Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[unit]

the inside of that house is honestly how i picture all of the farmland mcmansions

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Hold your butt cheeks renters. RS ballers will get new lambos, beetles and m cars are for the poors.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/hu...143929629.html

I'm completely confused here, wasn't it last year that the Feds indicated they would put a cap, and slow down the immigration numbers?

How did they do the exact opposite of that, and opened up the pipes wide open instead?

I swear to god this government does the exact opposite of what the public is asking on this specific point.

[JDMDreams]

It's all the buddy guys coming in before they can't

[rb]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

With the way things are going in Vancouver and Toronto, and the less than ideal for rental laws being passed, the govt really needs to get into the public rental housing thing for the less affordable cities. Lots of ppl are actually getting out of the rental game because it no longer makes sense, and the laws don't make it easy.

I hate to be turning into one of those anti-govt ppl but what they're doing with property rights is getting out of hand imo. Can't leave your home vacant but can't do short term rentals, a very tenant siding RTB and laws, etc. Vacancy control has been floated around as being the next thing.

[JD¹³]

Add in the fact that everyone who's been on five-year fixed rate mortgages at historic rate lows and have been avoiding the financial pain all the variables have been feeling are starting to come up for renewal. This is where it's going to get even uglier. Fixed-rate holders are going to see their rates more than double and the sticker shock is going to have huge implications. In order to service mortgage debts tens of billions of dollars is about to be pulled out of the general economy to pay banks (there's a bit over 2T in mortgage debt nation-wide). So naturally home owners and renters are going to have to increase rent amounts to help their costs and on and on it goes with housing driven inflation. Canada has now bolted itself between a rock and a hard place with a highly inflated housing market and grossly excessive immigration leading to population increase and housing demand.

Friends who are realtors have told me the number of people who get accepted offers (buying or selling) and then the financing gets denied are through the roof. People can't get past the up to 9% stress test, so houses are sitting on the market longer and longer with needy buyers unable to get a mortgage. A million dollars requires the 20% deposit the average person doesn't have.

The fuse on the bomb keeps getting shorter, and Q4 2024 is when it's really going to start accelerating. 2025 and 2026 are when the bulk of the low fixed-rate mortgages turn over. Foreclosures, auto repossessions, and personal CC debts are all increasing already.

[Hondaracer]

Remember there was a time people thought it was racist to question immigration

Now Turd himself is terrified of his own doing. Nice job bud. Families with 2 kids begging for 1 bedroom rentals

[MarkyMark]

Can't wait for the empty bedroom tax to come into effect lol

[Great68]

Originally Posted by rb

Can't leave your home vacant but can't do short term rentals,

If it's your primary residence, you absolutely still can.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

Can't wait for the empty bedroom tax to come into effect lol

It’s not your bedroom, it’s our bedroom comrade.

[rb]

Originally Posted by Great68

If it's your primary residence, you absolutely still can.

You're not wrong. I guess my statement was more about property owners where it isn't their primary. If you're paying full property taxes (no grant), strata fees, capital gains on the sale, taxes on rental income etc, You should be able to rent it however you'd like imo.

[Great68]

Originally Posted by rb

You're not wrong. I guess my statement was more about property owners where it isn't their primary. If you're paying full property taxes (no grant), strata fees, capital gains on the sale, taxes on rental income etc, You should be able to rent it however you'd like imo.

Well you said "home", a secondary property isn't your "home".
I don't have any problem with government regulation saying you can't run secondary properties as hotels. If you want to do that, get it zoned as commercial space and build a hotel.

[rb]

Originally Posted by Great68

Well you said "home", a secondary property isn't your "home".
I don't have any problem with government regulation saying you can't run secondary properties as hotels. If you want to do that, get it zoned as commercial space and build a hotel.

Fair enough.. but there are also restrictions that vary by municipalities on how much of your primary residence that you can rent out for STR. For Coquitlam, its 40% of total sq.ft with a max of 2 guests. 50% for Vancouver I believe. You can't rent out your entire unit/home for times that you are there not there.

[Great68]

It's really no different than other municipal regulation on running commercial business out of property not zoned as such.

You can't just go an start running an auto repair shop out of your house, this isn't much different in concept. At least the municipalities are setting out guidelines on how you can use your residential property for commercial purposes.

