Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[4444]

Originally Posted by UFO

Well its pretty obvious... current rates at a conservative 4%, if it balloons to 25% it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there will be LOTS of people in trouble. It won't get to 25%, not before hitting 6%, 10%, 15%, and the question is which step will get most people into trouble. Even a jump to something like 8%, there will be lots of people in trouble given how so many jumped on the bandwagon when credit was cheap. The highest mortgage rate I recall was in the 80's when it hit ~18%, but people were able to get through that ok, however people were arguably more responsible with their money back then.

He didn't mean 25% interest rates, he meant go up by 25%, I.e. from 4% to 5%, a 1% rate increase will be a huge, huge hit to the majority of people in this city

[UFO]

^ now that I re-read the post I'm not sure what he actually means.

-rates go up 20-25% like you mentioned (ie. from 4 to 5%); I'm not fully convinced that 1% increase will hit the majority of people as hard as you believe, but I'm willing to take your word for it
-rates go up to 20-25% like I had thought
-mortgage rate goes 'up' and 20-25% of families won't be able to afford their mortgages, which is what I think he is actually trying to say

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by UFO

^ now that I re-read the post I'm not sure what he actually means.

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

I read on the news somewhere that families have been putting more and more of their wages into mortgage and if the rates goes up a good 20 to 25% of families won't be able to afford it.

I read this as if rates go up, a good 20 to 25% of families won't be able to afford it.

It's very easy to see this.

Amortization calculator

Say you borrow $300,000 at 4% interest. To keep it simple, we will ignore taxes and other cost involved with owning a place.
On a 5 year mortgage 25 year amortization mortgage, once a month payment, you would be looking at $1578 per month.
At 5%, you'd be paying $1745 per month.
At 6%, you'd be paying $1919 per month.
At 8%, you'd be paying $2290 per month.

If people were stretching themselves thin to afford the mortgage at 4%, how will they be able to come up with the extra $ when rates go up to 5% or higher.

This is why the government made the fuss about 40 year mortgages. That and low interest rates, people were able to afford beyond their means.

[4444]

Originally Posted by UFO

^ now that I re-read the post I'm not sure what he actually means.

-rates go up 20-25% like you mentioned (ie. from 4 to 5%); I'm not fully convinced that 1% increase will hit the majority of people as hard as you believe, but I'm willing to take your word for it
-rates go up to 20-25% like I had thought
-mortgage rate goes 'up' and 20-25% of families won't be able to afford their mortgages, which is what I think he is actually trying to say

So many people stretch themselves to buy as much as they can, as this is what our parents did. Over our parents' time, real estate has gone up and up so this approach was prudent and has created a lot of 'wealth' for them

Times are different, real estate should increase approx. with inflation, 2-3% a year - this is enough, with leverage, to grow one's net worth. But we will see no real growth in real estate in Vancouver for a long time, will lag inflation and likely go down a lot over next 10 year, in my opinion - leverage is a double edged stored - most of ur parents are now mortgage free, they are sitting pretty good (the smart ones who are mortgage free and have savings, and a pension), we're ALL fucked - no more growth in real estate, no more good pensions, there will be no government social security when we're at retirement age... If u haven't realized yet, the baby boomers have fucked us over big time! (Thank your elected officials for this, they should have been able to see this 20 yrs ago)

[Gridlock]

Originally Posted by 4444

So many people stretch themselves to buy as much as they can, as this is what our parents did. Over our parents' time, real estate has gone up and up so this approach was prudent and has created a lot of 'wealth' for them

Times are different, real estate should increase approx. with inflation, 2-3% a year - this is enough, with leverage, to grow one's net worth. But we will see no real growth in real estate in Vancouver for a long time, will lag inflation and likely go down a lot over next 10 year, in my opinion - leverage is a double edged stored - most of ur parents are now mortgage free, they are sitting pretty good (the smart ones who are mortgage free and have savings, and a pension), we're ALL fucked - no more growth in real estate, no more good pensions, there will be no government social security when we're at retirement age... If u haven't realized yet, the baby boomers have fucked us over big time! (Thank your elected officials for this, they should have been able to see this 20 yrs ago)

...and that sums it up nicely in a little bow.

