Van is that great for you, trust me, not everyone feels the same way, so while it would make sense for you to pay a premium to live here as it gives you everything you want, to many others this place is just a 'place' - personally, there are way better cities - there are way worse, yes, but Vancouver isn't gods gift to cities like so many lulu wearing, cafe artigiano drinking, self loving d-b's love to tell everyone

Again, not saying its not perfect for you, but this is a relatively small city, it's no New York, Seoul, Tokyo, etc where sky high prices are a permanent thing - unlike so many locals like to think, there are plenty of places to build here (and yes, up is one of them)

I can't wait to see what happens in the next 3 years. Everywhere where there is unused land or underdeveloped land, a condo/townhouse structure is being or will be built. Just looking at Vancouver, that stretch of Second ave between Cambie and Main st is almost all new condo's. There is 2 new towers being built between the McD's and BK on main st.
From Main st to Clark dr, Terminal ave is getting a bunch of new buildings.

Going up Kingsway towards Metro, there are so many new buildings and I do believe the old Crappy Tire by Gladstone is going to be a tower/townhouse complex.

Damn it. You beat me to it :okay:

..and you're acting like an asshole, but lets stay on topic here.

There are so many towers going up in the next 2-3 years it's insane. I haven't been doing it as long but one of the estimators I work with say's the number of towers he's been told about going up in the next two year period is more then he's ever seen in that time period and he's been doing this in Vancouver since the 70's. Development is slowing at least with condo/apartment it's accelerating.

When you see people from Asia buying up real estate in White Rock by simply using helicopter cam you know we hit the peak. That was July 2011. Things really slowed down this year. You don't need to have a econ major to know that. Just take at MLS. So many listing and there are many houses that are listed for 60-90 days+ aren't getting sold at all. You know the market has more downside because even with price reduction it doesn't even bring in buyers.

Off topic, but with all these towers being built, they have to dig deep deep holes to secure the base and underground parking. Where is all this material going?
I remember going to NYC and on one of the tours, they said all the earth that was removed to make the subway lines was used to double the size of Ellis Island.

I'll sit here and see how an economic degree can predict the NA real estate market.

btw, I also thought the same a couple years ago when sold my home waiting for the RE market to plunge to make big buck, but it was a reality check.

A correction is good for the economy I think. A hot RE market locks up capital in only one sector of the economy. When the drop begins and ppl start moving their capital to other sectors and we will see growth somewhere else.
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I think the idea of RE dropping is hard for many here on RS in their 20s or early 30s. Ever since they entered the productive life, RE has only gone up.

For the last decade, GVR's RE has boomed pretty much non-stop. There was a hiccup in 2008, but then Canadian government decided to do the unthinkable (in the past at least), dropping the interest rate to pretty much 0 to avoid any sort of hard crash.

The truth is, that measure didn't prevent the RE crash, it simply delayed a bit. With even cheaper money for more people to access, the RE kept booming. The booming of RE brought growth not only in RE, but pretty much the entire GVR's economy was booming along.

The problem? Without RE continue to boom, trade people don't get paid as well as before, their spending reduces, and every subsequent business that relied on these activities would suffer.

Lower mainland as a whole is already in the shithole. The 2008 drop already showed the gov't that such price was not sustainable. But the gov't decided to force it to go further. That was the point of no return IMO. Soft-landing now is out of question. We probably won't see much effect any time soon. But in 2~3 years, when mortgages are up for renewal, that's where the bloodbath would take place.

I dont understand how I got failed for saying the city sucks, maybe you should travel as much as I have to realize how much better the PEOPLE are in other cities.

