So how much can that rent for?

Real estate here is such a shit show. A friend of mine got a brand new house in Houston, jn a nice area, for 350k usd. It’s only like 10 mins away from the ocean.

He’s like how do you Canadians afford it ? I’m like we don’t. Either you have millions of dollars or else you are barely scraping by and living off McDoubles.

The crazy thing is his property tax would be similar to a house that cost 3.5 mill in Van.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-p...tor#ALA3b21GWk

I would guess 2300-2500

Il pay a premium for a building with no dogs, same with building that have no kids

Yeah that's one thing I noticed: property tax is a damn bargain in Canada.

Back in Menlo Park, my property tax rate was 5x that in Vancouver. A whole 1/3 of my housing cost was just property tax (the other 2/3 being mortgage payment).

Even Toronto property tax is 2.4x higher than Vancouver.

The other nice thing about Canada is the price of electricity. It's like 10-15c per kWh here? Whereas in California it's ~35c USD / kWh.

2200-2600 or so probably

That's Texas though, little to no income taxes, low sales taxes, but high property taxes.

You haveway higher electric rates and you have surge pricing in Texas. It can jump 6000% for short periods of time during high demands. Also the grid is not connected to the rest of America and it fails a lot. Houses are build a lot shittier in Texas. The min r value for insulation is r13. BC is min is R22 California is r20. Meaning it's going to take a lot more to heat and cool your home. If you have money you are going to want to have back up power. And lets not get into shootings.

This is what happens when it goes below freezing in Texas. Pipes burst because they freeze do to poor building codes.

This is how hose bibs are set up in most places.

https://d4lzs9cbfwvsb.cloudfront.net...-FAUCET-01.jpg

In Texas

https://plumbsmart.com/wp-content/up...0/06/1672s.jpg

In the top pic the water left in the pipe is insulated so it does not freeze. in Texas the valve shuts off the vatter right at the nob. So the water is not insulated and it freezes.

You also have electric on demand water heaters mounted on the outside. If it's cold and the power goes out they will freeze and the pipe will burst.

But at 300-400k for a new build that’s good living. He makes about 80k usd a year and he’s living large.

Thinking of leasing a Porsche (also cheaper in the states) and another commuter car.

All the while his wife doesn’t work, takes care of the kids.

Those prices on those Texas homes basically mean the land is worthless. Even with Mexican slave labour it would be VERY hard to build a 2000 sq ft home for under 400-500k

So my question would be, what’s the neighborhood like and what’s the area like

I could probably sell my home and buy a low rise in Detroit, but is it worth it? Probably not

Texas property tax was insane.

$1M, 3BR, older detached closer to city center. PPtax is $17,700

https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-p...tor#0DmJym075F

Ugh i think our boiler died. Any recommendations for companies that can replace it with another one?

I guess at least it wasnt in the winter.

Rio mechanical, ask for Sam, he might be able to repair it if your lucky

Good. Everything you are saying should lead to lower real estate prices. Are you against lower and more affordable real estate prices? Or do you want it to stay high?

Define affordable.

so wife wants to move. our neighborhood in coqutilam is prime for land assemblies and there's already a bunch of development starting that's going to make the area a nightmare in the coming years.

i've always liked the como lake area.

my current house is worth around the 1.5M+ but i think that might be low looking at realtor.ca. it's been nicely reno'd, new roof and hot water etc. so i think it'll be able to fetch quite a bit more. current mortgage left is maybe $150K

i want a house that will need work as I'm in construction and have the skills and contacts to build the sweat equity again and this time around design it how i want it with my connections to help with the work

say i buy a place that's $1.8M+, do you think it would be best to sell my current house and put all the money right into the new house or to keep the house, pull the equity and to rent it out.

i personally want to keep the house for a couple reasons. 1) we have somewhere to leave while i gut and reno the new one. we have a young child so i don't want her in a house getting heavily reno'd nor do i want a massively tight schedule. 2) i can rent my house for $4000 montly to help with the new mortage. 3) i want to have a house to give to my daughter as we all know price increases aren't slowing down and our kids are all screwed.

the new house will need to have a basement suite or one will be added in depending on the house. then that will help with the mortage.

thoughts?

what are the capital gains tax implications if any that i maybe need to consider?

thanks guys

Well, I did say more affordable, not affordable for everybody lol

I think that ship has sailed a long time ago, although I wouldn't be opposed to 2019 pre-covid hyper pricing.

