Westbank is too big to go belly up. No way that happens. Oakridge is being built by Westbank ... you think it would stop half way?

I thought people were trying to bail on those cuz they were stupid over priced. + Ppl keep dying there:denied:

Never say never. They have a lot of projects aimed at foreign buyers, and foreign money has dried up. The Oakridge development is a perfect example of a project that was aimed at wealthy foreign investors, because no one local is paying over a million dollars for a 450 sq/ft studio. It'll be interesting to see what happens with this project, there's a strong possibility they delay some towers.

^ That project was laughable from the start, whole towers built on the idea that super rich people will buy tiny condos and no parking because they won't want to drive with the Canada Line right outside and a fleet of Bentley's that can be signed out and operated/maintained by the strata. They think this is Singapore or Zurich or something?

What could possibly go wrong? Mind bogglingly stupid decisions.

Even the South gate died down. I see the 3 towers built, but I don't see anything new coming up. And I think that's Led mac?

I also think that many developers including Westbank did not see how aggressive and fast the U.S. tariffs from Trump would impact B.C's economy.

Add an impending recession in many countries because of Cheeto and like what 68style said about a business model of building small condos with no parking makes these projects facing poor sales prospects.

Up the street slightly I saw a purpose built rental project, a 5 storey wood frame low rise, they were renting 2 bedroom units for $4300 a month..

Insanity

How does a developer afford to build rental only housing? The capital needed to build is so high and you're going to get miniscule rent on a monthly basis. How can they service their debt?

Regarding those kits condos, I think that product would do well in that area. There aren't any new condos there. I'm sure it will rent out no problem.

I've been thinking about this. Isn't doing rentals better for a developer? Since there's no risk of not being able to sell. You can infinitely raise rent in the future for unlimited earnings vs blow your load on one sale.

Let's say you get $3000 a month X12 =$36000 x 10y = $360000 already. Over a 30y amortization that's $1,080,000 with no rent increase.

You also need to consider the commission that the developer would pay to a property management firm over time as a deduction from rent. If it is a 30 year time frame, the property management firm can charge at a minimum of 5% of rent per year plus half a month's rent for the first month of each year of a tenancy agreement.

Property management fees can go way up over 30 years.

They likely use leverage, tapping equity from other properties or their portfolio to finance new builds. It’s a debt fuelled model that works as long as rents cover service costsbut if market conditions shift or financing tightens, it can quickly get risky.

Leave Evergrande out of it

Exactly. We're not Singapore, Zurich, or London. We never will be.

And Westbank heavily marketed the Oakridge project in Asia, I believe there was an article a couple of years back where they got backlash for it. The reality is, the Chinese money that fuelled our insane real estate market is all but gone. So where does the money come from now to invest in our overpriced RE bubble? Not many options out there.

Rennie is already pushing Carney to ditch the foreign buyers tax and come up with a plan with help from the Canadian government to woo investors by offering them rental properties. Good luck with that in the current economic shitshow.

Found this photo from Hong Kong in January 2019 where Westbank was already advertising the Oakridge development. It's kinda crazy how long ago this was advertised, yet it's still not complete.

https://i.ibb.co/B5Zc9RBr/Oakridge-hk.jpg

I also recall Oakridge opening a brand new food court right before COVID happened - does anyone know if that was torn down?

Can you even go to Oakridge? Or is it completely shut down? I haven't tried to go for years.

Crate & Barrel and the Medical offices are still open.

The rest is torn down and/or under construction.

When they own a 1000 unit building wouldn't they be more likely to just employ their own property manager? Or at least negotiate a better rate than you'd get just dealing with a couple units.

Luxury condos are a crock of shit. Good riddance

So I stayed in a few luxury hotel / condos on my Australian trip and the most expensive one must have been the langham (the jewel) in Gold Coast. Average price is 1.5 mil aud to 2 mil for a single unit and up to 10-15mill for the semi penthouse in the residential building and even at that price point it’s utterly stupid

Parking: these massive buildings have massive parking lots too. God forbid you have a space far away from your elevator and requires 300m walking everyday just to get to your car. Worse if you ever make a groceries run and now you gotta lug that shit and wait for a stinking elevator

Elevator : are you kidding me ?!? 48 floors. 6 elevators and during “rush hour” I still had to wait for up to 10 minutes. Who would put up with this bullshit. If you lived on the higher floor you collect a cesspool of idiots by the time you hit parking

Maintenance: yah you got a pool. So what? It’s also a communal pool !!
That means all the old cunts who refuses to “bathe” decide to bathe in the hot tub instead. Disgusting. All the while you pay insane maintenance fees and special levy’s for services you barely use.

Finishing: the unit are often poorly finished and not at all what the showroom looks like . This langham was only 3-4 years old and the facets were already screwing up, shower door mouldings were coming apart and the air con had this weird mildew smell to it.

I’m glad people aren’t buying these dumb ass things. It’s the same as buying that Shangri la on west Georgia.

Ours only charges 5% and no half months rent. I would guess a larger building with 90+ units would have a full time manager. A lot of these newer rental buildings get put up for sale after a few years.

I read this to myself in an Asian accent and had a little chuckle.

PM is almost always handled in-house by the larger devs. Being employed by a dev/owner also means that you don't need to be licensed so they pay peanuts for management staff. The dev I managed for also charged management fees on commercial leases that far exceeded my salary by many times

Those of you who have bought condos / townhouses in the past, and got an inspection:

Did it reveal anything you cant find yourself? (Mechanically inclined buyers that is)

A house is absolutely worth it, but condos/TH, most of the important stuff in on the strata docs/depreciation.
For a condo/TH, check the operation of appliances, drainage, supply water pressure, furnace/HWT age/operation, ceiling stains, electrical plugs work, and off you go.

Yes, cuz they go into crawl space of th, and moisture check things. Mold. Apartment you can get away with reading strata. Th is ok if it's relatively new. But for like $500 piece of mind or get realtor to pay for it.