Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by RabidRat

I'm with you on this one: if/when we move back to Vancouver I wouldn't think twice about living in North Van.



I wonder if living in such a nice place screws up your life.

I look at that terrace, with that view, and it's way nicer than the outdoor patio of almost any restaurant I've ever been. The interior is nicer than at the St. Regis.

Basically, upon living in a home like this, does going out just result in disappointment? Is there such a thing as being treated to luxury anymore, when everywhere you go can only be lesser than your everyday experience?

North Van traffic is no bueno for me. But I'm too Chinese for my own good and the Chinese ppl haven't taken over the northshore yet.

I would imagine with a penthouse like this you can probably hire someone to make food for you as well. So yeah I guess why would you go out? Just invite your friends over, hire a chef or even a team, and have another cleanup crew clean up after you guys are done.

[whitev70r]

At that location, you're right at the Seabus but then you might not be a peasant to take public transit. Presumably, if you can afford that, you wouldn't need to work so no need to fight rush hour traffic on the 2 bridges. Hell, you might be able to park a flying vehicle on that terrace!

[Badhobz]

If your Chinese that terrace and pool will never be used. Too hot. Too cold. No privacy etc

[EvoFire]

Too hot too cold yes, but it's probably tall enough that no one can see you.

[The Producer]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

I can see my apartment in this photo

living in lower lonsdale (again) has been one of the best life decisions we've made.

there's always stuff to do. I work 2 km from the apartment, traffic is a non issue (for me). Access to the seabus is great. The shipyards facility is a great amenity. My wife and I take a beer out on the pier a few times a week just to watch what's going on in the harbour.

Lonsdale Quay has been a state of renewal for years. When they get that together it will be the icing on the cake.

Cons: parking sucks. Generally I don't have to street park, but that's because i spend a bundle on extra spots. Shopping is meh - we have an excellent green grocer, but no good butcher. I desperately wish Meridian would move back to the shore with a small location down here. They would kill with take and bake meals and quality meats. Beer scene is obviously fantastic. There are 5-6 breweries within 5 minutes walk of my front door.

Move to the shore. If you can WFH or seabus commute it's a no brainer.

[JDMDreams]

Nah for across the river I need my West Van compound. Seems like a much better deal at under $7.5



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

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

If your Chinese that terrace and pool will never be used. Too hot. Too cold. No privacy etc

I'll use it, invite me!

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Nah for across the river I need my West Van compound. Seems like a much better deal at under $7.5



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

How'd ya go from looking at $30K RCF and 88K Ferrari's to $7.5M mansions lol

[PeanutButter]

The backyard of that mansion is pretty bad, no? The design of the patio looks pretty basic.

[Harvey Specter]

$49,800,000...

[unit]

idk why you guys would want a massive house unless you had like 10 kids and 2 nannies. maybe i'm just too poor to dream big.

[PeanutButter]

Whoa, now that's a house. Looks to be all computer renderings though. Do you have a link for it?

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by unit

idk why you guys would want a massive house unless you had like 10 kids and 2 nannies. maybe i'm just too poor to dream big.

People who build these homes spend 5-6 years building them, live in them for 2-3 then sell lol

At least with modern construction you can have huge open living spaces. So often old houses on the west side etc. have a million little rooms because that was the opitome of wealth at the time VS open floor plans

[underscore]

Both of those mansions + that penthouse look visually stunning but they seem like they have a lot of weird space that you don't actually end up using. Like I don't see when you'd actually use the big fancy front entrance in the West Van place, the parking is at the back and even if you go around you're walking past that lower door to get to the front door lol.

[westopher]

I just want a 1600 square foot rancher built in the 60s that's architecturally significant and has really big windows and a lot of trees.
Too bad so many get torn down for these gaudy mega mansions these days.

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by unit

idk why you guys would want a massive house unless you had like 10 kids and 2 nannies. maybe i'm just too poor to dream big.

$30-50M is insane.

I have golfing buddies who has an empty house on British properties, entire 6 story older low rise owned by family, and partial plaza lots of Lougheed. Used to own driving range, and currently run multiple restaurants.

They even talk about how owning something $10-20M+ is insane and almost impossible to achieve without multi-generation success.



Last time I bought a furniture from a house in SW Marine drive, the dude had 8 kids, 3 nannies and he manufactures parts for Leica Camera.

[unit]

as someone without kids i think having 4 fairly large rooms is a lot nicer than having like 8 rooms and 6 bathrooms. the courtyard and outside space is pretty sweet in those pics tho.. feels like you're in a commercial space.

[Hehe]

Originally Posted by underscore

Both of those mansions + that penthouse look visually stunning but they seem like they have a lot of weird space that you don't actually end up using. Like I don't see when you'd actually use the big fancy front entrance in the West Van place, the parking is at the back and even if you go around you're walking past that lower door to get to the front door lol.

Large mansions or luxury houses in general are never about making sense, but rather about the exclusivity and opulence.

They've got a big room for everything, theater, you get a big room for that, pool, another big room for that, cigar/wine, another big room for that.

And that idea is actually seen throughout different level of housing. It used to be that kitchen and dining is just a small part of the house. Then 2000s came along and in order to accommodate the larger kitchen/dining, we started seeing open-concept where kitchen/dining and even the living room is just one single room.

If you trace everything back, it was actually more related to the ideology of having a big room for every room. But since most regular houses couldn't afford to have a dedicated room for everything, they just merged all the rooms in one and as you move around for different tasks, the room is still big. Just no longer dedicated.

