Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[TypeRNammer]

Originally Posted by supafamous

LOL at that house getting character house designation: https://goo.gl/maps/F5MHbQo9pnMwnh337

My in-laws have a 97 year old house in the same style that's in better shape than that house - original floors still. Never considered that it could get a character house designation.

https://www.zealty.ca/mls-R2734676/3...-Vancouver-BC/



Looks like the character home got major upgrades, including a lift for an additional basement unit

EDIT: only picture I could find on google

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by donk.

That is quite the jump

I went from 240$ in 2017 to 330$ today, 7xxsqft, 25 year old building.

This is the first year they are actually not even increasing it at all which is surprising.

Jesus, I'm at $470.25 @ 710 sqft lol.

Looking into selling soon and finding a lower strata fee condo. Markets picking back up to starting to become hot again.

[Hondaracer]

Everything that’s been sitting in my neighborhood seems to be moving now

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Gerbs

Jesus, I'm at $470.25 @ 710 sqft lol.

Looking into selling soon and finding a lower strata fee condo. Markets picking back up to starting to become hot again.

Find a bare bones building, no pool, no gym, none of that shit. People love paying an extra 100-300$ for all the amenities, and then end up using them once a year. Throwing 2-4k away for years on a one bed....

Go to the pool for 8$, and get a gym membership for 30$ the two months you actually go.....

If you sell make sure to buy that car you wanted

[68style]

^ This

I was conscious of all the amenities at my building for like 10 years... it still seemed worth it given what strata prices were in other buildings with nothing... but now it's crossing that line into where it's not worth it anymore.

And I do use the gym every day... but like donk said, a gym membership is not that expensive.

[Fafine]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Everything that’s been sitting in my neighborhood seems to be moving now

Springs here. Skeptics will say the incoming summer is a bull trap.

[Badhobz]

its vancouver... when is this damn market not hot? COVID? pssshhh still sells. Recession? hA! let me bid over asking. High Interest rates? who gives a shit

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Fafine

Springs here. Skeptics will say the incoming summer is a bull trap.

I am one of those skeptics

And I will be wrong again, for the 5th time

[mc.]

Originally Posted by donk.

Find a bare bones building, no pool, no gym, none of that shit. People love paying an extra 100-300$ for all the amenities, and then end up using them once a year. Throwing 2-4k away for years on a one bed....

Go to the pool for 8$, and get a gym membership for 30$ the two months you actually go.....

If you sell make sure to buy that car you wanted

I would disagree with this statement that your fees all go to these flashy amenities.

Generally the bulk of your strata fees are paying for amenities people don't actually notice but arguably enjoy/use everyday. Dive into the line items for your strata's budget, largest item is byfar insurance, this can be 1/3 of the budget. Other large items will general items to run and maintain the building, elevators, cleaners, trash compactor/collection, building management, caretakers, maintaining HVAC repairs, landscaping, and general repairs and maintenance.

If you think about it, it costs next to nothing to maintain the gym, just cleaning which is attached to your building cleaning and maintaining the pool.

That being said, paying strata fees suck and they do feel high, but most people don't think about all those items the fees are paying for and only think it goes to the front of mind "Amenities"

[lowside67]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

So what's the general best advice for shuffling parents home to kids? Don't add name before they die? And put it in mom's name only? Assuming women usually lives longer. So you only pay capital gain from death to sell? What if you don't sell it.

Pretty much none of that is correct.

First of all, if mom and dad are both on title to their home, and dad dies first, the effect is basically that his name just drops off and it becomes 100% mom's. This has no tax consequence whatsoever.

Second of all, if mom continues living in that house until the day she passes away, there is also no capital gain to be paid on the house because it was her principal residence until the day she died.

Presuming she leaves the house (or proceeds) in the will to kids, the estate will pay a probate tax on the value of the house which will be deducted from what can be left to the kids - this is approximately 1.4% in BC. It makes no difference if the house is sold and cash left to the kids, or the house is left to the kids directly; the value of the house or the value of the cash proceeds are the same and therefore the probate taxes to be paid are the same.

Estate planning is a complicated topic and frankly there are some very powerful tools to help minimize taxation, but they are very specific in how they are used (particularly together) and I would be highly suspect of a) some guy on the internet posting or b) generic webpages that describe strategies that may or may not work.

The best thing you can do is talk to somebody. You can start with your accountant, but they can often have a very large range in their abilities and experience they can offer on out of the box solutions. If you work with a full service investment advisor, they can probably also connect you with some resources.

-Mark

[donk.]

Originally Posted by mc.

I would disagree with this statement that your fees all go to these flashy amenities.
"

Oh the internet, never said it all goes to amenities

[snowball]

Originally Posted by 68style

There's been some issues here with pipes getting clogged in the parkade and I think about 3-4 ground floor units flooded... $50k deductible on insurance each time. Swimming pool envelope took a shit too.

They've been through the building on the ground floor units (one of which I am) twice in the last year in a panic doing some pipe work and in the parkade too. Blaming it on people flushing shit and putting cooking grease down the drains.

Building is 13 years old.

In my old building, the pipes started backing up into the townhouse units on the ground level because of cooking grease

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by donk.

Find a bare bones building, no pool, no gym, none of that shit. People love paying an extra 100-300$ for all the amenities, and then end up using them once a year. Throwing 2-4k away for years on a one bed....

Go to the pool for 8$, and get a gym membership for 30$ the two months you actually go.....

If you sell make sure to buy that car you wanted

I have no pool and a gym that's maybe 80 sqft with nothing much inside. Reading financials, majority of costs went into landscaping, HVAC, elevator maintenance. The land we own is really wide for the condo. The courtyard probably takes up 3x of the actual building land.