^ i.e.?

cause the city and people don't suck, it's your attitude that sucks. I've traveled a lot too, vancouver is a paradise to many people that I've met in other countries..sure it has flaws just like any other place, but we should all be thankful that we live in such an awesome city surrounded by natural beauty and kind people.

cliquey city, obnoxious people, trades based economy, expensive living, people are cookie cutter, no real subculture here other than mountain biking and if there is some subculture most people are too busy working a second job to go, no happy hour culture, too many man-children, city has dumb regulations and has become a no fun city ontop of just terrible zoning permits, plenty of xenophobes who are scared to embrace another culture, food culture done wrong, girls who are always trying to win the lottery with men, city tries to create a false sense of soul within the people.

A view of the mountains and the water doesn't make a city good.

Vancouver's biggest mistake was not building up, and not accommodating for the youth.

Seriously, the 90's were good for Vancouver, lots of emerging artists and actors from the 80's and 90's who would call Vancouver home.

Life is as you make it...we live in the same city, yet your description is not at all what I see.

I fully agree with this. Sure there are a lot of people like that but if you look you find people that aren't. I've lived in the gvrd for a year, 4 months in e van, and through here and a couple friends from Kamloops I've met some pretty chill people

Stop being so negative, it attracts negativity all around you, and get out there and meet more people
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root cause to 90% of the problems you just listed...money.

please list some subcultures that's not really found here compared to other N/A cities.

would also like to know what's wrong with our food culture here?

1. Cliquey City - subjective
2. Obnoxious ppl - subjective
3. Trades based - I don't think so, lots of accounting, finance, law, engineering, archi/design firms out there. On top of that the other small businesses like import, export, logistics, forwarding...etc.
4. Cookie cutter, subculture, no one to hang out - sounds like you're hanging out with boring people. There are so many beer leagues for hockey, soccer, basketball - even though multi-sports leagues that organize games every week.
5. City regulations, etc - I agree, Canada is pretty wacked on regulations
6. Xenophobes - Pretty multicultural if you ask me. Never met a racist person except for one old white cunt outside the liquor store.
7. Girls - have to look past the fake eyelashes and clubbing dresses and find women not girls.

1. Cliquey City - subjective

Richmond. Associations for specific cultures. Ever tried to join something as a fresh face? People here are not as accepting as you think.

2. Obnoxious ppl - subjective

BEST CITY IN THE WORLD !!!!!111111oneoneoneoneee

3. Trades based - I don't think so, lots of accounting, finance, law, engineering, archi/design firms
out there. On top of that the other small businesses like import, export, logistics, forwarding...etc.

our downtown core is mostly condo's as opposed to a real finance hub like Calgary, or Toronto. And the pay is really low in alot of those jobs. I have a few friends that are also CA's and leaving Vancouver because the pay IS higher outside of Vancouver and less taxes. The extra money your making and saving can be used spending a month of the year on vacation overseas.

4. Cookie cutter, subculture, no one to hang out - sounds like you're hanging out with boring people. There are so many beer leagues for hockey, soccer, basketball - even though multi-sports leagues that organize games every week.

I'm involved in many subcultures. I worked at a nightclub for 7 years, and ontop of that I helped with the organization of the Vancouver Street Fighter community, organize many Greek youth events, been to many NSMBA events, played pick up hockey etc...

There are alot of haters in this city and NIMBYists. Look at how hard EXP is fighting to have god damn video games and liquor together, the battle against bikers on the northshore for years, and any infustructure that wants to be built in this city you have idiots crying and balling that their life is ruined. Remember Pemberton music festival? This brought in MASSIVE revenue for the Pemberton. Why didn't it return? Because the LOCALS CRIED. We can't even hold a decent con FFS because there is always some stupid drama to prevent it.


6. Xenophobes - Pretty multicultural if you ask me. Never met a racist person except for one old white cunt outside the liquor store.

All of Europe.
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Our real estate market in some aspects has gone stale in places.
I've been keeping a watchful eye on apartments (1-2bdr) in the Burnaby/New West area, and it's going really stale. I'm not talking about NEW developments, because those will never go stale because of all the foreign money coming in to buy new and rent it out. But the older apartments, where the prices are dropping significantly, or if you don't drop it has just sat.

