“Just witnessed another young Victoria couple get sucked into buying a pressboard box with no yard within a stones throw of the highway. It was a bank sale on a project that looks barely a couple of years old and they weren’t even bright enough to lowball what was an obvious desperation sale. Of course it was the one set of parents pushing them into it so their smart little boy can be on the “property ladder”.
While one gets sucked in, another I know who has owned for 3 years needs daddy to pay for the groceries to keep the kids fed even with a two income family. This is not going to end well in the City of Gardens and the brainless.”
- coastal at greaterfool.ca 23 Jan 2012 at 10:53pm
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- “Rent for $2,200 a month or buy and have a mortgage of $4,310 per month. Why would anyone buy?”
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- “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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Here’s a great play happening in Toronto but I’d bet it’s happening all across the country right now. A unique home came up for sale and a bidding war ensued. The winning bidders “went with their heart more than the money” http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1114219–house-in-a-box-up-for-sale-for-349-000
But wait! That offer ends up collapsing. Maybe the money is more important than the heart and we end up with a young, sweet, innocent 20-something who with help from her parents buys this thing. http://www.thestar.com/article/1125455–toronto-s-tiny-cube-house-sells-again-for-more-than-125-000-over-349-000-asking-price
And would yo look at the ugly thing? Rust and all! At least that beetle will look so… cliche under there.
I’m flabbergasted….I just can’t believe it. This is so retarded I am sorry.
“She plans to add at least one closet — there are currently none — and design a novel island on wheels that will do double-duty in the kitchen which now has just a counter and sink but no cupboards.”
Unbelievable!
Perhaps most galling is that the Toronto Star actually felt the need to turn this into yet another gushing real estate story. They wrote one up when it sold the first time. That story turned into a farce when the first “winning couple” reneged due to lack of financing. So what does TorStar do? Why, it seizes the opportunity and writes a second “exciting” real estate story of course. Absolutely shameless.
Probably because the first offer was a professional couple with reno plans, so either had 20%+ or wanted a builder mortgage, either way triggering — gasp — an actual appraisal. The second offer, from a starry-eyed dreamer with help from her parents (their LOC?), was likely a high ratio, this approved automatically in five seconds flat by CMHC’s computer based on lot size and price.
Looks like it’s got a grand total of two 2x2ft windows. I truly feel sorry for the young lady who bought that. Plus the construction looks like a deteriorating peice of playground equipment. People have lost their minds.
Two words: Fire trap.
This proves you can slap salt and sugar on piece of pallet lumber and sell it to an intellectual.
Not getting financing is probably the best thing that ever happened to them….. but an architect and an interior designer couldn’t get a 400k mortgage?