Whose Buying Anyway? Redux

Great set of stats and corresponding report released recently by the Government of BC.

Let's see if we can make some sense of the stats.

I'm not sure why I've been having such a hard time finding more current income levels for the CRD. Apparently I'm not the only one. Gov.bc.ca has 2000 numbers. City hall has 2003 numbers (which are actually less than the 2000 GovBC numbers). Anyway, if you live in the capital and are a member of the defined family group (meaning married, with or without children, or unmarried with a child) there is a good chance you make just slightly more than your peers elsewhere in BC.

What if you're not married or don't fit into the above? Well the numbers change a bit when you factor in whether or not you work.

It seems fitting that we in the CRD seem to work a bit less than our provincial counterparts, except that those of us who do work 'enjoy' full-time work more than the rest of BC. We seem to have a few more entrepreneurs amongst us too. What 's telling though, is less of us here in the capital make more employment income. This means our wages are less and that 'family income' isn't indicative of employment; rather much of it may come from RE and other investment income.

So we know that employment and investment income isn't a part of the astronomical RE prices in Victoria. After all, when is the last time you heard a bull proclaim "we're all just making so much money these days; it's got to go somewhere?" Nope, Bull lines of the Bubble are "everyone wants to be here. People are coming in droves. Don't you see all the foreign license plates?"

Well apparently that's simply not true. We in Victoria trail the rest of BC by 0.5%. Who leads? Shuswap Lakes, Squamish and the rest of the Okanagan. Turns out when people want cottages and other secondary homes, they buy not in cities, but where other cottages and secondary homes can be found. But the most telling stat is over the past 10 years our average population growth rate hasn't changed at all. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Bulls.

And because no post on HHV is complete without a current RE price rant I give you this dandy chart:

I'd like to point out that in 2001 (6 years ago, before the boom) 19% of homeowners were spending more than 30% of their gross income on their housing costs. Think that number has gone up at all? Renters were obviously higher. But guess what? Rents only climbed from $726 to $892 or 19% compared to almost 100% increases in housing ownership costs.