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Comment by blasdel | Hacker News Reader

Vancouver BC is having serious trouble with out-of-control real estate prices, where a huge volume of purely speculative transactions overwhelmed anyone actually trying to live there.

Crime didn't kill cities, crime is the result of their death. White Flight to the suburbs wasn't fleeing crime, it was concentrating it.

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Vancouver BC is having serious trouble with people whining about real estate prices. My younger sister bought 6 months ago. My older sister bought last month. My parents are buying this month.

The problem with Vancouver is that Vancouverites don't save their money for a down payment.

For example, my parents have worked modest, blue collar jobs all of their lives and moved to Vancouver 2 years ago and are able to purchase. My younger sister is a financial advisor and diligently saved with her husband to purchase a home in their mid twenties. My older sister is at the other end of the spectrum. She's a C-level executive and was able to save and purchase on one income.

The out-of-control prices comment is ridiculous. Work hard, save your money, and it is possible.

The out-of-control prices comment is not ridiculous. I also think people probably don't save as much as they should for a down payment (and not just in Vancouver), but even if they did it is hard to look at home prices in Canada and not think we also have a bubble of our own waiting to pop. Our average household income grew at a much slower pace than real estate prices over the last ten years (adjusted for inflation the growth is virtually flat or negative for some professions), and our debt has increased considerably. This is not sustainable over the long term. I mean, the average home price in Vancouver is what, 600K? This is definitely out of control in my book.

It's worse. The average home price is just shy of $1M.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/08/r...

I think that if people pay taxes, they have the right to complain that their government isn't keeping a proper lid on real estate prices. We pay taxes, among other reasons, to be protected from barbarians and invaders-- and what exactly are real estate speculators, after all?

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