199 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

I can’t bring myself to read that.

but seriously give me a link the search doesn’t work.

I’ll find issues in the analysis

Careful that I’m not blaming “foreign” buyers. I’m not blaming anyone really. but it you have a $250,000 condo for sale downtown it’s going to attract Calgary and Toronto interest.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 July 2021 - 12:44 PM.

[Mike K.]

Whoa!!!.....hold on there for a moment Kemosabe.

Before you start a civil war, let me educate you on the inspiartion behind the Urban Containment Boundary.

Back in the day (late 50's early 60's) when the perverbial writing on the wall was starting to dry regarding the desire of all peoples East of here wanting to relocate to Vancouver Island, it was acknowledged by the peoples of Rural Saanich that no one was to be trusted because of thoughts like yours.

It was decided to create the Urban Containment Boundary (read were gonna build a wall) in order to preserve a way of life.... so that when everyone starts to figure out that they screwed up almost every other district in the lower island by pandering to newcomers, they have destroyed the very reason for comming here in the first place. I know this because I travelled to Langford and Victoria yesterday and was more that estatic to return.

If you really insist on achieving "affordable housing" on Vancouver Island... sink the ferries and blow up the air strip, (I am working on how to prevent float planes from landing)....
...but whatever you do....don't even think about spreading your subdividing/development/ mass housing ideas in these parts just because someone else can't afford otherwise.

That's Socialism.

No need to worry, I was referring to the hundreds of square kilometres north and west of Langford awaiting the next round of logging, or forest fires from careless kids from the city next door.

Besides, we need to protect rural Saanich for expansion room of the region’s dump! 😜

[Victoria Watcher]

most Langford forest fires are started by langfordites. Especially those with 2-mile long trains.

good thing we are not considering E&N rail. It’s a massive fire risk.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 July 2021 - 12:50 PM.

[Mike K.]

I can’t bring myself to read that.

but seriously give me a link the search doesn’t work.

I’ll find issues in the analysis

Careful that I’m not blaming “foreign” buyers. I’m not blaming anyone really. but it you have a $250,000 condo for sale downtown it’s going to attract Calgary and Toronto interest.

https://victoria.cit...tistics-canada/

According to the results of the most recent census, the Capital Region’s total dwelling count was 172,559 in 2016. Of those dwellings, 162,716, or 94.3%, were occupied by full-time, non-transient residents (above the national census metropolitan area average of 93.6%). The data also shows that the percentage of full-time-to-part-time residences increased from 2006 when 93.7% of homes were occupied by so-called usual residents.

[Mike K.]

Secondary homes are purchased in vacation hotspots. Victoria isn’t one, but we do draw a lot of short-term visitors.

In fact what pushes down Victoria’s ratio of full time owners is the tendency for retirees pre-buying their future home, which they rent out prior to moving full-time to Victoria. AirBnB even made it so they didn’t have to rent it full time, but now rules have changed and if you don’t play your cards right you pay the spec tax. That has actually -further- enticed people to avoid buying a vacation residence.

[Victoria Watcher]

so Victoria is on par with 12 other areas. so hundreds or thousands of cities in Canada have lower guest-owner rates.

sounds like what I said was valid.

that in Victoria you will compete with out-of-town buyers. more so than in 95% of other Canadian cities.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 July 2021 - 01:16 PM.

[Mike K.]

Now you’re just being difficult.

We’re not comparing Victoria to Gold River, we’re comparing Victoria to Calgary and Halifax, and the other CMAs.

The fact is non-full-time resident homeownership is lower in the Capital Region than in nearly all other cities (not towns, not villages) that are considered CMAs.

[Mike K.]

The other way to look at it is we’re not an outlier. People don’t flock here to buy secondary homes, that’s a lie, and it has permeated too much of our housing debate.

[Rob Randall]

My original point, ten thousand posts back, was that a simplistic statement like "homeowners subsidize renters" doesn't capture the complexity the situation.

[Mike K.]

It’s not that complex, I don’t think.

[Sparky]

I can live with dealing with the outliers garbage…you know take one for the team kinda thing…but I struggle however with the postage stamp lot size mentality of development…especially when you have a blank canvas to start with.

The savings don’t outweigh the loss of enjoyment from a community planning perspective.

What’s the point of building single family housing if you can still hear your neighbour having sex?

[LJ]

What’s the point of building single family housing if you can still hear your neighbour having sex?

 

That's a feature, not a bug.

[Mike K.]

See, we’re all about solutions over here.

I agree the lot sizes are nutty. Now if only we had hundreds of kilometres of vacant crown land next to our region that we could develop into housing, or even access as members of the public. If only

[Rob Randall]

Yeah, that's what Vancouver Island needs, some Calgary-style sprawl.

[Midnightly]

Wrong.

Victoria has one of the LOWEST non-resident ownership rates of any Canadian city. People buy here to live here, overwhelmingly so. The foreign ownership thing is a scapegoat, though.

i will admit i have a bit of a hard time with that statistic.. Victoria proper has one of the highest number of renters vrs owners.. it's a stat that is often mentioned... yes when you add in the whole crd it does wildly skew the numbers (langford has a much higher level of homeowners then victoria proper) but it doesn't change that Victoria itself mostly rents (and it's not uncommon they are renting a place for a small scale landlord.. not a large company that owns apartment complexes)

[Mike K.]

Sure, but that rental unit owned by a small landlord is a full-time local residence as far as statistics go. Statscan is concerned about how homes are used and not who owns them.

[Mike K.]

Yeah, that's what Vancouver Island needs, some Calgary-style sprawl.

It doesn’t have to be. But ok, so we’ll continue down the path we’re on then, with the smallest urban footprint on this continent for a city our size, and the least developed infrastructure network. Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far since 2014:

$1.22M for a house, $536,000 for a condo, and rental rates continuing to rise 5-10% per annum.

But if we continue down this path, I don’t want to hear any more grumbling about housing supply and affordability 🤗

[rmpeers]

Property tax money is spent on services that occupants receive for the most part.

A guy living in an expensive house pays more than a guy in a cheap house.

"services" LOL!

[Matt R.]

Yes it’s Vancouver but this is a weird one.


“ Easily mistaken for someone's neglected driveway, 1916 William St. is just nine feet across and 60 feet long, a fraction of the size of most lots in its Grandview-Woodlands neighbourhood.”

https://www.cbc.ca/n...qDUeXfkgGsAS9d0

https://www.bcassess...TAwMDAwMVkwRw==

[Mike K.]

BC Assessment sent out a warning today that the 2023 assessments will show a value increase of 5-15% compared to 2022, because the market data was captured in early summer of 2022, and doesn’t represent the market fluctuation since then.

Normally the assessments are not representative of market value but are lower than market value, whereas in 2023 they’ll be above market value.

That’s going to complicate things a bit, especially for appraisals, as it’s more difficult to argue how “low” a value could be, if we already know assessments are too high.