Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[dinosaur]

I had the same thought, but the developer appears to have a good reputation.

I don't think it is that rare to offer a "buying bonus" or discount when you purchase, but the second option was really not expected. I wish I could find out how many people have opted for it.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

I had the same thought, but the developer appears to have a good reputation.

I don't think it is that rare to offer a "buying bonus" or discount when you purchase, but the second option was really not expected. I wish I could find out how many people have opted for it.

so the developer didn't make a 'shell' puppet company to manage the deal in case it shit goes south the developer is protected b/c the shell company just disappears?

[dinosaur]

i dunno

[UFO]

Originally Posted by GLOW

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.

Was your final selling price the adjusted asking price, or did the offers still come in below that? How much lower %wise did you list relative to other units?

Some people may not have that option to be able to drop the price that significantly to make it a deal for buyers. For others, if they don't get the price they are looking for, maybe they are just fine keeping the property.

If you have enough time and not in a rush to sell, a bit of luck may find the right buyer who will pay a higher price. You never know, other sellers may get that significantly higher selling price and you may regret dropping it so much so quickly.

[m!chael]

.

[m!chael]

.

[4444]

Originally Posted by m!chael

4444, you're a boss. I'm happy to see someone who shares the same sentiment as me. When real estate comes up its usually me against the world with my bearish (financially sound) opinion. You said you own some property in the US, where would that be if you don't mind me asking. My family also invested in the US at the right time - a house half the price of a Vancouver special could fetch twice the rental fee and be cash flow positive. How anyone can pass that up and invest in Canada is beyond me.

Phoenix, you?

I'm sure u saw the same as me, but for others who still think its time to buy in the US:

While it is better to buy in the US than Canada, the best deals are gone - gone about 12 months ago.. Inventory is down, best deals got eaten up a long time ago.

Being Canadian, you don't get the good US mortgages, and there are tax issues, cross border - that's a nightmare for Canadians... Also, finding a good property manager isn't the easiest.

I bought a handful of properties 18-24 months ago, value has gone up 50% and they yield some great cash flow - I stopped buying 18 months ago for a reason, I could see with my own eyes that the quality was going down, inventory down, prices up... Rents have gone down or stayed flat - as the big boys came in and bought up everything and made them rentals - all the hot cities (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta) now have a glut of rental properties which have taken out the increase in renters - no more pent up rental demand.

So there's the big thing - in Vancouver u can leverage 4:1 - in the US, basically it's a no go, heloc would have to be used... But with the new rules and everything - well, I'd make sure to keep some room for equity grind down in the Vancouver house...

I'm so happy to see rates creep up, this, coined with slowing sales numbers will push prices down as ppl get more 'realistic' and as rates go up, affordability goes down, which puts pressure on prices to equate the monthly payments (remember ppl - a house price isn't what most ppl buy, they buy a monthly payment)

[4444]

Just want to repeat something...

a house price isn't what most ppl buy, they buy a monthly payment - mark those words as interest rates increase, slowly, but shortly


In the US, long term treasury/ bond rates have creeped up, 30 yr fixed have gone up from 3.375% to 4% ish in 1 month... That's one fucking huge effect on affordability - and there are reports that ppl in the states are rushing to buy while they have their fixed rates available from last month. I foresee a small scale hesitation in the US housing market for used homes as rates creep up

[iEatClams]

May stats were out and sales were down 20% from 10 yr averages. If June stats come out low then it is a sign of things to come, prices always lag behind # of sales.

Inventory is at a high, especially for condo units, there's many more projects and buildings coming up, and I just don't see the demand for them. Speculators have basically dissipated as you can't buy a pre-sale condo and then sell it for 30% profit like you can in prior years.

Interest rates are going up, making homes less affordable.

I just see way too many people with a herd mentality, where they want to be like their friends or families that recently purchased a property and now they want one too. But they don't fully know the true costs of ownership.

