Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by dat_steve

That and the fact that any threats uttered with such poor, poor English really loses any effect. "You don't want to fucking be alive"..wait don't you mean I do want to be alive and I don't want to die?

The article said it was in mandarin so the english translation may have lost some of it's effectiveness during translation.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by dat_steve

That and the fact that any threats uttered with such poor, poor English really loses any effect. "You don't want to fucking be alive"..wait don't you mean I do want to be alive and I don't want to die?

Or they would do such horrible stuff to him/family that he would actually want to be dead?

That's a pretty legit threat IMO. Sometimes suffering, always wondering/worrying is actually worse than just dying.

Now whether that was the intent or not...

[GLOW]

if it's the equivalent to the canto saying i'm thinking of, it probably translates to the equivalent of our english saying - "do you wanna fucking die?"

[twitchyzero]

can we please stay OT?

had to read a lot about private schools and large scale corruptions

[GLOW]

i knew thread went off topic when CiC posted

[Nlkko]

25k a year for what high school? That's more than the cost of a top tier MBA program...

There are lots of way to build a good professional network. You also have to take into account that some kids just learn things differently, doing worse in school than in life.

I would spend more time with my kids because that is gold at that age. Even if you are wealthy. Put that 25k a year in a trust or something for them man. The teacher no matter how good or dedicate should never ever replace parenting.

[westopher]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

can we please stay OT?

had to read a lot about private schools and large scale corruptions

Large scale corruption is all the Vancouver real estate market is driven by.

[Armind]

[jing]

For those of you who have bought recently, how long did it take you to find a place?

All the places we've been ready to make an offer on have sold for way over asking. We didn't make offers for various reasons, but the frustration is starting to set in especially since we tend to think that we'd make reasonable offers in line of what market value is. A top floor unit with the same layout in the same development sold for $308k 3 months ago, whereas a 3rd floor unit in the same low rise community sold just yesterday for $342k. A bigger unit (~20sqft more) with a den sold for $339k just last month. Yesterday's unit was the most undesirable of the three (personal preference due to the dark coloured walls), yet it sold for the most money! At this rate, by the time another unit comes up for sale, we won't be able to afford it anymore!

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by jing

For those of you who have bought recently, how long did it take you to find a place?

All the places we've been ready to make an offer on have sold for way over asking. We didn't make offers for various reasons, but the frustration is starting to set in especially since we tend to think that we'd make reasonable offers in line of what market value is. A top floor unit with the same layout in the same development sold for $308k 3 months ago, whereas a 3rd floor unit in the same low rise community sold just yesterday for $342k. A bigger unit (~20sqft more) with a den sold for $339k just last month. Yesterday's unit was the most undesirable of the three (personal preference due to the dark coloured walls), yet it sold for the most money! At this rate, by the time another unit comes up for sale, we won't be able to afford it anymore!

We weren't in the market for a starter condo, so take my experience with a grain of salt.

We started to view open houses late last year. We got serious in February and recruited a realtor. We made our first offer in late February which got rejected. 24 hours later, we made a second offer on a place we saw on the same weekend. It was accepted 2 hours later. So, it took us about a month after we decided to get serious. The second offer was on a place that was older with the original finishes, but a better home overall - forced air heating, gas fireplace, more storage space, large contingency fund, garage with roughed-in plumbing, mature community, etc.

If I have any advice to give, I would say to not fall for the shiny, move-in ready home. If there's potential and value, make an offer as you never know what may happen.

[Adorkami]

Took us a little over a month of serious looking for a house. Bid on two places prior to getting the house we bought. On both places we bid slightly above asking and they both went for a lot more. I got tired of the open house gong shows and being outbid so i focused on properties that had been on the market for over a month, we were able to get the price down on the place we bought by over 100k.

[Manic!]

2 months ago I'm at my parents house. The door bell starts ringing like crazy. I open the door it's a Asian lady that says she lives across the street.

She knows a couple of my dads buddies because they build houses and are real estate agents.

She comes inside and says she has some friends who might want to buy the house for 500K more than what another real estate agent told us it was worth a month before. Writes down her name and number and leaves.

