Film director Charles Wilkinson outlines five of the common housing market beliefs that are dissected in Vancouver: No Fixed Address
I’m a Vancouver film director. I’ve spent much of my career directing dramatic features, TV movies and series within Vancouver’s always busy production sector. For example, I directed multiple episodes of The Highlander and in fact know where he kept that big scary sword of his (don’t ask). But my new film is a feature documentary about something far scarier – Vancouver’s housing crisis.
Here are just five of the popular notions I encountered along the way paired with the hard facts shared by several of the extremely well-informed experts in the film.
1. There’s no reason Vancouver’s real estate prices can’t sustain double-digit gains every year.
Wanna bet? According to Fayyaz Alimohamed, London School of Economics trained economist, domestic real estate has historically appreciated at the rate of just two per cent per year. Gains beyond that are generally fuelled by speculation and are a function of the “greater fool” theory: that no matter how much I pay, someone else will buy it from me for more. This never sustains. The last ones in, the greatest fools are always left holding the bag. Always.
2. Vancouver real estate is on fire because everyone knows this is such a great place to live.
It is, but according to one former town planner I spoke to, 90 per cent of condos built in Vancouver are purchased by speculators. These are not people who will live or raise a family in them. In many cases they won’t even rent them out. Safety deposit boxes in the sky.
3. Lazy millennials complain but don’t make the sacrifices their parent’s generation did to acquire homes.
Sure, there’s some of that. But there’s also a groundswell of societal change going on. According to millennial fashion designer Angel Chang, many young people don’t want to be tied down to a 30-year mortgage – especially given the uncertainty generated by the death of long-term stable employment and alarming rise of robotization. They want travel, freedom of choice, less stuff tying them down. Creating housing that fits these criteria is challenging.
4. It’s the Chinese speculators’ fault.
The film documents that vast amounts of offshore capital have flooded the Vancouver housing market, much of it from China. But lots comes in from the US, Russia, Iran, South Asia and elsewhere as well. According to former Crown Prosecutor Sandy Garossino, money has no nationality. It’s the impact of unregulated, often anonymous investment that makes the difference. Our tax and ownership laws enable – some say encourage – housing speculation.
5. Our governments are on the take, profiting from murky but enormously lucrative real estate deals.
Without legislation, transparency and enforcement with teeth, one can only speculate. But according to UBC’s Dr. David Ley, Canada and especially BC went through a deep depression in the 80s, provoked by a crashing of the traditional resource cash cows: timber, fish and minerals. The easy stuff had been unsustainably exploited. Governments who hoped to be re-elected were under pressure to create jobs. They were faced with a choice – begin the long, slow process of developing a sustainable secondary manufacturing sector, or go for the easy money by selling off the land to speculators. What did we choose? We staged Expo ‘86, and the Olympics. The slogans boasted we were going to “tell it to the world, sell it to the world.” It worked.
And finally, according to a poll by Insights West, 35 to 40 per cent of residents say they are considering leaving the city over high housing prices. That’s a big number.
Are there solutions? Absolutely. Are they easy? Easy is what got us into this. Is our beautiful city worth fighting for? Come see the film.
Vancouver: No Fixed Address starts its two-week run at the Vancity Theatre on Friday May 19. Click here for information and tickets.
