Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[68style]

Tinfoil hat on, but bear with me.. I was thinking that it seems to me these moves by the government are part of a long-game wherein they actually do not want people like hondaracer renting suits to people or people with an extra condo making side money... they want to make it a pain in the ass to own these and eliminate profitability on them so that you sell it and corporations buy up properties and units and rent to everyone like a business, which is much easier for the government to monitor, control and get consistent reporting and results from.

All the change both provincially and federally the last while have been designed to make it not profitable to own a second property or painful to rent out... but have made it profitable for larger operations to build multiplex units with huge tax cuts or friendly borrowing rates and doing it instead

[PeanutButter]

The government cannot play the long game because it doesn't benefit the party in power during their term. They will not waste resources on something they can't objectively flash in front of the public/media. There needs to be a relatively immediate return on their "investment" otherwise they won't do it.

[68style]

I don't think that's true for fiscal policies, the same companies come back and grease the wheels no matter who is in charge.

[Great68]

Originally Posted by 68style

Tinfoil hat on, but bear with me.. I was thinking that it seems to me these moves by the government are part of a long-game wherein they actually do not want people like hondaracer renting suits to people or people with an extra condo making side money... they want to make it a pain in the ass to own these and eliminate profitability on them so that you sell it and corporations buy up properties and units and rent to everyone like a business, which is much easier for the government to monitor, control and get consistent reporting and results from.

All the change both provincially and federally the last while have been designed to make it not profitable to own a second property or painful to rent out... but have made it profitable for larger operations to build multiplex units with huge tax cuts or friendly borrowing rates and doing it instead

I don't think that's tinfoil hat, I think that's literally the goal.

The explosion of amateur landlording is really only a relatively recent thing, mainly brought about by the lack of construction of any new dedicated rental buildings. So it naturally that void was filled.

The benefits are far greater than any drawbacks: As you said, easier to monitor and regulate, more professionalism from the entity managing the rentals (how often do you hear stories of mom & pop landlords who tried some dumb shit and obviously have never read the RTA), units that are more likely to comply with local bylaws and building codes etc...

(And I say this as someone who rented from an amateur-ish landlord for 5 years, which was the main floor of a character home rental triplex which kept *some* of the detached SFH neighborhood feel, and personally couldn't imagine living in a dedicated block multi-unit rental building)

[6793026]

Decent discussion 68style - legit question how many people have a rental unit (apartment . townhouse)?

I'm assuming you bought between 2005 - 2018 ?
Maybe I'm wrong but anyone bought after 2020, would be tough right now maintaining their mortgage given rent cant' cover payments.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by 6793026

Decent discussion 68style - legit question how many people have a rental unit (apartment . townhouse)?

I'm assuming you bought between 2005 - 2018 ?
Maybe I'm wrong but anyone bought after 2020, would be tough right now maintaining their mortgage given rent cant' cover payments.

We have a rental basement and a rental condo. Condo was a presale, completed in 2023 (ouch). 6% rate, 1 bd, rented out, losing about 500-600 a month?

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Renter bill of rights coming - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gov...ghts-1.7157206

When will Landlord bill of rights come out?

Ottawa will work with provinces and territories to develop a "renters' bill of rights" that would introduce a national standard lease agreement and implement requirements for landlords to disclose an apartment's pricing history to allow tenants to negotiate their rent.

Meaningless. This will be similar to taking the pricing history of a product to a grocery store and trying to negotiate the price. Todays price is based on market pricing.


The new measures will also include a $15-million fund for provincial legal aid organizations that help tenants fight against "renovictions" and landlord abuse.

Positive. Slumlords are bad for everyone, tenants and good landlords alike.


The Liberals are also proposing to change federal rules so that making rental payments on time will count toward someone's credit scores, something Trudeau said is meant to help renters looking to one day buy a house.

Fantastic for landlords. If they don't pay rent on time, their credit suffers. It's another tool to vet non-paying tenants.

[JDMDreams]

^^ how though, are you gonna go to some CRA website every month to report? What if they don't plan to buy a house anyways.

Why is all this shit fallen on regular people. It's a government planning problem, why not build more sky train, more roads, build some apartments in Lytton. Why is this regular people's issue for a government problem.

None of this talk or policy will increase supply. Why don't you ask McDonald's to lower their prices to what they were charging last year. How about lower property taxes and gas tax to what it was 10 years ago. What kinda women math is this?

[Hondaracer]

It falls on regular people because the govt. has no clue how to do it themselves.

What I find so bizzare is the disgusting CanadaHousing subreddit HATES mom and pop landlords.. while also hating a block rock, etc. buying up homes.. so.. you prefer massive globo corpo rental company with zero flexibility and military precision in booting you out of your home? lol

I got banned yesterday from the subreddit anyways for suggesting that the new “indigenous” development on the west side is no different than any other land developer and in a lot of ways it’s much worse and I do understand the NIMBYism intbis case because as a tax paying citizen in Vancouver, now you have to live next to this fucking massive development which skirts zoning laws because “indigenous” even though it will almost certainly be run by a Bosa, Beatty, Aqualini, etc.

“BANNED FOR ANTI INDIGENOUS RACISM”

Uhg.

[Traum]

Reddit... enough said LOL~

[Great68]

I saw those threads, hailing indigenous as the champions of the anti-nimby. (I didn't even enter those threads because I already knew the circle-jerk it was likely to be)

No they're not your "anti-nimby" champions, they're after the almighty buck! End stop!

I don't blame them, but lets not kid ourselves to their real motivations. (Which is good, all the power to them to make money on their land)

[hud 91gt]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

^^ how though, are you gonna go to some CRA website every month to report? What if they don't plan to buy a house anyways.

