COVID and the housing market | Page 97 | GTAMotorcycle.com

COVID and the housing market

I didn't know it was that bad

Jeez
Yup. So careful what you wish for. As a well and proper housing crash will take the entire country down.

And then the well of and cash ready will have a feast on what others have to dump to survive.
 
A year or so ago I was out at my indoor range in Brockville. I had a good night, finished about 10pm and headed off for a burger before heading home. At the fast food joint I had just sat down when about 10 skinny, sweaty, muddy booted guys with dark skin walked in accompanied by a couple of good old boys in John Deer hats. Not a single one of the thin guys spoke English, they all spoke Spanish. They were all happy (I speak a bit of Spanish). They all had some fresh cash on them. They all ate like horses!

Those guys had been out working until 10pm putting food on your plates.

Odd thing….never saw a crowd of English speaking white guys at the same time in the same place there.

Just an observation.
 
Quick correction…immigrants don’t drive down wages. Tight fisted twats at the top refuse to pay the going rate. There’s a huge difference. Put the blame where it really lies.
How many companies distance themselves from what they put people through?

Jobs get contracted out and subcontracted again to the lowest bidder. School bus drivers get crap pay and cheated on hours of prep work (Pre ride equivalents). The trucking industry. The phone, alarm or cable techie that runs a new line gets $XX per call. Tough luck if the job has complexities.

Head office has nice marble in the lobby and the CEO a nice yacht. If you have mutual funds do you know what the companies in your holdings are doing to their employees or is it just ROI?
 
How many companies distance themselves from what they put people through?

Jobs get contracted out and subcontracted again to the lowest bidder. School bus drivers get crap pay and cheated on hours of prep work (Pre ride equivalents). The trucking industry. The phone, alarm or cable techie that runs a new line gets $XX per call. Tough luck if the job has complexities.

Head office has nice marble in the lobby and the CEO a nice yacht. If you have mutual funds do you know what the companies in your holdings are doing to their employees or is it just ROI?

regardless, it’s not the immigrant driving wages down, it’s a corporate entity or private individual making conscious decisions to not pay a decent wage.
 
regardless, it’s not the immigrant driving wages down, it’s a corporate entity or private individual making conscious decisions to not pay a decent wage.
I'm being stereotypical but immigrants from impoverished nations are more likely to see what we would consider substandard conditions as being a move up in the world. This gives the abusers low hanging fruit to pick and they do the low bidding game.

I had coffee with a Honduran electrician the other day and the subject of wages came up. He checked on the net and back home he'd be making $1.75 an hour. Most jobs would be similar in scale.
 
Quick correction…immigrants don’t drive down wages. Tight fisted twats at the top refuse to pay the going rate. There’s a huge difference. Put the blame where it really lies.
Mostly true however there are a great many that believe they should pay the lowest rate possible to get the qualification they need. Hell, for most corporations they are soley responsible to the shareholder and anything they say about employees or environment is just noise that does little to effect their chosen path.
 
I love that attitude. Note the problem and then make a corrective suggestion. Why do so many people think their responsibility ends with the making of a complaint?

Because it's easier to point out a problem then point it out and provide potential solutions.

I've admittedly been quick to point out problems but every time I start looking for solutions, whether in software dev or with humanities stuff, I find endless reasons why the problem is there in the first place and every solution I can think of will **** something else up. It's hard lol

Quick correction…immigrants don’t drive down wages. Tight fisted twats at the top refuse to pay the going rate. There’s a huge difference. Put the blame where it really lies.
Echoing this. Old company lost their entire dev team when I asked them to pay us more due to dev salaries going up. They didn't. The guys who I kept in contact with got a 50% or higher raise job hopping.

Just gotta put yourself in a position where you can walk the talk. But I understand the vast majority are not in that position.

Mostly true however there are a great many that believe they should pay the lowest rate possible to get the qualification they need. Hell, for most corporations they are soley responsible to the shareholder and anything they say about employees or environment is just noise that does little to effect their chosen path.

And that's why there's so much technical debt everywhere =) lol
 
Mostly true however there are a great many that believe they should pay the lowest rate possible to get the qualification they need. Hell, for most corporations they are soley responsible to the shareholder and anything they say about employees or environment is just noise that does little to effect their chosen path.

Still not the immigrant's fault though.
 
A year or so ago I was out at my indoor range in Brockville. I had a good night, finished about 10pm and headed off for a burger before heading home. At the fast food joint I had just sat down when about 10 skinny, sweaty, muddy booted guys with dark skin walked in accompanied by a couple of good old boys in John Deer hats. Not a single one of the thin guys spoke English, they all spoke Spanish. They were all happy (I speak a bit of Spanish). They all had some fresh cash on them. They all ate like horses!

Those guys had been out working until 10pm putting food on your plates.

Odd thing….never saw a crowd of English speaking white guys at the same time in the same place there.

Just an observation.
Like how you point out they aren’t white guys. They aren’t black, asian, middle eastern etc funny how you attack white people. Plenty of non whites live in this country. The vast majority of manual labour and construction jobs are done by white people.
 
The privileged white guy says "I'm not picking fruit for the minimum wage"

The foreign worker says "Thank you. My life will be better. I can help my family"

The privileged white guy says "Damn immigrant stole another job"

Always easier to blame those who don't look like you.

Housing speculators come in all colours.

Chang and Smith both buy investment properties.
Chang was born in Canada, has paid CRA taxes all his life and has kids who go to school here.
Smith is born and lives in the UK and has no ties to Canada except for the investment property he just bought. All the proceeds from the property go back to the UK.

Guess who gets called out as the "f-n foreign investor" ruining it for "real Canadians".

