Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by deanCommie 3605 days ago
You could rent. Rental prices in Vancouver are fairly reasonable relative to purchase prices.
4 comments

0.8% vacancy rate, good luck renting also landlords all use fix term year leases now where you agree to move after it expires in order to bypass the provincial rent increase cap and raise your rent +30% https://www.biv.com/article/2016/6/tight-rental-market-bc-la...
FWIW, pre-agreed termination agreements like this are void in Ontario. I suppose it's to avoid exactly the situation you describe.

http://www.ontariotenants.ca/law/act05.phtml

Ontario's rental laws are great compared to other provinces with the exception of maybe Quebec.

Once you sign a lease you and roll on month-to-month it's unlikely you will be evicted. Landlords either need to sell the property or move into it themselves to get the property back.

Trying to rent in Vancouver is insane. Lat time I looked I had to schedule to look at places in groups. It takes mere hours for a rental to go from an AD to rented. Bidding wars are becoming more common. Top it off with the "renoviction" phenomenon and it all makes renting in Vancouver very difficult.
The rental market has begun heating up lately (stories of rental auctions, renovictions, evictions for airBnB, etc) so although they may be comparatively reasonable, they may not stay absolutely reasonable for long.
They are for now, but that may not last long. I'm also renting in Vancouver as the only sensible option.

As an anecdote, I was looking for a new rental place in the past month and I've never seen such a landlord's market. Craigslist posts that disappeared after hours, bidding wars, 10s of desperate people showing up for a not-so-ideal place, and the overall treatment of applicants were very good signs of rock-bottom vacancy rates. Applying for a rental looked a lot like a job interview.