Why is all this shit fallen on regular people. It's a government planning problem, why not build more sky train, more roads, build some apartments in Lytton. Why is this regular people's issue for a government problem.

None of this talk or policy will increase supply. Why don't you ask McDonald's to lower their prices to what they were charging last year. How about lower property taxes and gas tax to what it was 10 years ago. What kinda women math is this?

Credit scores only apply to buying houses?

The only person who I know who credit scores don’t apply too are those over the age of 70 who only pay cash lol.

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by 6793026

Decent discussion 68style - legit question how many people have a rental unit (apartment . townhouse)?

I'm assuming you bought between 2005 - 2018 ?
Maybe I'm wrong but anyone bought after 2020, would be tough right now maintaining their mortgage given rent cant' cover payments.

All the friends sub 28 year old bought their place in 2020 and onwards as a rental investment.

All of them are in the realms of collecting $1,700-2,300 for 1BR but mortgage is closer to $1,900 to 2,700 after the interest rate renewals. This is with lower price points in 2020 too.

I think majority of folks don't care about a good cap rate or ROI.

They see $1,700/month gross and think that's amazing


Guy who bought pre-2016 are pretty much retired though, bring in the 911s!

[JDMDreams]

If you have a person skipping multiple months of rent do you think they care about their credit score? Their cellphone bill, car payment, visa is paid on time and in full monthly? They sound like the paying 20% on a Altima type of person.

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

Credit scores only apply to buying houses?

The only person who I know who credit scores don’t apply too are those over the age of 70 who only pay cash lol.

[Eff-1]

Story time:

I had a 650 sq ft condo in Yaletown. Baseboard heaters, concrete building.

My summer bills were $20 per month. My winter bills were $150 per month. So $300 every two months.

For the first few years, I lived with it and thought that's just how it is.

Then people started telling me I was crazy to be paying that.

What tipped me over the edge was I went on holiday for like 2 weeks and came back, the monthly bill was still very high.

So I started coimplaining to BC Hydro.

Of course they were like yadda yadda, here's a pamphlet on how to lower your usage.

I'm like, I'm not even using it, and it's still costing me money.

So I talked to electrician and he told me to shut the main breaker and then check the meter to see if it's still spinning.

Had to convince the building caretaker to give me access to the room where the meters are because it's locked.

Anyways, sure enough, my meter said I was using power when I wasn't.

After getting nowhere with BC Hydro on the phone, I went down to their offfice downtown to speak to them in person.

They have a customer service desk and the guy was suprisingly helpful, as opposed to the phone agents who were useless.

They opened an "Investigation" and after 2 weeks confirmed that my bill was incorrectly linked to my neighbour's meter, and my neighbour's bill was linked to my meter.

The meter numbers were correct on the invoices. But the wiring was backwards, and probably done that way during construction.

So for years, my neighbour was using all that power, and I was paying for it.

After some back and forth, Hydro did the math and calculated the difference between the total billings for each residence over several years, and I got a large refund.

I took it as a credit on my Hydro bill and never had to pay a bill for a very long time haha.

[PeanutButter]

I'm just picturing your neighbour's face opening his next bill...

[68style]

I would have paid to see the neighbours face, he was probably just cranking it for the sake of cranking it because it was frickin free as far as he was concerned

[Great68]

Would/Can Hydro backcharge him? I could see it from his perspective, if he wasn't getting the right bill he wouldn't have known what his true useage was and given the opportunity to curtail his useage all that time.

[Eff-1]

If you're underbilled, Hydro has the right to back-bill you up to six months, per their terms.

If you're overbilled, they cap the refund at up to two years, per their terms. But in my case, they went all the way back to the year construction was completed.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by Alpine

We have a rental basement and a rental condo. Condo was a presale, completed in 2023 (ouch). 6% rate, 1 bd, rented out, losing about 500-600 a month?

Are you losing really losing $600 a month or are you just converting it to a different asset. If I bought $600 in gold I would not look at it as I lost $600.

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by Manic!

Are you losing really losing $600 a month or are you just converting it to a different asset. If I bought $600 in gold I would not look at it as I lost $600.

$600 in gold is different from $600 in real estate.

After the $600 spent on gold, you don't have any more out-of-pocket costs.

$600 in investment real estate means the rent (revenue) you receive needs to be larger or even to the expenses of that real estate, otherwise, you are taking money out of your pocket to support said real estate.

Real estate in GVR has not cash flowed in a long long time. So anyone who bought investment real estate in the last five years is likely cashflow negative, meaning they are paying out of pocket to service the debt/expenses on the real estate.

[lowside67]

You have to deeply believe there is some serious price appreciation in condos coming to justify the math of paying to support a negative cashflow rental property versus taking your downpayment and monthly supplement payment and investing them in something that has a positive ROI. This conclusion is one that a lot of investors are coming to - I have a bunch of clients who are choosing to thin the herd of rental properties just not seeing the headache as worth it.

-Mark

[PeanutButter]

dealing with tenants and property maintenance/problems is such a pain in the ass. The juice is definitely not worth the squeeze anymore.

[Hondaracer]

There are many people in the lower mainland who think the stock market is a fools game and would rather lose money on a tangible asset than leave their money in a computer lol

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

dealing with tenants and property maintenance/problems is such a pain in the ass. The juice is definitely not worth the squeeze anymore.

The condo I had in Maple ridge was painless. I never even saw it. Property manager did everything. Cost of the Condo was $199K 15 years ago. For some reason I got a 15 year mortgage. Sold the Condo this year for $457k.

Rent did not fully cover the mortgage+strata but it covered most of it. If the current tenant long term tenant was willing to move I could have charged market rend and be making around $1200 a month after strata and management fee's.