4570 replies to this topic

[MR.]

The bigwig finance guys say inflation is going to wallop the economy far more than COVID did.

What this means is interest rates are going to start rising, so hold off on signing up for that 5-year GIC you’ve been eyeing and lock in a low mortgage rate with the bank.

We all knew these artificial low interest rates would come to an end at some point.

When I was 23 I was paying prime + 2% and that was cheap money at only 9%.

My Wife and I renewed the 5 year fixed last November at 1.65%...That is seriously less than the current inflation...It's free money.

Lock in now.

[Mike K.]

Yes, you hit the bottom there, pretty much.

[TFord]

I feel like ending the mortgage but am advised otherwise. Sitting at about 2.5% with a penalty to switch. 

 

Inflation is hitting hard and it's going to get much worse. It will be here long after covid! 

 

Safe harbour ideas.........?

 

TFord

[Victoria Watcher]

VANCOUVER:

 

Foot traffic in downtown Vancouver is down 72.1% as of November 1, 2021, compared with March 2, 2020, according to a “vitality index” launched by Avison Young Inc. in September.

 

The index, which uses anonymized cellphone location data to measure foot traffic, is tracking North America’s biggest urban centres in a bid to measure the pace of return to downtown cores.

 

Vancouver ranks No. 12 among 23 North American cities. Downtown Calgary, with a 45.1% drop in foot traffic as of November 1, ranks first.

 

https://biv.com/arti...ng-foot-traffic

 

TORONTO:

 

Most banks, insurers and other Bay Street firms have delayed a large-scale return to the office until at least next year. Major office tenants such as Sun Life Financial Inc. and PwC Canada have told employees they can choose when to come into the office. Royal Bank of Canada, National Bank and other banks have embraced some version of a hybrid work arrangement.

 

With the office model evolving, the volume of office workers and foot traffic may never return to prepandemic days.

 

According to information provided to the consulting firm Strategic Regional Research Alliance by building managers and tenants, the volume of people in downtown Toronto offices has quadrupled from its pandemic low – but was still only 12 per cent of normal at the beginning of October. Recent transit data show that the number of GO train and TTC passengers being counted at Union Station, a key transportation hub on the PATH, was only 16 per cent and 30 per cent of prepandemic norms, respectively.

 

Avison Young, a commercial real estate services firm, is tracking foot traffic in the downtown core, using anonymized cellphone pings. As of last week, foot traffic was down 86 per cent compared to prepandemic levels.

 

https://www.theglobe...unce-permanent/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 November 2021 - 01:40 PM.

[Hotel Mike]

I was just in downtown Victoria. There were a surprising number of people on the streets, shopping and strolling, even during the showers. The Harbour Ferry is a going concern, with several passengers going either way. I would say this bodes well for Victoria's tourist seasons next year.

[Victoria Watcher]

Still, he remains optimistic. Hard assets like housing, automobiles and the like “have exploded to the upside,” he said, adding that there’s a boom in digital jobs and that a huge transition in the workforce is occurring, now that there’s proof that telecommuting can work.

 

 

“They’re never coming back (to the office)” O’Leary said of a certain sector of workers. “They have proven to everybody that they can use technology to do their job. They want to stay at home and raise their kids, take care of elderly parents.”

 

https://deadline.com...ons-1234873445/

 

 

 

 

 

O'Leary thought initially maybe 15% were not going to come back.  but now he thinks it's 55%

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 13 November 2021 - 10:30 AM.

[Barrrister]

May explain the boom in houses prices in places like Sidney.

[Mike K.]

There’s been a boom on every square inch of this Island since COVID. Anywhere that’s not in a city centre has seen its values skyrocket, and even city centre properties are selling for higher valuations. But the trend that emerged has been clear: suburban houses are the #1 commodity from Greater Victoria to Port Hardy.

