kspaans

6 ms·

1.
by kspaans 5y ago
#paid | https://hastagpaid.com/ | Senior Software Engineer | REMOTE CAN, USA the team at @hashtagpaid is hiring! Work with a friendly and passionate team, building 🇨🇦 Canadian Tech in @cityoftoronto using a modern tech sta
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by kspaans 7y ago
I believe Stripe and/or has the same issue. One of the roasters I like to buy from in Toronto has beans from Cuba, but can't sell them online.
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by kspaans 7y ago
How does this work? The $2m valuation would be based on income from current tenants, would it not? Most rent control laws, and especially not the one in Oregon, don't retroactively change rents charged to current tenants. That is unles
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by kspaans 7y ago
Yup, this is how "rent stabilization" works in Ontario, Canada. When a tenant has a lease, rent increases are capped to a rate set by the government. When a tenant leaves, there is "rent decontrol" and the landlord can c
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by kspaans 7y ago
Here is Scarborough, an eastern suburb (with the suburban neighbourhoods you'd expect) in the City of Toronto. > Incidents in Scarborough have accounted for more than 46 per cent (or 19 of 41) of pedestrian deaths this year, despite
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by kspaans 7y ago
Older buildings should sell for less, to compensate for this risk. If the mortgage payments eat up too much of the rental income then the owner overpaid, and should sell at a price that's more appropriate for the risk associated with t
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by kspaans 7y ago
That may be because you're competing against other owners who bought their houses for peanuts (relatively speaking) and thanks to Prop 13 also pay peanuts in property tax. They can depress market rents (below purchase prices) because f
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by kspaans 8y ago
The stormwater surcharge also help to nudge people whose property may contribute to excess runoff: large driveways, paved yards, larger houses, etc. This is currently a big problem in Toronto where flooding often occurs downtown (closer to
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by kspaans 8y ago
Absolutely false. Land costs, permitting costs, zoning, permitting, etc all add up to the final cost of built housing. Developers build what's profitable, that's true, but they aren't twirling their moustaches and charging 3x
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by kspaans 8y ago
That's how Canada does inheritance tax: "deemed disposition". There is no inheritance tax per se, but when you die you're assets are assumed to be sold at current market value and trigger the appropriate taxes.
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by kspaans 8y ago
As you've alluded to, location is a factor. Specifically: the cost of land. Regardless of the price of building each square foot of housing, rising land values inflates the total cost of buying land to put that housing on. This is part
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Bad Landlord? These Coders Are Here to Help(nytimes.com)
3 points by kspaans 8y ago|0 comments
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by kspaans 8y ago
We've got a (mostly) Toronto-based (with worldwide representation too) Slack community if you'd like to join: https://techmasters.chat/ We have many candid discussions about career opportunities and political issu
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One Third of Condos at Four Seasons Toronto Sold for a Loss(projects.thestar.com)
1 points by kspaans 8y ago|0 comments
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by kspaans 8y ago
Yeah I hope we can eventually find a way to price these kinds of things more accurately. Like a sibling comment says: price in the externalities of low-density living and let those who want to pay them pay them, or else increase the density
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by kspaans 8y ago
The problem is that due to the way most property taxes and house prices work those people are getting a free ride off of the prosperity of the city: a tragedy of the commons. Assuming this quiet neighbourhood is near an urban area with nice
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by kspaans 8y ago
It's inevitable that land prices in urban areas will go up as populations grow. That doesn't mean that the price of housing has to grow too. You could build more density (build up, build smaller units) to keep rents and prices sta
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by kspaans 8y ago
Fair point, but people tend to demand less space right? Is the average-sized rental affordable for the average income in the city? I've heard the relative affordability is better than most of the Western world.
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by kspaans 8y ago
One thing you still need to consider is infrastructure like water, sewer, schools, hospitals, etc. I agree it should be easier (and thus cheaper) for landowners to build what's profitable, but there needs to be a feedback mechanism so
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by kspaans 8y ago
One component of the problem is that "housing" isn't a free market. More specifically, if you buy a plot of land in nearly any city or town, you aren't free to build whatever you want (e.g. building a duplex or small apa
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by kspaans 8y ago
TELUS digital is hiring! https://labs.telus.com/careers
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by kspaans 8y ago
I studied at UWaterloo and had many internships from 2007-2010 for which I forget the pay I was making, but I remember all of my full-time amounts (I started with around 2 years of work experience): 2012-2013: RIM/Blackberry in Waterlo
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by kspaans 8y ago
This is where multi-nationals like Amex come in handy. I'm Canadian and got my first Amex while living in the UK. Later when I moved to the US I was able to bring my Amex history with me and get an Amex there with no issues.
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by kspaans 8y ago
Possibly what the grandparent was thinking of is land values. If a neighbourhood is rezoned to allow more density, one would be able to build a duplex or low-rise condo/apartment building where there used to be a single family home. Th
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by kspaans 8y ago
Make 10 other people 2X as productive!
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by kspaans 8y ago
You're right, interpreting whether a given price-to-rent ratio is overvalued or not is subjective, but calculating that ratio is (mostly) objective and can make for an apples-to-apples comparison between different locations.
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by kspaans 8y ago
And minus interest expenses on the mortgage.
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by kspaans 8y ago
Yup, probably the simplest objective metric to calculate is price-to-income ratio as a measure of "overvalued" in a given location.
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Deloitte sounds alarm about Canada's 'zombie' companies(business.financialpost.com)
1 points by kspaans 8y ago|0 comments
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by kspaans 8y ago
I'm also a fan of LVT, and have only ever found one reasonable rebuttal (at least from the perspective of municipal financing in Canada): https://seekingalpha.com/article/4176102-principles-canadian...

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