But yeah, I agree probably time to take the savings and find another place.

[whitev70r]

Figure this is prob the right place to ask. Can someone school me on heat pumps? Looking for a TH with about 1800 sq ft, 3 floors, using natural gas furnace presently with existing ducts. And how much rebates can I expect?

Do I just get a few quotes from the big ones like Milani, AquaTech, Reliant, etc.? Would anyone recommend a company that they used?

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

In regards to not hurting your dieing parents feelings in discussing finances while they are on their way out. Let’s look at a conservative estimate

Say they own a 2 million dollar home, whether it’s full of egg cartons or not, we’ll say it’s worth 2 million. They don’t want a will because even though they are 85 and chronically ill, they don’t want to discuss their mortality.

By having no will you are subject to a $200,000 loss financially in fees, administration, and poorly handled asset transfer taxes etc.

$200,000 without even compounding your gains, at a modest 7% return more than doubles in a 20 year span, you’re looking at turning that $200,000 into 600,000 in 20 years.

So I’d say yea.. given the state of the world and given how hard it is to get a leg up, and how much harder your children’s lives are going to be, broaching those subjects with a dieing parent IS worth upsetting them in their dieing days in order to create a hugely beneficial scenario for your own family moving forward.

Tbh kind of to westophers point before, these are the type of people who don’t deserve what they ultimately ended up receiving for no reason other than luck.

Wait, a will will save you over $200K on a $2M home? In that case, it's time to bring that convo up.

[Hondaracer]

I’m just using that as a generic figure, but I wouldn’t doubt it’s approaching that if your parent dies and there is nothing handled in terms of will, property title, etc.

[donk.]

Never knew wills were that common, I have never had this conversation with anyone I know

I thought it was just for old people, but it makes sense having one

It's just weird wring a will..... when your 20 or 30 or 40, or is that just me

[carsncars]

Originally Posted by donk.

Never knew wills were that common, I have never had this conversation with anyone I know

I thought it was just for old people, but it makes sense having one

It's just weird wring a will..... when your 20 or 30 or 40, or is that just me

I feel like the moment you have any significant assets it's probably worth writing a will.

If you have dependents, it is definitely worth having a will, even if you're 20/30/40. It should be part of your financial planning.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by donk.

Never knew wills were that common, I have never had this conversation with anyone I know

I thought it was just for old people, but it makes sense having one

It's just weird wring a will..... when your 20 or 30 or 40, or is that just me

A lot of people don’t really need a will because all they have is debt

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Figure this is prob the right place to ask. Can someone school me on heat pumps? Looking for a TH with about 1800 sq ft, 3 floors, using natural gas furnace presently with existing ducts. And how much rebates can I expect?

Do I just get a few quotes from the big ones like Milani, AquaTech, Reliant, etc.? Would anyone recommend a company that they used?

I'm going through the process right now. There are rebates available from the federal and provincial government. The programs are not coordinated, so you have to apply for the rebates separately.

If you want the rebates from the federal government, you need to first apply for the Greener Homes Grant. Once your application is approved, you need to then hire an energy assessment company to perform an energy assessment in your home. Once you get that done and that report is uploaded to your account/portal, you can then look for a heat pump contractor. Once you get your unit installed, you have to call your energy assessment company to do a post assessment.

Do you have ducting throughout your unit? Or do you have baseboards upstairs? If the latter, you may have to get ducting done upstairs because under the federal rebate program, your contractor has to sign an attestation that your heat pump is capable of heating the entire home with a minimum of one supply duct on all floors of the home.

The federal government will give $4000 for regular air source heat pumps and $5000 for cold climate heat pumps.

The province under the CleanBC program will give up to $6000 if you remove your gas furnace and replace it with a heat pump. You don't have to do an energy assessment, like the federal program, but you do need to hire a contractor that is on the approved list from the province.

I received 5 quotes and I'm going to go with an American Standard set up. For a cold climate set up, expect to pay about 20K these days. Prices have gone up over the last year or so.

I assume your strata would approve as well? Because you will have to puncture at least two new holes in an exterior wall for your line set for the heat pump.

[van_driver]

What are the chances a 1972 built house in Burnaby has an underground oil tank?

[whitev70r]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

I'm going through the process right now.

Thanks, very helpful. I have duct system already in TH. But oh my goodness, so many hoops to jump for rebates. The list of demands from my strata is a page long as well ... understandably, you don't want this to damage neighbouring units.

First thing I see in the Greener Home Grant ... your application may be delayed because of labour dispute!! I don't know which suffering is more harder, the process of getting a heat pump or the 3 weeks that you suffocate in the summer cuz of forest fire/heat.

[Great68]

The grant process is definately not for those in immediate need of the money, like don't spend your emergency fund expecting to get paid quickly.

I completed the post eval back in October, I only just last week received my notification that my $5600 Greener Homes cheque is on the way within the next 10 days.

My CleanBC/BC Hydro cheque came in February.

[Bonka]

Originally Posted by van_driver

What are the chances a 1972 built house in Burnaby has an underground oil tank?

Unlikely. Oil heating was being phased out in the late 1950s so the probability of them found in post 1960 builds is remote, although possible. What style home?

You can do a few things to confirm. Walk the exterior perimeter and look for vent pipes into the ground against the house/foundation. Also fill caps near the sidewalk and alleyway where the oil truck would re-fuel. If the basement perimeter walls aren't covered, look for oil pipes running through the foundation. Also check with the municipality (eg: fire department) for service/decommission records.

Otherwise, an underground scan is your best bet. $100-150 cost.

[Hondaracer]

I think for insurance or maybe even the mortgage I had to get an actual scan done

The scan was completely half ass though guy walks around for 5 minutes with his little probe and that’s about it