Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Hondaracer]

lol

somewhat related to the thread..

anyone have mini/small washer and dryer combo? side by side preferably?

unfortunately looking like i'm going to need to go with a combo washer/dryer, which sounds unbelievably inefficient and timely, or a small side by side which will fit in cabinets

[jasonturbo]

Originally Posted by westopher

Lol Jasonturbo is like the weird, gullible extremely right wing middle aged uncle that shares satire on Facebook and thinks it's real.

In my defence, the link was sent to me via SMS, the page seemed authentic at a glance... I'm not familiar with the CBC news website - I prefer the less biased news provided by Fox.

Spoiler!

[flagella]

How can a new condo even look remotely close to that? lol

[originalhypa]

Do you know how I know the market has slowed?

This thread hasn't been updated in 5 days. That hasn't happened for a long time.....

[Ferra]

Do you know how i know RS is old?
This thread is getting a lot more traffic than the "Fucked up shit what makes you laugh" thread.

[GLOW]

vancouver real estate is fucked up shit that makes you laugh...until you need to rent or buy...and then you cry...

[yameen]

a month ago, the subscribed lists i was on had less emails about sales and over the past couple weeks, i've been spammed with sales and new development. i keep getting emails about kings crossing. it seems like the market has slowed and these realtors are desperately spamming sales now.

[MarkyMark]

I went and looked at a couple of new townhouse builds in Langley this weekend with my fiance just to stay in the loop. Compared to what it was like in May it's definitely not as busy, and by that I mean it wasn't lined up down the block with the first phase sold out before it even opened. I could walk right in and talk to someone which wasn't possible 6 months ago. That being said, prices are still high which was expected, and they were still selling some units.

[originalhypa]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

I went and looked at a couple of new townhouse builds in Langley this weekend with my fiance just to stay in the loop. Compared to what it was like in May it's definitely not as busy, and by that I mean it wasn't lined up down the block with the first phase sold out before it even opened. I could walk right in and talk to someone which wasn't possible 6 months ago. That being said, prices are still high which was expected, and they were still selling some units.

There will always be those who are still trying to get into the market, even though the indicators are saying it's not a good time. They're the folks who are propping up the weak market right now, and also the ones who are going to hurt the most when the prices drop.

As much as we think that our market is infallible, the rules of finance state that every market will run in cycles. There is no such thing as constant growth with so many factors involved.

[UFO]

I don't doubt the market has peaked like many have suggested. But keep in mind 6 months ago lands you into March/April, traditionally around the busiest times for RE regardless of all other factors.

[Hondaracer]

went and looked at a great open house on sunday in east van on Pandora, 3000 sq foot house in a 44 X 120 lot, very nicely updated and great spaces as well as a nice basement suite.

In the 20 minutes or so i was there, there were probably 15 other people going through?

Listed at 1.89 and i know the realtor very well dealing with her in the past, so she is going to shoot me an email if it sells. lets see what happens

[MarkyMark]

Yeah it should be interesting to see how next year plays out, especially if they roll out tougher mortgage rules.

[pastarocket]

-not surprised about this news article:

Homemakers, students own $107 million in Vancouver neighbourhood - NEWS 1130


VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The BC NDP is once again drawing attention to who owns some of Vancouver’s priciest properties on the city’s West Side.

The party’s Housing Critic David Eby is sharing numbers which show a total of 32 homemakers and students in MacKenzie Heights own $107 million worth of property. He’s also learned 21 homemakers and students have earned more than $15 million through selling property in that same neighbourhood

Documents obtained by Eby also show 29 of those homeowners have also been able to take out a mortgage. “There’s a waitress that bought a $2.3 million property. And there was a casino dealer and a cashier who bought a $1.2 million property as well. Students, homemakers and waitresses, by definition, have very low or no incomes. Is this why MacKenzie Heights and other neighbourhoods throughout the Lower Mainland are reporting incredibly low incomes, despite real estate values being so high? Are the people purchasing these $1 million homes reporting poverty level incomes for tax purposes?”


Eby feels this equation doesn’t add up, and he’s calling for the provincial government and the Canada Revenue Agency to ensure there are more auditors locally to enforce tax laws. Beyond the enforcement of existing laws, including BC’s new 15 per cent foreign buyers tax, Eby wants changes made to existing rules.

“The problem is when you have a homemaker who can buy five properties throughout the province or waitresses buying properties — the question is whether a 15 per cent [tax] makes a significant difference. The other question is why are people listing their occupations as housewife or student for some many high-valued transactions? I can’t say that anybody has done anything improper here. The question that I have is where is the money coming from?”

[Hondaracer]

Articles been posted 3 times.

[CivicBlues]

...to be fair, the previous articles referenced 57 million dollars of property owned by 9 students.

This article seems to be a follow up after more data has been gathered.

[Harvey Specter]

Vancouver, London and Stockholm rank as the cities most at risk of a housing bubble after a surge in prices in the past five years, according to a UBS Group AG analysis of 18 financial centers.

Sydney, Munich and Hong Kong are also facing stretched valuations, UBS said in its 2016 Global Real Estate Bubble Index report, released Tuesday. San Francisco ranked as the most overvalued housing market in the U.S., while not yet at bubble risk.



