Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Wormiez]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

That needs to be disclosed though right? The listing doesn't seem to say that on a quick glance. How would one find that info?

As soon as you walk into the house, you'll notice it immediately. For this age in house not common for foundation issues..

Either hire an inspector or if lucky the owner discloses it in the disclosure documents. But I don't remember there being a part on structural integrity

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by Wormiez

Thank you for the review! I’m considering hiring them as well. I’m planning to make just one trip to move between houses, primarily for transporting the furniture.

Do you remember if they had a large moving truck, around 15+ feet?

How many hours you spent moving with them?

I think it was more like a 20 foot truck? They have photos here:

https://www.tnmmovers.com/photos

Total time for me was 11 hours. A long day! If we could have done it in 1 trip, then I think I would have saved about 3-4 hours.

[unit]

4634 doesnt look too bad, 4570 looks in rough shape. i'd hate to find how must moisture and condensation has dripped down those skylight windows and molded the drywall and framing there.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

What's the situation with the Vancouver specials with attached garage? I heard you can't build laneway since how the fuck do you get out of the garage. So only way to redevelop is to tear the whole thing down?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/85f9uCkU4g11hvhH6

This house built a laneway and kept the attached garage. Legally you only have to have 1 parking spot (a parking pad) and as long as the laneway is far enough away from the main house (16') you don't have to care about the garage.

[JDMDreams]

Hmm never seen that before I guess cuz the lot is one of those wide big lots.

Roommate you say

[Hakkaboy]

Originally Posted by supafamous

https://maps.app.goo.gl/85f9uCkU4g11hvhH6

This house built a laneway and kept the attached garage. Legally you only have to have 1 parking spot (a parking pad) and as long as the laneway is far enough away from the main house (16') you don't have to care about the garage.

Is there a height limit to a laneway? Like can you build another full detached 2 car garage but with a living area upstairs?

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

Is there a height limit to a laneway? Like can you build another full detached 2 car garage but with a living area upstairs?

In Vancouver you can build a full 2 story laneway (up to 28') and you can do now build a full double garage (up to 516sf) if you want but it comes out of the allowable floor space which is 25% of the total lot size. For example on a 33x122' lot you can build a laneway of up to 1006sf so basically you can have a double garage downstairs and then a studio suite upstairs (and maybe a den on the main floor).

[yray]

LOL check out this property @ rupert and wellington

https://maps.app.goo.gl/TP11U4EQMFBYnfkC7

The laneway is bigger than the original house prelift

[TypeRNammer]

Originally Posted by yray

LOL check out this property @ rupert and wellington

https://maps.app.goo.gl/TP11U4EQMFBYnfkC7

The laneway is bigger than the original house prelift

When I click the link, google maps points at the maroon building?

Are you referring to the one with the Tyvek wrap?

If so, this particular one was originally a character home. It was given a lift to add a full extra floor. The home behind it that appears to be a laneway house is referred as an infill home which could be titled separately from the main home.

[TypeRNammer]

Originally Posted by supafamous

In Vancouver you can build a full 2 story laneway (up to 28') and you can do now build a full double garage (up to 516sf) if you want but it comes out of the allowable floor space which is 25% of the total lot size. For example on a 33x122' lot you can build a laneway of up to 1006sf so basically you can have a double garage downstairs and then a studio suite upstairs (and maybe a den on the main floor).

Under new regulations I could have built up to 1700sf which is double the size of my current laneway house

[supafamous]

re: laneways - in Burnaby they briefly had a policy on them but have since consolidated the policy into a new one to reflect the provincial guidelines. With the new guidelines you can basically build a laneway that's 12m tall (39') and depending on how many units exist on your lot you can build it a total of 2x your lot size for all the units.

https://www.burnaby.ca/sites/default...g-District.pdf

If you are building 6 units on your lot (let's say a 50x120 which is common in Burnaby) you could build a total of 12,000 sf of housing on the lot if you're near frequent transit.

If you are building only 3 units (say a primary house, a legal suite and a laneway) then you max out at 9,600sf of housing so you could build a "laneway" in the back that's 3000sf if you wanted (or more).

[JDMDreams]

But what if you don't want to tear down the main house. And there's already 2 existing units? Top and basement. I'm not sure how they recognize units as I'm sure all old houses were never built as 2 units with the separate address thing. 9000 sq - existing house size?

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

But what if you don't want to tear down the main house. And there's already 2 existing units? Top and basement. I'm not sure how they recognize units as I'm sure all old houses were never built as 2 units with the separate address thing. 9000 sq - existing house size?

As long as what you're building complies with the guidelines for R-1 zoning (https://www.burnaby.ca/sites/default...g-District.pdf) then you can build a new back unit. Potentially you can do some major upgrades to the existing house too like adding a floor to it but I can't see how that works financially. If someone has an unauthorised suite they could try to legalize it but it doesn't really matter unless you're trying to get to 4+ total units (you can build bigger once you hit 4+ units)

The new Burnaby guidelines are pretty flexible in how they work - they basically say here's the height limit, here's how much of the lot you're allowed to cover, and where you're not allowed to build housing (setbacks) and the rest is up to you.

In my particular case it means I can finally build a 2nd floor deck at the back of my house - I wasn't allowed under the old rules b/c my house is 60' long and that was the depth limit. They dropped that rule and just said how much of my lot can be covered so now I can build a deck (and enlarge my patio).

[winson604]

edit nvm lol answered my own question, fail.

[EvoFire]

I'm pretty sure once our current place gets bought out and redeveloped, we are going to move to Burnaby and build our own if the current ruleset persists. I don't really care for living in Vancouver proper anyways and the Van neighbourhood I want to live in I can't afford.

Based on the currently trajectory, I'll probably start seeing redevelopment in 5-10 years.

[JDMDreams]

Even at 2000sq at $400sf that's $800000, pretty steep but good deal for 2000 sq new build. I wonder how much garage space will be left.

[xxxrsxxx]

US feds just cut rates by 0.5%

[JDMDreams]

[AstulzerRZD]

USD CAD is up tho, doesn't this mean some low level of confidence in the CAD?

[JDMDreams]

^ when has confidence in Canada be high? You can't build pipelines, you can't sell oil, you have no tech, all you have is bunch of union guys going on strike, port strike, train strike, plane strike, nurse strike, when's the bank strike? There's no money to be made in Canada, they just tax and strike you. If you were a business would you invest in Canada?

[sonick]

Originally Posted by AstulzerRZD

USD CAD is up tho, doesn't this mean some low level of confidence in the CAD?

It's gone down since there was news of US cutting rates.

It went up to 1.38 early august when there was uncertainty whether US would cut rates. Since rumbles of US fed cutting rates started it's dropped back down to 1.36 even 1.34 before, so it's probably been anticipated for awhile now.

[JDMDreams]

I drove by the Victoria and 33 place. It looks like there's 4 floors total, bottom floor is semi underground. The entrance for the top units you have to go upstairs, then there's two more floors on top. So I guess poor ppl is single floor on the bottom then the rich is 3 upper floors.

[supafamous]

https://www.zealty.ca/mls-R2926121/8...UE-Burnaby-BC/

An East Burnaby 3,300sf duplex that has a legal 4 bedroom suite but you could also restructure it to have three suite instead (2 downstairs and 1 on the main floor). You'd still be left with a 4 bedroom home to live in if you rented out all 3 suites.

[Harvey Specter]

Sheesh, imagine living with all those people and dealing with renters. And calling a 4 bedroom unit a "home" is a stretch.

Our RE market is straight up fuked.

[JDMDreams]

I don't want 3 units of buddy guys, but if you can air BNB the other 3