[JDMDreams]

Is $7m even that much now a days? Two newer East Van detached is already that. So would you rather have two East Van laneway detached side by side or one west van. $4-5m house doesn't sound too unachievable for let's say a couple who wants to consolidate family houses. Parents pass the house, Sell two family tear downs at $2m each you're already at $4m, tack on a $1m mtg. You're at $5m

I recall we were doing Reddit math about a year back and the newer 6 Plex were about $5m to build already

[EvoFire]

I'm not a fan of having a HUGE house. It's nice but useless. I like my privacy so even if I have money I would like to not have a cleaning crew around all the time, which goes back to just having enough space is good. So having the right number of bedrooms + home office, and maybe a yoga room would be great. I don't even like the regular houses of the last 3 decades where you have a living room, dining room, 2nd dining area, and family room all separate. Just give me one living room and one dining area and I'm golden.

Though having a yoga room and a big walk in closet would be nice.

What would be much more opulent is having usable outdoor spaces. That's where the 27m west side house appeals to me. There's a covered patio, there are tree covered trails, there's that outside space by the water. Those are all spaces I can see myself using. I don't mind having some grounds keeper around dealing with all this rather than a always there maid in the house.

WTF am I going on about, not like I have even 1/4 that money and income

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Is $7m even that much now a days? Two newer East Van detached is already that. So would you rather have two East Van laneway detached side by side or one west van. $4-5m house doesn't sound too unachievable for let's say a couple who wants to consolidate family houses. Parents pass the house, Sell two family tear downs at $2m each you're already at $4m, tack on a $1m mtg. You're at $5m

I recall we were doing Reddit math about a year back and the newer 6 Plex were about $5m to build already

You are basically describing what Gerbs said, you need multigenerational success for something like this, and that's if you are an only child couple from both sides of the family, and you yourself are just as if not more successful than the parents.

Even then, to tie up that kind of cashflow in a house that doesn't generate any income is INSANE for anyone who knows how money works and has their money work for them.

[JDMDreams]

I have to look at $30k isf or else how do I save for a $5m house

Originally Posted by Gerbs

How'd ya go from looking at $30K RCF and 88K Ferrari's to $7.5M mansions lol

[unit]

we use one of our 3 rooms as a yoga room and i have to say it's pretty damn nice not to have to put things away and roll mats out to find space to stretch! mats are always laid out, all foam rollers, bands, cushions, everything you need is right there and doesn't have to be stowed away afterwards. it's a real game changer.

[Hehe]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Is $7m even that much now a days? Two newer East Van detached is already that. So would you rather have two East Van laneway detached side by side or one west van. $4-5m house doesn't sound too unachievable for let's say a couple who wants to consolidate family houses. Parents pass the house, Sell two family tear downs at $2m each you're already at $4m, tack on a $1m mtg. You're at $5m

I recall we were doing Reddit math about a year back and the newer 6 Plex were about $5m to build already

The problem is income. In order to afford a 5m home, as you said, you’d need 2 original family home as given and then another mortgage on top of that to afford it. With that being said though, I don’t see housing going back to the time when a house in West side is a million as we progressed to a society where parents helping their kids to get a house become the norm.

As interest rate starts to drop again, I expect another wave of housing craze where a 2m house today will double in 10yrs. And as you said, old houses will be sold to build more consolidated housing.

There’s one exception though, if AI robots become so incredibly reliable where house building… or any other labor cost for that matter is driven down to near 0.

Don’t call me crazy or too optimistic. We did this to ourselves. As our labor cost increases, it creates incentives for development to labor replacement. And it’s going to be an incredibly fast transition, much like how horses were replaced by engines in a matter of a decade.

[Traum]

This is RS and what's wrong with you guys? I just want 1500 sq ft of living space -- wouldn't mind "settling" for just 1000 sq ft, actually. But give me an 8 car garage where I can use 1/2 as shop space, and the rest for actually parking cars. No yard is fine -- less work for me to maintain and clean.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Hehe

The problem is income. In order to afford a 5m home, as you said, you’d need 2 original family home as given and then another mortgage on top of that to afford it. With that being said though, I don’t see housing going back to the time when a house in West side is a million as we progressed to a society where parents helping their kids to get a house become the norm.

As interest rate starts to drop again, I expect another wave of housing craze where a 2m house today will double in 10yrs. And as you said, old houses will be sold to build more consolidated housing.

There’s one exception though, if AI robots become so incredibly reliable where house building… or any other labor cost for that matter is driven down to near 0.

Don’t call me crazy or too optimistic. We did this to ourselves. As our labor cost increases, it creates incentives for development to labor replacement. And it’s going to be an incredibly fast transition, much like how horses were replaced by engines in a matter of a decade.

I see it happening, at least for a lot of the more repetitive and math intensive tasks. You input your architectural drawing and land survey results, the AI will spit out all the required dimensions for a build, a machine will pick and cut out all the required lengths and board for you and predrill as well. We are far far away from a robot coming in and hammering a house together, but you no longer have ppl cutting those boards and the person's job is now only to hammer it all together and making adjustments here and there as needed.

That will easily have taken 1/2 the labour out, but some of it is put back into the data and structural engineering team, and also the mechanics that maintain that machine. It'll become less and less manual labour and more shift towards high skill blue collar and white collar jobs.

It'll never be zero, but the variable labour costs will be driven down. The AI and machines required will still need maintenance and things will still wear out. We are still dealing with a material and physical world. Until we are all uploaded to the cloud that is.