“i’m from Winnipeg and my wife live in vancouver. I travel for work to bc every week and i got to say the prices on the house i have seen in vancouver r next to madness and insanity. I can’t even phantom how anyone in their right mind would willing to be slaves for the rest of their lives just so they could be in vancouver.”
- Joe nguyen, at VREAA 25 Sep 2012 6:55am
We’d agree. Prices are far removed from fundamental values.
There will be a reconciliation of this difference ahead.
- vreaa
I cannot (Mark Twain)/2 it either.
I travel to Atlanta, Maryland/DC and San Francisco quite often for work, and cannot believe how much more expensive Vancouver is (yes, even than SF equivalent homes). When you consider relocating to SF to save money on housing, man, something is wrong.
I wouldn’t want to be a debt slave in Vancouver, but I still prefer renting here to owning in Winnipeg.
Fair enough, Bubbly… But ya know… It’s a lot ‘o fun Dieselling into the MapleBeaver’s BigYard… @ThePeg. And the best scenery… by far… Is between here and there.
Slavery? hmm… With no discipline to save a surplus, govt wanted to borrow more for less. Same for residential buyers in Lower Mainland. It’s very expensive here, so banks have made leverage a nice way to consolidate debt and speculation. Everybody’s in debt: Landlords, commercial operations, speculators, all maxed until that big sale day. Lever a house at low interest, long term, minimum down, live on credit, make minimum payments, hope price of real estate goes up faster than inflation, or crash.
Fun, but soo last year. Big money is now hopping from table to table. Is Vancouver still a viable game? That depends on the employment and wages of the average potential buyer and prospects levering debt to sell for profit. I don’t think most home buyers do a case study on their house. Big money likes to milk a trend. If the trend is selling below appraisal, it’s too late.
Inflation is apparently going to erode the $ of those not in the market, retirees, savers, people on a fixed income, yet not a lot of commoners have cash to support inflation and this may differentiate real assets from trinkets. Fancy goes down. Scooters hold their value. Unfortunately with inflation, people are speculating by saving—and by leveraging real estate.
I talk with a realtor here and he’s liquidated five of his rental properties and is sitting on a house in the Okanagan and a condo here for a residence. He says it was a good run, but now it is no longer viable to leverage real estate if you’re not living in it. Too bad for those stuck holding cards. I periodically check the MLS for land deals. The only reason to buy anything now is because US Bernanke indicates cash will be worth less in years to come, but I’d make sure there’s dirt in the deal and forecast pre-revolutionary taxes and costs. Personally, I don’t think there will be cash flow locally to support recent real estate prices. It will be up to the banks to lower lending standards if prices are to inflate. Costs will consume any profit.
I’ve met many fine people from Winnipeg and they always speak fondly of home. I should like to visit there one day.
Not sure where to stick this, but Government of Canada’s stats for population (and growth) for 2011/2012 is out now.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/120927/dq120927b-eng.htm
(Courtesy of a VCI comment: http://vancouvercondo.info/2012/09/happy-buyers-dont-have-regrets.html#comment-174486)
Seems like BC is growing slower than many provinces (including Ontario) and our median age seems higher than many provinces as well. Does that mean we are going to have more retirees than other provinces soon?
GFY
Ha ha. Good one Joe. Because livability causes house price increases right? That must be why homes in Regina, Winnipeg & Saskatoon increased by a higher percentage than Vancouver…they’re just so much more ‘livable’.
What’s with you and all this “Vancouver” love? You part of some cult or something?
(This comment was in response to a spammer who got deleted, not to the original comment. Do not feed the trolls. In Ed We Trust.
More on the spammer later.
Whoops! I fed the troll. (Comment mostly in response to his Facebook profile – it was very odd!)