The ~$700k number the article cites takes into account condos.
If you're only looking at detached houses then Vancouver is as expensive as SF if not more expensive. The median price is $1.3 million in the east side and $3.2 in the west side.
> The price of a typical Vancouver home rose 21 percent to C$775,300 ($584,290) in January from a year earlier, according to the city’s real estate board.
The costs quoted in the article are a bit vague. If one were to assume that by "Vancouver home", she was referring to a "house" located within the city of Vancouver, you would be in for a rude awakening. Average house price is pushing 2M and what that will buy you is a place to tear down in what was/is the less desirable part of the city.
If your talking a 1 bedroom condo in the city, 500k will get you started and the 775k quoted will get you something a bit above the basics.
When you can figure out how your going to pay that mortgage with your "Vancouver tech" salary, and still be able to afford to live, I'm all ears :)
Problem is those $700k condos are being bid up to $800k, and often sold so fast there's no time to go back to your bank and request an additional $100k mortgage. The Chinese buyers have cash to make the sale immediately.
The newer buildings are now exclusively luxury condos, like the tower being built on Harwood St that's one unit per floor for offshore millionaires.
Based on some quick Googling and Glassdoor, it looks like average salaries are ~110k vs. ~80k. The cost of rent in San Francisco looks to be ~190% higher.
Not sure how well those figures line up with reality, though.
Most people here make way above average, and that's when differences increase dramatically. In the US I make close to $300k. In Europe, and London in particular, I get offered under 80k EUR.
Your right. For a typical 1 Bedroom unit, in the city, you would be looking in the $1500 ballpark, a 2 Bedroom unit closer to 2K. For a 3 Bedrooom unit, well good luck with that.
Even with the cost/affordability, the bigger problem is the lack of availability of rental units. The current vacancy rate in the city is at 0.8% and heading downwards.
They can be. It's more accurate to say that Vancouver has a narrower range of salaries with a lower ceiling.
Right now I'm in NYC making about 4x what I would make in Vancouver for a similar job (disregarding exchange rate! It'd be ~5-6x if we include exchange rate), so yeah, still way ahead despite NYC's astronomical cost of living.
