I live in Vancouver, and have for many years.. as such, I hope I can try and help inform an otherwise misinformed set of posts. I suspect they're off-base largely because a lot has changed since some of the authors of other posts have lived here.
First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritatively that each and every single one is looking for senior sales, marketing, engineering and product talent.
Is the tech ecosystem as big as in SF? No.. but where else is it?
Second, yes.. it is an incredibly expensive place to live. Part of this is due to the large number of homes which are owned by foreigners and are vacant. I'm not aware of a concrete way of measuring this.. but anecdotally, I suspect it's close to 30-40% of the downtown residential core. This is definitely a worrisome issue, but too complex to cover in just a few lines of this post.
Third, be careful not to compare (downtown) Vancouver with it's suburbs. The downtown core is one of the few places in the world where people live and work in the same area... there are a multitude of activities. As many as you'd expect of a city of this size.
Finally, commutes range from 5-30 minutes (and that's going to cover people who walk, bike and take transit).
Vancouver is consistently rated as one of the most livable cities in the world.. but there will definitely need to be changes if we want that to continue to be the case in the long term.
I've been going to Vancouver regularly (about once a year) since the mid 90s. As the return of Hong Kong to China approached, the influx of Chinese investment spiked. It started in Vancouver, people who had been in the better parts of Vancouver and were of retirement age sold and moved out (basically the first wave) and those being bought out moved to places like the Okanogan, etc.
Then, single story buildings in Kits, for example, gave way to three+ story multi-use (commercial downstairs, residential upstairs) units. Some of this is still happening around the city. Where older 2-3 story condo buildings exist, some were vacated for building some more towers.
Funny this story shows up now. It is something that has been happening for almost 20 years.
It is also amazing to me, given the beauty, the availability of technology, and the desirability, Vancouver never has become a tech hub. There were a few startups circa 2000-ish that made waves, some were sham puffed up deals like those lead by Dick Hardt (sxip). There has traditionally been a lot of media (popular for hollywood filming), gaming, and smaller startups, but nothing that served as an anchor.
Vancouver and BC are probably at the top of my favorite places on the west coast, but the issues it has in technology, building an industry, and being affordable go back in time well before this simple blog post.
If your idea of a tech scene is that there must be a mushrooming of "like Facebook, but for dogs" type startups, then indeed, no, Van is not a hotbed for that kind of thing.
Oh wait, corporate contributions are only a tiny percentage! Wow, this party is funded by The People!
Now scroll all the way down (previous to last page) to see corporate donors. Observe every single developer in Vancouver being on that list donating tens of thousands of dollars, more than any other corporation.
Notice how that doesn't stack up with the pie chart you just saw. Now scroll back to the top of the page to and observe that the contribution-bysource piechart is by number of contributions rather than by aggregate value.
I've lived in Vancouver. There are really only three industries: (dodgy) junior mining, retail, and real estate. Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy. The city is more expensive than NY without the amenities (except the outdoors), culture, or opportunity. The city should be Canada's powerhouse but it's turned into a high price vacation area without tourism.
Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy.
I've heard that said many times without any hard stats behind it. How many absentee purchasers would it take to drive prices up? What about the effects of low interest rates and everyone desiring to get in the market before it gets hotter? Everyone seems to be an expert on this, and I highly doubt that.
So what's the motivation to buying property you don't live in. Are they renting it out? The OP made it sound like many units are vacant. Are they buying and holding hoping to sell later for more?
Normally a boom in high-end housing is good for local trades (plumbers, electicians, carpenters, painters, decorators, etc) as the first thing most upper-tier home buyers do when they buy a place is renovate, remodel, or at least redecorate.
/Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy./
This has been thoroughly debunked many times. Real estate agents are hiring helicopters filled with asian actors to drive fear. The actual number is something like 3% foreign buyers.
Now, if you look at our mortgage rates - the lowest ever in history with the loosest requirements ever, you'll see why prices have skyrocketed.
We're following the US housing bubble, but about 7 years late.
A 2011 study by Landcor Data showed that 74 per cent of luxury purchases in Richmond and Vancouver’s west side were by buyers with mainland Chinese names with no western variant.
Not surprising, given that Richmond is 55% Chinese[0]. West side Vancouver is probably around the same.