Ofcourse this is just my 0.02, but I can see the bubble losing air, but it won't burst and have a 40% drop. No way, never.

This.

You can do almost anything and everything in this city, so it's your choice to put up with the regulations and bylaws if you want to stay here.
The way you perceive people is subjective. The people you hang out with is your own choice.
What other urban city can you live in, which you're a skip and a hop away from prime snowboarding during the winter, lively beaches during the summer, hiking trails, malls, city events, etc.
So if you want to stay in this city, instead of complaining about the costs of living, learn to adapt and live with it.

Back on topic.
What I notice is that the mentality that a lot of young homebuyers have is "buy, buy, buy. Doesn't matter when. Just rent it out, let the mortgage pay itself off, sell, profit. Real estate is always going to go up. Just buy it and flip it."

Where although it is not necessarily a bad decision to buy, it definitely is not the best at this time. People are buying apartments with hopes of having their mortgage covered by rent. There's their first mistake. It's just not gonna happen anytime soon. Then there's taxes, insurance, maintenance on top of that. Then they start panicking when they realize how much they actually have to fork out themselves each month.
Essentially, investing in RE is like investing in a stock. You don't buy stocks at any random time, so why would you blindly buy RE? People who think they can flip RE for big profit in the next ~5+ years is living in their own little world.
It amazes me how many people don't understand that RE is NOT an easy way to make a quick buck.

Multiculturalism doesn't work.

This isn't a "is Vancouver worth it" thread, its about real estate. Each person can decide for themselves if the pay to play price for Vancouver works for them.

You have a catch-22 situation. Real estate, like everything else, has no value. It's dictated by demand. I can say I live in a house that's worth 1 mil, and act as if, but its not liquid. I need to sell it, or borrow against it.

As we witnessed in the states, its quite possible for real estate prices to go down. The problem is, there are 3 groups of people that affects:

1. Long-term owners. They got all happy when their homes value went up, and sad when it went down. But, overall, they didn't "lose" anything except a number on a page. You had a house. You still have a house.

2. New Buyers-You bought high, and value is low. You are screwed.

3. ATM's-The people that borrowed against that increased value. You are also screwed.

The problem here is no one wanted to mitigate the fact that cheap money allowed the house market to inflate. The so called "solution" to the real estate bubble was everyone wanted to re-inflate it, to protect #2, and #3 in my list. If you are doing everything possible to maintain the value of a house, including 0% interest, literally, we will give you the money, for FREE for you to hand out, then all you can ever do is extend the time for a market correction to take place. The hope, is that the economy heats up to take over the drive for that demand.

Make no mistake...a market correction WILL occur. It ALWAYS does. How do I know there was a bubble to begin with? There were news reports of people going to house showings with a house inspector in tow, on spec. Buy buy buy. Buy now. I'll pay more than asking. Buy it.

And the economy has, I think held on in Canada, but hasn't really improved. It was more just not as bad as expected, so people think its good. As noted earlier, manufacturing and exports are being hammered. The only real thing driving the North American market is cheap money. We're living off the credit card.

So, we had jacked up prices, with a not so hot economy and everything wants to find an equilibrium.

I see it coming down. While it screws some people, it makes opportunities for others. That, friends, is a free market economy. Take your hands out of the pie and let the free market sort it out.

Vancouver is a great city. However, it's not the world class city people make it out to be.

The general attitude and culture of Vancouver is that it thinks itself a Big City with all the amenities and depth of a San Francisco, New York, Paris or Hong Kong. This is simply not true, we are nowhere near on par with those cities.

The idea that Vancouver is unique is also a sham. Every time I visit Seattle, Portland or San Francisco I can't believe how similar these cities and their cultures are to Vancouver... even the layout of San Francisco is similar to Vancouver, except in that their layout is better because they have water separating the city from Oakland (East Van & Burnaby).

Also all those cities have Cheesecake Factories... I'm just sayin.