I'm going to add that there is more that our parents did that "we" have little patience for.

My parents first house was a piece of shit. They didn't like it, as it didn't have land...so the next one was worse, but it was on acreage. Honestly, the before pictures(slightly before my time, but my sister remembers) featured a house with a working toilet in the living room, paint peeling on the outside, and alder brush up to the back door. The quintessential "fixer upper". You know, 5 minutes from being condemned.

And over the next 20 years, slowly they made improvements, and fixed things and painted, and renovated and called in favors and horse traded labor to make it a nice house. A few weeks ago, I came across the letter from the bank that she had kept all these years. It's the letter you get when you made your last mortgage payment. It said, "your house is yours". Well, then they got divorced and sold it, but my mom did it again. She bought the shittiest condo she could find. I painted it for her, and she slowly replaced appliances and put new flooring in and so on. She got it for the cheaps, as no one else was willing to look past the nasty carpet, and dull dirty sky blue paint.

I find that so many people go and buy a brand new house...and finance out the stainless steel appliances and, well, you have to upgrade to the granite counters...I mean you have to. Well, no wonder a 1% increase in interest is going to kill you. You were dead when you signed the papers.

[iEatClams]

pretty good website with some good data:

Population density and house prices: Should Vancouver command such a premium? | The Economic Analyst

The bottom line is that land constraints and population density simply cannot account for prices at these levels. Both Vancouver and Toronto house prices are being driven and sustained by a credit boom of historic magnitude in Canada.

[4444]

Originally Posted by azndude69

pretty good website with some good data:

Population density and house prices: Should Vancouver command such a premium? | The Economic Analyst

sadly, you'll still get every home owner (esp recent home purchasers) saying that this just isn't true and that Vancouver is "special"

i gotta tell you, i have a good, if not great job and career - but i'm considering moving away from vancouver just because i want my career to grow faster quicker and there just simply isn't enough good industry here - jobs are what are the long term drivers of real estate prices - we don't have anywhere NEAR that to warrant these prices

[suzuka84]

Originally Posted by 4444

sadly, you'll still get every home owner (esp recent home purchasers) saying that this just isn't true and that Vancouver is "special"

i gotta tell you, i have a good, if not great job and career - but i'm considering moving away from vancouver just because i want my career to grow faster quicker and there just simply isn't enough good industry here - jobs are what are the long term drivers of real estate prices - we don't have anywhere NEAR that to warrant these prices

move out of Vancouver ASAP. You sound like expat material.

My friends and I made the decision to leave Vancouver and now living the expat life in Asia. We're finance guys and it was the best career and life decision ever. Vancouver is great and I love the standard of life available but the desire and ability to do more overseas will mean inflicting damage to yourself short term so it pays off long term. Vancouver is for $30k millionaires, living at home and driving BMWs while working dead end office jobs; refusing to take advantage of the mining supercycle in Alberta and Saskatchewan and watching the world pass them by.

[LiquidTurbo]

From:
Vancouver Price Drop



We’ve been hearing about the successful soft landing, the “there is no bubble to pop”, it’s a flat market or some moderate price drops from the usual suspects in the real estate industry. The Americans just wish that they could have engineered a brilliant soft landing but unfortunately, unlike us, they are not brilliant. Additionally, it’s different here, no more land, billions of rich asians want to buy every multi million dollar crack shack etc etc. If only we could compare our performance to all of the American cities that went through their housing bubble so that we can have empirical evidence of our soft landing. Well here it is:

The following chart shows 14 US cities that were shown in the Case Shiller calculations here: US HPI Data They actually profile 20 cities but I eliminated 6 that did not increase by at least 40% during the run up from 2000 on. Take Dallas which only gained 25% in value in 7 years before dropping about 10% and then pulling back close to previous highs. Vancouver by comparison has increased by over 150% since 2000.

What I did for each of these cities is determine the peak price month according to the pricing index and then measure the index price drops in 6 month intervals. With that information we can compare against Vancouver’s stable, moderate, flat non event as described in the main stream media.





