Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[EvoFire]

Looked it up. Both land and building went up marginally, total up by about 1.6%

[supafamous]

I'm guessing mine went up 6% versus staying flat because my house falls within the newly rezoned transit oriented areas. My lot is now zoned to allow 3FSR/8 story buildings and everything in my area went up 6% as well.

Edit: This is probably correct - I checked the houses in my area that are outside of the TOA and they only went up 2-3% while everything within the TOA went up 6-7%.

[immorality]

Damn, up 14% for my 35 year old Poco townhouse.

[winson604]

Went down by $1000 dollars

[jing]

Originally Posted by supafamous

I'm guessing mine went up 6% versus staying flat because my house falls within the newly rezoned transit oriented areas. My lot is now zoned to allow 3FSR/8 story buildings and everything in my area went up 6% as well.

Edit: This is probably correct - I checked the houses in my area that are outside of the TOA and they only went up 2-3% while everything within the TOA went up 6-7%.

Our TH building/unit is also within 800m but has increased 'only' 1.6%

[blkgsr]

Originally Posted by 68style

Yah man, I was in 1 place for 14 years before moving to Calgary... had stashed stuff in like 3 diff storage areas in my building as well as at my parents house. I've never been so tired or so felt my age than after moving myself to Calgary. If I ever move again I am 100% paying someone else to do it, that shit was the most mentally and physically drained I've ever felt.

mentally draining is very true.

i knew it was going to be tough walking out of the house for the last time or two but i didn't realize exactly how tough. especially seeing my daughter in her room....brutal.


as for the assessment, mine went up 4.8%

[snowball]

The first time I did a real move (lived at my old place for 30 years) I was completely exhausted and ended up with covid 3 days later. I'm sure my immune system took a huge dive because of the move.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by blkgsr

mentally draining is very true.

i knew it was going to be tough walking out of the house for the last time or two but i didn't realize exactly how tough. especially seeing my daughter in her room....brutal.


as for the assessment, mine went up 4.8%

My son was super upset when I was taking his crib on the day of the move. Wife has it on video and I look at it sometime. He was only 22 months, his crib was his safe space and I was taking it apart and he had no idea what was going on.

[Badhobz]

^ I read that quickly and it was….

My son is super wet……

What the fuck, I’ve watched way too much porn

[Euro7r]

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing. Mines at 750K @ 4.79%. I ask myself sometimes is this even worth it for the sake of detached space. Feel like never gonna pay this down and even if I did, so much interest at the end. I was living in apartment and hated it, as I grew up living in a detached. The place would have had to go up in appreciation at the same $, at least to cover the interest spent. I'm probably starting off and right now can't see the whole picture or value down the road.

[whitev70r]

Don't look for the first 5 - 7 yrs, and if you do, think of the interest part as equiv to rent. It is depressing.

But are you doing the most effective payment option, every 2 weeks (an extra payment a year) and paydown once a yr as much as you can on the principal? And living like a miser, brewing your own coffee at home in the morning instead of spending $5 at SB or better yet, free coffee at the office?

[bcrdukes]

For those of you who still get free coffee at the office, that's a nice perk, especially if you are a regular coffee drinker. That coffee money adds up. 68style just bought a grail watch just by saving up coffee money.

[sonick]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

For those of you who still get free coffee at the office, that's a nice perk, especially if you are a regular coffee drinker. That coffee money adds up. 68style just bought a grail watch just by saving up coffee money.

We order fancy beans from a local roaster for our drip machine in the office and the MF'ers still complain about wanting Nespresso and shit.

[Tapioca]

We're up about 3% here in the Tri-Cities, which is a bit higher than I expected given the aggregate changes.

I'm not even thinking about whether or not we're going to pay off this house. With the way things are going, I consider home ownership as a means of housing security.

We've had NYE parties for our kids since we've been in our house with homemade balloon drops. The memories we're making for our kids in this house with sky high costs are priceless.

[roastpuff]

Originally Posted by immorality

Damn, up 14% for my 35 year old Poco townhouse.

I don't understand the huge jump for mine either - it's a 52-year old townhouse in Burnaby, and it went up 9.5% which is a big fat wtf

[68style]

Who knows what their formula is... my condo I just sold went up from $609,000 to $625,000 at the same time as the building is prepping for a $2 million assessment and the lower window seals are all failing on my unit.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing. Mines at 750K @ 4.79%. I ask myself sometimes is this even worth it for the sake of detached space. Feel like never gonna pay this down and even if I did, so much interest at the end. I was living in apartment and hated it, as I grew up living in a detached. The place would have had to go up in appreciation at the same $, at least to cover the interest spent. I'm probably starting off and right now can't see the whole picture or value down the road.

