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As someone who just moved from Vancouver to the Bay Area, it's obvious the issue isn't housing. It's income. My apartment in trendy yaletown was $2350/month for a very nice 2 bed, 2 bath place within 10 mins of anything in downtown. Try finding something even remotely as nice around Silicon Valley.

The issue we should be tackling is the low wages seen in the area. The same developer who could make $100k USD in the valley makes $60k CAD in Vancouver.

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San Francisco housing is expensive BECAUSE of the incomes. Vancouver housing is expensive DESPITE the incomes. It's more of a housing issue than an income one. If incomes were higher, rents would only go up as well.

I don't see why we have to separate the two. It sounds like Vancouver faces both increasingly high rent and abnormally low salary for tech jobs (although I recognize that we might not expect Silicon Valley level pay).

It's not just Vancouver that's experiencing abnormally low salaries for tech jobs, all of Canada is.

The brain drain is slow but inevitable.

Alternatively, SF/the US have extremely better salaries for tech jobs. I don't think this is a problem unique to Canada (but presumably its much worse because of easier access to visas).

slow? they're all flocking down south ASAP with TN, if they haven't already.

I would argue the opposite, SF is expensive in spite of the incomes (consider across the board instead of just programmers).

I'm willing to bet if you were to map the relative rate of increase of income vs. property values over time that you would see that property values are increasing at a much higher rate than income.

I earn what could be considered a good salary, there's less than zero chance in hell that I could afford property in Marin today short of winning the lottery or massive liquidity event.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. While I've never ever considered moving to Vancouver, I get recruiter emails several times a month for companies in Vancouver looking for Senior programmers to move there and only offering 80k to 110k CAD at the most. That is not nearly enough money to live in Vancouver. Enough to exist but not enough to live.

The problem as I understand it is that a ton of Vancouver's housing is occupied by children of mega rich people from Asia (mostly China) who are rich enough to not care what rent costs which drives rent up for everyone else. There's such a huge l mismatch between housing costs and salaries in Vancouver.

s/occupied/owned/

Ah yes that is an important distinction.

CAD 110k is definitely enough to get a decent place, live comfortably and save some money in Vancouver.

But then again 'decent' and 'comfortably' are subjective.

Yes, it's enough to rent in a decent place, live comfortably, and save ~20K/year.

A senior engineer in Seattle can do the same, and save ~100K/year.

I'd love to live in your world! How much do you think senior engineers earn?

Most people would do well to save 20% but even assuming people save 33% then you reckon senior engineers earn over 300k?

Senior engineers at Microsoft/Amazon/Google earn ~200-400K USD. (All-in)

If you can 'live well' in the more expensive Vancouver at a 110K CAD salary, you could easily save an extra 100-200K USD by moving to Seattle.

Those companies are very much outliers. Does those 3 all have development operations in Seattle?

Your figures don't seem to stack up RE Google:

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/Google-Seattle-Salaries-EI_I...

Yes, Amazon and Microsoft HQ are both in the Seattle area. Google has 2 locations here in Fremont and Kirkland. $200K+ for senior engineers sounds about right from people I've known who went to those companies.

Housing is getting expensive, but you can still buy a small 3br for about $400K in my neighborhood just south of Bellevue, so saving $100K does sound plausible.

"All-in" means total compensation (stock and bonus included), not just salary.

Those GlassDoor salaries are cash. Stock and bonus add another 50-100%. My anecdotal experience with Vancouver is that some employers will throw you 15%, on a good year.

Microsoft pays a bit less, but also employs ~30,000 people in the area.

50-100% sounds high for stock and bonus when you're on 200k+ but my main point was these companies are the exception, not the rule.

The stock and bonus are included in the 200-400k number.

Microsoft and Amazon are hardly an exception in Seattle - now that Boeing is leaving, they are by far the biggest employers in the region.

You're very wrong. I have actual wage data from all 3 of those companies.

I know a company that pays fresh-grad $70k-$75k base salary with 10-15% bonus almost guaranteed base on company performance (there's a calculation behind it but the bonus amount is part of your package).

Microsoft, Amazon, starting salary was 85-90k to 100k+ 2-3 years ago for 2 years - 5/7 years of experience.

Salesforce Intermediate/borderline Senior SDET (SDET typically make less than SDE) starts from 100k base with a bunch of plus plus that can boost their income to 120k-140k.

OpenDNS lurking well above $100k as well for intermediate developer.

Mogo.ca pays their front-end dev $100k base and this is a small-medium size company.

It's not the norm but thanks to US-based companies, salary is moving up and up.

That's in CAD, correct? The Canadian dollar isn't doing too well, and is expected to drop to around $.50 USD by year end.

But we're talking about local issue so currency matters less for this topic.

Unfortunately, Vancouver housing is being driven by international currencies. A low Canadian dollar makes houses in Vancouver a bargain for outsiders and even more unaffordable for anyone earning Canadian dollars.

The problem there is the >90% of people in Vancouver who aren't in high paying tech fields. It's pretty difficult to say "just triple their wages and they'll afford houses no problem."

The real issue is property owners know someone will eventually come along and pay whatever they're asking. If wages were to dramatically increase, they'd never stop and think, "Yeah, I think I'll cap rent at $3000/month because I'm a nice guy." They'll gladly take $4000 if they can and never settle for less once they hit that point. Instead of considering lowering rents, they'll ask why you just don't get paid more.