I do some googling and can't find much on here. I later find out she was a real estate agent but lost her license a few years ago. I wonder how many other disgraced real estate agents are still selling property.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Nlkko

25k a year for what high school? That's more than the cost of a top tier MBA program...

Not at all. Top MBA's cost In the region of $80-100k.

UBC MBA is about $20-25k, I believe - and that's a shit money grab MBA

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by jing

For those of you who have bought recently, how long did it take you to find a place?

All the places we've been ready to make an offer on have sold for way over asking. We didn't make offers for various reasons, but the frustration is starting to set in especially since we tend to think that we'd make reasonable offers in line of what market value is. A top floor unit with the same layout in the same development sold for $308k 3 months ago, whereas a 3rd floor unit in the same low rise community sold just yesterday for $342k. A bigger unit (~20sqft more) with a den sold for $339k just last month. Yesterday's unit was the most undesirable of the three (personal preference due to the dark coloured walls), yet it sold for the most money! At this rate, by the time another unit comes up for sale, we won't be able to afford it anymore!

First off, take asking prices with a grain of salt.
One of the tactics that realtors use to sell is to post a low asking price to get people in the door and try to create a bidding war after having an open house.

Also, 3 months ago puts us in around February, which is closer to the slowest time of the year when it comes to real estate sales. Now that it is May, we are going into RE season and demand picks up. If everything stays the way it has been, don't be surprised to see prices increase by another 10% or more in the next few months or be like last year and go up 30% by the end of November.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Manic!

I do some googling and can't find much on here. I later find out she was a real estate agent but lost her license a few years ago. I wonder how many other disgraced real estate agents are still selling property.

probably most, if not all - what's the deterring them from stopping?
a letter from the RE board saying cease and desist? only thing really stopping them are clients not willing to work with them due to their name being known as unlicensed or criminal

[stylez2k4]

One aspect of the housing bloom I don't get is why construction cost so high? The cost to build a house in Vancouver is more than what it would cost to buy something similar in another city with land. I've heard figures in the 400-500K range for a 3000-4000FT2 home.

There isn't any constraints on labour and capital for construction that I can think off that can explain the high price. Unless the cost of living in Vancouver is high enough to dissuade builders to come from other parts of Canada and US.

[4444]

Originally Posted by stylez2k4

One aspect of the housing bloom I don't get is why construction cost so high? The cost to build a house in Vancouver is more than what it would cost to buy something similar in another city with land. I've heard figures in the 400-500K range for a 3000-4000FT2 home.

There isn't any constraints on labour and capital for construction that I can think off that can explain the high price. Unless the cost of living in Vancouver is high enough to dissuade builders to come from other parts of Canada and US.

housing bloom? that's a pretty thought, like a flower blooming.

anyways, construction costs an arm and a leg in Vancouver due to the permit fees charged by governmental arseholes. this is a big reason why no one actually wants to see prices fall, municipal governments will be fucked.

permitting and other fees are high in vancouver vs, say, phoenix.

for the most part, wood is wood, and labour is labour (again, more expensive in canada than US), but you'll also always pay a slight canada premium (can't say for sure on lumber, based on tariffs...)

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by stylez2k4

One aspect of the housing bloom I don't get is why construction cost so high? The cost to build a house in Vancouver is more than what it would cost to buy something similar in another city with land. I've heard figures in the 400-500K range for a 3000-4000FT2 home.

There isn't any constraints on labour and capital for construction that I can think off that can explain the high price. Unless the cost of living in Vancouver is high enough to dissuade builders to come from other parts of Canada and US.

A friend of mine who is a principle at a small engineering firm told me that the Amazing Brentwood project is rumoured to have have raised the cost of construction to $300 square/feet because of the sheer scale of the project. He told me that he has never seen the amount of iron workers working there before.

People often forget that outside of the City of Vancouver, construction is happening everywhere. Sure, the cost of permitting is high, but the permitting costs are high because municipalities need to keep the costs of property taxes relatively low. I think permitting remains a relatively minor portion of development costs.

[IGTBAR]

.

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by IGTBAR

This number is too low.