There is very little foreign investment in the Okanagan Valley, yet Alberta oil money and real estate proceeds released from Vancouver have made housing unaffordable for people who grew up here.

Money, like water, flows in the direction of least resistance. Government policies have made it very easy for money - foreign and local - to flow into real estate speculation.

Let's put the blame where it really belongs.
 
The privileged white guy says "I'm not picking fruit for the minimum wage"

The foreign worker says "Thank you. My life will be better. I can help my family"

The privileged white guy says "Damn immigrant stole another job"
Same as above. Plenty of non whites here right? Why aren’t you advocating them to be picking fruit?
The most priveledged people I’ve ever met in this country are young rich people of Asian and African descent
 
Like how you point out they aren’t white guys. They aren’t black, asian, middle eastern etc funny how you attack white people. Plenty of non whites live in this country. The vast majority of manual labour and construction jobs are done by white people.

They weren’t Canadian either.
 
Same as above. Plenty of non whites here right? Why aren’t you advocating them to be picking fruit?
The most priveledged people I’ve ever met in this country are young rich people of Asian and African descent

You'd behave privileged if your parents bought you a Ferrari or BMW i8 randomly too lol

The parking garage of the condo I live in is full of super and hypercars. This isn't even an expensive area...it's just filled with rich Asian kids. My fiancee's Corolla feels very out of place along w/ the beat up Civic next to us :')
 
You'd behave privileged if your parents bought you a Ferrari or BMW i8 randomly too lol

The parking garage of the condo I live in is full of super and hypercars. This isn't even an expensive area...it's just filled with rich Asian kids. My fiancee's Corolla feels very out of place along w/ the beat up Civic next to us :')

I bet you live at Yonge and Sheppard.

The story behind a lot of these "rich kids" is that they get a monthly stipend from their parents back home for living expenses while they go to school here. However, with no parental oversight, all that money goes straight towards an expensive car and they live in very modest accommodations as a result.

Sure, some of them get enough money for a nice place and a nice car, but I've seen many of those high end cars being used for Skip The Dishes or UberEats, so they can actually afford rent after all the monthly allowance is eaten up by lease payments...
 
I bet you live at Yonge and Sheppard.

The story behind a lot of these "rich kids" is that they get a monthly stipend from their parents back home for living expenses while they go to school here. However, with no parental oversight, all that money goes straight towards an expensive car and they live in very modest accommodations as a result.

Sure, some of them get enough money for a nice place and a nice car, but I've seen many of those high end cars being used for Skip The Dishes or UberEats, so they can actually afford rent after all the monthly allowance is eaten up by lease payments...

That's interesting...

My parents took in some visa students. One of the kids got their parents to buy some Benz SUV. When the kid left, he gave it to my parents =)

I guess the majority would be your example though lol It breaks my heart when I hear some kid in a super car misshift...give me the ******* car instead!
 
I noticed that while you made some valid criticisms of my post you didn't come up with any suggestions to improve the situation for the housing starved Canadians.
At this point, the only solution I see that is remotely feasible is shrinking the square footage and/or more units/acre. The problem is the canadian expectation for housing is two car garage, 3+ bed, 2+ bath (I tried to sell a house with 1.5 bath but none on the main floor and that was enough for >80% of the prospective buyers to cross it off their list). When was the last time you heard of a family living in canada in a one bedroom apartment? Kids and grandparents in the bedroom, parents in the living room. Worked to drastically lower the cost of housing (and child care) for many countries for many years.

I read an interesting article about Seattle. 80% of the land in the city is zoned single-family residential so increasing the number of dwellings in the city is difficult. To help with housing affordability, the concept was a blanket change to single family zoning to allow four storey apartment buildings (approximately eight 1200 sq ft dwellings). That would allow for more affordable housing and bypass the nimby uproar that occurs every single time a density increase is suggested. An extension to this can be people redeveloping their own house. You get a 2400 sq ft apartment plus one or two 1200 sq ft apartments to rent out and provide you income, the developer you partnered with sells (or rents out) the other four 1200 sq ft units to fund the construction.

Barrie blanket-approved accessory dwelling units and people are freaking out. One house near Georgian college has the house rented as two apartments and now construction on a third dwelling in the backyard (~1200 sq ft) is underway. There is still a green courtyard between the two dwellings. The rear neighbour is crying about how this was her forever house and now there is a dwelling near here property line which she did not sign up for and she thinks it is wrong. Once she moves through the stages of grief, her choices are get over it, move or join them. An entirely detached dwelling generating rental income while saving you from cutting half the lawn you rarely used anyway? Yes please. I would prefer it is Barrie started with an owner-occupied requirement so the owner is the worst-case receptor if they have bad tenants (or short-term renters). Far too many absentee landlords only look at the money and could care less about the effect of their choices on the community.
 
My best Uber ride was in a brand spanking new Jaguar XF(R?)...gorgeous.

Asked the guy point blank why’s he driving this for Uber.

‘car costs me more monthly than I expected’

I just shook my head and enjoyed the leather interior comfort. Was happy to see my paid off Civic Si sitting in the driveway.
 
My best Uber ride was in a brand spanking new Jaguar XF(R?)...gorgeous.

Asked the guy point blank why’s he driving this for Uber.

‘car costs me more monthly than I expected’

I just shook my head and enjoyed the leather interior comfort. Was happy to see my paid off Civic Si sitting in the driveway.

It's all relative, right?

Our first time in Germany, we caught a taxi at the airport and it turned out to be a Mercedes E-Class. We thought we lucked out with a luxury ride for the price of a basic cab. Then we found out *ALL* taxis in Germany are E-Classes. Same as Morocco and Singapore.
 

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