So it hinges on Chinese people westernizing their last name to ensure they are counted as Canadian? Plus this is only counting luxury properties. Sadly it's really important now WHICH set of rich people own those properties.
From Vancouver, love the city but had to leave. Almost all of my friends left too. Cost of living was one thing but the quality of life just wasn't there for the suburban commuters and the city always felt depressed. There was no heart beat when walking the streets.
I lived there for a couple of years, and couldn't agree more. There's a lot of awesome people making their best efforts to counter it, but really it's a dead city.
I remember realizing that all the cafes closed around 6 or 7 in the downtown area, then finding out it was because of lack of demand. A city of 2.5 million people that can't keep a coffee shop open past dinner - coming from Toronto it was bizarre.
I also remember the absolutely awful experience of trying to find an appartment to rent. There were so many people competing that we had to line up and "audition" - I ended up getting to know a lot of my fellow contestants by name because you had to show up to practically every single Craigslist listing if you were to have half a chance. Then finally getting a place and seeing that half of apartments in the towers around us were empty.
Vancouver in the 80's was apparently one the hippest places in Canada, definitely not any more.
Yeah, the real solution is to knock down the single family homes on the CoV peninsula (Which is only about 100 square kilometers) and put up multi-family dwellings. It doesn't really matter one iota what a single family home costs, they're land-inefficient. How much would a single family home in Manhattan cost?
The article reminds me of a real estate agent in Miami, who on the radio called the apartments out there "apartment-shaped financial instruments." (In Vancouver, apparently, they are detached homes.) This seems to be a recurring theme in certain cities, e.g., Vancouver, San Francisco, London, New York.
The difference between Vancouver and SF/London/NYC is that it has no accompanying income boom to make the real estate prices affordable for working people. There's no significant financial or tech industry. Nobody gets rich from working in Vancouver. In fact, Vancouver tech jobs generally pay _less_ than other Canadian cities despite the greatly higher cost of living.
As a student in Vancouver this worries me. It think it's about time either the city or metro Vancouver started putting forward some absentee homeowner legislation. We have a lot of talented young people that are leaving to places like Calgary and Seattle because the Vancouver doesn't have the opportunities to support them.
That time was 10 years ago. The government has no reason to put such legislation in place, because it lives off taxes on empty buildings and because it would crash the f#ck out of RE market if they turn their back on Chinese money and it starts flowing out.
When I was finishing school, there was also lot of fear post tech bubble, and we were probably mid housing runup (although I didn't know it yet). I guess my only advice is, don't count on other people to fix problems. If you focus on your own skills - always be coding, always be learning - I think you'll do fine here or elsewhere.
We are not Seattle, nor SF, nor NY, nor London. Each city offers their own mix of good, bad, and ugly, and you need to determine which city provides the right mix for you. I'm from Ontario, but that right mix is Vancouver for me right now.
My parents immigrated to Canada and worked their asses off during a recession with a 20% interest rate on their mortgage. I'm sure the media said the sky was falling then as well. I always remembered how hard they had to work, so I learned that we cannot take things for granted. Internet commenters complaining about kids half my age with lambos? Not my problem - I have more constructive things to do.
If you are willing to fight to the good fight and enter politics to make positive change for the amazing city we all want it to be, I will vote for you!
Or as a simpler, more politically palatable approximation, set up a pied-à-terre property tax for residential properties above a certain value that are lived in for less than three months per year.
All the money flooding into Vancouver is the results of billions and billions of dollars flooding out the U.S trade deficit, hitting China, and boomeranging back into hard assets all over the world.
According to Wikipedia, Vancouver only has 600k people. Shouldn't people expect the city to grow to a few million people over the next 100 years? More people are moving to cities, after all. I'd think that with proper urban planning, there's enough space to grow. Urban planning means more mass transit, of course. That's not something that we do very well in the western hemisphere. Even NYC could be a lot better. People are still trying to jam several thousand buses into Manhattan every day.
Vancouver is already extremely dense and its geography prevents much more expansion. Try to find a good quality topo map of the Greater Vancouver area and you'll understand why your comment doesn't ring as being true.
Surprised there was no mention of Hong Kong as Vancouver is often dubbed Hongcouver and Hong Kong has to deal with the same kind of problems right now (that is, the younger generation can't afford to live there).