I see kids in their early 20s buying condos without a stable career. Borrowing money from their parents for the down payment, and these are not the rich families either, but average earning ones. These people will be affected most by increases in interest rates, or any changes in their employment.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by UFO

Was your final selling price the adjusted asking price, or did the offers still come in below that? How much lower %wise did you list relative to other units?

Some people may not have that option to be able to drop the price that significantly to make it a deal for buyers. For others, if they don't get the price they are looking for, maybe they are just fine keeping the property.

If you have enough time and not in a rush to sell, a bit of luck may find the right buyer who will pay a higher price. You never know, other sellers may get that significantly higher selling price and you may regret dropping it so much so quickly.

list was around 15-20% below and final sell was about 10-15% below that. details are hazy cuz it's been over a year ago. it was unoccupied so the strata fees were also affecting us so i calculated that in to our decision.

no regrets as i knew the market and what we were competing with. i just had to face reality vs unprobable the best case scenario

[iEatClams]

I follow this pretty good blog on RE, and there was an interesting posts today regarding re-listings and price drops:


Whispers from the Edge of the Rainforest

For those who follow the real estate bear blogs, it is a well known practice.

In an attempt to hide seller desperation, property listings are pulled and re-listed with a new MLS number. It helps hide the number of days a property has been on the market, not to mention some of the price drops a property has had. Because let's face it, when buyer's sell desperation, the lowballing intensifies.

Vancouver Observer noticed this practice over a year ago on his excellent site, Vancouver Price Drop. So prominent is the practice that Observer now tracks all old MLS listings for a property to give us a true insight into the selling history of a property.

In this weeks Vancouver West detached spotlight, the top property for price reductions is at 1010 West 57th:



1010 West 57th pulled it's listing on January 16th, 2013 and relisted with a new MLS number on January 25th, 2013. This move helps hide 291 days of market availability as well as $1,000,000 in price reductions.

This property, however, is a very minor example of the relisting phenomenon. Observer has made several interesting posts in the past charting relisting champions.

Interestingly realtor Arnold Shuchat also touched on this phenomenon in a post on his blog today charting this week's biggest price declines in Richmond.
Publishing these price reduction blogs on a regular basis is time consuming. But this week's Price Reduction report was even more so. I have observed that for almost every week that the price reductions are published, the average reduction is between 4-5% regardless of property type, give or take 1%. Under a hypothesis that those averages do not really tell the whole story, I conducted a search of every price reduction listing to review the price history from the time it was first listed. The results yield a completely different story as I suspected. I am not going to undertake this every week, but as an eye opener and to make a point of what's really going on I did it this week. The numbers speak for themselves and here is the summary:

The average price reduction since originally listed is 11% instead of the most recent 5%. But, if we take the top 10 price reductions since listed, the average is approximately 20%! And, the properties are not yet sold!
The real estate industry official line is that price reductions are minimal and that sellers are holding firm with their prices. The industry insists any price declines are only minimal.

But anyone conducting a proper, detailed analysis is uncovering quite a different story.

Surprised?

[bing]

^In some of those cases, it is possible that the unsold home is just being re-listed by a new agent and therefore would receive a new MLS number. For example, there has been a house sitting on my block that hasn't sold in almost a year and recently the realtor has been changed.

edit: Yeah, there has definitely been a drop in sales for sure that is quite noticeable (i.e. 30%) but homes are still selling nonetheless. There were 8 homes sitting unsold in my neighborhood for quite a while (many months if not a year) but I noticed within the last month or two, 2 of these homes are now sold.

I was also told that despite re-listings, you can still see the past history (i.e. days on market, former asking prices) but you need to be licensed to access the information on the database. So I would assume that the realtor working with the buyer would inform his/her client, which would still influence their offer. Thus, the only ones not privy to these details would possibly be buyers without their own agent.

[kiwee]

^ There's also a house on my block that hasn't been sold for 2 to 3 years. They change realtor 3 times

[Gridlock]

My realtor had a cute little ipad presentation for me that had a bunch of graphs showing how great their sales were.

Fantastic.