Now, where does the Vancouver West detached home sit in comparison to these numbers? First of all, if you are a home owner like myself then you should probably sit down. OK, ready? Our peak month according to the MLS Home Price Index was April 2012 and 6 months later we were down 8.6%, so 50% HIGHER THAN ANY AMERICAN CITY. After 8 months we are now down 11.1% which, with 4 months to go in the period, is much higher than all US cities other than Miami. THIS IS NOT FLAT!!! THIS IS NOT A SOFT LANDING!!!

So where are we heading over the next months and years? Well you never know… If I pulled up this same chart in early 2009 the conclusion would be the same and yet the market recovered very quickly and continued to its new meteoric heights. Of course things are much different now – debt is at all time highs, mortgage rates at all time lows and poised to begin increasing, banks are tightening up their credit, “asian investors” have left the building not to mention the boomer trigger. It was a trillion dollars of cheap credit that saved this mess in 2009 but the fun is over. Just to get back to long term over-priced Vancouver trend lines we are in for a 40% drop although bubbles never stop at the trend line, they always overshoot it. If you look at price/rent or price/income ratios we’re due for a 50%+ drop. If you want to compare similar properties in Vancouver and Southern California we’ll need to drop 75% and trade our rain for sunshine. It’s not looking good.

[iEatClams]

^ I don't fully believe the MLS price index is fully reliable as they recently changed their formulas a year ago. I honestly believe the decrease is slightly lower than what the index is suggesting. I think the market has dropped more than what those MLS price indexes are indicating.

Vancouver has the highest personal debt in the country as well. . ..

[JizzMasterZero]

The newest Maclean's article/cover detailing a crash:

http://vreaa.files.wordpress.com/201...4-jan-2013.jpg


Link to article:
Maclean's

[LiquidTurbo]

Meanwhile Vancouver Sun (propaganda machine) telling people to keep calm and keep buying..

[noclue]

So recently I did a loop of the lower mainland and I'm shocked at seeing the amount of condos under construction. From the tricities to especially 4th avenue false creek. WTF theres like 5-8 condos going up in that area.

Vancouver can't sustain this growth, even a hipster city like Portland has a strong fortune 500 company backing it, along with massive investments into data centers from google/facebook/amazon/intel.

However my house assessment rose this year so I guess SFH still have some steam left. But if you bought a condo in the past few years.......

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by noclue

So recently I did a loop of the lower mainland and I'm shocked at seeing the amount of condos under construction. From the tricities to especially 4th avenue false creek. WTF theres like 5-8 condos going up in that area.

Vancouver can't sustain this growth, even a hipster city like Portland has a strong fortune 500 company backing it, along with massive investments into data centers from google/facebook/amazon/intel.

However my house assessment rose this year so I guess SFH still have some steam left. But if you bought a condo in the past few years.......

Lowside69 posted something about this a few pages back.
There are more plans in the works to build more condo's in that 4th ave False Creek area. Something like another 1500.
That piece of unused parking lot across the street from BK is going to be condo's in a few years.

[bing]

LOL @ 40% drop.

[4444]

Originally Posted by bing

LOL @ 40% drop.

They thought he same in Phoenix, Miami, LA, etc.

No one knows where it will go, but 20% wouldn't surprise me, 40% wouldn't surprise me - only 10% more down would surprise me

A without a significant shift of some sort, real estate goes up with inflation - going back to mean would see a 40% or so correction... Vancouver has had no significant shift of any sort, so there is an arguement to support it

[bing]

^Family has been here for 40 years since houses in west side Vancouver ~400k (considered high at the time) and new houses in Richmond ~150k. We know what's its like for prices to fall as we went through the 8 year downturn period in the 90s. A 40% correction in prices would mean that if you live in a 1 million dollar house, the value will fall to 600k? I find that kind of a drop hard to believe.

[Z3guy]

Originally Posted by suzuka84

move out of Vancouver ASAP. You sound like expat material.

My friends and I made the decision to leave Vancouver and now living the expat life in Asia. We're finance guys and it was the best career and life decision ever. Vancouver is great and I love the standard of life available but the desire and ability to do more overseas will mean inflicting damage to yourself short term so it pays off long term. Vancouver is for $30k millionaires, living at home and driving BMWs while working dead end office jobs; refusing to take advantage of the mining supercycle in Alberta and Saskatchewan and watching the world pass them by.

