3928 W 34th Ave, Vancouver
1950 SFH, 2411 sqft, 66×130 lot
Asking price: $2,988,000
“Prime building lot west of Dunbar!”
“You can tell a lot about this listing at close to three million dollars for a west side tear down bungalow in Vancouver.
First, this house was built in 1950 and it looks like very little has been done since.
Second, the house is being sold by a caucasian real estate agent which indicates that the owners are long term owners who are caucasian.
Three, this house will be paid for in cash with money from China.
Four, this house will be torn down and a new monster house will take it’s place.
Vancouver is a city that has had the guts of it’s middle class ripped right out of it.
Vancouver is quickly going from being a city to a theme park for the rich.
Within a few years the largest city in BC will be Surrey and not Vancouver.
Vancouver city is closing elementary schools and downsizing this educational system because the people buy these houses do not have children this age, and the ones that do have gone to the suburbs long ago.
Within one block of the epicentre of the Stanley Cup riots last year are new condos going up that top out at over twelve million dollars.
The peasants in the street rioting are almost all from the suburbs.
The cops who are defending the city, and who work for the city, almost all live out in the suburbs too because they can no longer afford to live in the city that they work for.
The Vancouver Police Department used to have a policy that employees had to live in Vancouver, but that was discarded long ago when they discovered that their employees could no longer afford to actually live here.
Vancouver = a postcard city.
Nice on the surface, like a Hollywood movie set.
But look a little closer and rage and anger here is manifest.”
- John at greaterfool.ca 10 Mar 2012 3:46pm
Largely agree with the sentiment.
BTW, houses like these will sell for , say $999K, or less, in the trough (and, yes, prices like $999K will return – less need to bother with all the eights. In fact, eights may even be actively avoided as too redolent of the boom-’n-bust.)
- vreaa
Hahaha, and they used One Percent Realty too. Greed in its purest form.
I’m not convinced the off shore buyers haven’t gotten smart and realized they can buy 5 houses with mortgages rather than one with cash. But, sadly, unlike the US, one can’t just look at the online tax rolls to see.
The crucial question would be: Do they intend to hold those properties through a Vancouver RE downturn?
We believe that many are momentum investors, that a big part of the reason they like Vancouver RE is because of its relative strength, and that many will sell when prices clearly turn. They will add to supply on the way down.
true AG,
but I don’t think they like paying bank mortgage interest when they don’t need to. They prefer to buy 5 with cash instead of 5 with mortgages
vreaa, how close is this to spam?
If f1 actually believes what he says, and I think he does, it’s not really spam is it?
how is this spam? Have you not heard about some HAM buying 4-5 detached homes on the westside? These stories are in the newspapers, online, etc.
I don’t think we will see a 66% correction. I’m bearish, but I see around 40%. Even the larger US cities like LA and SD didn’t see that large of a correction in their top neighborhoods.
Possibly correct, but we still predict 50%-66%-off. When we look at the magnitude of the Vancouver RE mania, we don’t see the speculation being wrung out with price drops less than 50%. And that’s how a mania always ends.. with exhaustion, not with a quick correction.
This party has been going on for a decade. Of course with a short break. Bidding wars continue and prices will be likely up this month over last month.
Were their top neighbourhoods largely owned by speculators? Because neighbourhoods that were crashed hard, regardless of price and location.
Good post of course, but “Vancouver = postcard city?” When? Three months a year, after and before the annual nine-month deluge and never-ending shroud of grey death clouds? And even then only in select locations where you’re either close to the water or at a high enough elevation to see over the urban jungle to the mountains. East Van is no postcard city. Nor is most of South Van, unless of course your idea of a postcard is a working, muddy river.
Now, if you’re talking the suburbs, well, yes, then West Van is beautiful – when it’s not raining, an event that occurs in parts of July and August. White Rock is nice too, as are bits of Delta (Tsawwassen, Ladner). But North Delta? Langley? Surrey? Burnaby? Coquitlam? Mission? Port Moody? Especially on an all-too-common day like today, where the rain is so thick you feel like you’re drowning? Gimme a fricking break.
Sorry for the apparent anger. This rain and constant gloom is just killing me. They said several years ago that global warming will make the prairies drier and warmer and the coastlines wetter and cooler. And, of course, darker. I believe ‘em. This is just horrific.
I’m with you, Gord. Just moved south and, man, what a difference the sun makes!
The bubble is even clearer from afar. Although I’d already lived and traveled abroad, being away again now has reminded how much of a joke the ‘BPOE’ mindset is.
You’d think that in this age of mass travel and communication, Vancouverites would have a more realistic view of their city. Goes to show how severely the mania has distorted perceptions…
Sounds like you should move Gord.