Seattle is objectively a much better place to live right now if you can. It has cheaper housing (at least for now), more and higher-paying jobs, especially in tech. But Vancouver is a beautiful city and has better Asian food. Every once in a while my wife and I drive up there on the weekend to walk around the city and eat some fantastic Chinese food. We fantasize about living in Vancouver, but in the end it just doesn't make any economic sense.
This article could have been written replacing the words Canada and Vancouver by resp. Australia and Sydney. It is exactly the same thing happening in Aus. Australia introduced that significant investor visa program which the facts show that it is about 90% of PRC people coming in with their clean or not so clean money. Investment, in the context of this visa scheme, is mostly about property speculation. Property prices in Sydney are very high and locals and migrants who work here cannot afford. The government introduced negative gearing to help to inflate that property bubble.
As in Canada, Australia agreed to co operate with the Chinese gov to help track those Chinese who run away with all their dirty money, which almost always end up in property.
I am renting now and have been inspecting units for a year as I wanted to buy. At any inspection I went, other people walking in were mostly PRC. not australian asians. you can tell from their strong accent. Whenever I made an offer, above the asking price, there was a chinese to outbid by like 10% the price of the unit. You sometimes hear sick conversations between the potential buyer and the agent like once that young PRC girl who asked the agent : "I already have 2 units here and am planning to buy another one; if I buy this one can I still get the first home owner grant ?" (I really heard that I'm not joking).
Few times, at the end of an inspection, when I would ask questions to the agent, he would answer me : "I have a call scheduled tonight with the owner in china, I will ask him".
if they really want to track the dirty money pouring in Australia, it's not that hard. You see houses that sell for $3 million whereas they sold for $1.5 million only exactly one year earlier.
In Sydney inner west, I can see every day luxury cars driven by young chinese kids. Seriously the guy does not even have pubic hair yet and he's driving a custom bentley. There are parts of the city that do not necessarily look luxurious : no luxury goods shops around, average condition roads, very few shops and restaurants, though you feel like you are in monaco when you look at the cars around.
I don't know what can be done about it. Wish for a serious financial crash in china, or wish for the politics to really mean what they say, or wish for a lot more crime (which would encourage those people to look elsewhere to spend their money), or find ways to move to smaller towns where all that dirty money has not been yet and property is still available ?
Vancouver seems to get better (at least from my perspective) in terms of tech-hub and while my opinions seem to pain pretty picture of Vancouver, I think some of the concern are legit when it comes to the inflated real estate price. Anyhow, here we go:
Amazon plans to hire 1000 people for their new office. Despite the claim that they only do interview but not hiring I think that's misinformed. They _are_ hiring people. I know a few people who work there and have a friend who's friend was hired there not too long ago. They have private invite sessions once in a while too.
Microsoft said that they're hiring 400 people for their new Vancouver HQ. They also had a private invite sessions around the end of 2014. The recruiter stated that they're hiring 120 people within a year, and more to come. Sounds like they will do this in phase.
Body shop like Facebook and Twitter pointed out up-front that they only do training and only hire fresh-grad to be shipped to the USA.
Salesforce is ACTIVELY hiring in Vancouver. They poached my co-worker last year. I've been hearing that their offer is in the range of 120-140k for intermediate engineer.
90k is the minimum current rate for intermediate engineer for mid-size to BigCo (Salesforce being the outlier). Small-to-mid offers around 70k to high 80k with laid-back/better work-life balance and frequent to work from home. Source: recruiters, I know some of them and have maintain good relationship.
SauceLabs is recruiting with 4 current "seed" employees for their Vancouver branch.
I know someone tried to recruit a Vancouver-based OpenDNS employee where the requested salary is between $110k-120k. I can only guess OpenDNS paid their employee here probably around 90k or more.
A Thinking Ape (YC backed) is here. Mozilla has a medium-sized presence here. The list goes on. So whether the pay is low, I'd say that's relative. I don't know the compensation for the rest of the USA cities except SF and Seattle.
Seattle is nice but damn... the food, the outdoor, the culture, the diversity are below Vancouver (I spent a short stint in MS). The commute is also bad.
Also don't forget we have basic health insurance and probably "saner" government.