He shows me how their days on market are 30 days below average for the real estate board.

So I say to him, "..because you pull your stale listings and re-list to keep your numbers up(or down)"

"well....yes"

So, I'm just going to do you a solid and ignore the graph. I don't care...you want to re-list every 21 days at your expense, go nuts. Make it look fresh for everyone.

My favorite is how Global is quite happy to take a 5 minute survey of the real estate boards numbers and turn it into a (puff)piece for the news. Global news: quite entertaining, but not exactly hard hitting.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Gridlock

Global news: quite entertaining, but not exactly hard hitting.

well they also did a story on a girl getting her bunnies stolen i was sitting there thinking

[sonick]

Originally Posted by GLOW

so the developer didn't make a 'shell' puppet company to manage the deal in case it shit goes south the developer is protected b/c the shell company just disappears?

This is probably the case, most developers have a different 'shell' company for each property they develop in case something goes wrong.

[dinosaur]

Originally Posted by GLOW

well they also did a story on a girl getting her bunnies stolen i was sitting there thinking

hey man...bunnies srs business. mine goes in for dental surgery on Wednesday.

[LiquidTurbo]

Live At West

Any thoughts?

[dinosaur]

^^ doesn't look like anything special. And, whats with developers removing balconies or enclosing them? Why are people so afraid of fresh air? I also really despise "U" shaped kitchens and bedroom doors in the living room....I like my sleeping area and living area separate.

whats the pricing?

also, how are they avoiding the cmhc insurance with only 5% down?

[G]

Can someone school me on purchasing an apartment and renting it out? I am currently in Alberta and in a smaller town. The apartments here are around 200-300k for either 0-5 years old. I was thinking of purchasing a two bedroom and renting it out which would yield around $1500-$1700 depending on the quality and age of the building. I have talked to some people and they said that it would most likely cover all or more than the mortgage payments. I am definitely new to this, but how would stuff work if I am not (in the future) in the province? Would I need to hire a property management company to help me look after the property? How do fees work etc etc?

It seems like a good way to hold my money and invest but slightly new to this stuff.

[Gridlock]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

^^ doesn't look like anything special. And, whats with developers removing balconies or enclosing them? Why are people so afraid of fresh air? I also really despise "U" shaped kitchens and bedroom doors in the living room....I like my sleeping area and living area separate.

whats the pricing?

also, how are they avoiding the cmhc insurance with only 5% down?

One of the floorplans has the even better no window in bedroom, so here's some frosted white track doors that open to give it that loft feel, which is really a "I can no longer afford a fucking window in this city feel"

And they wouldn't avoid CMHC. The only reason developers usually take a 20% deposit is so they can borrow against it.

[dinosaur]

Originally Posted by G

Can someone school me on purchasing an apartment and renting it out? I am currently in Alberta and in a smaller town. The apartments here are around 200-300k for either 0-5 years old. I was thinking of purchasing a two bedroom and renting it out which would yield around $1500-$1700 depending on the quality and age of the building. I have talked to some people and they said that it would most likely cover all or more than the mortgage payments. I am definitely new to this, but how would stuff work if I am not (in the future) in the province? Would I need to hire a property management company to help me look after the property? How do fees work etc etc?

It seems like a good way to hold my money and invest but slightly new to this stuff.

No.

Read the thread.

And, come on dude....do the math. Use an online mortgage calculator. Add everything up (mortgage, property tax, utilities, strata, insurance) and then imagine not being able to rent it to someone because you are in a "small town" in Alberta. That is what you will be paying for an empty apt every month.

[G]

I just wanted to know what other people have experienced, especially out of province investments and the use of property managers.

[godwin]

READ THE FREAKING THREAD!

Originally Posted by G

I just wanted to know what other people have experienced, especially out of province investments and the use of property managers.

[G]

lul, damn, everyone is so butthurt. Seems like you guys talk about real estate all over the world in this thread.

I guess I should rephrase my question then: Has anyone dealt with property managers etc with their investments/properties in Vancouver?