According to a Burnaby NewLeader article below, Burnaby has the third highest real estate prices in Canada. What is the reason behind such high real estate prices in Burnaby and Metro Vancouver?
Politician's Answer
What BC politicians will never tell you about high property values in Metro Vancouver and elsewhere in BC is the fact that property tax rates for residents and non-residents* are the same in Metro Vancouver, allowing non-residents to use Metro Vancouver real estate as a shelter/hedge for their accumulated cash against anticipated foreign currency price fluctuations. This is true for locals who own secondary properties aside from their primary residences and pay the same rate as non-locals who own multiple properties. They pay the same rate on non-primary properties.
* Note: "non-resident" refers to those either not living in BC or not living in Canada altogether.
A simple counter argument to the tax-rate argument is that there currently already is a higher property tax rate on properties that are not the primary residence of the owner. This difference is not only minuscule in comparison to the primary-residence rate, but even that can be overcome by having a non-primary residence address registered as a primary residence of a family member such as a spouse or offspring. Taken even further, non-residents of BC are easily able to own real estate and falsely report a BC property as their primary residence allowing them to pay the same tax rate as BC residents. The fact remains that non-residents pay the same rate as residents.
Real Estate Stock Market
What does this mean for Metro Vancouver residents? Actual residents of Metro Vancouver that really live in BC and earn BC wages are subject to property price manipulations in Metro Vancouver as non-BC speculators drop large sums of their cash (earned from outside of the BC economy), placing upward pressure on property values. We have essentially been subject to our BC Governments having allowed our real estate market to become a manipulated stock market. This has been allowed to happen under the watch of BC Governments, regardless of party affiliation. Why has this not been identified as an issue? Is it because politicians don't want to make an effort to solve a complex problem or is it because they are not smart enough to identify it as a problem? I believe the truth lies somewhere between the two possibilities depending on which politician you ask.
The well-being of locals that earn local wages is negatively impacted by competition from non-locals that have accumulated their cash in economies outside of BC's. Such negative impacts are felt locally with the need for affordable housing being an important topic for Metro Vancouver today. If we ask our politicians, past and present who have or are currently making a career out of so-called issues while ignoring issues that directly effect the economic well-being of local taxpaying residents, why they have failed to correct a problem that has existed over the span of their political careers, I wonder what their answer would be? I don't believe that any politician has ever been directly asked about non-resident ownership, and believe that they have been given a free pass on this issue while we continue to get bombarded in the media about positive annual reviews about Vancouver's high livability ratings. Why is an inequitable property tax system not an issue considering the efforts provincial and federal governments make to protect Canadian corporations from foreign takeovers while individuals are left to their own devices at the residential real estate level?
No Money for Transit Improvements
The answer to propped up real estate prices which negatively impact local residents can and should be a an exponentially higher tax rate for non residents compared to local residents, regardless of whether it is a primary or non-primary residence. How would politicians figure out who actually lives here or not? If they do not already know how to determine this, our problem is much greater than the public thinks considering how many non-residents are benefitting from and draining public services that are meant to benefit local residents and NOT non-residents pretending to live here. What have our decision-makers been doing all these decades while earning great salaries and life-long pensions? The unasked, unanswered questions continue to exist while our politicians come and go with their high salaries and gold-plated pensions at the public's expense.
Burnaby NewsLeader - News
Burnaby the third most-expensive real estate in Canada: study
Burnaby is the third-most expensive market in Canada to buy a home after Vancouver and Richmond, according to a study by Coldwell Banker Real Estate.
The study looked at Coldwell Banker’s average listing prices of four-bedroom, two-bathroom properties on its company website between January and June of this year.
In Burnaby, the average price for the company’s listings was $917,968, after Vancouver’s $1.87 million and Richmond’s $1.18 million.
Burnaby was well ahead of fourth place, Oakville, Ont. at $745,000. The most affordable city in the study was Windsor, Ont., with an average listing price of $170,991.
Arthur Ng, manager of Coldwell Banker Westburn Realty, said Burnaby’s popularity with home buyers is due to its proximity to Vancouver and its central location yet being relatively more affordable.
“I think people are realizing, I only have so much money and I don’t want to be out in the boonies,” Ng said.
Richmond’s market is more influenced by Asian buyers, specifically those from overseas.
But Ng said those buyers aren’t just investors and speculators.
“That’s what the misconception is. I wouldn’t call it an investment ... Their kids are going to school [here] so they buy properties for them and they have plans to retire here, and many of them have come to retire here.”
