[nacho2sweet]

Vancouver where I live had fairly cheap rent compared to ownership for awhile, maybe back in 2010's. Mortgage + maintenance fee back then for a condo could be like $2800/month but would rent for as low as ~$1000-$1500. It is still like this but the spread is a bit less because of cheap money, and weaker condo prices cause of covid. You can get 1.79% 5 year fixed on a 25 year amortized mortgage rn. Our housing market bubble is humming through covid.

We have very low to no property taxes. All of our taxes are based on income. So a condo could have annual property taxes of like $1800-$2000... So what is the point of renting it out if it is increasing in value 10% a year and you are going to use it maybe 2 months a year. The west side of Vancouver were all the mansions are, and had a the greatest new concentration of rich foreign buyers actually paid the lowest taxes in the province.

We also have very big immigration influx in Canada, foreign student population and a 10 year visa program with China. These all started shooting up rents. But also caused what is known as satellite families which drop of their kids and caretaker, use the public schools, health care etc but make all their money back in their country of origin not claiming income tax here. We had University students with their names on $30million houses. House wife seemed to be the most lucrative job going in real estate.

We got a new provincial government a few years ago who brought in the "speculation tax". Basically if you don't pay income tax here but own a house you have to pay a tax of 2% of the properties value. This is compounded on top of an empty homes tax the city put in place of 1% if it is not rented out. There was also some new laws/procedures put in place with data sharing across province/city/real estate board that is helping clearing up some malfeasance as well.