Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Spoon]

Originally Posted by Sw0op

Why would you do a panic sell when you can rent it out since the rental market is so bad?

I know a few people with multiple properties and are renting out. They aren't talking about selling when it drops they want to pick up more. If they are cash flow positive or covering their mortgages now they'd be even further ahead if they can score a place at a cheaper deal

Foreign buyers are one thing that affected this growth but if I can buy and have someone pay for my mortgage or be positive cf then it makes sense at least for the time being

I bought a place a few months ago with the fiancé. Things are slow now and prices will fall but are we going to sell? No....its just part of the wave and we will ride it out. Not everyone thinks of homes as an investment. We need a place to live and that's why me and my friends bought in

Until you get a renter that turns your investment into a grow-op.

[ncrx]

....

[yray]

Originally Posted by Spoon

Until you get a renter that turns your investment into a grow-op.

you mean it'll be 420 friendly

[bananana]

Originally Posted by Spoon

Until you get a renter that turns your investment into a grow-op.

Easy to mitigate with a monthly inspection clause. You don't have to follow through but it should weed out potential growers. Anyone grower that can grow and clean up with this schedule deserves the payout.

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by ncrx

No buyers, no sellers

people who arent in need of selling simply won't sell.. i dont see how someone is going to realize an immediate 20% loss unless they're in dire circumstances forcing them to sell

just b/c sales numbers are ugly doesn't mean suddenly everyone's dropping their house on the market for a fat discount

Exactly - a few pages ago I posted that my parents listed their Richmond house for $3M. The house across the street (newer, but smaller lot) was listed at $3.5M, but the moment my parents listed theirs, they lowered their price to $3M. What really screwed my parents over is that that house accepted an offer for $2.7M!

My parents are currently reviewing a $2.6M offer, but they are seriously considering taking their house off the market and waiting until spring 2017 to re-list. Fortunately, they are in a position to complete on their new place without having to sell their existing house.

[kr4l]

^mind pm'ing me the area. $3m for a house in Richmond is pretty steep unless it's one of those monster homes. If we could get that figure for our place, that would be crazy

[Acura604]

Summer Slump: Metro Vancouver house sale plummet after offshore tax | Vancouver Sun

Home sales dropped in Metro Vancouver by up to 86 per cent after the introduction of the foreign investor tax on Aug. 2, according to official MLS data only available to realtors.

The Multiple Listing Service data obtained by Postmedia News and anecdotal information from 10 real estate agents suggests that the region’s previously ultrahot market for single-family houses has frozen solid. Some luxury homeowners have already slashed their asking prices in order to quickly escape dangerous market conditions.

“The detached market has just fallen off,” said realtor Steve Saretsky. “It’s crazy. It’s actually scary. The week the tax was announced, it went dead across the board.”

And in an indication of just how powerful a force offshore buying had become in the Lower Mainland, MLS figures shows that the high-priced areas with the highest percentages of foreign buyers — according to government statistics and real estate agents — are now suffering the steepest drop-offs.

“The offshore tax just put on the brakes,” said realtor Nirma Desai, who sells homes in south Surrey. “The offshore buyers became a huge portion of the market. They were the driving force.”

Some examples of key markets for offshore buyers:

• Richmond. From Aug. 1 to 15 last year, Richmond had 89 detached sales. For the same period this month, 12 homes were sold.

• West Vancouver: Last year, 59 detached homes were sold during the first half of August. This year, nine.

• Vancouver’s west side: 72 detached homes were sold in the first half of August 2015, but only 15 this year.

And realtors said they expect the second half of August to be even slower, as foreign buyers rushed into the market in late July and the first day of August to beat the introduction of the 15-per-cent tax.

It is a different story in Abbotsford, which borders Metro Vancouver but is not subject to the new tax. Forty-five detached homes were sold in Abbotsford the first half of this month, one more than the 44 sold in Vancouver and West Vancouver combined, and down only 19 per cent from the first half of August in 2015. In Squamish, an increasingly popular market that is outside the Metro Vancouver tax zone, detached home sales in August 2016 are equal to August 2015.

[Hehe]

Originally Posted by ncrx

No buyers, no sellers

people who arent in need of selling simply won't sell.. i dont see how someone is going to realize an immediate 20% loss unless they're in dire circumstances forcing them to sell

just b/c sales numbers are ugly doesn't mean suddenly everyone's dropping their house on the market for a fat discount

You don't understand how the market mechanic works. And if one is looking at RE as investments, they better set their stop-loss and take-profit point clearly.