It never looks very good early on so you're better off ignoring it. It's a very slow burn but in another decade it's going to be looking pretty nice overall.

[Traum]

As others have mentioned, mortgage payments are disproportionately interest heavy in the first few years. Then near the end of the overall term (ie. 20, 25, 30 years), you are hardly paying any interest anymore. It's just the way it works, so don't let the initial interest amounts bother you.

As far as payment efficiency is concerned, I initially started on a bi-weekly payment schedule because I thought that matches my bi-weekly salary payments. As it turned out, my lender actually allows for weekly payments, and by just switching to that, the mortgage math somehow reduced my overall payment time by 4 - 6 weeks (in a 30 yera mortgage).

Yes, 4 - 6 weeks earlier over 30 year period hardly amounts to anything. But it is still something without actually requiring me to do much of anything, so I'll gladly take it.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing. Mines at 750K @ 4.79%. I ask myself sometimes is this even worth it for the sake of detached space. Feel like never gonna pay this down and even if I did, so much interest at the end. I was living in apartment and hated it, as I grew up living in a detached. The place would have had to go up in appreciation at the same $, at least to cover the interest spent. I'm probably starting off and right now can't see the whole picture or value down the road.

It's not going to look good for the first 7-8 years if you pay only the prescribed amount. A smaller mortgage helps, at our townhouse we borrowed 320k, and paid it down to 200k (so 120k principle) in 5 years.

We've moved to a house now and we've barely made a dent. The extra amount you can pay down also makes a much smaller percentage and therefore difference.

[immorality]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing.

Having debt is always something that has made me feel uncomfortable, so the wife & I have been trying to put a little extra here and there on the mortgage, and although it doesn't seem like much, it does make a big difference in the end.

[blkgsr]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing. Mines at 750K @ 4.79%. I ask myself sometimes is this even worth it for the sake of detached space. Feel like never gonna pay this down and even if I did, so much interest at the end. I was living in apartment and hated it, as I grew up living in a detached. The place would have had to go up in appreciation at the same $, at least to cover the interest spent. I'm probably starting off and right now can't see the whole picture or value down the road.

when i looked at mine i wanted to throw up.

just over a $1M.

something gross like $355K in the first 5 years, $80K to principal and that's with accelerated payments.

I'm paying this thing down hard in the first 5 years

[snowball]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe? Or you guys don't even look at it knowing how shitty life is being a peasant LOL. I'm 1.5 yrs into my mortgage and looking at how much interest paid is depressing. Mines at 750K @ 4.79%.

You gotta look at the mortgage payment charts and feel better. The numbers are basically inverted when you get mid-way

Here's a 750k mortgage @ 3.5% average (which will probably be high overall) with amortization at 25 years

Year 1: $19,177.22 Principal $25,757.11 Interest
Year 12: $28,089.42 Principal $16,844.91 Interest
Year 25: $44,099.90 Principal $834.43 Interest

Also remember a mortgage is the best loan you'll ever take out. Yes it's a ton of money, but you're unlikely to get a comparable rate on a line of credit or a car loan or anything these days.

Originally Posted by Euro7r

I ask myself sometimes is this even worth it for the sake of detached space.

The answer is yes if you can afford it. People suck, the fewer of them around you, the better.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Euro7r

Do you guys with mortgages look at your principal vs interest and cringe?

I do and I wince every time.

TD shows a running total of interest for the year in my online banking and it shows last year's total as well just to rub it in real nice (like a hot Thai tranny massage).

Year 3 of my mortgage:



My normal payments (I did some big lump sums in 2024) would have been $108k last year so 69% (Nice) of my payments went to interest. I can't remember exactly but I think my interest paid in 2023 was around $85k and without a $40k lump sum I put in I would have only paid off about $25k of my mortgage which would have meant I only paid off 1.6% of my mortgage that year. Painful.

[bcuzracecarz]

Up 2.5% out here in Yarrow, on par with what I was expecting. Said the building value went up too which was a little interesting but most of it in land as expected.

The key to having a mortgage is exactly what guys have said already, ignore interest to start on your payments, pay down any extra you can directly to principal (easier said than done), and for the love of god try to not remortgage for a full term again to “lower your payments”.

[EvoFire]

The building values are going up because the cost of building a new one is going up