Let's go over the real-estate a little bit:
I've been scouting and am invited to a few "VIP sessions" for apartments and townhouses (the kind of estate that none of these rich Chinese would probably buy since it's below their range; they only buy fancy houses no?) hold by the developers. Most of the sessions I went to usually managed to sell 100% of their "phase one" development and 70% of their "phase two" development. Somehow there seems to be an influx of buyers and NO, they're not dominated by mainland Chinese people.
A friend of mine recently purchased a townhouse (3 floors, 3br, 2.5 bath, super small backyard, 1400sq ft finished, brand-new, new appliances, etc) for $599k in the suburb, very close to the train station (10 mins walk), 20 minutes via train to Downtown core. This location is quite ideal too: near the biggest mall in Vancouver, relatively good suburban area, close to food and entertainments.
My manager came from Down Under (Oz) and said that at least he can afford an apartment in the downtown area that does not blow a huge hole on his wallet compare to Sydney (NSW).
Rent is definitely cheaper compare to the big cities (Sydney, NYC, SF, LA): 1400-1500 1br in downtown area, a wee bit more expensive in the posh-downtown area or near the Coal Harbour. 1200 for decent size 1-br apartment near the biggest Mall in GVRD (Greater Vancouver District).
Do keep in mind that the public transportation is pretty good compare to most cities I've ever been to (except Singapore, HK, NYC, or London). The buses and trains are well maintained despite a few occasional service hiccups. I've taken BART in SF before, smelly, dingy, weird people, and slightly more complex fare calculation. I've taken Sydney (NSW) train before, still manual (operated by human), not frequent, more expensive.
Vancouver also has an "express" train (different path/route than the main stream) that connects the downtown core and some of the further suburbs. The city keeps improving and expanding the train services further east to cover more area. A few years ago the city just wraps up the line that connects the airport to the end of the Downtown core where the Cruise sails, where the startup/hip/US-branch companies have offices. The path takes about 30 minutes trip.
And whenever someone said "40 minutes driving" from downtown core, that's 40 minutes via REGULAR street/road not Highway like in the USA. In the States, the default is almost always "Highway" if you're coming from the 'burbs. In Vancouver, it's just a normal street which means distance wise is not that far.
> One problem was that its figures excluded the tens of thousands of Canadians (30-50% of whom estimated to buy property in Vancouver) who bought their residency through the recently defunct Immigrant Investor Program.
Hold on a second.
I think it's pretty rude, and bordering on xenophobic, that the author wants to call these folks foreigners. Especially if you turn it around and say outright what he's suggesting: People who gained their citizenship through the Immigrant Investor program aren't _real_ citizens like us.
Immigrants _are_ Canadians... even folks who used the Immigrant Investor Program.
> According to our Immigration Minister “There is little evidence that immigrant investors as a class are maintaining ties to Canada or making a positive economic contribution to the country”. Indeed, there is an estimated 300,000 – 400,000 Canadians living in China, the majority of whom are ethnic Chinese.
If someone who started life as a foreigner, with no ties to Canada at all, comes along and essentially buys Canadian citizenship, then continues living in China, do they stop being a foreigner? Whilst they are indisputably Canadian citizens, i would say they aren't Canadian in any other sense, and so yes, they are still foreign. They aren't even immigrants, as they never immigrated!
Whereas, of course, someone who moves to Canada and makes a life there is a real immigrant, and becomes a real Canadian. I don't think the author of the article would dispute that.
There's so many things broken with Vancouver but nobody is willing to confront these out of fear of displeasing the wrong crowd that backs them into power.
In other major cities, there's very good protection against foreign ownership of properties to prevent the exact situation vancouver is in.
In other major cities, there's a strong and large economy to grow with the cities cost of living. Vancouver's wages have remained unchanged for a few decades, barely adjusting for inflation.
Having grown up in Vancouver, I feel sad, sad that I have to leave my hometown to find better opportunities. I find that most sane people have already left Vancouver, including my circles. Senior engineers are hard to find in Vancouver because nobody with a family are willing to stick around for a low salary and high cost of living. Employees know that the labor market is tight and that people are desperate for jobs, and frequently exploit them. Tech companies are strapped for cash, large tech companies come to Vancouver to hire foreigners (Microsoft being the most controversial to date), video game industry is unstable.