Ng said many overseas Asian buyers have bought here and set down roots, planting their families, attracted by the stability of Canada, but with the breadwinners sometimes continuing to work back in their home countries.
They often settle in Richmond because they feel at home with its many Asian shops and restaurants.
“Of course the prices now are so high there so that’s why now they’re coming to Burnaby,” which has its own share of Asian shops and services, said Ng.
In recent months, after the study period, Ng said his company’s Burnaby list prices (as opposed to sale prices) have dropped by five to eight per cent.
“People are realizing that, the market’s slowing down, if I need to sell I need to adjust my price in order to get some activity on it,” Ng said.
“But by no means are we seeing a fire sale.”
As for whether prices will drop further, he believes that’s unlikely since most people are living in or renting out their homes.
In the United States, people are scrambling to sell to get out of the market after becoming victims of too much speculation, he said.
“But no one here sells their principal residence for no reason just because the market is bad.”
Prospective buyers who have been holding off waiting for prices to drop further are starting to see there are no drastic reductions likely and are jumping back into the market while interest rates are still low.
“We’re seeing a bit of a turnaround already now.”
In 2008 and 2009, local real estate prices dropped by 20 to 25 per cent “but it came back like wildfire within nine months. That was a global collapse, we’re not in a global collapse now.”
Ng predicts prices will continue to go up, but more gradually than in the past when 10 to 20 per cent jumps were common. Instead, in the next few years he sees prices rising two to five per cent annually.
Those larger increases simply weren’t sustainable, he said, but the Lower Mainland continues to be an attractive place to live, drawing upwards of 60,000 new people to B.C. each year which helps fuel the local housing market.
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Burnaby NewsLeader - Opinion
COLUMN: Burnaby must do more for the homeless
Burnaby does a great job helping to provide social housing.
For most people of modest means, living with a disability, elderly—or all three—there is a decent array of options. It could always be better, of course, but in general this city's got it covered.
And the City of Burnaby deserves credit for working with developers, the province, Ottawa and local non-profit agencies to help that happen.
But where it falls short is with the city's most vulnerable people. The homeless.
As many will know, there is no permanent shelter for the homeless in this rapidly growing city of 225,000 people. Vancouver, New West, Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge and the North Shore all have shelters, but not Burnaby.
The only option is during a few months of the year when a local church opens its doors and staff from the Lookout Emergency Services Society operate an extreme weather shelter. And it's only open on nights when weather is severe enough that it can create a higher health risk to homeless people.
So for the rest of the year in Burnaby people can be found sleeping in Central Park, tenting in the forest behind Discovery Park, and using the washrooms at the McGill branch as though they are their private bathroom facilities.
Or they're forced to go to Vancouver. Or New West, or one of the growing host of cities working to fill this vital piece of the housing continuum. The Greater Vancouver Shelter Strategy website shows more than two dozen shelters for the homeless in Vancouver, depending upon the time of year. Many are year-round. In New Westminster, a city of 60,000, there are four.
Burnaby doesn't do permanent shelters.
Why? To prove a point?
Mayor Derek Corrigan says housing is not a municipal responsibility, and under his leadership the city has stood its ground on the issue.
In interviews, he's called the practice of giving people a bed indoors for the night, then pushing them out the door in the morning “ridiculous social policy," that distracts from dealing with the core issues of why these people are on the street in the first place.
He points to provincial government policies that have cut people off welfare, closed mental health institutions and increased the child poverty rate. He points to the fact that until recently, B.C. had the lowest minimum wage in Canada.
And he's also criticized Ottawa for all-but ceasing to fund social housing 20 years ago.
And those are all fair comments. They really are.
But in the '90s when Ottawa drastically reduced funds for health care, social programs and infrastructure did the provinces and cities just hold the line on everything to make a point? No, because some things are essential.
Back in 2006, the provincial government put a call out to cities. They said if you put up a piece of land and waive the development costs, we'll build and fund new housing for the homeless.
Eight cities responded. Vancouver put up 14 sites. Cities such as Surrey, Maple Ridge, Abbotsford and Kelowna also put up sites.
Where was Burnaby?
Why is a city with almost $600 million in reserves—one of the richest municipalities in Canada—doing nothing?
Corrigan says it's a slippery slope: Look at Vancouver's rising property taxes, he says—aren't they exceeding their mandate at residents' expense?
That's a red herring. Burnaby can afford to take the risk. It can make a start by offering a single piece of land, maybe even with a building on it. Near Metrotown, at the edge of an industrial area, near the SkyTrain line.
It's time for a permanent shelter in Burnaby.
This city must do its part.
• Chris Bryan is editor of the NewsLeader.
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