Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[snowball]

Originally Posted by supafamous

What's the alternative if you want to live in Vancouver or Burnaby?

In East Van there are 27 houses under $2m that are less than 40 years old and in Burnaby there are 8.

If I raise the budget to $2.5m it's 68 houses in East Van and 31 in Burnaby.

The diff in mortgage payment from a $1.7m duplex and a $2.5m house is around $4k/month and anything pushing 30-40 years is going to need work - figure $50-200k of updates in the next 5 years.

lol what a privileged point of view for him to ask why someone would spend a certain amount for something. Why spend 60k on a Honda Odyssey when you can buy a used 2015 M3 for that price? Are they stupid?

Anyway, I bought my house 2 years ago for over 2M, it's over 50 years old and I have already spent another 100k and at least 50 hours of my own time each month on maintenance and upgrades just to make the place barely livable. Good thing I'm handy and I have all the tools since I used to be in construction. Otherwise, you would have to pay 3 million to buy a turn-key version of a house like mine.

[westopher]

Moved into our new place yesterday.
Pro tip. Hire movers. Big thanks to the producer who's probably got a sore back today. I sure as fuck do.

[carsncars]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

I don't get why people would spend more than $1.7 on a duplex

There’s demand. My coworker and his wife are in their 60’s and tired of maintenance on their 3000 sq ft 80’s detached, but aren’t interested in condo or townhome living. There are no new build detached homes < 3000 sq ft (and no they don’t want to rent out a suite) and they don’t want to leave their neighbourhood.

They bought the front half of a new build duplex last year and are quite happy.

[unit]

Originally Posted by westopher

Moved into our new place yesterday.
Pro tip. Hire movers. Big thanks to the producer who's probably got a sore back today. I sure as fuck do.

i've moved like 6 times in the last 13-14 years. the first 4 times i did it myself but it got harder and harder as i moved into bigger places and got more shit. also i'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning out my suite before leaving. i always want to leave it just as good as when i left, so im cleaning every last corner, the walls, touching things up, etc... all my previous landlords must love me.

anyway the last few times we just hired move out cleaners, that way they do like a decent enough job and nobody complains, and we hired movers as well. all the stress related to moving is bad enough, to clean and move yourself is just unnecessary stress that i'm more than happy to pay for these days.

[Gerbs]

I was toying with the idea of upgrading to a nicer place in a better location (Oly Village / Lower Lonsdale)

Would it be stupid to upgrade if you think in the next 4-8 years by 35-37 you know you're gonna upgrade to a TH/Duplex to start a family, so it's a waste of buy/sell fees + LTT.

[Eff-1]

So I heard a radio interview this weekend that I thought was interesting.

Because the market is slow, an increasing amount of offers now include a subject to sell clause.

For those who don't include a clause, there is an increasing number of people who have to turn to bridge financing to help close on the place they bought before selling their current place.

Little did I know, that for bridge financing they charge 2-3% just for paperwork. And then 9-15% interest. So if you're borrowing $1M for bridge financing, that's $20k just for applying.

They used an example of a couple in South Surrey who bought a house but couldnt' find a buyer for their current house in time. They had to get bridge financing for $2M for 45 days and it cost $500 per day in interest, not including paperwork charges.

I could be totally wrong. This is just what I heard on this podcast.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

For those who don't include a clause, there is an increasing number of people who have to turn to bridge financing to help close on the place they bought before selling their current place.

Little did I know, that for bridge financing they charge 2-3% just for paperwork. And then 9-15% interest. So if you're borrowing $1M for bridge financing, that's $20k just for applying.

They used an example of a couple in South Surrey who bought a house but couldnt' find a buyer for their current house in time. They had to get bridge financing for $2M for 45 days and it cost $500 per day in interest, not including paperwork charges.

I could be totally wrong. This is just what I heard on this podcast.

This might vary by bank - when I bought my current house we needed bridge financing and TD didn't charge anything for the paperwork. The interest rate was about 2-3% higher than my mortgage so that sounds right. I recall owing the bank something like $2.3m for a 3 week period. That was "neat".

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by supafamous

This might vary by bank - when I bought my current house we needed bridge financing and TD didn't charge anything for the paperwork. The interest rate was about 2-3% higher than my mortgage so that sounds right. I recall owing the bank something like $2.3m for a 3 week period. That was "neat".