[+] [-] dennispi|11 years ago|reply
First, there are many technology companies in Vancouver. Hootsuite, Bench, A Thinking Ape, Clio, Slack, Amazon.. these are just the ones that came to mind. I know authoritatively that each and every single one is looking for senior sales, marketing, engineering and product talent.
Here is a slightly more comprehensive list: http://www.techvibes.com/company-directory/vancouver/tag/sta...
Is the tech ecosystem as big as in SF? No.. but where else is it?
Second, yes.. it is an incredibly expensive place to live. Part of this is due to the large number of homes which are owned by foreigners and are vacant. I'm not aware of a concrete way of measuring this.. but anecdotally, I suspect it's close to 30-40% of the downtown residential core. This is definitely a worrisome issue, but too complex to cover in just a few lines of this post.
Third, be careful not to compare (downtown) Vancouver with it's suburbs. The downtown core is one of the few places in the world where people live and work in the same area... there are a multitude of activities. As many as you'd expect of a city of this size.
Finally, commutes range from 5-30 minutes (and that's going to cover people who walk, bike and take transit).
Vancouver is consistently rated as one of the most livable cities in the world.. but there will definitely need to be changes if we want that to continue to be the case in the long term.
[+] [-] jmspring|11 years ago|reply
Then, single story buildings in Kits, for example, gave way to three+ story multi-use (commercial downstairs, residential upstairs) units. Some of this is still happening around the city. Where older 2-3 story condo buildings exist, some were vacated for building some more towers.
Funny this story shows up now. It is something that has been happening for almost 20 years.
It is also amazing to me, given the beauty, the availability of technology, and the desirability, Vancouver never has become a tech hub. There were a few startups circa 2000-ish that made waves, some were sham puffed up deals like those lead by Dick Hardt (sxip). There has traditionally been a lot of media (popular for hollywood filming), gaming, and smaller startups, but nothing that served as an anchor.
Vancouver and BC are probably at the top of my favorite places on the west coast, but the issues it has in technology, building an industry, and being affordable go back in time well before this simple blog post.
edit: typos
[+] [-] kazinator|11 years ago|reply
Price Waterhouse Cooper has a "BC Techmap" project: http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/technology-industry/bc-techmap.jhtm...
This is a big poster you can order.
Unfortunately, the preview site for it is defunct. The map traces the linage of tech companies in BC back to the 1940's.
Here is someone's shot of the 2003 version:
http://cie-unsw.blogspot.ca/2012/06/announcing-gig-engine.ht...
If your idea of a tech scene is that there must be a mushrooming of "like Facebook, but for dogs" type startups, then indeed, no, Van is not a hotbed for that kind of thing.
[+] [-] spitfire|11 years ago|reply
Vancouver doesn't really have any technology industry that's in a virtuous cycle yet.
[+] [-] raquo|11 years ago|reply
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1371306-vv-pre-elect...
Oh wait, corporate contributions are only a tiny percentage! Wow, this party is funded by The People!
Now scroll all the way down (previous to last page) to see corporate donors. Observe every single developer in Vancouver being on that list donating tens of thousands of dollars, more than any other corporation.
Notice how that doesn't stack up with the pie chart you just saw. Now scroll back to the top of the page to and observe that the contribution-bysource piechart is by number of contributions rather than by aggregate value.
This should tell you enough.
[+] [-] maged|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdlecler1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msie|11 years ago|reply
I've heard that said many times without any hard stats behind it. How many absentee purchasers would it take to drive prices up? What about the effects of low interest rates and everyone desiring to get in the market before it gets hotter? Everyone seems to be an expert on this, and I highly doubt that.
[+] [-] ams6110|11 years ago|reply
Normally a boom in high-end housing is good for local trades (plumbers, electicians, carpenters, painters, decorators, etc) as the first thing most upper-tier home buyers do when they buy a place is renovate, remodel, or at least redecorate.
[+] [-] spitfire|11 years ago|reply
This has been thoroughly debunked many times. Real estate agents are hiring helicopters filled with asian actors to drive fear. The actual number is something like 3% foreign buyers.
Now, if you look at our mortgage rates - the lowest ever in history with the loosest requirements ever, you'll see why prices have skyrocketed.
We're following the US housing bubble, but about 7 years late.
