Is Vancouver’s housing market a ‘world-class freak show?’
Posted May 12, 2016 7:29 am.
Last Updated May 12, 2016 7:30 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The local correspondent for the South China Morning Post is using some choice words to describe our housing market.
“It is a world-class freak show. There’s something really strange going on here in Vancouver’s housing market. And you know, I hope that everyone appreciates that,” Ian Young tells Maclean’s Magazine in a recent article.
“You know, people from outside Vancouver who see that find it very hard to believe. But for some reason, a lot of Vancouverites have very quickly accepted this is the reality, this is the norm, and this is what we’re stuck with.”
He says there’s an age gap when it comes to perception when it comes to the end of the affordability crisis.
“There is this gap that is often depicted as a gap of race in terms of the understanding of this situation,” Young tells Maclean’s correspondent Nancy Macdonald.
“But it’s not a gap of race at all. What it is, it’s a gap of age. People who are under their mid-forties perceive this situation very, very differently to people who are over their mid-forties, who will say ‘I’ve seen it before, I pulled myself up, I managed to get on the house-buying ladder, you can do the same’. It’s not the same. We’ve never seen an unaffordability crisis like we’re experiencing in this city. And God, I hope we never see it again.”
He adds millennials have a legitimate right to be worried about ever being able to buy a home in the region.
“I think this is a huge social justice issue, a huge issue of fairness [for them]. But for me, the key issue isn’t how many people would win and how many people would lose. The key issue is one of fairness. Because what have people under the age of 40, the millennials, done to deserve to be in this situation? It’s not because they’re not as smart; it’s not because they’re lazy; it’s not because any of that. It’s simply because the accident of birth, of when they were born, that has dictated how much they’re being priced out of this city. And this idea that people can now get on a ladder, get on the property-buying ladder to work their way up like people did in the seventies, eighties, or even nineties or whatever, you know, it’s just ludicrous.”