I don’t think LA and SD had insanity quite to this level. I mean, seriously, that’s a purely unremarkable, strikingly ordinary “oldtimer” that’s priced at $3 million. THREE MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!! Who gives a rat’s ass that it’s somewhere on the west side. What’s the big deal about Vancouver’s west side? Despite realtor BS to the contrary, it’s not the the best place on earth. It really and truly isn’t. Indeed, it’s so incredibly far from the BPOE that just the thought is laughable. And by laughable I mean crying-on-the-inside laughable.
You don’t see a 66% correction? A 66% correction would see this place priced at $1 million. In most of America, and much of Canada, you can find dumps of this ilk for less than $300,000. Hell, I’ve seen nicer places at $200,000.
I’d say this place, and so many more like it, are proof that is some areas, your 66% is too conservative.
Gord-> It is possible that 66% is too conservative an estimate. There are some who predict 80%-off, as you know. Massive momentum to the downside with complete disgust for RE as an asset class could see greater than 66%-off.
We suspect that investors (the real kind) will step in once properties become cash flow positive and show decent yields compared with government bonds. In other words, there is a floor to be expected under prices, based on rental income. (In a rising interest rate environment, and a softer economy, that floor could be even lower than that determined by current rents.)
We also fully expect Vancouver to ultimately maintain a modest price premium over other centres in Canada (fewer days below zero premium).
Why don’t you just wish for haileys comet to crash into the lower mainland. Why ate u such a doomer?
$999K can get you a very nice 3/4 bedroom modern mansion in a lot of California where it’s sunshine 300+/day each year. If you want to sacrifice a bit, you can get even bigger and nicer place for less in Florida, Oregon, Washington, US east cost, and Nevada.
So even @ $999K this house would still cause a lot of non-BC Canadians and Americans to barf at the price.
it hasn’t actually sold at $3M. so 66% of what? let’s not get carried away. though i see what they’re getting at. 66′ – an ideal subdivide. i used to live 2 blocks from there, back when dunbar was blue collar, before the dark times … before the empire. hey, were the courts at memorial park ever repaved? if the new construction isn’t selling at profit, this is fishing or they and their agents are really out to lunch. there are teardown candidates in outer shaughnessy listing for less.
It will sell for 3 million. It looks like it is sitting on a 50 foot lot
is that why it says 66′? closer to $4M, i’m sure. better tell these folks to get with the program
http://bcrealtyexperts.com/v935909-1136-devonshire-cr
“It is possible that 66% is too conservative an estimate. There are some who predict 80%-off, as you know. Massive momentum to the downside with complete disgust for RE as an asset class could see greater than 66%-off.
We suspect that investors (the real kind) will step in once properties become cash flow positive and show decent yields compared with government bonds.”
If the homes are bought cash with HAM why would they lock in a loss? From time to time I sell property for people who reside in the Middle Kingdom. I’ve never found them willing to wholesale stuff.
I also manage a lot of properties for real investors. They currently get cash flow from properties they bought with good metrics. They won’t need to sell if prices drop either. They’ll just hold.
So, what will it take to make people sell? High interest rates and a bad economy. With the amount of government intervention in the economy I can’t see that happening really quick.
Downside momentum will get the mo’ investors to bail.
Have you much experience with how these guys play the stock-markets? They love the darlings and dump anything heading decisively down.
And don’t say they’re happy riding things down because they know they’ll eventually recover… they are definitely NOT value investors, and we are so far above fundamentals (as you know) that the trough is a long way down in price and in time, and these guys know what happened in Japan, and Ireland, and Spain, etc. The moment we’re squarely in the camp of a market that is vulnerable, we’ll get deserted and pummelled.
“High interest rates and a bad economy” will also pummel the market, perhaps even get the momentum started (And, it’s a bit chicken-and-egg-ish, because, of course, dropping RE prices will punish the economy).
There are many factors that will collaborate on the downside.
Virtuous cycle becomes vicious.
BTW, a 40% haircut in Coquitlam gets us right back in the wheelhouse of sound investing. All day, all night.
Not likely because the metrics will generally get much worse along with the haircut. For example, after the financial crisis, equity P/E ratios saw significant compression while company earnings were declining. This positive feedback loop to declining prices is further fueled by debt. Don’t take this lightly because a 20% correction becomes a 40% correction which then becomes a 60% correction, etc. When prices are so far above fundamental values, then a 50% retracement is a minimum market correction. Think about when WTI went from nearly 150 to 30 in just a few months despite a risked fundamental value of 100. Vancouver RE will be no different in this regard.
Do you think most of the cops in NYC live in Manhattan. No they all live in Queens, Staten Island or Long Island. Suburbs. Do you think New Yorkers moan about this? No. Give me a break. Wake up and smell the coffee. Vancouver is no longer the backwater it used to be 25 years ago.