[+] [-] desdiv|11 years ago|reply
Not surprising, given that Richmond is 55% Chinese[0]. West side Vancouver is probably around the same.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_British_Columbia#Demo...
[+] [-] msie|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goalieca|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badsock|11 years ago|reply
I remember realizing that all the cafes closed around 6 or 7 in the downtown area, then finding out it was because of lack of demand. A city of 2.5 million people that can't keep a coffee shop open past dinner - coming from Toronto it was bizarre.
I also remember the absolutely awful experience of trying to find an appartment to rent. There were so many people competing that we had to line up and "audition" - I ended up getting to know a lot of my fellow contestants by name because you had to show up to practically every single Craigslist listing if you were to have half a chance. Then finally getting a place and seeing that half of apartments in the towers around us were empty.
Vancouver in the 80's was apparently one the hippest places in Canada, definitely not any more.
[+] [-] wvenable|11 years ago|reply
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/part2.html
[+] [-] BrainInAJar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempestn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allochthon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eigenvector|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msie|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiyou102|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eps|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecambie|11 years ago|reply
We are not Seattle, nor SF, nor NY, nor London. Each city offers their own mix of good, bad, and ugly, and you need to determine which city provides the right mix for you. I'm from Ontario, but that right mix is Vancouver for me right now.
My parents immigrated to Canada and worked their asses off during a recession with a 20% interest rate on their mortgage. I'm sure the media said the sky was falling then as well. I always remembered how hard they had to work, so I learned that we cannot take things for granted. Internet commenters complaining about kids half my age with lambos? Not my problem - I have more constructive things to do.
If you are willing to fight to the good fight and enter politics to make positive change for the amazing city we all want it to be, I will vote for you!
[+] [-] larsiusprime|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koenigdavidmj|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narrator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nzp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LiweiZ|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|11 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/nyregion/port-authority-ag...
[+] [-] wvenable|11 years ago|reply
The transit system in Metro Vancouver moves over 400k people a day.
[+] [-] hluska|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] olalonde|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nas|11 years ago|reply
So live somewhere else. I don't really get the problem, seems like normal market forces to me. Canada is a huge country.
[+] [-] kyllo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harvey56|11 years ago|reply
I don't know what can be done about it. Wish for a serious financial crash in china, or wish for the politics to really mean what they say, or wish for a lot more crime (which would encourage those people to look elsewhere to spend their money), or find ways to move to smaller towns where all that dirty money has not been yet and property is still available ?
[+] [-] edwinnathaniel|11 years ago|reply
Amazon plans to hire 1000 people for their new office. Despite the claim that they only do interview but not hiring I think that's misinformed. They _are_ hiring people. I know a few people who work there and have a friend who's friend was hired there not too long ago. They have private invite sessions once in a while too.
Microsoft said that they're hiring 400 people for their new Vancouver HQ. They also had a private invite sessions around the end of 2014. The recruiter stated that they're hiring 120 people within a year, and more to come. Sounds like they will do this in phase.
Body shop like Facebook and Twitter pointed out up-front that they only do training and only hire fresh-grad to be shipped to the USA.
Salesforce is ACTIVELY hiring in Vancouver. They poached my co-worker last year. I've been hearing that their offer is in the range of 120-140k for intermediate engineer.
90k is the minimum current rate for intermediate engineer for mid-size to BigCo (Salesforce being the outlier). Small-to-mid offers around 70k to high 80k with laid-back/better work-life balance and frequent to work from home. Source: recruiters, I know some of them and have maintain good relationship.
SauceLabs is recruiting with 4 current "seed" employees for their Vancouver branch.
I know someone tried to recruit a Vancouver-based OpenDNS employee where the requested salary is between $110k-120k. I can only guess OpenDNS paid their employee here probably around 90k or more.
A Thinking Ape (YC backed) is here. Mozilla has a medium-sized presence here. The list goes on. So whether the pay is low, I'd say that's relative. I don't know the compensation for the rest of the USA cities except SF and Seattle.
Seattle is nice but damn... the food, the outdoor, the culture, the diversity are below Vancouver (I spent a short stint in MS). The commute is also bad.
Also don't forget we have basic health insurance and probably "saner" government.