House prices in the near-bubble cities have increased on average by almost 50 percent since 2011, compared with less than 15 percent in other financial centers, UBS said. Low interest rates, global capital inflows and optimism among investors about returns have helped to inflate values, the bank said.

“A change in macroeconomic momentum, a shift in investor sentiment or a major supply increase could trigger a rapid decline in house prices," UBS said. “Investors in overvalued markets should not expect real price appreciation in the medium to long run.”

Vancouver’s ranking soared to first from fourth place in 2015. Housing prices in the Canadian city have doubled in the past decade, prompting an outcry from local families struggling to afford homes that now chew up 90 percent of average before-tax income.

The typical detached single-family house in August was C$1.6 million ($1.21 million), according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. The provincial government in August imposed a 15 percent tax on foreign buyers in an attempt to cool prices.
European Cities

UBS said all European cities are overvalued after low interest rates fueled an overheating of demand for urban residential properties. Amsterdam, Zurich, Paris and Geneva also ranked on its list of cities that have seen prices rise past long-term norms.

Chicago was at the bottom of the list of financial-center rankings, with prices that have failed to recover from the recession.

The survey didn’t include mainland China, where major cities have been experiencing a runaway boom, due to the lack of consistent data, a UBS spokesman said in an e-mail.

Across most global cities, buying a 60 square-meter (645-square-foot) apartment is out of reach for the bulk of people earning an average annual income in the highly skilled service sector, UBS said.

Vancouver, London Top List of Cities at Risk of Housing Bubble - Bloomberg

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

Yeah it should be interesting to see how next year plays out, especially if they roll out tougher mortgage rules.

any indications that it'll get tougher?

[nah]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

Vancouver, London Top List of Cities at Risk of Housing Bubble - Bloomberg

Where's Toronto on the list? They will probably overtake Vancouver soon.

[Ch28]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

any indications that it'll get tougher?

I think they're going to roll out changes where if the person applying for a mortgage doesn't have a verifiable income then they'll get automatically denied. Obviously, this has no effect on those that roll in with a briefcase full of cash

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by nah

Where's Toronto on the list? They will probably overtake Vancouver soon.

They didn't look at Toronto.
https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth...index-2016.pdf

Also, if you read through Natalie Obiko Pearson's (co-writer of the article) tweets, she appears to be absolutely obsessed with Vancouver's inflated housing market (nearly half her tweets). Make of that what you will.

[bananana]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

Vancouver, London Top List of Cities at Risk of Housing Bubble - Bloomberg

Kind of interesting. The article does cover RE prices in Vancouver and accurately I would say, but these two factors as the sole benchmark don't make sense as neither contributed to, or had any affect in any way to the status quo.

Price-to-income: "The number of years a skilled service worker needs to work to be able to buy a 60m² flat near the city center."

Price-to-rent: "The number of years a flat of the same size needs to be rented to pay for the flat."

Nothing new here. Tell us what we don't know.

[Nlkko]

Vancouver probably top the chart because 1) the income increase (or lack thereof) doesn't correlate with the price increase and 2) the index also take into account period of time.

SF's income is pretty fucking high and so is NYC. You see NYC at the bottom of the bubble because it has always been expensive lol.

[Harvey Specter]

Mortgage rules are already tighten. Vancity for example now requires 35% down for investment properties instead of the 25% and at one time you could get 5% down deals if you were first time buyer and basically "lie" and get an investment property. And now if you want to use rental income to offset your mortgage you must show 6 months in cheques which was always required but now they want proof you declared rental income in your tax return. If you didn't declare the income you're SOL. And supposedly Vancity has added fine print that they can forward mortgage applications with undeclared rental income to the CRA.

Vancity is also getting strict against home equity borrowing. Can't remember of the top of my head but Vancity recently changed it's lending to I believe 65% instead of the 75% so basically you can borrow up to 65% and not 75% but don't hold me on these numbers. And like I mentioned above if you have rental income to offset the mortgages for your investments but you don't declare the income in your tax returns well good luck borrowing.

Bottom line is banks have too much risky lending and not enough cash on hand so they're trying to minimize any fall out from a bubble bursting. And I've heard a lot stories from people in the lending industry that there's a lot people out there that should have never gotten mortgages in the first place but I guess greed knows no bounds.

[heleu]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

Vancity is also getting strict against home equity borrowing. Can't remember of the top of my head but Vancity recently changed it's lending to I believe 65% instead of the 75% so basically you can borrow up to 65% and not 75% but don't hold me on these numbers. And like I mentioned above if you have rental income to offset the mortgages for your investments but you don't declare the income in your tax returns well good luck borrowing.
.

I just got renewed my mortgage and got a HELOC one.
The 65% rule isn't a Vancity thing, its a Federal rule. You can only borrow 65% of the value of your home on a line of credit. However, the total amount of the mortgage can be up to 80% of the value of your home.

So if your house is worth 1 Million, you can have a mortgage of up to 800K and borrow up to 650K from your line of credit (your mortgage loan balance in this case would be $150K).

[bobbinka]

Hidden cameras catch Vancouver landlords asking for sex, not rent | CTV Vancouver News

Vancouver’s rental market is so tight that landlords are asking for – and getting – sexual favours instead of rent, even though the practice is illegal, a CTV News hidden camera investigation has discovered.