pricedoutfornow at VREAA 23 July 2011 9:36am -
“My American relatives would never even consider living in Vancouver after having lived in New York City, Washington, DC and Southern California. It’s just a podunk little town to them, with the obligatory visit to family once in awhile. My cousin spotted this housing bubble a mile away, after having been through all the hype down there. She took this opportunity to sell an inherited property for millions (literally!) and now lives a happy, carefree life travelling the world, seeing all sorts of neat places (note: no city in Canada was on her list of “places to visit”). Ahh..what a life! I’m happy for her, glad at least someone’s profited from this bloody bubble.”
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Chat Thread
- Taking A Break
- “My best guess: this property is now an ‘investment hold’ and will be built ‘when prices recover’. Good luck on that!”
- Man Loses $745,000 Vancouver Condo Deposit
- Graphic – Degrees of Housing Overvaluation in Canada
- The Rare Individual With A Negative Ownership Premium
- Advice Regarding Renting In Vancouver, Please – “Unfortunately, the Vancouver rental stock is absolutely atrocious. It just seems like every landlord is looking for someone to pay 100% of their mortgage on a crappy place through rental income.”
- “I just visited Manhattan for a week, and happened to snap some real estate ads on both the Upper West and Upper East sides of the island. Compare to Vancouver. It simply doesn’t compute.”
- Ben Rabidoux In Vancouver Next Week
- “The mortgage company told me they were calling in my 40-year, 0-down mortgage. I have paid nearly sixty thousand dollars towards it, but, nearly five years in, I have yet to touch the principal.”
- ‘Vancouver City Hall: Housing Report Card 2012′; Plus Revised Version
- “My folks find themselves at 65 still owing half the value of their home and recreation property to the bank. After almost 30 years of ownership in the BPOE and a number of boom markets, they have very little to show for it.”
- “Rent for $2,200 a month or buy and have a mortgage of $4,310 per month. Why would anyone buy?”
- “They were talking about two couples they knew who had recently bought a lot and planned to each build a house on it and live as neighbours.”
- Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association Annual First-Time Buyer Seminar Attendance Plummets
- Mom and Pop Get It Wrong In All Markets, Time And Again
- The average British Columbian homeowner is not going to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire.
- “He’s sold all his properties except his current one, which is now for sale. He explained that the market’s currently in crash mode, worst that he’s ever seen.”
- “One of my old high school buddies finally got her mother to sell the family home in Kitsilano – sold for over $1M, monies realized after debt paid off $185K.”
- “I know someone who just declared bankruptcy because her condo was assessed at $150k and she bought it presale north of $250k in 2005 or 2006.”
- Sturdy, With Views – “Calling Froogle Scott!… Is Dr. Scott ‘In The House’?” [Not In This One, Certainly]
- “She said the market was dead in Victoria and that it would remain so for a very long time. I asked how she knew. Her answer was fascinating and should scare the pants off the real estate crowd.”
- Kits Notes – “I’m pretty sure that this is the first 3+ bedroom property of any type that I’ve seen in the 5 years I’ve lived here that is priced below $700K.”
- “A beautiful Belfast home, in the equivalent of 1st Shaughnessy, bought at their RE peak in 2007 for £3.5 million, has now sold for £800K, almost 80%-off. The market didn’t suffer any significant economic shocks. Rates & unemployment didn’t skyrocket. They didn’t build more land. Sentiment just changed and the prices fell and fell.”
- “Two family members of hers are trapped, underwater, in condos on the East Side.”
- “Interprovincial migration is not saying good things about BC’s economy.”
- Vancouver RE: Not As Expensive Provided You Don’t Think – “It’s clear that our perception of affordability has been coloured by living on a continent where housing is unusually inexpensive.”
- More Undisclosed RE Industry Insiders Publicized As Clients – “In 1995, Allan and Karin Hoegg were mortgage-free. But no more. Today their Vancouver home is a valuable source of income as they plan for full retirement.”
- Rumor that some OV units will be reduced by 20%.