Let's go over the real-estate a little bit:
I've been scouting and am invited to a few "VIP sessions" for apartments and townhouses (the kind of estate that none of these rich Chinese would probably buy since it's below their range; they only buy fancy houses no?) hold by the developers. Most of the sessions I went to usually managed to sell 100% of their "phase one" development and 70% of their "phase two" development. Somehow there seems to be an influx of buyers and NO, they're not dominated by mainland Chinese people.
A friend of mine recently purchased a townhouse (3 floors, 3br, 2.5 bath, super small backyard, 1400sq ft finished, brand-new, new appliances, etc) for $599k in the suburb, very close to the train station (10 mins walk), 20 minutes via train to Downtown core. This location is quite ideal too: near the biggest mall in Vancouver, relatively good suburban area, close to food and entertainments.
My manager came from Down Under (Oz) and said that at least he can afford an apartment in the downtown area that does not blow a huge hole on his wallet compare to Sydney (NSW).
Rent is definitely cheaper compare to the big cities (Sydney, NYC, SF, LA): 1400-1500 1br in downtown area, a wee bit more expensive in the posh-downtown area or near the Coal Harbour. 1200 for decent size 1-br apartment near the biggest Mall in GVRD (Greater Vancouver District).
Do keep in mind that the public transportation is pretty good compare to most cities I've ever been to (except Singapore, HK, NYC, or London). The buses and trains are well maintained despite a few occasional service hiccups. I've taken BART in SF before, smelly, dingy, weird people, and slightly more complex fare calculation. I've taken Sydney (NSW) train before, still manual (operated by human), not frequent, more expensive.
Vancouver also has an "express" train (different path/route than the main stream) that connects the downtown core and some of the further suburbs. The city keeps improving and expanding the train services further east to cover more area. A few years ago the city just wraps up the line that connects the airport to the end of the Downtown core where the Cruise sails, where the startup/hip/US-branch companies have offices. The path takes about 30 minutes trip.
And whenever someone said "40 minutes driving" from downtown core, that's 40 minutes via REGULAR street/road not Highway like in the USA. In the States, the default is almost always "Highway" if you're coming from the 'burbs. In Vancouver, it's just a normal street which means distance wise is not that far.
Crime rate is very low around here.
[+] [-] rbobby|11 years ago|reply
Hold on a second.
I think it's pretty rude, and bordering on xenophobic, that the author wants to call these folks foreigners. Especially if you turn it around and say outright what he's suggesting: People who gained their citizenship through the Immigrant Investor program aren't _real_ citizens like us.
Immigrants _are_ Canadians... even folks who used the Immigrant Investor Program.
[+] [-] twic|11 years ago|reply
> According to our Immigration Minister “There is little evidence that immigrant investors as a class are maintaining ties to Canada or making a positive economic contribution to the country”. Indeed, there is an estimated 300,000 – 400,000 Canadians living in China, the majority of whom are ethnic Chinese.
If someone who started life as a foreigner, with no ties to Canada at all, comes along and essentially buys Canadian citizenship, then continues living in China, do they stop being a foreigner? Whilst they are indisputably Canadian citizens, i would say they aren't Canadian in any other sense, and so yes, they are still foreign. They aren't even immigrants, as they never immigrated!
Whereas, of course, someone who moves to Canada and makes a life there is a real immigrant, and becomes a real Canadian. I don't think the author of the article would dispute that.
[+] [-] raverbashing|11 years ago|reply
Then it's not a boom, it's a bubble. It's that simple
[+] [-] curiously|11 years ago|reply
There's so many things broken with Vancouver but nobody is willing to confront these out of fear of displeasing the wrong crowd that backs them into power.
In other major cities, there's very good protection against foreign ownership of properties to prevent the exact situation vancouver is in.
In other major cities, there's a strong and large economy to grow with the cities cost of living. Vancouver's wages have remained unchanged for a few decades, barely adjusting for inflation.
Having grown up in Vancouver, I feel sad, sad that I have to leave my hometown to find better opportunities. I find that most sane people have already left Vancouver, including my circles. Senior engineers are hard to find in Vancouver because nobody with a family are willing to stick around for a low salary and high cost of living. Employees know that the labor market is tight and that people are desperate for jobs, and frequently exploit them. Tech companies are strapped for cash, large tech companies come to Vancouver to hire foreigners (Microsoft being the most controversial to date), video game industry is unstable.
Vancouver is a sinking ship.