Holy smokes

Vancouver penthouse condo sells for $25M - British Columbia - CBC News

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Economic outlook, analysis and forecasts - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

What's going on in Korea?

Thoughts? News propaganda?

Holy shit, how much is it to rent in japan? isn't their RE super expensive?

Depends on where.. however I think the bigger issue with Japan is the death tax on property.. a lot of people cannot afford to live in the house they grew up when their parents had died, due to the tax... it was more than half of the property (something like 3/4 last I checked) is worth at the current rate.

Korea had a housing bust a few years ago. During the early-mid 2000s, people with new money kept flipping properties for profit. That caught on with other Koreans (as does everything else it seems), and soon people were taking out mortgages multiple times their salary. A mixture of speculation with the lack of affordability and oversupply caused housing prices in Seoul to fall 15% within the last five years. As a result, an increasing amount of apartment buildings are left unfinished and/or unsold.

There are actually stories of construction bosses making their employees purchase apartments, and due to the way Korean culture is with loyalty and hierarchy, employees would actually take out mortgages in fear of their careers suffering. It's a catch-22, because now they're all fucked with debt.

Strata fees are 4200 per month!

Oh, and it was on the market for 620 days. I would not buy that place. Its an insane liability. Guess the new owner has enough cash they don't care
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People like you and I look at condos as either a primary residence, or a source of rental income.

People that buy $25M condos treat them like hotels.

the $4,200 strata fee/month jumped out at me too.

For your strata fee alone, I could be living in a pretty nice 1 million dollar plus home.

It's Bruce Wayne isn't it? It is. Fucking guy.

Must be the prince of Dubai that bought the penthouse + the other property mention in the article

For $68K a year I probably can get a decent car!

I'm not gonna lie...I thought the strata fee would be higher. I've seen some pretty steep strata fees for 700 sq ft condos (5-600$) and comparing it to those fees...$4200 doesn't seem that off for 6400 sq ft.

Global = bs propaganda

There's so much that could be wrong with these numbers and stats. I haven't seen anything that would indicate prices are higher yoy - sales are still down in volume, prices are down, long term treasuries are creeping up - mortgage rates will start to follow.

Nothing has changed in this story, regardless of what global wants us to believe

Also, "sold above asking" could mean 'day 1 list at $699k, 1 week later drop price to $649k, sell for $650" - this is sold above asking

Also multiple offers could be 2 lowballs, 1 so-so offer

Read between the lines and don't just take their BS at face value

Well, my mom's condo was listed on Monday and I have an offer in hand tonight.

I'd say we priced...aggressively, and the buyer was waiting for a unit at this price range and spec.

Things are moving. I had 3 houses listed for sale at the same time all touching each other...2 are sold within weeks.

The not as much boom right now is more a haircut on price and an extra coat of paint to make it prettier.

We were down about 20% from the property's 2008 high.

4 houses ive looked at sold right underneath my nose.
They were all listed for less than 7 days... Seems like you gotta pay asking price and not go in with an aggressive offer :(

Was meeting with my mortgage person the other day, and she told us some other clients of hers were pissed off that some house they were watching on the market sold before they had a chance to go after it.

They told her they still had some hopes becuase the listing status still said "Pending" or something

Turns out it was my house :fuckyea:

She told them "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that house is sold"

In my case, we talked to 3 realtors about listing it. They all came with the same price that it would sell for, and we're a bit above it.

They all had the same message...turbulent market right now, don't price aggressively. You have shed some value since 2008, and its come up a bit.

So what you are seeing is "properties", and they all have a different story between townhouse, detached and condo being listed at a more realistic price. So they've done some negotiating for you already. In turn, buyers are wanting a deal right now, so a few more points are taken off for the contract.

So it doesn't surprise me that your 4 houses are being a bit closer to list than you'd like..they already took some of the money off the table when they listed, and don't want to go any further just to make it look like you are getting a deal.

Thats what I said to my offer...to hell if I'm dropping my pants for you, I'm 2 days into this process.

Okay...so a few pages back I posted an ad I saw for a condo development in New Westminster called Elliot. The ad said something about the developer paying the mortgage for the first 24 month but had no fine print. I registered for the property, but did not receive anything via email so today, when Grid and I had a free afternoon, we decided to go take a look at the presentation centre. We are not really interested in buying, but more just curious about this 'offer' and the fact that it is being built almost across the street from one of our rental buildings.

Overall, nice layout, nice features, fairly typical materials, better utilization of space than others I have seen, and many features are standard where in other new developments are "upgrades". So basically....we were pretty impressed.

Talked to the sales staff about this 24 month thing, pricing, etc:

You are given two options by the developer to cash-in on this 24 month free living (all these numbers are based on today's interest rate 5-year closed mortgage over 25 years with 20% down).