- Downside Weights On The Vancouver RE Market – “One of the older guys (over 60) mention to the guy beside him that he and his wife were thinking about selling their family home, and renting, in order to get some of the money that was locked up in the house.”
- “My buddy was looking to upgrade to a house in the Coquitlam area. With 200k extra for a home, that’s half of lifetime saving between him and his wife.”
- “I was walking in the Fraser neighborhood yesterday, I noticed that the population, on average, seem to be composed of workers. I belong to the top 5 percent in terms of income. Nevertheless, I cannot afford any of the houses for sale in that neighbourhood.”
- “Vancouver is an urban resort whose value mostly resides in its real estate and not much else.”
- “Rogers Communications is expanding into RE; aiming to relaunch website; providing critical data that can help potential buyers assess the value of a property from the comfort of their home computer.”
- I’m only 50 and I can just about retire if I want to, all because of a single simple decision – “When prices rebounded to their former highs, then rocketed another 30% higher to what I considered to be totally unsustainable levels, I decided that only a fool would pass up a second opportunity to harvest such a massive non-taxable capital gain, and in 2011 I sold my place.”
- The Vacant Lot of Versailles, Richmond.
- “I don’t think that most people think things are going to crash, just that there is going to be a slight correction, but it was amazing to me how sentiment has changed, and the fact Vancouver RE is too high was just understood.”
- “The ‘investor’ who purchased our house put it up for sale two months later, in January 1981, but the bubble had burst.”
- For A City To Have That Kind Of Vacancy, It’s Like Cancer – “Downtown, the vacant unit rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – all empty.”
- “What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t pay your mortgage, so sell your house! No fear.”
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This post is what I have been telling people for 11 years, but vancouverites always disagree, it’s a podunk town to the core. A nice little town not a city and not a big city with little to no opportunity. Having lived in 5 US cities it shows how un world class vancouver really is
Most people subscribing to this ‘world class city’ bullshit have never lived in another city. It’s one thing to travel to another city for a holiday, but try living in one for a while. Mind you, I find most who claim that this is the best place on earth have not traveled to anywhere beyond Las Vegas, an all inclusive resort or Bellingham, WA for shopping.
My mid-sized US city has the same problem. Locals constantly talking it up, convinced that everyone secretly wants to live here. And it is a nice place to live, but really it’s podunk.
After living in a few large cities, one thing that is an absolute must to be in the top tier is a real economy, with many large companies, offering high salaries. There has to be a sense of growth and broad opportunity.
It’s not enough for people to want to be here to take it easy. That makes it a resort, or a retirement community. Business and commerce have to be there because it is a key economic node, with valuable things going on.
the Americans can live in their kaboom communities. dont need them!
It is not about Americans, you are trying to distract from the elephant in the room.
It is about the delirium in Vancouver that has been aptly described here.
“It is about the delirium in Vancouver that has been aptly described here”
depends on which side your bread is buttered. If you’re on the outside you see this market as “delerium”, “bubble”, or “insanity”. If you’re already inside you see folks competing for that increasingly rare and coveting detached property. I don’t see too many insiders wanting to trade places with the have-nots
Tell me get-real – if you see prices as insane then you must know about some vacant parcels of development land that no-one else sees. Where is it? Where do you put the 40K additional people that move here every year?
That is exactly my point.
It is not about “vacant parcels of development land”. It is more about economic fundamentals that support a city and its prices. Vancouver does not, and it is not NYC or London or even Toronto
Your argument is all about assuming that foreigners with boatloads, who do not need to work or for whom the economic fundamentals do not matter, will continue to inflate prices due to land shortage. Fast forward to 5-10 years, not many regular folks would like to live in a place like this. HEnce it is non sustainable
economic fundamentals?
Per capita Vancouver adds more to it’s population total than NY or Toronto. Ergo we are growing at a greater rate than either. Show me a growth city and I’ll show you rising prices. This is the only fundamental you need to understand.