[rb]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

Can't wait for the empty bedroom tax to come into effect lol

So this is came up in a dinner I had a few months ago w/ some RE managing brokers and c-suite ppl that work at well-known developers.

It honestly would not be surprising if something like this comes up in the future. Some sort of tax based on how much space 1 occupant can occupy.

A lot of prime detached residential land/properties is currently owned and occupied by people that don't need that amount space, which can be used to build more housing. If your widowed mom or dad is currently in a large detached, you bet your ass they'd probably sell it than pay some sort of occupancy based tax or rent out rooms to strangers. Millennial voters who hate boomers would love it lol

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by rb

I hate to be turning into one of those anti-govt ppl but what they're doing with property rights is getting out of hand imo. Can't leave your home vacant but can't do short term rentals, a very tenant siding RTB and laws, etc. Vacancy control has been floated around as being the next thing.

I'd say a lot of this (all of this?) is a result of homeowners making their own bed to lie in because of how many of them fought against allowing housing in their neighbourhoods. The NIMBYs (and the racists) created this problem by fighting housing projects to the point we have a housing crisis (due to a shortage of housing) and now we're all paying the price for it.

[JDMDreams]

Not really, our roads and infrastructure is not designed for this much population. I was driving around Metro and Richmond today and it's absolutely a cluster fuck. Without rapid none car bus transit there's no way to increase density with these two lane roads. Why can't we just build the sky train along highway 1, there's so much forest land, warehouses, that were can take a tiny bit and expand rapid transit options east. Just look at how bad any bridge crossing is. Going to North Van. Why are you humming and haing if we need better transit plan now.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by supafamous

I'd say a lot of this (all of this?) is a result of homeowners making their own bed to lie in because of how many of them fought against allowing housing in their neighbourhoods. The NIMBYs (and the racists) created this problem by fighting housing projects to the point we have a housing crisis (due to a shortage of housing) and now we're all paying the price for it.

NIMBYs and racists? Lol

More like people with influence and money.

The poors living in east and south van are subject to rezoning with almost no consultation. People on the west side have a small group complaining to city council and they get their way.

The density in my neighborhood has gone up 100 fold with the rezoning of these street level commercial turning into 4-6 storey residential with commercial below was pushed through with no consultation and just forcibly rezone as “community planning”

It’s like anything, if you’ve got money, none of this is going to affect you. The middle class just gets driven deeper to the low end because now the govt. outlaws the things many of the upper class used as vessels for wealth

[Traum]

The first bit JD has said here is mostly factual stuff or logical extrapolations, so I don't really have anything to say about that.

For the 3rd part of what he has said though -- I remember multiple economists from the Big 5 banks have been saying for some time that according to their data, most home owners still have the capacity to reduce discretionary spending and divert it towards servicing their mortgages instead. While I certainly wouldn't count myself among one of those people, when multiple big bank economists are saying similar stuff, then I think the likelihood of it being true is much higher.

Then you add the fact that according to some other analysts that I've read before, people (home owners) would generally be willing to go to great lengths to make sure they can stay in their homes instead of defaulting on their mortgage payments or having their homes foreclosed, and I'd tend to agree with that as well.

So IMO, it seems more likely that as the low fixed rate mortgages become due for renewal, we're gonna see an economic slow down as people divert discretionary spendings to service their mortgage debts.

Originally Posted by JD¹³

Add in the fact that everyone who's been on five-year fixed rate mortgages at historic rate lows and have been avoiding the financial pain all the variables have been feeling are starting to come up for renewal. This is where it's going to get even uglier. Fixed-rate holders are going to see their rates more than double and the sticker shock is going to have huge implications. In order to service mortgage debts tens of billions of dollars is about to be pulled out of the general economy to pay banks (there's a bit over 2T in mortgage debt nation-wide). So naturally home owners and renters are going to have to increase rent amounts to help their costs and on and on it goes with housing driven inflation. Canada has now bolted itself between a rock and a hard place with a highly inflated housing market and grossly excessive immigration leading to population increase and housing demand.

Friends who are realtors have told me the number of people who get accepted offers (buying or selling) and then the financing gets denied are through the roof. People can't get past the up to 9% stress test, so houses are sitting on the market longer and longer with needy buyers unable to get a mortgage. A million dollars requires the 20% deposit the average person doesn't have.

