BC's high cost of housing

While British Columbia's economy has boomed, a growing minority of its young residents have come to expect they'll have to move away to start lives on their own, according to a recent survey by the Canada West Foundation.

B.C.'s high cost of housing is one of the reasons, said Robert Roach, the foundation's director of strategic policy and research.

The foundation, which conducts research on economic competitiveness, periodically survey's the public across the West on the expectations people have about their need to move, which is a proxy for their confidence in the economy.

Roach noted that when asked, on average, 90 per cent of British Columbians said they expect to be living in B.C. five years from now.

For 18-to-24-year-olds, however, that number was 74 per cent. And 26 per cent said it's unlikely they'll still live in B.C. five years from now, up from the 12 per cent who said the same in the foundation's 2006 survey.

"I don't have a precise explanation," Roach said, "but some of the things we've been hearing is that B.C. is a great place to live if you're already established, but with house prices the way they are, especially in the Lower Mainland and now in the Okanagan, [it's harder to get started in the province]."

He added that the downturn in B.C.'s forestry-dependent communities might also be contributing to the seeming dislocation of the province's youth.

To put the development into context though, Roach noted that the 18-to-24 demographic is the one most likely to be mobile -- to attend school or obtain a first job -- anyway.

And the number of British Columbians prepared to move is nothing like the 40 per cent of young Saskatchewan residents who expected to move from home within the next five years at the start of the decade.

Other interesting developments from the survey, fewer Western residents in 2008 said they would be willing to move to the United States to take a better job than said so in 2001. And more in 2008 said they would be willing to move to another country other than the U.S. to obtain a better job.

The survey, conducted between Jan. 2 and Feb. 8, involved interviewing 4,000 Western residents -- 1,000 each from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error for results from individual provinces.

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of B.C. added that young people have also moved to the province in recent years, and B.C. has benefited from high levels of mobility.

"It's a push-pull," he added. "It's not all one way."

He added that "we don't want to be portraying mobility in a negative light, necessarily."

However, for employers, the high cost of housing is becoming "a growing concern in terms of what might attract and retain people."

The Lower Mainland, Victoria and Kelowna are all areas that have seen dramatic increases in housing prices, without commensurate increases in incomes that would pay for such housing.

"This is not a Tokyo or London or New York," Finlayson said, where there are lots of high paying jobs.

"Incomes are okay [in B.C.]," he added, "but the average [B.C.] household income is modest. There are several other places [in Canada] that have higher average incomes where housing costs are half or less [compared with B.C.]."

Roach noted that the mobility statistic can be fairly volatile. Because young people are the most mobile, they can also change their minds quickly, which means they might be entirely different again in two years.

(prepared by Derrick Penner/Vancouver Sun)