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Canadian city of Vancouver finally get round to imposi=ing a purc hase tax on foreign buyers to try to stabilise the housing market.


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With prices in this city (Vancouver)  soaring and seemingly completely out of control ,the local city Mayor has finally bowed to the enormous pressure from inhabitants who cannot afford to buy any house nowadays and slapped a 15% up-front tax on all foreign buyers of property here in this province. Many of these buyers are strongly rumoured not to be living in these homes but are using the property purchase to stash away their hard-earned savings, currently in China , which they fear that the  Chinese Government will otherwise tax to death. From what we read ,Toronto may be just about to do something like this too since their market in the East of Canada is hot too and similar price hikes are also in vogue so we are informed. 

For example, a 3 bedroom house bought in January 2013 here in  Maple Ridge (a suburb situated  about 45 miles from Vancouver centre) for just over $500,000 will now  possibly sell for at least $730,000 and possibly a lot more. In short, for the average family with kids that is  a huge ask. In Vancouver city the prices are unbelievably high (very average and not new 3 bedroom of any age)  will be asking $1,000,000 or more depending on the suburb in which it is located.

So one thinks. 'Whee, all I have to do is sell and retire in luxury since my loan is now paid off . But then what do you do?Rents have doubled  for a one or two bedroom apartment  and you cant even find a decent place to rent  outside the main city for less than between $1.000 and $1,350 per month. Oops I'll just buy a small townhouse then --no, no that means taking out another mortgage -- and that I don't need and won't be able to afford as for any senior."  

How does that compare with Inverness  I wonder..?

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:crazy::notworthy:

Is that one on wheels IHE? Looks more like a wealthy person's ski cabin than a residence though and I'll bet these roof panels are solar.

Here is a wee look at one type of mobile home:

https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=pictures+of+mobile+homes+inside

After purchase, wheels are frequently taken off the mobile homes here and then the structure is placed on blocks to sit on a concrete base which one rents for $600 -$700 per month in a mobile-home park. The park owner does provide running water though along with electric and gas fittings but you pay the heating and lighting bills yourself. Parking is allowed in driveways. There will  be a small grass strip or two around the place and there is room for a shed if you want to spend the money and/or do the work of building it yourself. These mobile home parks tend to ...er...deteriorate though since they are not solidly built and often have an assorted type of personnel owning them.

The hoi-polloi (with regrets for repetition to Charles B.) tend to look down on whom they call "trailer park trash"  who don't have the money to spend on grotesquely overpriced homes hereabouts. But they can serve a very useful stop-gap purpose until, say, young couples with a small family can get on their feet financially and  they are quite comfortable inside...one bedroom is classified as  single-wide, 2 beds as double wide and 3 bedrooms are classed on the sales sheet as triple wide. They contain at least one bathroom, a kitchen and a family room. In short, perfectly adequate accommodation...cozy like.

"Mobiles" are not to be confused with what are described as "modular" homes in Canada, though ,which are more-or less built from kits and are much more sturdy and specifically structured in order to be built on a site and made to last. They  look like modern, contractor-built houses and are more expensive to set-up of course than mobiles. The drawback with this excellent type of modular  home , however, is the fact that you have to have acquired and own a lot on which to build the house (that's a plot of land whose dimensions  accord with Municipality rules for this type of alternative housing)  and then you have to foot all the bills for water supply, drainage, laying (I think) of gas pipes and electric cabling, foundations etc., almost as if you were buying a new and professionally-built  home, the difference being that in the latter case all the costs of this work is already included in the builders' price. Not to mention the fact that you had better be a knacky bloke  so that you can do all the work yourself or you will still have to pay someone to put it all together for you and your family. And the final kicker is that you will still have to pay  property taxes to the Municipality because you own the lot and the home structure itself. In a mobile home the landlord of the park pays all the property taxes as I recall.

 

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Not much fun in that though, IHE--far too easy. Nothing like roughing it in the outdoors to get the blood running .

I once did that but a long time ago. Five or six of us  went directly up the side of a sheer cliff rising out of the Pacific Ocean in a float plane which finally flew over the top of this cliff and trees and set down on a lovely little lake in a depression surrounded by more trees. It taxied to a stop on a tiny jetty at the edge of the lake  and we walked to an old hut and met up with several other members of the same outdoor club we were in who had hiked up the trail through the forest instead of flying in. Was I scared as the small seaplane flew vertically higher and higher, with the cliff face on the right side and the abyss on the other?- well, my heart was thumping because, if the engine(s) had stalled for any reason (e.g. gasoline leak?) ,there was no sandy shoreline at water's edge and we were in remote territory so we would have been gonners for sure. But wasn't that why we used this method of access?

Then the fun started after we had eaten a meal cooked on a wood fire inside the hut by the girls. As a thank you to the lasses,  S.P. started massaging a girl's back as she sat astride one of the long benches and before long about 14 of us were doing the same thing on the same bench, one to the other, amidst screams of laughter and pleasure. Gloaming fell and we retired to our sleeping bags (in what was a smoke-free environment) and there is no need to tell you anymore, IHE, although I am sure your psychologist's assessment of the situation could be? ............:smile:

Suffice it to say we all got up early the next day, had another fair breakfast, cooked this time by the boys, and descended the mountain on foot through the trees to where the cars were waiting for us, since we could not afford the cost of a seaplane both ways. Good job we had arrived in hiking boots and carried a backpack, eh?

None of our outings, whether it be skiing downhill (or cross-country which I did not like) or backpacking,camping,snow-shoeing, canoeing, white-water rafting  etc., were easy on the body but were tremendous fun with good, fit companions and ideal for a single man or woman at weekends who did not have a close companion. And we were all equal, no matter what the daily status at work (university Professor, doctor, candlestick-maker, whatever?) and all on first name terms. We all looked after each other and watched out for the less-fit hikers who were unable to keep up. This was ideal for Scarlet since he has a very low heartbeat (at that time about 48 upon waking) and took about ten minutes to warm up and get going --so I usually started at the very back and watched the newbies in front of me until the slow pace got to me and I started to belt up the trail knowing that the stopping point was not far away and no one was going to be lost at this point. It was a work-out too, IHE, so no glamping, shmamping can replace that feeling of well-being amidst a certain sense of achievement. 

Cheers m'lad and back tae yer beer ah suppose.?:notworthy:

 

 

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