The fuse on the bomb keeps getting shorter, and Q4 2024 is when it's really going to start accelerating. 2025 and 2026 are when the bulk of the low fixed-rate mortgages turn over. Foreclosures, auto repossessions, and personal CC debts are all increasing already.

[Traum]

This would not fly well at all among the home owning public. Like it or not and as "bad" as things may seem, home ownership rates among Canadians is still somewhere above the 65% range. That's a LOT of people, and a LOT of voters. Any politician or political party attempting this would be committing political suicide.

Originally Posted by rb

So this is came up in a dinner I had a few months ago w/ some RE managing brokers and c-suite ppl that work at well-known developers.

It honestly would not be surprising if something like this comes up in the future. Some sort of tax based on how much space 1 occupant can occupy.

A lot of prime detached residential land/properties is currently owned and occupied by people that don't need that amount space, which can be used to build more housing. If your widowed mom or dad is currently in a large detached, you bet your ass they'd probably sell it than pay some sort of occupancy based tax or rent out rooms to strangers. Millennial voters who hate boomers would love it lol

[Lamboda]

Originally Posted by Traum

So IMO, it seems more likely that as the low fixed rate mortgages become due for renewal, we're gonna see an economic slow down as people divert discretionary spendings to service their mortgage debts.

Bingo. People thought rates would fall back down at renewal and it's not the case as of yet. It won't go back to what the interest rates were during Covid, barring a systemic event/extreme increase in unemployment.

As more people refinance at higher rates, they reduce consumption = less demand = lower profits/margins for companies = recession.

As long as inflation remains, job market is strong there should* be no rate cuts.
A rate cut is the acknowledgement that the economy is suffering (recession) and or something broke in the system. If economy is indeed strong, there is no valid reason for a rate cut because rate cuts are inflationary.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

NIMBYs and racists? Lol

The roots of restrictive North American zoning were driven by racism starting about a hundred years ago - Chinatowns and Japantowns didn't happen by accident, they were deliberate efforts to exclude minorities from owning land. Those efforts were what created single family neighbourhoods - they were what created the British Properties and Shaughnessey which included covenants preventing people of colour from buying in.

As it ethnic ghettos/enclaves came into existence it became the excuse for more restrictive zoning b/c it was the way for whites to say they didn't want to more crime or poverty from those neighbourhoods to come into theirs.

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

More like people with influence and money.

The poors living in east and south van are subject to rezoning with almost no consultation. People on the west side have a small group complaining to city council and they get their way.

Money talks but let's not act like landowners in East Van don't have power - just follow any council meeting. Same goes for Burnaby and every city. It's the landowners who hold sway.

Sure, the West side has even more power but anyone who owns land is ahead of those without.

[Harvey Specter]

The UBC Endowment Lands are being rezoned under the new housing density plan by the BC government, so change is coming. I still remember when laneway homes were approved in Vancouver - every builder on the east and south sides was building them. Head over to Point Grey, and there were none because residents didn't want rentals or to cheapen the area. The same was true with duplexes, but now every other home getting built in Point Grey is a duplex. It takes a little longer for things to change on the west side but change does come.

Also, the days of having a very small minority of very wealthy homeowners making decisions at city hall are slowly evaporating. No political party is going to side with the rich when it comes to housing decisions. It's political suicide.

[Hondaracer]

Funny enough the endowment lands all got to keep their gas services, even with new builds.

So everyone else in Vancouver proper forced to spend whatever it takes to get your electrical service up to standard to serve heat pumps and electrical heating loads and the brand new 10 million dollar build in the endowment lands plays Hydro for a fool skimping on the most basic services because everything they need is done with gas still :/

[donk.]

https://www.rew.ca/properties/584255...erty_click=map

This unit seems to be underpriced by about 100k, or maybe interest rates are finally causing damage

I love unique units like that

[westopher]

80s build with a mini kitchen, and a big mark against it is no dogs.
One thing I've noticed while we are looking is almost all the places I look at where I think "why is this so cheap?" Is that they have pet restrictions.
It really shrinks the buyers pool.
It is a cool unit though for the price.