Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Great68]

Originally Posted by westopher

It's odd how often people on here can't comprehend people's situations aren't exactly the same as theirs or what they picture.

Are you directing that at me? I just used myself as an example to counter the idea that people *wouldn't* use their car less (or not be car free if they couldn't afford one) if they had that opportunity. Obviously I'm not personally anti-car, I have three fully insured and ready to go any time I want to use them. I just would rather not where I don't have to.

[Eff-1]

I think the ability to work from home though has really made life easier for more parents to live without relyling on a car for everything, compared to pre-covid.

In our case, we have a kid but thanks to working from home, we easily live with just one car.

I use it in the morning to do daycare dropoff. My wife uses it in the evening to pick him up.

She works from home most days.

I work from a coworking space a 20 min walk from home.

Whenever I commute downtown once or twice a week, I take the seabus.

My total commute time is almost double than if I commuted by car (almost 60 mins vs 30 mins). But commuting by transit is way less stressful than sitting in traffic. I really enjoy it tbh. I can zone out with a podcast.

I love the fact we don't need a second car and I plan on keeping it that way for as long as possible.

[68style]

^ Traitor to our SFICC days!

I guess I'm making up for it for you tho

[Eff-1]

Two kids, no car: how this Vancouver family saves $8,000 annually going car-free

https://buzzer.translink.ca/2024/04/...oing-car-free/

A few thoughts here:

The headline says the family saves $8k per year, but in the article it says "The Bohms could be saving around $8000 per year" so it's misleading.

They live downtown which makes a huge difference and it's one can assume they choose to live in a smaller space than a house in the suburbs.

Since they don't mention anthing about the dad's career, it kind of sounds like the dad is a stay-at-home dad who is homeschooling their kids. Either that, or they got their kid into a downtown elemenatry school and daycare within walking distance (would be a miracle if true).

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by 68style

^ Traitor to our SFICC days!

I guess I'm making up for it for you tho

I still go on nite cruises though

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

Two kids, no car: how this Vancouver family saves $8,000 annually going car-free

https://buzzer.translink.ca/2024/04/...oing-car-free/

A few thoughts here:

The headline says the family saves $8k per year, but in the article it says "The Bohms could be saving around $8000 per year" so it's misleading.
.

buy a nostalgic old 90's beat up sports car, get collector plates, and pay next to nothing on insurance.... think of the savings!

just don't think about all the maintenance costs for said beat up sports car

[westopher]

Originally Posted by Great68

Are you directing that at me? I just used myself as an example to counter the idea that people *wouldn't* use their car less (or not be car free if they couldn't afford one) if they had that opportunity. Obviously I'm not personally anti-car, I have three fully insured and ready to go any time I want to use them. I just would rather not where I don't have to.

No it's honestly the opposite of you. You are mentioning many situations that are different pending work, transportation costs, etc.

[supafamous]

Once kids show up it sure is hard not to have a car particularly during the daycare era because so few people can get a daycare near them. Of the families I know well only a handful at my kid's daycare live walking distance to ours (CEFA on Kingsway by Central Park). There's a bunch that have to come in from East Van (Trout Lake, PNE, Victoria/41st) and there's a bunch out in the Edmonds and New West Area. Most of those don't work in the area either so they are doing milk runs in some cases (with kids in elementary too).

A friend of mine in East Van had to go into Richmond for his kids daycare (around Ikea) and then he'd head downtown to his company's office. That was just brutal but it was all he could get.

[Hondaracer]

Just leave them with the dog at that point. That’s brutal.

You’ve got the worst of the commutes going each way

[westopher]

I didn't know it was that bad to find something close. We got into daycare a few blocks from home and directly on the way to work for me. We pay out the fucking ass for it (thanks for the $10 a day childcare that comes out to about $80 a day) but it's probably the one thing I spend money on that at the end of the month I just say "that was well worth it."

[Badhobz]

Sooooooo all of yalls with kids and daycare costs could have had GT3s sitting in your driveway if you just pulled out…..

[westopher]

I'd need an extra 4k a month on top of those daycare costs for a gt3, if I could even get an allocation lol.

[Badhobz]

Dawwww but little V is so worth it. Sigh… if I had a little daughter I’d spoil her so rotten…. She would be a huge bitch by the time she’s 16. Guaranteed to be taking up Hondaracer’s vantage point at the derby with her IG bullshit

[68style]

Originally Posted by GLOW

buy a nostalgic old 90's beat up sports car, get collector plates, and pay next to nothing on insurance.... think of the savings!

just don't think about all the maintenance costs for said beat up sports car

Need to have a main vehicle insured to have a collector plated car at the discount.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

Sooooooo all of yalls with kids and daycare costs could have had GT3s sitting in your driveway if you just pulled out…..