That's a good point. In the podcast, she did mention that the South Surrey couple were originally told no problem by their bank, but then had to turn to private lending which is what she must have been talking about.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

That's a good point. In the podcast, she did mention that the South Surrey couple were originally told no problem by their bank, but then had to turn to private lending which is what she must have been talking about.

Ah, that makes sense though odd that their bank didn't help them out - it's in the bank's interest to support bridge financing to ensure the deal goes through and they make a little bit of money through the temporary high interest loan. Going to a private lender to make it happen definitely makes it way more complicated and it makes sense why they had to pay extra.

When it first came up that we'd probably need it we weren't sure how difficult it'd be - we had been told by a broker that the process was like applying for another mortgage but our TD guy made it really easy - I think it was basically an extra half hour of time to get it all reviewed and signed. I was pleasantly surprised by it all.

[Hondaracer]

Have talked to a few people who were looking at that new development on the Burnaby/New west border by Edmonds, those towers/low rises

Apparently the developer is now hawking all the pre-sales people walked away from in the newest low rise development. They are actually taking offers on brand new units

[CRS]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Have talked to a few people who were looking at that new development on the Burnaby/New west border by Edmonds, those towers/low rises

Apparently the developer is now hawking all the pre-sales people walked away from in the newest low rise development. They are actually taking offers on brand new units

These the led mac ones in south gate?

[Hondaracer]

Yea, that whole planned community there with the low rises among the high rises.. not sure if they are the led Mac ones or uhh… forgot who else was building there, maybe metro can?

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

So I heard a radio interview this weekend that I thought was interesting.

Because the market is slow, an increasing amount of offers now include a subject to sell clause.

For those who don't include a clause, there is an increasing number of people who have to turn to bridge financing to help close on the place they bought before selling their current place.

Little did I know, that for bridge financing they charge 2-3% just for paperwork. And then 9-15% interest. So if you're borrowing $1M for bridge financing, that's $20k just for applying.

They used an example of a couple in South Surrey who bought a house but couldnt' find a buyer for their current house in time. They had to get bridge financing for $2M for 45 days and it cost $500 per day in interest, not including paperwork charges.

I could be totally wrong. This is just what I heard on this podcast.

Originally Posted by supafamous

This might vary by bank - when I bought my current house we needed bridge financing and TD didn't charge anything for the paperwork. The interest rate was about 2-3% higher than my mortgage so that sounds right. I recall owing the bank something like $2.3m for a 3 week period. That was "neat".

Originally Posted by Eff-1

That's a good point. In the podcast, she did mention that the South Surrey couple were originally told no problem by their bank, but then had to turn to private lending which is what she must have been talking about.

Originally Posted by supafamous

Ah, that makes sense though odd that their bank didn't help them out - it's in the bank's interest to support bridge financing to ensure the deal goes through and they make a little bit of money through the temporary high interest loan. Going to a private lender to make it happen definitely makes it way more complicated and it makes sense why they had to pay extra.

When it first came up that we'd probably need it we weren't sure how difficult it'd be - we had been told by a broker that the process was like applying for another mortgage but our TD guy made it really easy - I think it was basically an extra half hour of time to get it all reviewed and signed. I was pleasantly surprised by it all.

So we had to "bridge" when we were buying our house. For reference we are with TD.

What ended up happening was my mortgage advisor took out an extra large mortgage on the new place with a higher rate, but not quite bridge rate, so something like 3.5% at that time. Bridge would have been around the neighbourhood of 7-8%. He then added a HELOC to our townhouse so we can get more cash out and it saved us the expense of getting a bridge loan.

The problem with bridge loans are, the bank wants to see an accepted offer on the old place before they will bridge you, that's likely the reason why the couple in the story got rejected. My agent said as long as we had an accepted offer they can make it work. No accepted offer no bueno. With the accepted offer you can drag out the completion for months, you just have to pay.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

The problem with bridge loans are, the bank wants to see an accepted offer on the old place before they will bridge you, that's likely the reason why the couple in the story got rejected. My agent said as long as we had an accepted offer they can make it work. No accepted offer no bueno. With the accepted offer you can drag out the completion for months, you just have to pay.