If you decide to keep your current house and turn it into an investment property, you'd want to retain some sort of proof as the market value of your house at the time it changed from being your primary residence to your investment property. Since your property's value is not subjected to capital gain during the years when it is used as your primary residence, the proof of (property) value would come in useful should you eventually sell (or transfer home ownership title).

The most obivous, but not most accurate, proof of your property value is your BC assessment papers.

Also, if im not mistaken, you can get a realtor to do an evaluation on your house. Ex: BC assesment is 1.4mil, realtor is 1.6mil.
That way when you "deem disposition" your sold value is 1.6 instead of automatic 1.4

Might save you thousands of dollars when tax time comes. On 200k difference thats probably 20-50k in tax for most people.

I've driven past this complex many times and always thought how ugly it was with these "bars" on the windows and how it must feel like prison.

I was right. It's even worse inside than I thought.

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...enue-vancouver

i believe that's an exterior shading feature (passive design) that is incorporated as an architectural feature. the design is not my cup of tea either

Hmm that place is actually much nicer than I expected from the exterior. I’d say that’s actually decent value albeit a very busy street

There are a couple things to consider.

If we figure your current house is worth $1.5M and your new house is going to be purchased (and we assume will appraise) for $1.8M, then the total value of both homes will be $3.3M. You'll need your existing $150k mortgage plus $1.8M for the new house, so a total loan required of $1.95M. $1.95M versus $3.3M is a loan to value of approx 60% which is totally achievable, and you can push this a bit higher, easily 65%.

However, the bigger question, is can you actually qualify to keep your house and buy the new one, without rental income while you are living in your old house and renovating your new?

Qualifying rate on a $1.95M mortgage is approx 7% right now for a fixed mortgage, though the actual rate will be lower when you buy the place. $1.95M mortgage, 7%, 30-year am = approx $13,000 monthly payment or $156,000 annually.

If you have no other debts, you will need to prove and declare approximately $350k in annual income on your and your wife's tax return to be conventionally approved on this.

If you meet this hurdle, I'd say this is a totally doable plan to keep your current place while you renovate the new one (as long as you can actually swing this payment).

The next question is once the new place is done and you move in, do you keep and rent or sell the current house? If you figure that you can only get $4,000 per month for your house or sell it and get $1.5M+, that's an EASY decision, you sell it. Receiving rent of $48k per year is the equivalent of a 3% rate of return on your $1.5M tied up. You could literally go buy GICs with 0 risk and get more like 5%, and options go up from there. But frankly there are a lot more components to consider than you can cover on one post here, and you might want to have a conversation with your advisor on this one.

-Mark

Oh I think totally the opposite.

The galley kitchen is cramped. Primary bedroom closet is pathetic. Waking up in the morning you get to look out the windows past the prison bars on to a busy street. Not to mention the view of the parking lot. All this for a cool $1.4M and $700/mo in strata fees. No thank you.

Anyone following the SSMUH details in Burnaby?

They're getting rid of all the residential zones, combining it into one overall zone and then allowing up to 6 units depending on lot size and how close it is to frequent public transit.

Our family home is on a 6600 sqft lot and we're thinking of tearing down the house and building three units if this passes. This way each sibling can have a unit and keep the land in the family.

Don't know if this applying to everywhere else in BC due to the Bill 44 thing, but first time hearing about it directly applying to my city (I lurk here and there in this thread sometimes).

https://vancouvermarket.ca/2024/04/1...zoning-update/

EDIT: Did more digging since I was curious how big we could build, and if I'm understanding it right possibly up to four stories since they're getting rid of the floor area and gross floor area ratios.

https://i.imgur.com/i1Ucxag.png

https://vancouvermarket.ca/wp-conten...4/04/image.png

https://pub-burnaby.escribemeetings....cumentId=75285