We are paying $10/d for both kids, so no, $400/m does not swing a GT3. It doesn't even swing a Mazda3

[Badhobz]

That’s cuz you didn’t pay for some insane daycare. My buddy’s daycare is 2k a month. I don’t even know what the hell they teaching that little shit. But its 2k plus some other bullshit they enrolled him in. Either way, he reminds me all the time he could have had a GT3 instead of a kid.

I told him he should have done anal

[CRS]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

So ended up finding someone to rent our suite to through a referral from a neighbor. Always prefer referrals etc. and I think it will work out great

As per Donk’s request I don’t really have many crazy questions or inquiries, however, after having the same tenant for the past 5 years and her being a referral, we hadn’t had to go public with a listing since.

Couple things I noticed as trends:

- the amount of people looking at this 1BR as a couple with a child is crazy, I simply responded to these requests saying flat out, this is not suitable for a couple and a child, of any age.

-I’d say at least 1/3 were saying that grants and or some sort of allowance would be their income used to pay rent. One guy even offered to send me a photo of a chequing account with an “inheritance” that would be used to pay rent.

-as I mentioned before, international students who think a 1BR is suitable for multiple young men.. gross..

-and finally, the amount of people who simply use the “is this available” or “when can I see it” are crazy, probably 35-40% of people with those messages. Of course your message is instantly deleted. Some people write really heart felt messages, that seem legitimately well intentioned, and some people are brutally honest in their write ups.

Feel sorry for people out there trying to find somthing

I recently had experience renting out my parent's apartment in Vancouver. What Honda says here is 100% accurate. I had the ad up for about a week and had well over 100 messages. Half of them were "is this available, when can I view?". In my ad, I explicitly stated to not do that and tell me a little about yourself.

Some of highlights included someone offering up 6 months rent to secure the place. This is wild to me and was a pretty big red flag. While his employment did show that he could pay, the idea of paying 6 months up front and having a potential squatter on your hands did not bod well with me.

I also had someone try to grease me when I told them that they weren't getting the unit. I feel like this might be a lost art where people don't know that if you're trying to grease someone, you need to do it before you get denied, not after.

Had the opposite experience where someone wanting to have like 4 female students stay in a 1BR 1BD. Now I get that RS will have deranged fantasies about this but this honestly sounds like a nightmare.

[bcrdukes]

Re: Renting to female students.

Based on personal experience, it was a complete nightmare. VPD showed up to my house. Almost got arrested. One of the girls nearly got caught up in a human smuggling/prostitution ring. It was bad.

[Badhobz]

WHAT!? you cant just end it with that. worst cliff hanger ever!!!!

Thats disgusting! where?

TELL ME MORE ABOUT this prostitutions ring ....

[bcrdukes]

I shared this with the forum a few years back, but basically my parents had an arrangement with a school for formal homestay for a number of years, so we had a variety of international students living with us (usually Japanese or Brazilian.)

One of the girls that stayed with us came from a good family, but evidently was not from a super wealthy family (think run of the mill middle class, not Hehe or Manic level.) She would regularly check in with my mom and dad to let them know when she was out, if she was coming home for dinner etc. This was the protocol, so nothing out of the ordinary.

During this time, I was traveling a lot for work, so I didn't have a good snapshot of what was happening on a day-to-day basis, but my mom did mention to me the girl wanted to move out with her friends in order to save money. For that to happen, she has to notify the school before just jumping ship because we have a contract with them. We were okay with her moving out as they already identified a student to move in immediately, so I didn't think anything of it.

Until one day, I come back home from a work trip, and minutes later, VPD squad car pulls up in front of my parents house. They ask me if the homestay student is home, and I'm like no, she's not. They asked me if we're aware she's looking to move out, and I'm like umm yeah how did you know? They tell me she's met some people known to operate a prostitution ring in Vancouver where they house multiple international students, and they need to see if she's around for questioning, but wouldn't divulge any further details. As you can imagine, I was freaking out, and my mom was really upset. We had to tell the school and the school called her parents and within a matter of weeks, she was sent home.

I want to supplement that one of our tenants (not a homestay) were really good, until a week after they moved out, VPD showed up to our place looking for them. Ever since then, my parents decided to stop the entire home stay thing and to just live a peaceful, quiet life. FFS.

[Badhobz]

I got blue balls listening to your story Dukes. Not satisfying.

[CivicBlues]

^No fucking kidding...

SO....

was she Japanese or Brazilian?

[bcrdukes]

Funny you ask.

Dad is Japanese. Mom is Brazilian. You guys can connect the dots or draw to your own conclusion what she looks like.

Edit: She still stays in touch with my parents.

[Badhobz]

HAWT!!!!


too bad that prostitution ring didnt work out

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

^No fucking kidding...

SO....

was she Japanese or Brazilian?

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

Funny you ask.

Dad is Japanese. Mom is Brazilian. You guys can connect the dots or draw to your own conclusion what she looks like.

Edit: She still stays in touch with my parents.

i was gonna and say both, who'da thought i would have been right