1- The developer will give you the equivalent of 24 mortgage payments off the purchase price. So, a 1 bedroom (4th floor) is listed at $229,900. 24 months of payments is $21,600...this means your purchase price is $208,300. The 2 bedroom (6th floor) price is $354,900. 24 months is $33,600...final price is $321,300. Townhouse is $429,900 less the mortgage of $40,800 for purchase of $389,100.

This is pretty much what I figured when I read "developer to pay 24 months of mortgage"....HOWEVER, the 2nd option I did NOT expect.

2- You buy the place but do not plan to live in it. The developer will actually pay your strata payment and along with "rent" for 5 years (Dec 2019). Essentially, the developer acts as a property manager. Breakdown:

1 bed: $800\month + $205.66 strata= 1005.66 check in your bank every month for 5 years.
2 bed: $ 1300\month + $308.49= $1508.49 monthly.
Did not get pricing for townhouse.

The developer takes the risk in renting out the suite...if there is no renter, you are still paid. The amount given to you every month is essentially suppose to cover your mortgage payment every month but depending on interest you get and you downpayment you could be rental neg, neut, or pos. Its basically up to you...BUT for 5 years it sits there with someone else managing the tenant.

If at some point you decide you want to live in your place, you just give the tenant proper notice and the developer stops paying you.

If I was going to buy....I'd purchase a 1 bed and go with option 2 or I'd buy and 2 bed and go with option 1. The townhouses were ok, but there is no real benefit...there is no garage or private access so to speak and it is literally ALL windows....nice, but not for street level.

In regards to pricing of the units, I was pretty impressed at the cost. I expected them to be easily be listed about $30,000 more when comparing to others for sale in New West right now. They are pretty on point and if anything, priced a little under even with this 24 month promo thing.

Penthouse is going for mid-$700k and is pretty fucking nice. Epic view and cheaper than some other new development penthouses in the area.

So, interesting incentive they are offering...I wonder if we will see more of these pop up. Was talking to a family member who deals with mortgages, etc and she said this was the first she has heard of such thing (2nd option). I guess the benefit the developer gets with promo 2 is they can rent the apt for more than what they are paying you....after walking through the 1 bed, that thing would easily rent for $1200. The 2 could fetch $2000....but would be much harder to rent.

I'll have to keep my eye out for other interesting incentives.

So we touched on this a few pages back, but just a general consensus, are realtors getting 'desperate' to make some deals yet?

One of our neighbours listed what I felt was on the higher side of reasonable at 435, hoping to sell at 428, assessed value at about 410. They got a couple of lookie loos, but no interest and zero offers. Their agent recommended them to list at 399 and try to auction it up to their accepted sale price of 428. I've not found out how that strategy worked out, but it seems like they were not overly happy with that agent's approach after the fact, perhaps still not getting the quality bites; I'm guessing they were getting offers below or at the new list price, but not over. They are on a time line though, needing to sell by the end of June, so that can play in quite heavily.

^family member just sold their house....listed for 629,000...after a couple weeks, dropped to 619k....they were flooded with showings. Had a 3-way bidding war and sold at 620k.

nothing special...just a random house in need of updates in North Delta.

i wouldn't say "desperate". i think home owners need to stop expecting to make LOADS off their purchase. those days are gone and people need to suck it up and list at an appropriate amount. if you bought in 2007 and are expecting to make a profit from that year, you are fucked.

sooooo...whats the question?

Some realtors like to play games. Some are just plain weird people.

Yes, you can take in offers and try to get a bidding war. But you need to know your client, the market and the house. Doesn't sound like this guy understands any of it. Your client is in a rush, your market isn't and the price is average, so the house is too.

Ok. Let's have a 2007 style auction!

Pass.

Maybe its time for tough love that says the house isn't worth 428, or something isn't getting people excited on it.

Sometimes people just want a lot more for their stuff than its worth right now. There are 2 for sale in my mom's former complex that are listed for the prices paid in 2008. They don't get shown. No one looks, meanwhile ours is the 3rd one that sold in the meantime...for a realistic to today price.

^Are agents willing to move off their $$$$ commission structure significantly yet?

Well if you're selling and buying another to live, its not a big deal as I said earlier, things are going to be down across the board generally. If you're hoping to profit on your own property, and lowball and bleed the sellers of your prospective property, I don't think that approach will get you anywhere.

It seems like with our area getting back assessed value would be an accomplishment, if not settling for a bit just below. I don't see 10-15% above anymore that's for sure.

ran in to something like that on our old unit...we wanted it sold and was willing to drop below what competing units were listing it at...by quite a bit...end result, ours was sold while theirs is still listed. sure i would have loved to get it at that listed price but we knew that wasn't going to happen, so we listed at what would get people to come and look and comfortable with putting an offer on.

So what happens if the developer goes bust or goes into bankruptcy? It's definitely an interesting couple of offers but considering how often development companies come and go, I'd be quite hesitant to pull the trigger and expect that deal to stick.