[go1979]

Britain is hardly alone in this. Prices in Vancouver and Toronto are absolutely insane when one considers incomes in the region. Sensible minds have been claiming a crash for years but property prices continue to go up. Funny thing is that the crazy housing in Britain/Canada make Bay area housing appear like a good deal :-p

If anyone has a book/documentary suggestion on understanding what is going on, would appreciate it.

[branchless]

I'm glad you asked:

http://www.amazon.com/Progress-Poverty-Industrial-Depression...

Progress and Poverty, by Henry George

> This classic work is an enquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth. Published in 1879, it was admired and advocated by great minds such as Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Leo Tolstoy and Sun Yat-sen in China. Henry George lived through a period of American history which witnessed the closing of the frontier, and he noticed the dramatic deterioration in the condition of labour once that happened.

Read it, it's great.

[corin_]

Central London is really the only place in Britain that makes the Bay area look OK in comparison.

According to Numbeo.com's cost of living comparisons, SF is a bit more expensive to rent in than London, and a bit cheaper to buy in. But of course, these are very generalised/averaged numbers, not looking at anything as specific as "the bay area".

  SF
  Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 			3,321.03 $ 	
  Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 		2,580.00 $ 	
  Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 		6,393.33 $ 	
  Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 		4,928.57 $ 	
  Price per SQM to Buy Apartment in City Centre 	14,819.28 $ 	
  Price per SQM to Buy Apartment Outside of Centre 	9,543.88 $ 
  
  London
  Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 			2,510.87 $
  Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 		1,700.43 $
  Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 		5,099.81 $
  Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 		2,985.64 $
  Price per SQM to Buy Apartment in City Centre 	23,868.09 $
  Price per SQM to Buy Apartment Outside of Centre 	12,413.72 $

Obviously there are specific stupidly-expensive areas in London, and indeed outside London in the UK.

[jzwinck]

Either I have a very different idea of what London's "City Centre" is, or the numbers above for London look quite low. That said, for some people, Zone 4 is "central" and for others only Zone 1 is. Curious how the SF numbers compare in this regard.

[abritinthebay]

Traditionally Zone 1-2 is central.

Anyone who calls Zone 4 central is deluded.

[nemo44x]

Keep in mind that the same job often pays considerably less in London than it does in San Francisco. And I'm not referring to taxes but actual salaries. I've known quite a few folks who have taken pay cuts when moving to London and folks who have received considerable pay increases moving to a major city like San Francisco or NYC from London.

[abritinthebay]

Partly that's due to competition for the small pool in SF being larger. There's a lot of people looking for fewer jobs in London (tech especially). In SF - reverse.

[nemo44x]

I think it goes for other industries too. My wife who works in finance and accounting makes quite a bit more in NYC than she did in London, even for similar roles in similar industries.

But you may have a point in that London being the only game in town has a lot of competition among the workforce. Also, I believe it costs much more to employ someone there and there are many more protection for employees. For instance, it is very difficult to fire someone in the UK and it is not that way in the USA.

[abritinthebay]

That's also true, though I doubt it makes that much of a difference to salaries.

Simply put: I could quit my job today and have a month of interviews lined up in a few days in SF. In London? Not enough companies to sustain that.

That leads to companies competing for talent on wages.

London is great but it never really got a tech boom like SF did.

[f_allwein]

this was recommended to me: All that is Solid by Danny Dorling http://www.dannydorling.org/books/allthatissolid/

[inversionOf]

Prices in Vancouver and Toronto are absolutely insane when one considers incomes in the region.

Vancouver has hints of insanity, but Toronto's pricing is entirely rational for the current financial reality -- more and more people, and more and more money, bidding up a fixed amount of housing. It has significant ongoing migration from around the world, so if you're a new grad who wants to live downtown, well your dollars are competing with dollars from around the globe. That's how those things are supposed to go.

The fly in the ointment is, of course, low interest rates, and minor movements would be catastrophic. Which is exactly why I think low interest rates are essentially the fundamental reality in the US and Canada -- they have been structurally stratified, and any increase would cause economic devastation that would cause the rates to drop again.

[nemo44x]

I believe that raising interest rates would cause a pretty large fall in housing prices in cities that have large foreign ownership.

With interest rates rising, the bid for housing will drop accordingly and many of these investment properties would immediately be put on the market to extract full value from them which would cause a glut of supply. This would further cause prices to fall.

This would be a good time for someone with a huge cash downpayment (or cash outright) and the prospect of actually living in the place full time to purchase a property in these areas.

Honestly, until then it makes more sense to rent if you can't afford to pay cash outright due to maintenance fees, property taxes and so on. In NYC buying a condo with 20% down is foolish right now, for instance. Especially if interest rates do indeed begin to rise. Better off saving as much cash as possible and waiting for rates to rise which should cause plenty of investment properties that are rarely lived in to go on the market to quickly harvest the proceeds.

[go1979]

Toronto != Downtown Toronto. Part of the reason everyone wants to live in the core is the horrible public transit system. I used to live uptown but near the TTC - almost every weekend in the summer, we had to use shuttle buses because of track maintenance.

When I look at the GTA, prices make no sense to me. Million dollar homes in Markham, 600K townhomes in Mississauga? What incomes justify this?

I do agree with you on the "low interest rates or else" theory. Even a few points increase will cause people at the fringes to exit the market. And that has potential to topple everything over.

[inversionOf]

Many once "low paid" positions now pay reasonable well in the area -- police officers, for instance, can easily make over $100K per year. Have both adults in the house working at those sorts of income levels, and a 600K house is entirely reasonable. Add the green belt encircling the city (the normal release valve of bidding up) and prices rise.

Housing is an interesting economic phenomena because people are often willing to pay whatever is possible to pay, so if you have 100 houses in an area and a single working adult in 100 households, prices will fit the ability of a single working adult. Now get rid of inequality and have the second adult working, and prices simply explode to fill the ability to pay of both adults. And so on. It's how we run to stand still.