The cost to build a home in Vancouver right now is around $300/sqft on the low end (very low), with the average being around $350ish/sqft.

For a 4000 sqft home, you're looking at 1.4mil.

This is only hard costs of construction and does not include the contractor fee (usually 8 to 10% of hard costs) and any city of Vancouver building permits. The building permit itself will run you around $30k before you even do any demolition. Not to mention topographical survey, structural, geotechnical, building envelope, etc. These soft costs are going to run you around $60k before you even break ground.

Demand and supply. Shortage in trades + our weak Canadian to US dollar. Steel and glass need to be imported, driving up costs further.

Source: Family member and a coworker who are in the middle of building very modest homes in Vancouver/Burnaby.

Agree with you 100%

In 2013, I built my 2900 sq ft home in East Van with modest finishings for $500k and my contractor (a close relative) called in a LOT of favours. Due to our arrangement, I paid each and every single invoice so I know exactly where the money went.

[Hondaracer]

Materials aren't cheap. The outside costs such as permits, surveys, etc are nothing compared to the raw construction costs.

The thing too is that margins are extremely tight. Construction costs aren't high because everyone is raking in profit, for the most party trades are coming out slightly ahead or even just breaking even simply to stay in the loop

[jing]

Ionno what your guys standards are, but a 4000 sq ft home is well beyond what I'd consider as "standard size", unless this includes 1500 sq ft to the basement suites, which almost seems "necessary" now to supplement the mortgage payments.

[stylez2k4]

I'm looking at RBC commodities price monitor and I don't see the dramatic increase in raw materials (it is in US currency however)

http://www.rbc.com/economics/economi...eports/cpm.pdf

Lumbar prices is around the same it was back in mid-2008 and metals such as iron, aluminium, copper are less now than they were back in 2008.

Going off Bank of Canada's commodities price index both the forestry and metals and minerals component costs in 2014 are comparable to values in 2007-2008.

Commodity Price Index - Annual - Bank of Canada

[quasi]

Originally Posted by stylez2k4

I'm looking at RBC commodities price monitor and I don't see the dramatic increase in raw materials (it is in US currency however)

http://www.rbc.com/economics/economi...eports/cpm.pdf

Lumbar prices is around the same it was back in mid-2008 and metals such as iron, aluminium, copper are less now than they were back in 2008.

Going off Bank of Canada's commodities price index both the forestry and metals and minerals component costs in 2014 are comparable to values in 2007-2008.

Commodity Price Index - Annual - Bank of Canada

The thing with construction is you bid projects based on the current market, sometimes it's 2 years before your on site depending on what your responsible for. A lot can change in 2 years, material and labour can cost you way more then anticipated.

I estimate commercial construction projects for a living, we've had a material increase every 6 months for the last year and a half 8-10% each time on all my materials. Labour is asking for more money now then they were 2 years ago by almost 25%. From my recollection 4 years ago we went over a year without an increase, it's a guessing game.

Historical prices don't really mean anything in the short term, you can only look at the fluctuation in costs from when a project was bid to when it's complete.

The margins that most subcontractors operate on are so low I don't know why anyone bothers. The market is so tight you can't allow any contingencies, if you do you won't be competitive so any mistakes or unforeseen it's coming out of your slim bottom line.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by jing

Ionno what your guys standards are, but a 4000 sq ft home is well beyond what I'd consider as "standard size", unless this includes 1500 sq ft to the basement suites, which almost seems "necessary" now to supplement the mortgage payments.

This is the thing about older generations talking about 1200 square foot starter homes. 25-35 years ago, it was common to find a 1200 square foot rancher or bungalow on a double lot (e.g. 66 foot lot). You would have enough space for the kids to play, to grow food, store your RV, etc.

However, as land in Metro Vancouver has become more valuable, people are tearing down perfectly good starter homes to build larger homes on the same lot to house 2 or more families, have rental/nanny suites, etc. I also think that people's tastes/habits have changed. They would rather have more indoor/enclosed space for their toys and stuff.

1500 square feet is more than enough for a young family, provided that you have outdoor space. However, small homes on larger lots are disappearing quickly.