Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Y2K_o__o]

Originally Posted by Y2K_o__o

Is there a rule that says one is only allow to park in front of someone's house for a maximum of 3 hours or something?

I remember a while ago I parked my car in front of neighbor's house for more than 6 hours or so, and he walked up to me and said he has the right to call the city to ticket me.

Is this true?

nevermind

I have my answer here from city of Burnaby:

Parking

What are the restrictions on resident parking?

If you live in Burnaby, you’ll know that street parking is often a resource in demand with scarce supply. In and around your street you’ll notice neighbours try to share street space as best they can. Please note:

You are not allowed to save your parking space in front of your home with cones, pylons or buckets. All on-street parking is considered public parking unless otherwise signed by the City. Objects left on the street can create a hazard and will be confiscated.

Burnaby does not provide Residential Parking Only Permits except near Burnaby General Hospital. The use of time limits are preferred to ensure the streets are publicly accessible to all residents and visitors.

Having no regulations on a street does not mean you can park there all day. Burnaby has a bylaw that restricts parking of greater than 3 hours between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM in front of any home or business that you don’t own or work for. This bylaw is only applied in circumstances where no other remedy is available.

[Gululu]

happy chinese new year everybody

[winson604]

Originally Posted by Y2K_o__o

Is there a rule that says one is only allow to park in front of someone's house for a maximum of 3 hours or something?

I remember a while ago I parked my car in front of neighbor's house for more than 6 hours or so, and he walked up to me and said he has the right to call the city to ticket me.

Is this true?

It's called the 3hr bylaw. Basically you can park in front of someone elses house for 3hrs between 800-600 pm every day. If you live on the block and generally within the area you can park there for 365 days in a row if you wanted to. The bylaw exist in place for those people who come and park in front of your house but then go to work or school etc. This is not a bylaw for people who actually live in the area itself.

it's also the most annoying bylaw to enforce for the City because you need to make a report, they have to check with ICBC on whether or not those plates belong there or not (takes 3 business days), then you have to call back after 3 days if they come back and only then will they send someone out. Even then they have to chalk and come back after 3hrs. Low priority and yes it also means on the first incident you get a pass because they won't have your registration info anyways.

Parking when there is no signage | City of Vancouver

[xxxrsxxx]

Originally Posted by Z3guy

^ I have a caucasian neighbour that puts orange cones in front of her house to signal to everyone not to park in front of her house (public parking).....one of these days I am going to run over her cones and park my car there for 3 days...haha!

do you live in the kingsway/nainaimo area?

[reproducedBeta]

Originally Posted by Hehe

but if you are asking me to shell out 600k to eat at McDick every day for the rest of my life (which is a good representation of average shoeboxes in GVR), no thanks... I will pass.

wtf? McD's is my favourite cheat food

[4444]

Originally Posted by Z3guy

^ if everyone listen to you no should buy and wait for the "right fundamentals". In any business you can look at the fundamentals and know when it is the right time to make a decision, however, you are normally too late. LOL.

In regards to iEatClams comment, I agree with him. All I have to do is look at my 6 neighbours that have moved and bought in my neighbourhood and they are all Asians.

that's absolute BS. the right fundamentals are around about as much as they're not. Just look at the states for the last 6 years - fundamentals have been all on the buyer's side. Before 2001, 2002, the fundamentals in Vancouver had been right for about 2 decades or so. This recent run up since then has been a recent thing, and is not the new norm. Just so we don't forget, there was a huge influx of HK money from the early 90's... yet prices only started running up from 2001... 2001, dot com bubble burst... low rates started to come in and have been here ever since. But idiots will believe what the media feeds them, stories of magical HAM (one week, then next week it's newspaper stories of locals buying up all the real estate - how do you HAM humpers respond to that?)

And looking at your neighbourhood having 6 new Asian familes moving in. First off, Vancouver is what, 50, 60% asian, how do you know these people weren't born and raised in Canada, or moved here from HK 20 years ago? What says they're the HAM from offshore?

Again, anecdotal evidence isn't evidence at all.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Z3guy

4444 can preach whatever he wants. I bought my house in Vancouver in 2007 and it has been the best investment I have ever made. Especially being tax free. I am by no means saying I am savvy real estate investor, the timing just worked out for me because I wanted my son to start Grade 1 at the right school.

illiquid paper gains suck.

You can claim your real estate investmetn has been great, but great compared to what? a GIC? risk adjusted, it is probably better, but S&P500, probably shits all over your vancouver real estate investment given the fact that you can't quickly liquidate, would have move to liquidate, and have most of your eggs in 1 basket.

don't give me 2007 S&P500 value vs. today, you would invest over the same time as you've paid off your mortgage (above your cost to rent).

[Mr.HappySilp]

Originally Posted by Gululu

happy chinese new year everybody

Is this the new condos they are putting up at Brentwood. I heard phase one is sold out already and not phase two is selling pretty well?