I agree with you from a career standpoint, but you still pay a price (one of best places to live and raise family) to make your fortune elsewhere. You can do it in Vancouver if you really want .......you just have to be creative....most likely owning you own biz....

[4444]

Originally Posted by bing

^Family has been here for 40 years since houses in west side Vancouver ~400k (considered high at the time) and new houses in Richmond ~150k. We know what's its like for prices to fall as we went through the 8 year downturn period in the 90s. A 40% correction in prices would mean that if you live in a 1 million dollar house, the value will fall to 600k? I find that kind of a drop hard to believe.

And have u seen the shit u get for 1 mil these days, even at 600k, I wouldn't buy them! Def a lot of room, from a fundamentals basis, for real estate to go

In the 90's and early 2000's prices made sense from a fundamentals basis - we will get back to what fundamentals dictate. They did in the US, have done in Britain (where space is way more of an issue ham Vancouver), Canada and Australia are late to the party due to more conservative banking, natural resources, and the ability to lower interest rates... The were short term inflators

[lowside67]

Originally Posted by noclue

So recently I did a loop of the lower mainland and I'm shocked at seeing the amount of condos under construction. From the tricities to especially 4th avenue false creek. WTF theres like 5-8 condos going up in that area.

Vancouver can't sustain this growth, even a hipster city like Portland has a strong fortune 500 company backing it, along with massive investments into data centers from google/facebook/amazon/intel.

However my house assessment rose this year so I guess SFH still have some steam left. But if you bought a condo in the past few years.......

I used to think Vancouver was absolutely insane with how many new starts were under way until I started spending some time in Toronto.

Toronto leads North American high-rise construction - The Globe and Mail

According to Emporis, Toronto now has 147 high-rises and skyscrapers under construction, compared to 72 in New York City. Vancouver ranked third with 21.

If that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know what will. I don't have great hopes for Vancouver which is why I have put my hunt for a condo on hold, but I can tell you it would be a cold day in hell before I bought a condo in Toronto in the near future.

Mark

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by 4444

In the 90's and early 2000's prices made sense from a fundamentals basis - we will get back to what fundamentals dictate. They did in the US, have done in Britain (where space is way more of an issue ham Vancouver), Canada and Australia are late to the party due to more conservative banking, natural resources, and the ability to lower interest rates... The were short term inflators

Canada has friendlier immigration policies than any other developed country in the world (and generous social programs which allow the children of immigrants to be educated here at incredibly low costs) and Vancouver will remain an attractive place for the Chinese because of the high population of Chinese already here.

Plus... the underground economy is huge here. Some of that money has to get clean and once it's been through the restaurant and service industry, eventually it goes into real estate.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Canada has friendlier immigration policies than any other developed country in the world (and generous social programs which allow the children of immigrants to be educated here at incredibly low costs) and Vancouver will remain an attractive place for the Chinese because of the high population of Chinese already here.

Plus... the underground economy is huge here. Some of that money has to get clean and once it's been through the restaurant and service industry, eventually it goes into real estate.

America brings in more immigrants... Those other reasons are no different from other cities, as for nice for Chinese, ya it is, so is San Fran, LA, New York (all places with more Chinese people)... Also a bit of immigration doesn't make for high property value increases, locals drive property prices.

I think all of this has been addressed in this thread previously

[sh0n]

For what it's worth BC Assessment has come out with the 2013 numbers and you can go online to see what your property and your neighbor's is assessed

Checked up on some of my client's properties and can conclude the following for the assessments:

DT (specific area): Condo down 10%
Yaletown: No change
Vancouver East: SFH Home No change

Keep in mind it's the assessments and not what the market will reflect or bare. Know for fact that the sales are definitely declining and drops are similar to what some of the US cities are experiencing (-10% and falling slowly)

[Teh Doucher]

my family just purchased a newer house and this thread is really starting to scare the crap out of me.. not even lying.

[Jason00S2000]

Originally Posted by Teh Doucher

my family just purchased a newer house and this thread is really starting to scare the crap out of me.. not even lying.

Oh man, if you're healthy, have a roof over your head, a family that loves you and that you love, a job you find rewarding, and you enjoy who you are... housing prices be damned, you've already won dude.

When you think about it, a mortgage is just a piece of paper, if you have all the above, you're already wealthy