Ah yeah that makes sense. I looked up my old emails with my banker and that's exactly what happened - once I had an accepted offer I told him I needed a bridge loan and then it was easy peasy.

The completion on our new house was 10 weeks out from signing and then we were able to sell our place quickly due to the hot market in a couple weeks but the new buyer had a possession date that was after we took possession of our new house.

[CRS]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Yea, that whole planned community there with the low rises among the high rises.. not sure if they are the led Mac ones or uhh… forgot who else was building there, maybe metro can?

Just looked at some of the listings and there are tons of them that are like 60 days on market.

All are about $1000/sqft. I can see why they're all just sitting.

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

So I heard a radio interview this weekend that I thought was interesting.

Because the market is slow, an increasing amount of offers now include a subject to sell clause.

For those who don't include a clause, there is an increasing number of people who have to turn to bridge financing to help close on the place they bought before selling their current place.

Little did I know, that for bridge financing they charge 2-3% just for paperwork. And then 9-15% interest. So if you're borrowing $1M for bridge financing, that's $20k just for applying.

They used an example of a couple in South Surrey who bought a house but couldnt' find a buyer for their current house in time. They had to get bridge financing for $2M for 45 days and it cost $500 per day in interest, not including paperwork charges.

I could be totally wrong. This is just what I heard on this podcast.

My friend is selling this to private credit investors, you get a 9-11% return on bridge financing. He gets a 2% finders fee. Your cash is secured by the housing, but the legal fees when it goes wrong is when you lose!

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Gerbs

I was toying with the idea of upgrading to a nicer place in a better location (Oly Village / Lower Lonsdale)

Would it be stupid to upgrade if you think in the next 4-8 years by 35-37 you know you're gonna upgrade to a TH/Duplex to start a family, so it's a waste of buy/sell fees + LTT.

I think if you're only going to stay somewhere for 4 years then it's a waste to buy and then move. If you're more like 6-10 years then do it.

I went 9 years then 6 years between each house purchase - the second one was earlier than expected b/c the house we bought was a shitty EI build and we also saw our financial situation improve a lot during those 6 years so we could afford to get out from under a house we felt was going to be nothing but trouble in the coming years.

The taxes on the most recent house added up to $160k plus realtor fees of about $60k so that's a lot of money up in smoke - it accounted for about 13% of my mortgage when I moved in and it added years to the mortgage (5?). Run the math on the fees that are involved and how many more years it'd add to your mortgage and see how you feel about it.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by CRS

Just looked at some of the listings and there are tons of them that are like 60 days on market.

All are about $1000/sqft. I can see why they're all just sitting.

I know one other person who bought and completed on a pre-sale. Kinda doubt the inflated “gains” they got on their assessment are reflected in reality given this.

Was probably the perfect storm for most people to walk away from their deposits given timing of interest rate hikes and the pre-sale construction timeline

[JDMDreams]

I wonder what's gonna happen to the rest of the plan, they are trying to sell a 3 bed 1000 sq for $1.5M

[68style]

I went down the bridge financing investigation road just in case I couldn't sell my first Calgary house.

1% to the lender and 1% to the agent (so 2% total) upfront fee to get the bridge loan, so in our case on $800,000 it was going to be $16,000 fees to start. After that it was 11% interest on the loan amount.

Ugly. So glad I didn't have to go that route.

[westopher]

Place is slowly getting setup. Ignore the camping chairs on the patio, and before anyone asks, no that's not a shock collar its a GPS tracker.
I greatly underestimated how much we needed to do to get all setup, but its coming along.

[Hondaracer]

Yea that patio gonna be pretty sweet

[Badhobz]

Are those….. Costco string lights ?!?!?!?!!!!


I knew I loved you before I met you - Savage Gardner

[Hehe]

For anyone thinking about moving up/down, check with your bank, mine (BMO) for example offered me to port the mortgage.

So, say my house is 2M with 1M still left of mortgage@1.8% fixed, now I sell it for 3M and move to another house that's 2.2M, they can simply carry it over leaving everything intact. No change on rates or anything like that. And should there be any surplus, I can either bank it or pay toward the principal with no penalty.

Of course, that's assuming you are closing both ends near the same date. But the idea is check your bank, there might be clause in place that allows you to move without any bridge loan or trigger a new rate.

[Badhobz]

YOU have a mortgage ?!?! Da faq.