Once it starts dropping and the population has a negative outlook toward such asset, it's all downhill from here on for a long time.

To give you an example, your comment is exactly what people in Taipei were saying when the market stopped growing. They all said "it's ok, we bought in when it was cheap, we can wait it out."

Then what happened? They started realizing that the later they sell, the less amount of money they'd get. So it's a bloodbath there now. Tons of supply, very very few transactions getting done unless massive discount. Taipei core is experiencing double digit YoY decline in price. Sure you could hold all the way until the next boom (assuming there'd be one). But does that make sense investment-wise? It could be another 10-15years before getting to the next boom. And Assuming you can take 1M today for your property (down from 1.2). How long would it take to get back up to 1.2 (+any inflation adjustments)? It would make sense to sell now, hold onto cash and buy in when the market dropped further.

Many of these people in Taipei bought them in cash with little to none pressure of selling. It's all down to that feeling of losing a huge chunk of money every month of continue waiting. And now even that they want to sell, no one wants to buy from them. What point does it make if your property is "valued" at x amount when no one is willing to buy at x?

[GLOW]

what if foreigners had little impact on housing prices, and prices drop due to no transactions, and then foreigners jump on the price drops and buy up all the properties

[Traum]

Quite frankly, I'm very surprised that sales figures have dropped that much. But in light of the huge drops, I really want to turn to those people who claimed the market wasn't propped up by foreign buyers, and tell them a huge "I told you so!".

[hud 91gt]

Originally Posted by Traum

Quite frankly, I'm very surprised that sales figures have dropped that much. But in light of the huge drops, I really want to turn to those people who claimed the market wasn't propped up by foreign buyers, and tell them a huge "I told you so!".

I honestly don't think you can put this halt on foreign buyers. I can almost guarentee the lack of movement is due to locals figuring out what which way the market will move.

Either way it just goes to show the market is unstable, people are aware of that and are being cautious. Could really go either way.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

I honestly don't think you can put this halt on foreign buyers. I can almost guarentee the lack of movement is due to locals figuring out what which way the market will move.

Either way it just goes to show the market is unstable, people are aware of that and are being cautious. Could really go either way.

Exactly. The halt isn't entirely from foreign buyers stopping purchasing.

The tax stopped everyone who was purchasing, because people are uncertain what is gonna happen. Uncertainty causes fear, and fear makes people put their plans on hold.

[MarkyMark]

Foreigners are the reason prices got so out of hand in the first place, but the slump is pretty much a combination of both foreigners and locals just wanting to see what's gonna happen over the next little while before jumping in again.

[Traum]

According to earlier government figures, foreign buyers were only supposed to account for 5% of the total RE transaction value in the province. That figure was later updated in a subsequent report to 7.9% across the province, or anything from 8 - 18% across different places in Metro Vancouver.

If the foreign buyer $$ figures were really supposed to be that low, it shouldn't really cause such a massive drop in the total transaction numbers. Even when you assuming a high of 18% foreign buyer transactions, seeing an 86% drop in RE transactions simply breaks all the correlations between the two figures.

Another data point is Abbotsford, as pointed out by the news article. For local buyers, the extra 15% tax does not apply to them, so it should only be a small factor in their purchasing decision, and that is what we are seeing in Abbotsford. So if the primary Metro Vancouver municipalities weren't really driven by foreign buyers, the sales meltdown we are seeing now should not be happening. We should be seeing something that more closely resembles the Abbotsford situation, with a downturn in transaction numbers by at most 18 - 25%, instead of the 86% free fall.

As far as I can see, the most plausible explanation is still the suggestion that the previous foreign buyer percentage is waaaay higher than even 18%. That conjecture is still the one that most closely resemble the anecdotal evidence that I am seeing on the street.

[IGTBAR]

Wondering if I'm the only person who has this thread perpetually open in a browser and refreshes it multiple times a day.

[!LittleDragon]

Wouldn't 18% foreign investment mean that 82% of transactions is local to local? If those 82% previously believed that foreign investors were buying everything all of the sudden believed they are now buying nothing... That would completely stall the market if 82% decided to wait and see....