My parents went and check it out. Looking at the floor plans vs the price is not worth it IMO.

[Z3guy]

Originally Posted by 4444

illiquid paper gains suck.

You can claim your real estate investmetn has been great, but great compared to what? a GIC? risk adjusted, it is probably better, but S&P500, probably shits all over your vancouver real estate investment given the fact that you can't quickly liquidate, would have move to liquidate, and have most of your eggs in 1 basket.

don't give me 2007 S&P500 value vs. today, you would invest over the same time as you've paid off your mortgage (above your cost to rent).

I didn't know you can live in your S&P 500 investment? haha! keep dialing up your rhetoric and I will keep laughing at your POV. Your aggressive childish responses do entertain me though.....lol

[Z3guy]

Originally Posted by 4444

that's absolute BS. the right fundamentals are around about as much as they're not. Just look at the states for the last 6 years - fundamentals have been all on the buyer's side. Before 2001, 2002, the fundamentals in Vancouver had been right for about 2 decades or so. This recent run up since then has been a recent thing, and is not the new norm. Just so we don't forget, there was a huge influx of HK money from the early 90's... yet prices only started running up from 2001... 2001, dot com bubble burst... low rates started to come in and have been here ever since. But idiots will believe what the media feeds them, stories of magical HAM (one week, then next week it's newspaper stories of locals buying up all the real estate - how do you HAM humpers respond to that?)

And looking at your neighbourhood having 6 new Asian familes moving in. First off, Vancouver is what, 50, 60% asian, how do you know these people weren't born and raised in Canada, or moved here from HK 20 years ago? What says they're the HAM from offshore?

Again, anecdotal evidence isn't evidence at all.

Any hack can read a balance sheet, income statement, or understand the "right" fundamentals, but anyone that is in business understands that when purchasing a business, property, or stock, you have to understand the potential upside before the numbers line up to buy. You sure talk a big game. When the agencies give "buy ratings" you have already missed the boat.

Keep talking about how the Greater Vancouver market is going to crash and how all these "one off" ocurrances keep propping up the market. Everyone has been saying the market is going to crash for the past 25yrs. When I bought my house in Vancouver I never expected it to appreciate much. I bought it for other reasons. I will keep enjoying my life in Vancouver and appreicate the unforseen gains in property value.

[Z3guy]

Originally Posted by xxxrsxxx

do you live in the kingsway/nainaimo area?

no I live in southwest van.....

[Traum]

So you want official numbers from some reputable government body. I can understand that.

I remember seeing in the newspaper or somewhere that someone did an information request type of thing regarding the demographics of the high end RE purchases. Over 80% (or was it 90%?) of the recent transactions within the past year (at the time of the information request) had a buyer last name that was of Mainland Chinese origin. You are free to write that off as inconclusive evidence that it is money from new immigrants or foreign buyers, and you'd be right in the court. But we are not in a law court. Most people will probably interpret that trend rather differently than you do.

Again, you can say that most people are idiots, and you'd be right. But again, the elitists don't set the trends. The masses do, and the general public has no choice but to ride the waves and weather them.

Originally Posted by 4444

that's absolute BS. the right fundamentals are around about as much as they're not. Just look at the states for the last 6 years - fundamentals have been all on the buyer's side. Before 2001, 2002, the fundamentals in Vancouver had been right for about 2 decades or so. This recent run up since then has been a recent thing, and is not the new norm. Just so we don't forget, there was a huge influx of HK money from the early 90's... yet prices only started running up from 2001... 2001, dot com bubble burst... low rates started to come in and have been here ever since. But idiots will believe what the media feeds them, stories of magical HAM (one week, then next week it's newspaper stories of locals buying up all the real estate - how do you HAM humpers respond to that?)

And looking at your neighbourhood having 6 new Asian familes moving in. First off, Vancouver is what, 50, 60% asian, how do you know these people weren't born and raised in Canada, or moved here from HK 20 years ago? What says they're the HAM from offshore?

Again, anecdotal evidence isn't evidence at all.

[iEatClams]

^ here's an article on that:

In Vancouver, race undercuts the discussion on real estate affordability - The Globe and Mail

UBC’s Prof. David Ley, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Geography, has long studied links between international immigration to Vancouver and home prices there. In his 2010 book, Millionaire Migrants, the Oxford-educated researcher found an “unusually decisive” +0.94 correlation between the two factors (in which +1 represents movement in perfect correlation, -1 represents movement in exactly opposite directions, and 0 total randomness). This correlation far exceeded that between prices and interest rates (-0.12), rental vacancies (-0.03), unemployment (0.16) and other conventional correlates.