"Eventually" Looked at three houses a couple of weekends ago, all sold by Monday. Two were unlivable, one nice, but way over budget, all out in the burbs.

Every other post in this thread starts with "No, the real issue is..."

Can you guys all start up a shared google doc and hash this out to figure out which one of you is right and why the others are all wrong?

This!

The tech salaries are absurdly low. The tech CEOs who pay poor wages and are complaining about their inability to retain talent are the same ones blaming real estate.

The taxes are also high https://simpletax.ca/calculator

Select BC and enter in the typical income for an experienced developer in Vancouver which is 75k. Your take home salary is $59,000 plus you aren't offered any options usually just straight pay. This doesn't include all the other deductions such as EI and CPP.

Now convert CAD to USD and you're a professional experienced developer making $42,000 USD per year, in one of the highest cost cities on earth.

According to that calculator my taxes would be less in Ontario, Canada than California. In reality they aren't because I do married filing jointly and my wife has no income. But were I a single person it seems that it's not true that the taxes are higher there. In fact I'd be paying $5,000 less in tax in Ontario than in California (assuming wages were the same).

I don't know if EI and CPP would add up to $5,000, but certainly it would be much less if you throw Health Insurance into the the calculation.

Don't forget to factor in health care. In BC, standard care that would be the bargain basement cost would likely cost you < $1500 a year. Better care not much more than $2500 tops.

I don't really remember paying for health care separately in Ontario (where I'm from originally) anyway... At least there was an option for it but it was more like "In case you become disabled and can't work" or something like that

Interesting, my take home would be about the same if I was making the same amount in Vancouver (ignoring exchange rate).

neat.

Now I just need to find a job paying that amount... oh wait. :/

59k for BC, 58k for Ont, 54k for QC, etc.

The taxes are not really higher in BC. I do agree that the cost of living is however a lot higher.

Isn't that a housing issue, though? Paying for a $2350/mo place on $60k is... pretty ridiculous.

I'd argue its impossible since $2350 is almost half your monthly salary before tax!

That's a lifestyle issue.

No fresh grad ($60k) should live in "trendy" Yaletown district with 2 BR + 2 Bath.

A lot of fresh grads (from UBC) in Vancouver are living around Kitsilano where you can get a one bedroom place for <$1000/month. Right now I live in a two bedroom flat in the heart of Kits where I'm paying $825 and my flatmate $725.

Previously to that in Vancouver I lived in the heart of Yaletown in a 550sqft studio costing about $1300/month, and started living there on a salary of about $62k.

I've never had financial struggles living in Vancouver with salaries ranging from $42-85k, and have generally had enough disposable income to afford to travel quite a bit, ski at Whistler every weekend, and eat out and go out regularly.

That said, it's totally a renter's market. It's unaffordable for me to buy anything that I'd want to live in for the longer term, unless I go to Surrey or somewhere else in greater Vancouver, which would completely take away or hinder a lot of the benefits I see to living in Vancouver.

Fresh grads are making a lot more than $60k these days. But yes, you're spot on.

I split it with a roommate. I lived 10 mins from my work, which vastly improved my quality of life and saved me money on transit.

I estimated I was paying $100 more to live in downtown, but that was almost equivalent to the savings in transit fares.

Vancouver salaries seem exceptionally low. I live in the middle of nowhere USA, and devs start out at from school over $60k USD, and I live on an acre in a 3 bed 3 bath, 6 minutes from downtown and 4 minutes from work. At $2350/month my house would have been paid off in 5 years.

I'm curious if dev salaries in Canada aren't competitive with the US due to more immigration. When I recently visited a large tech company in Canada, I was struck by how much of the team was from everywhere but US and Canada.

My theory is it seems like lots of people want to live in Vancouver, which makes salaries and housing much more competitive. Whereas where I live, people have to be enticed to move here.

Chicken and egg. Partially because of low/competitive salaries in Canada, all of the Canadians are in the US on TN visas, leaving the Canadian tech industry staffed with non-citizens.

Those salaries are low and that's a problem, but a nice 2 bed place in SF 10 min from downtown is what - $5000-7000/mo? The rent relative to income seem similar/worse in SF?

Agreed - the last job offer I got was for 95k CAD and they would not budge higher.

Currently working remotely for about 115k CAD with a number of other perks.

I moved from Dublin, Ireland to Vancouver. Dublin rents are very high - probably as bad as Vancouver. The cost of living here is slightly lower though.

I agree with your point in genera but in my experience as a developer who works in Vancouver, but has also worked in SF and NY, the salaries are about the same in number if not in currency. The CAD has dropped 30% in a couple of years though which does mean we effectively are getting less.

I think Vancouver actually pays tech workers pretty well because there is a high demand, a few big companies and lots of smaller innovative ones.

Vancouver doesn't have the typical jobs that pay for $1m houses and yachts though. Opportunities in finance and corporate HQ positions are minuscule compared to big US cities and Toronto.

I've always considered Vancouver (tech) salaries to be fairly competitive compared to the rest of the Canada. (I'm a Vancouver dev)

In other words they're quite low vs. comparable American cities :)

This is just anecdotal, but that price point at the quality you want is possible in downtown San Jose.

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