I saw a lady almost die this morning.

[mmc45414]

You guys have houses for $400 grand???

Sometimes I have to remember I live where my buying power is strong, part of the reason I like it. People bitch about the weather, and it is shitty in the winter, but you have to give up a lot to move away.

[Bio]

You guys have houses for $400 grand???

A buddy of mine bought in Vancouver about two years ago. It's a townhouse, built in about 1970, in a complex that's slowly deteriorating as pretty much every 50 year old townhouse complex is. He paid 875. It's now worth about 1.

I sold my one bedroom apartment in a 1978 wooden low-rise for half a million bucks when I left, at about the same time.

I did fine on the whole situation because I bought when that one bedroom apartment could still be had for under 300,000. But for basically anyone who didn't buy ten years ago, unless you can afford the mortgage payments on a million dollar loan, you have no chance at anything but an apartment, and even those aren't cheap. My little sister lives there. She never expects to own anything. The only friend I have who has bought in the last 6-7 years is the townhouse guy. He's a welder and works about 80 hours a week to afford it. His wife is from a rich Japanese family and helps. It's ridiculous.

Vancouver is the example I use of how you can destroy a city in pretty short order with insufficient control over foreign investment.

Oh, man. That sounds like hell. In the nice neighborhood I'm in, you get 2000 square foot brick houses in good condition in small urban lots for that ballpark. I know, location, location, location, but sweet Jesus. I think for a million bucks I could get a small castle here.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

It's pretty fucked.

Here's a pretty typical house there:

https://www.rew.ca/properties/318486...e-vancouver-bc

The street it's on is a major artery and the neighborhood is not particularly nice. It's about a block off another major arterial road, so huge intersection.

It will most likely sell for about 1.7 million. Detached homes typically list for around 15% below sale price.

Again this is a city with a median household income of under $60,000 US.

The woman who my wife used to be the EA to, a doctor in charge of a major government ministry, and her lawyer husband, recently moved away because they couldn't afford to buy a house there.

I forget that it's not common knowledge worldwide. But it's San Francisco real estate prices, with Boise Idaho income levels.

The whole market is driven by money from mainland China. It's the largest industry in the province: selling real estate to the Chinese. That's not hyperbole, that's actually the largest industry. It essentially destroyed the province. Nobody would intervene because admitting it was even happening was seen as racist, and Canadian state media denied it was happening for many years, running fake articles about how the racist misinformation about Vancouver real estate had been debunked again and again.

But eventually even state media had no choice but to pivot around on the issue, after a series of inquiries made the information totally unavoidable.

Fifteen years too late to stop it, of course.

[Joe in PNG]

On Zillow right now, and $1.6 mil is enough to get you a 3bd/3bath 1750sq ft ocean front duplex on Sanibel Island.

And that's Covid Mass Exodus pricing.

[mmc45414]

Sanibel Island.

No state income tax...

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[Joe in PNG]

No state income tax...

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But sales and property taxes.