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65047436

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/world/canada/canada-record-population-growth.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65047436 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-record-population-growth-migration-1.6787428

1 million new Canadians per year and not enough housing to house everyone is the problem. If you get rid of scarcity investors will stop investing.

The rent from investment properties has also increased vastly over the last five years. The banks will also let people refinance, effectively starting their 30 year mortgages over with a lower balance. Currently people are renewing at about 2%-4 above where things were five years ago, and there aren't a huge swath of defaults. The ultra low mortgages will be renewing around 2026. By then interest rates are expected to fall by then, leaving mortgage rates in the 3-3.5 range. That won't be enough to cause massive defaults, especially in the face of ever increasing housing shortages. I just don't think we'll see this crash. Canada's current housing planning is abysmal. We'll, unfortunately, just continue to see people die in the streets in record numbers.

Canada's population is growing by 1 million people per year, and that rate of growth is accelerating. A few housing developments in Nanaimo are going to do F-all to alleviate that stress. It's a myth that there are a bunch of great options for Canadians, and people are being too picky. There simply is not enough housing in Canada to accommodate it's level of population growth. How many more people could Nanaimo realistically accommodate right now before it too saw a major spike in prices? All the larger cities in BC are already bursting at the seems and the population of BC is growing by about 150,000 per year. Is Nanaimo even cheap anymore? Average price for a home in single detached home in Nanaimo was north of $1 million a year ago. It's dropped now to $837k (which isn't all that cheap), but any small pressure is likely to force things back up to $1 million again: https://www.nanaimore.com/blog/nanaimo-february-2023-real-estate-market-report/

Nanaimo has lots of people already moving in. They don't really have the capacity for much more than a few 10s of thousand of people. There's some affordable housing available now, but how long does that last? We've seen the exact same thing already happen in Victoria and the Okanagan.

Exactly. The idea that there are just other places to live in BC and that if everyone moved out of Vancouver it would the housing crisis, is garbage. Assuming you can find a job in smaller city, when people move on mass to a small town/city the prices rise dramatically and someone else is getting pushed out. Look at Victoria and Kelowna. Both are totally unaffordable. Nanaimo is getting there and will be next.

I'd try Zephyr Epic too. They have a 100 pack for $24.99: https://zephyrepic.com/product/ultra-pro-9-pocket-platinum-pages-100-pack/ You can also just order them online. They shouldn't be too difficult to get. They are getting less popular for sports cards, but MTG and Pokemon players use them quite a bit.

They didn't plan it 10-15 years ago, because a bunch of NIMBYs were going on about the "character of the city" and for, whatever reason, the flawed argument that more supply increases prices persists. Yes, building homes for $1.1 million won't help the very poor, but the other option is to just have a bunch of decaying basement suites that landlords won't fix. Overt time, increased supply does open up more supply for everyone. And at the end of the day, in a situation with low supply, money talks and the poor get outbid anyways.

If the plan goes ahead, and they can reduce the price, I'm all for it. Although I don't see the price in Vancouver proper going as low as $800k. It could easily get that low in places like Surrey, Coquitlam, etc... though. Even at the projected $1.1 million that would make huge difference, as it would then be possible to climb up from a condo into one of these units.

The market will roll downhill. If you get the people who can afford $1.5 million into a townhouse, they won't be competing for larger condos. You build enough townhouses and the price drops to $1.2 million. The major issue in Vancouver right now is the "missing middle". Lots of tiny condos and detached lots, not nothing on between. Will Vancouver ever be a cheap place to live, failing a tidal wave, no way. Can you make it a realistic place to live by increasing density and supply, sure. Also Nanaimo currently requires a permit to build a multi unit home. You have to apply for the permit, give notice to the neighbors, etc... It's not automatically zoned for multi unit.

The whole point is that there aren't nearly enough townhouses. Unless Vancouver totally rezones large areas of the city, which they are actually in the process of doing, we won't see any either. Townhouses can definitely be profitable. If, for example, you rezone all of Nanaimo Street to allow for townhouses, where there are single family homes, you could make a large profit. You can have 3 townhouses plus a coach house on a single lot. You buy a teardown for $1.5-2.2 million and replace it with four 3 bedroom townhouses that you can sell for $1.5 million each.

I'd argue that there is a bigger shortage of options as you move to 2 and 3 bedroom places. There are plenty of studio and one bedroom places, and we don't really need more of those. We need more townhouses and units appropriate for small families.

Except they are also buying a place...which means a net increase of zero. Also, they may be buying a place with multiple units, which means a net decrease of housing stock.

The problem with that theory, is that young people tend to move from smaller to larger places, which actually decreases inventory. You only get a net increase in inventory when people downsize, move to a rental, or leave the housing market. There's so little inventory, because we simply don't have enough housing. A million be Canadians this year, and nowhere near enough new housing units.

Demand is just too high in some areas for a true crash. If you could buy detached houses in Vancouver proper for under $1,000,000, they'd be gone in an instant. In a situation where there's low supply and high demand, prices will always stay high enough that a purchase is painful. You can go on about prices returning to a place that matches salaries, but as long as people are going large influxes of cash from mom and dad and/or foreign investments that will never happen.

Don't really use Twitter. I have an account, but don't really see the benefits of reading random celebrity thoughts. For news I still go to the websites of news providers. Instagram is probably the one I use the most. Still Facebook for the marketplace, occasional messaging, and quick scrolls through my feed. Was in some groups, but those are all pretty toxic and full of scammers. But yes, overall social media is not as exciting as it was. I still like the ability to get major updates from people I never see anymore. Whatsapp has pretty much replaced the group message function of Facebook though.

The guy sitting down while this is going down is pretty insane. The killer was still standing a few feet away watching over the victim, so maybe I can see why unarmed people didn't rush in. However, I don't know why the guy is just sitting at the patio and sipping his coffee. He doesn't try to step in or run away. Maybe he was paralyzed by fear? It's just very weird. Even if he didn't think it was safe to confront the guy, he could have grabbed the door to lock him in, while someone else pulled the victim away. Turning the victim onto his back or applying pressure to the wounds could have saved him. I walk by this Starbucks most days, as it's right around the corner from my bus home. They've put up a memorial. Very sad.

In Vancouver, it's not a bad idea. Lots of unauthorized additions and renovations. When we were buying about 2 years ago, we viewed a house that looked fantastic. The only problem was the real estate agent told us that the back 1/3 of the house was an illegal addition, that the city had become aware of. The owners had applied for an Air BnB permit, which authorized the city to do an inspection. They found the unauthorized add on and demanded it's removal. The cost was going to be in the $300k range, as the add on had been built into the structure of the existing house. The current owners were totally unaware of the illegal add on.

Lack of supply. Realistically there's no way to make housing affordable with such a massive shortage of it. And as you say, with so many people in it for the investment now, there's no incentive to sell until interest rates are back in check and prices begin to swing back up. As a landlord, investors can just sit back and collect their high rent or Air BnB.

Not all of the ALR is in a flood plane. Once again you're using the argument that rezoning some of the ALR means rezoning all of it.