[zoomer]

I was just in downtown Victoria. There were a surprising number of people on the streets, shopping and strolling, even during the showers. The Harbour Ferry is a going concern, with several passengers going either way. I would say this bodes well for Victoria's tourist seasons next year.

I was just thinking this yesterday - downtown was busy on Saturday; the roads were gridlocked (let’s blame bike lanes!). Actually reminds me a Brent Toderian quote: “You’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic..” but I digress. I talked to one of the employees at the new Starbucks, they’re actually employed by Hilton - apparently all hotels are sold out in Victoria this weekend (I’m not sure if hotels are back to 100% capacity though) and that Starbucks location is still incredibly popular past the opening week hoopla. There hitting up to 1,000 customers before 3 pm some days, and they’re busy right up to the 11 pm closing time. Yesterday around noon for the 45 minutes I was there - always 10-15 people in the lineup the whole time. I recall reading a Matt R post where he said he knew the operators and had no doubt this Starbucks would be a huge success when others questioned the location - alas thus far he’s correct.

Along with all the other new restaurant openings and planned openings plus new shops popping up, not to mention a historic amount of residential construction planned and underway (and new office space) the demise of downtown Victoria has been greatly exaggerated. Thank goodness, I was worried we were going to have to change the name of this forum from Vibrant Victoria to Vagrant Victoria. Much work still to do on safety downtown; also a universal challenge across North America right now, hopefully we figure that out very quickly or begin to turn that around in November 2022..

[Mike K.]

Downtown Victoria’s issues with public safety are a “universal challenge” now?

Can you cite even ten cities Victoria's size that share this universal challenge?

[zoomer]

I get daily media summaries covering all of western Canada focused on certain issues including homelessness and crime. I don't think there is a single city of any significance in this region that isn't struggling with serious homeless, drug and crime issues, which is negatively impacting their downtown. Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna, Prince George, Terrace, Duncan, Nanaimo, Vancouver.. the list goes on. You can do a Google News search and see for yourself. Victoria is no doubt one of the hardest hit, yet thus far one of the most resilient downtowns. Other cities such as Winnipeg are seeing their downtowns stagnant and decline. A better question might be is there any city today is not negatively impacted?

[Mike K.]

I get daily media updates too, so I’m curious where this claim of universal high levels of violence in every downtown core comes from.

Can you cite even five cities Victoria’s size that have a criminality problem in their downtown core equal to Victoria’s?

[Victoria Watcher]

The largest percentage of police officers on long-term leave are on medical leave

 

In Canada, there were 5,116 permanent employees among police services who were on authorized leave of 12 weeks or more during the year 2017/2018, which represented 5% of all personnel.  Among these employees, 65% were permanent police officers, 32% were civilian personnel and 2% were special constables.

 

https://www150.statc...e/00015-eng.htm

 

 

 

October 2021:

 

VicPD says 39 of its 249* officers are currently unable to respond to calls for reasons that include physical and psychological injuries.

 

https://www.castanet...s-on-the-street

 

 

* that's almost 16%

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 November 2021 - 01:06 PM.

[zoomer]

I think your Google machine is broken Mike. I'm not even trying here:

https://www.universi...te-canada-2021/

https://www.numbeo.c...?country=Canada

Just the first couple links that popped up, there are many more you can look at and pick apart, I haven't 'vetted' all of these. Surprisingly violent crime isn't just limited to Victoria, other cities are much more effective at killing one another too, especially with those targeted drug related shootings. Victoria's numbers are sometimes exaggerated because of the population calculation (crime happens downtown but gets measured pretty capita against just one of 13 municipalities, but y'all know that).

[Mike K.]

Perhaps you're not understanding the question I posed.

 

Can you cite five Victoria-sized cities in North America (I'll make it easier for you) dealing with the same level of criminality that Victoria is, to support your contention that Victoria's high crime is a universal problem?

[Mike K.]