Dr. Ley’s conclusions are bolstered by a 2011 study by Landcor Data, which pored over sales records in Richmond and Vancouver’s Westside to discover that 74 per cent of all luxury purchases in 2010 were made by buyers with purely mainland Chinese names. “What some have underplayed or dismissed as apocryphal ‘as told by Realtors,’ is underpinned by educated numbers,” said Landcor.

The sheer number of millionaire migrants who have poured into Vancouver is also compelling: From 2005 to 2012, 36,973 arrived in B.C. under the now-defunct immigrant investor program, which imposed a wealth benchmark of $1.6-million on applicants. Before being frozen in 2012, the scheme was the world’s most popular wealth-migration device, with Chinese immigrants planning to settle in B.C. submitting 65 per cent of all applications in 2011. Chinese domination of wealth migration to Vancouver is a statistical fact that belies widespread belief in other reservoirs of rich newcomers. B.C. admitted 30,013 millionaire migrants from Greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) from 2005 to 2012. In that period, there were 242 from Britain and 160 from the United States.

Thousands of the rich have also moved to Vancouver after first arriving in Quebec under that province’s own immigrant investor program. According to Ottawa, 90 per cent of Quebec’s millionaire migrants move elsewhere within five years, mostly to Vancouver. That likely adds 20,000 or more millionaire migrants to Vancouver’s tally in the 2005-2012 period.

In addition, one of the major real estate promoters dont want to talk about it because it may be racist. I found this part worthy of note:

He said the subject was a touchy one. “Everybody has to watch when they are talking about racism, that they aren’t trying to be opportunistic, and it bends to the answer that they want, whether it is to exclude or include. So it’s a very dangerous topic.”

On this, Tan agreed, but suggested Mr. Rennie and others in the property industry steer clear of attempting advocacy on behalf of the Chinese community. “Bob Rennie standing up for the Chinese community? What Chinese community? Real estate investors and landowners. That’s the community he’s standing up for.”

[Z3guy]

^ 4444 is such a noob! haha

[iEatClams]

The thing is the foreign money comes by the way of proxy, so it's very difficult to track. But for someone that lives here, and not in europe like 4444, we can see it everyday by all the teenagers that drive ferraris in highschools and at UBC /SFU.

you think this money was made locally?? Even you yourself 4444 say that vancouver has no real "economy".

here are some more articles covering this:

The data that Ley collected over decades shows Metro Vancouver has become similar to other Pacific Rim “gateway” cities in the way housing costs have been fuelled by high immigration-driven population growth and foreign investors.

As he works on extensive new studies of housing prices in Metro Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Sydney, Ley says, “In every one of these cities the market is being driven by something other than owner-occupiers. Not just new immigrants, but investors, including offshore investment.”

Politicians in Hong Kong, London, Singapore and Sydney are responding in more proactive ways to their housing dilemmas than the elected officials responsible for Metro Vancouver, Ley said in an interview.

Ley discovered almost a one-to-one correlation over a 25-year period between Metro Vancouver becoming one of the most unaffordable real estate markets in the world and a surge of international immigration and offshore investing.

University of Waterloo geographer Markus Moos and Queen’s University planner Andrejs Skaburskis back up Ley’s analysis. They say Metro Vancouver is an “exceptional” example of how “globalization” can affect a local housing market.

Moos and Skaburskis found, beginning in the 2000s, “immigrants, particularly from Asia, increasingly arrived with established wealth, and many were known to continue earning income outside the country. This led to a decoupling of housing from local labour market participation.”

The Metro Vancouver regional district has released data showing almost nine of 10 newcomers in the past 20 years were born outside the country, mostly in Asia. Many are “circulatory migrants” who invest in property in Canada while working elsewhere.

Ley’s data contradicts real estate developers such as Bob Rennie, who recently argued that Metro Vancouver’s housing prices are reasonable and labour market related, if you “take out the top 20 per cent” of property sales that “are for rich guys and foreign money.”

On the contrary, Ley said, a “trickle-down effect” occurs when well-off immigrants and investors push up housing prices in places such as the west side of Vancouver.

“It’s not as if you can draw a clear partition. The property values in the west side influence the prices in the east side. Demand is just deflected, for example, from Kitsilano to Main Street and Commercial Drive.”

The residents of Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Sydney have more openly discussed soaring housing costs than people in Metro Vancouver, Ley says. And their politicians have been more responsive.

How are other gateway cities responding?

Hong Kong recently placed a15-per-cent surcharge on foreign buyers, mostly from China, who have made the city the most “unaffordable” of 360 cities in nine English-speaking countries, according to Demographia, which measures local incomes against housing prices.

In Singapore, which provides much more social housing than Metro Vancouver, the city-state has also placed a “stamp tax” on foreign buyers similar to Hong Kong.

Australia already has a policy that permits foreigners to buy only new housing, and temporary residents to sell Australian properties when they leave. Still, under public pressure, the Australian government this year began launching an inquiry into offshore investment.