The market was already heading downwards in June/July and the addition of this tax is like a punch in the gut when you already have the flu.

[Harvey Specter]

Lenders are getting stricter on people borrowing against their homes and also they're requiring more down payment if you're buying a rental property. Add in the foreign tax and you should see prices fall even more imo.

[Hondaracer]

I think everyone is in a holding pattern right now, so it will be interesting to see what happens in September when historically sales pick up

If we don't get what we want for our house I'm going to put in a basement suite and rent out the entire house

People involved in this dragging their feet has potentially cost us 200k+

:feelsbadman:

[MarkyMark]

September and October will be really interesting to see which way things go.

[Ferra]

Originally Posted by Traum

According to earlier government figures, foreign buyers were only supposed to account for 5% of the total RE transaction value in the province. That figure was later updated in a subsequent report to 7.9% across the province, or anything from 8 - 18% across different places in Metro Vancouver.

If the foreign buyer $$ figures were really supposed to be that low, it shouldn't really cause such a massive drop in the total transaction numbers. Even when you assuming a high of 18% foreign buyer transactions, seeing an 86% drop in RE transactions simply breaks all the correlations between the two figures.

Another data point is Abbotsford, as pointed out by the news article. For local buyers, the extra 15% tax does not apply to them, so it should only be a small factor in their purchasing decision, and that is what we are seeing in Abbotsford. So if the primary Metro Vancouver municipalities weren't really driven by foreign buyers, the sales meltdown we are seeing now should not be happening. We should be seeing something that more closely resembles the Abbotsford situation, with a downturn in transaction numbers by at most 18 - 25%, instead of the 86% free fall.

As far as I can see, the most plausible explanation is still the suggestion that the previous foreign buyer percentage is waaaay higher than even 18%. That conjecture is still the one that most closely resemble the anecdotal evidence that I am seeing on the street.

the simpler explanation is the rule spooked the market
everyone wants to wait on the sideline to see what happens next (at least on the buyers side)


I am sure the government wouldn't falsify some fake "foreign buyers %" to misled people...
and even tho "theoretically" the market volume shouldn't drop more than 5% since that's the entirely of the foreign buyer % who were affected...you have to remember most people are emotional and irrational.
They don't think in numbers, they think with emotion and herd mentality.

I think housing has a big self-reinforcing effect, so I wouldn't be surprised if the market's "cautiousness" eventually lead to bigger price decline..

[Hakkaboy]

Originally Posted by Ferra

the simpler explanation is the rule spooked the market
everyone wants to wait on the sideline to see what happens next (at least on the buyers side)


I am sure the government wouldn't falsify some fake "foreign buyers %" to misled people...
and even tho "theoretically" the market volume shouldn't drop more than 5% since that's the entirely of the foreign buyer % who were affected...you have to remember most people are emotional and irrational.
They don't think in numbers, they think with emotion and herd mentality.

I think housing has a big self-reinforcing effect, so I wouldn't be surprised if the market's "cautiousness" eventually lead to bigger price decline..

it isn't about government faking foreign buyers %, it's about foreign capital not being properly classified as "foreign" that most people, including myself, have an issue with

The new rule may have spooked those "foreign" people who were previously able to purchase without being classified as "foreign" when they announced that "every transaction will be audited"

any prudent person would wait and see during this time

[MR_BIGGS]

All levels of government are going to make knee-jerk policy decisions due to what they see from polling, to score political points with the public and because there's a looming election (provincial).

And if CRA ever gets their shit together to go after money launderers, we will see a more exposed real estate market.

Also if people lose more confidence in the market, another factor that can have a significant affect.

[MR_BIGGS]

Case in point: West Vancouver to push for real estate reform at meeting of local governments

[buhdeh]

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

any prudent person would wait and see during this time

b-b--b-but I was told I should jump into this dip ASAP!!!!

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by buhdeh

b-b--b-but I was told I should jump into this dip ASAP!!!!

If you already have a property you're living in, then you ride the market during good times and bad. Unless you have a figure in your head (eg. I only want to pay 700k for a detached house and I don't care if my condo goes down), then you buy what you need when you need it.

If you're a first time home buyer, then of course it's prudent to wait.

From what I've heard, condos and other strata properties are still moving. It's the detached that aren't which is no surprise.