To further expand on my request, I don't mean show me links with crime stats of cities. I'd like to see what cities Victoria's size (300k-500k) are facing downtown Victoria's level of crime.

 

To make it easier, I'm asking for downtown/city centre crime, not regional crime, with respect to your comment on the challenge of safety in downtown Victoria being a universal challenge in all downtowns.

[zoomer]

There is likely at least a couple of dozen cities in North America with a population between 300,000 to 500,000 that have higher serious crime rates than Victoria. Several Canadian examples are already listed in the links above, and you can do the research on American cities.

This is basic stuff and hardly controversial - and not really worth my time to show the math, but if you want to invest that time to prove your point go for it!

[Mike K.]

Actually, forget it, zoomer. Don't waste your Sunday chasing down stats you won't find.

 

I'll point us to a legitimate news source, referencing federal data. I don't see this universality you speak of. Perhaps Statistics Canada is misconstruing crime data, and making Victoria look bad, but the rest of the country look good? It's possible, but unlikely.
 

Statistics Canada released data July 27 showing a crime severity index in the city of Victoria of 168 — significantly higher than the 76 seen in the region as a whole. Victoria’s crime severity index also tops that of Vancouver (105) and the B.C. average (96).

 

Victoria ranked the fourth-highest in the crime severity index (CSI) among cities profiled, with a 3 per cent year-over-year increase in 2020. The CSI had fallen in 27 of 35 urban centres profiled, according to Statistics Canada data.

 

All measures of the CSI—the overall CSI, the Violent CSI and the Non-violent CSI—decreased for the first time in 2020 after five years of increases, which makes the crime rise in Victoria somewhat surprising.

 

Victoria Police Chief Del Manak pointed to the city’s high index as an indicator that his officers are stretched and the department lacks resources to proactively prevent crime in the core. - https://www.westerni...-canada-4190666

 

[zoomer]

/\ Mike, the answer is in the link you just stated above:

“Statistics Canada released data July 27 showing a crime severity index in the city of Victoria“

The CITY of Victoria, a tiny geographic area and heart of the region that draws people from all over greater Victoria and the South Island. The article you linked to states in the portion not quoted above, that the reason for the jump in Victoria was because the Victoria stats were delinked from Esquimalt. A majority of the crime in say Edmonton or Calgary also occurs in or near downtown, but it gets reported as part of the metropolitan area.

Here’s a link to the actual Stats Canada data: https://www150.statc...7/t003a-eng.htm

By census metropolitan area Victoria’s crime rate is 75.8. Cities with higher crime rates in Canada include: Moncton, Kingston, Brantford, Windsor, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna, Abbotsford-Mission, Vancouver; with London and Kitchener in a virtual tie with Victoria.

Is violent crime a concern in Victoria - yes! Has it slightly increased in the metro area, despite decreasing more broadly across the country - yes! Does this have something to do with decisions by those in power - quite likely! Can we do better - yes!

Finally, we can also safely assume that there are dozens of US cities with crime rates higher than Victoria’s - this can be proven, but like you said, it’s Sunday. Good day sir.

Edited by zoomer, 14 November 2021 - 02:35 PM.

[Mike K.]

You made a statement regarding crime in downtown Victoria, and all downtowns. Here’s what you said: “Much work still to do on safety downtown; also a universal challenge across North America right now.”

The de-linking of the crime severity index from Esquimalt shows just how bad the situation is within the City of Victoria, home to the Capital’s downtown.

But the geographic area of the municipality itself doesn’t matter. Vancouver has a population of 700,000, in an area of 105 sq km. Victoria has a population of 90,000 across 19 sq km (the key is the population and size ratio, not the population and size). In this case, Victoria has 13% of Vancouver’s population, and 18% of its land mass, while its CSI is 60% higher, but population density 25% lower per square kilometre.

The fact downtown Vancouver and the City of Vancouver have a CSI of 105, while downtown Victoria and the City of Victoria have a CSI of 168, is staggering.