London has detailed the spate of luxury purchases by Russians, Malaysians and other foreign investors, Ley said. In response, British politicians are proposing a levy on buyers who leave their properties empty.

What might happen in Metro Vancouver, which Demographia ranks as the second-most “unaffordable” of 360 cities?

[iEatClams]

so basically. every other city, has done research, and have evidence that foreign money plays a part.


all those cities have some sort of foreign restrictions, but for whatever reason vancouver cant even track it and dont have any restrictions??


dont get me wrong, low interest rates and all the other stuff plays a role.


but to say foreign money does not play a factor when some mainland chinese guy just bought a house in kerrisdale for $7 million wont?

[Tapioca]

Race/country of origin is a sensitive subject here. No one wants to rock the boat lest they lose business or political support. Blame it on Canadian political correctness or official multiculturalism.

I live in a shoebox in the sky in the "suburbs" and I see the influence of overseas money in my building. People who don't attend strata meetings and have their dogs shit on balconies, who don't understand basic rules of behaviour in public, etc. There are way too many newer luxury cars in my building to call them the brainfarts of the typical 50K Vancouver millionaire.

You see the influence of overseas money in other ways too. Check out any new restaurant in Vancouver - it's filled with Chinese people, particularly any restaurant that tries to serve French-inspired food. Why does a place like Cafe Medina, which arguably serves a good waffle, have a half-hour lineup everyday during the week? Because, the vast majority of patrons are rich Chinese who don't need to work 9-5 jobs like the rest of us schmucks. To deny this reality in Vancouver is naive at best and ignorant at worst.

[Alpine]

Surprisingly, I seem to have moved into a building where Asians are the minority
I live at Meccanica in SEFC, and at our first AGM about ~80% of the owners who purchased a unit attended the meeting. Incredibly, asains (including korean, chinese, taiwanese, etc..) made up only about 10% of the group. Caucasians made up the clear majority of the home owners.
Literally 100 feet to the north of my building stands Lido, where it looks like the exact opposite .
Disclosure: I am chinese.

[Gululu]

people are free to bitch and complain all they want about Chinese/Asian homeowners. I don't care, others don't care, and government definitely don't care.

The fault is not mine, don't try to make me feel guilty because you can't afford housing.

multiculturalism, immigration, these policies are set by federal government, don't like the rules? Don't hate the player hate the game

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Gululu

people are free to bitch and complain all they want about Chinese/Asian homeowners. I don't care, others don't care, and government definitely don't care.

The fault is not mine, don't try to make me feel guilty because you can't afford housing.

multiculturalism, immigration, these policies are set by federal government, don't like the rules? Don't hate the player hate the game

The problem is, supposedly, the government's duty is to serve the citizens and look after our needs, not cater to foreign investors at the expense of the citizens' well being. With foreign investors driving up home prices and making home ownership next to impossible, the government (all 3 levels of them) is not doing its jobs right.

[GS8]

lol I could care less which country they came from. But if a ton of foreign money starts pouring in out of literally nowhere (since it can't be tracked), which drives up the prices for us poor shits who were born here then why not be a little peeved?

Not sure why social warriors need to hold the racism flag so close to their chest. Nothing racist here at all IMO. It's about rich and the non rich.

My mom went through Hell coming here from another country (early 70s) so I took personal offense knowing that people could just buy their way in.

Whatever, way of the world

/rant

[lady_mapetite]

^agreed.

bugs me that my parents and now myself contribute to the economy and the benefits of canadians but cannot buy a place here and call it home

it also frustrates me to the max that i'll need a dual income in hopes of being able to purchase a shoebox here in van - what if i don't want to share a house with someone.. the only choice would really be apartments/condos - even that is stretching it

[4444]

Originally Posted by Z3guy

I didn't know you can live in your S&P 500 investment? haha! keep dialing up your rhetoric and I will keep laughing at your POV. Your aggressive childish responses do entertain me though.....lol

no, but i can live in a much nicer house for less money by renting, all whilst my diversified assets grow with less risk.

i can also live in said rented property paid for by the income from my said diversified portfolio when i choose to retire.

in the end of the day, you guys are all blind to the fact that 1 moment can turn ur life upside down, a major terrorist attack in china, the implosion of a credit market, and boom, negative equity.

i can never be in negative equity. that is worth something to me.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Z3guy

^ 4444 is such a noob! haha

bc all university research is always right?

you know, vancouver real estate may go up forever (it won't), but the thing is, you all act as though vancouver real estate or nothing.

herd mentality ends up killing the last members of the herd.

[Z3guy]

^ OK soapbox boy, we are all blind and you are all knowing! are you sure you are not Marco911 younger insecure brother? haha

how come you didn't respond the all the comments about asian money coming to Vancouver?