What are you trying to prove?? So first it was “limited land” and now it’s immigration. It still does not answer my question. Read it again. Can you name at least 5 headquarters of fortune 500 companies in Van. ? I did not think so!
Lululemon..yeah sure
Laughable! trying to prove Vancouver has better economic fundamentals than NYC or even TO
“Vancouver adds more to it’s population total than NY or Toronto” What kind of a BS measure is that??
Take your blinders off dude. Good luck with the million dollar shack!!
get real,
“The City of London’s global financial index ranks Vancouver among the top 25 global financial centres and in the top 10 for transnational finance.
Vancouver’s financial services emerged to support resource development, which explains why 800 global mining companies are based here”
mining, resource and finance are not industries that are visible like retail, food/service. Vancouver is home to some of the world’s top companies – sorry it ain’t The Gap or McDonalds – companies you use everyday.
“Vancouver is home to some of the world’s top companies”
Name some.
You don’t know what you’re talking about – the GTA has been growing at roughly 100K per annum compared to 20K per year (and slowing) for GVRD. High real estate prices and recently announced immigration restrictions are expected to cut this in half this year. You sir, again, are full of shit!
“metro Vancouver is projected to add 1.2 million residents for a total population of 3.4 million by the year 2041. The combination of population growth and demographic factors would require about 574,000 additional housing units to be built over that period”
http://www.metrovancouver.org/planning/development/strategy/RGSBackgroundersNew/RGSMetro2040ResidentialGrowth.pdf
chance of price collapse in property prices = nil.
You might get short and shallow correction like 2008 but that’s it.
Rusty, you should also add: “Prices always go up” and “it’s different here.”
If you’re rusty now, what’s going to be left of you in 2041?
Let’s figure this out:
– 2011 population: 2.2 million
– Projected 2041 population: 3.4 million
– Annual growth rate: 1.46% (because 2.2 * 1.0146^30 ~= 3.4)
So let me get this straight: you’re saying that Metro Vancouver’s property values don’t need to obey economic fundamentals because there’s going to be 1.46% annual growth in the population!
Wait till rusty hears about the current 3.1% inflation rate. Then he’ll really think prices are going to the moon!
“mining, resource and finance are not industries that are visible like retail, food/service. Vancouver is home to some of the world’s top companies – sorry it ain’t The Gap or McDonalds – companies you use everyday.”
Mining companies are in Vancouver because Canada has focused on an extraction economy. As a colony, Canada relied on selling her natural products, but would have done well to do more value-added work within Canada. Extraction lends itself to boom/bust cycles. Timber/ mining/ oil/ natural gas, ect.
metro Vancouver property values DO follow economic fundamentals…those that can afford to buy a detached home buy one, those that cannot do not. Each step up in property class eliminates those at lower incomes/equity. You need to be a very high income earner or accumulated wealth to buy a detached property in this city – otherwise you take steps down until you find your affordability level aka 32-35% of income toward servicing your desired property.
I think you need a lesson in how to read the stats on economic fundamentals since you’re confusing the affordability stat with the mosts desired property class, detached.
Shouldn’t an “average” income be able to buy an “average” home?
Or do they mean the other meaning of average.
Don’t you know, Knight St is the new Park Avenue! Every wealthy person wants to live there, with big trucks rumbling by every 20 seconds!
lol ;p
By high income earners we have a group of weed growers, crack dealers, meth laboratory technicians, hookers, and wealthy foreign investors. Nobody with ligit jobs in vancouver earns $ 50.000 to $ 100.000 a year more, every year to keep up with the price increases, or maybe it happens due to “unofficial inflation rate”
avg income includes renters, unemployed, etc. The avg home calculation only includes home buyers. So how do you use a stat for every individual in the city (income) yet only include the obviously higher incomes needed to buy a home. This stat is fundamentally flawed. Find me the avg income of the actual home buyers – I think you’ll find it fits nicely into the Vancouver avg home pri
Rusty, why don’t you just call yourself eyesthebye and get it over with? How’s your crappy old house nearby Vancouver’s busiest trucking route?