Ah that makes sense. I wasn't familiar with the upping the rent per month for a pet and just the pet deposit.

I work from home and i've been good at keeping him busy and knowing when he needs to pee.

Will keep on hunting. Still on the fence between renting/buying though.

Consider yourself lucky that a potential landlord is entertaining the idea of renting to people with a pet.

The rental market for clean and legal suites is very tight right now.

removed subjects on our apartment last night!

sold just below asking over 2.5 months, we can see the sales center for city of lougheed from our building and it's 30 years old so i think the age scared a good number of buyers off, however, it's an excellent building with an excellent depreciation report so i'm kind of sad it didnt sell better.. also sad to leave we always enjoyed the area and the view here but on to bigger better (hopefully) things.

bye bye Burnaby, Hello Van

Yea we've noticed while browsing units on craigslist. It seems like finding a place in Vancouver has been harder than in SF or Toronto.

What do you mean by legal suites though?

Legal suites - a unit with its own address such as a basement suite, laneway house, apartment unit, townhouse, etc.

I'm sure you could always rent a basement suite and share the address of the landlord, but most are not actually legal.

The situation is pretty fucked, to be honest. It might be better to shack up with your parents or the in-laws for a little bit until you're comfortable wading into the real estate market.

I think you got out at a good time. I think the scale of density they're contemplating over at Lougheed will overwhelm the infrastructure.

Hastings-Sunrise will never densify to the extent that Lougheed will.

Yea I think so too.

Also the amount of homeless, vagrants etc around the area has definitely increased in the last year or so

That's the tradeoff with Skytrain and density.

I worked in Hastings-Sunrise when I was a student. It was a good neighbourhood with working class Portuguese and Italians. It's being slowly gentrified, like all other East Vancouver neighbourhoods, but gentrification is always good for property values. If you become sick of the hipsters and trust-fund kids, I'm sure you'll always be able to turn around and sell the house for a tidy profit in a decade.

Ahh gotcha wasn't exactly sure what defined a legal suite. Thanks for the info.

We usually stay with the inlaws during the holidays when we visit but I think thats close to the max I could do... I tend to need my own space for work but I guess i could escape to a coffee shop once in a while.

We've been looking for a condo since we decided we were moving back but it's been hard just online and asking the inlwas to check it out. Hopefully it'll be a bit easier once we can check out the open houses our selves.

condo market is still stupidly competitive. Every unit we went people were coming/leaving in groups like it's a museum tour... and these were tiny units 400-500 sqft :heckno:

Yeah you can thank the crime train for keeping the vandals and vagrants out of sunrise/hastings LOL oh wait.:awwyeah::awwyeah::awwyeah:

Just moved back to North Van after 3.5 years in Alberta - OMG the traffic lol

Congrats. Are you renting or did you buy since prices only go up here? :)

Lowly renters, we are giving ourselves the year to decide whether or not we really want to live in Van forever.

Tired of renting, we now realize our standards are too high for most rental properties.

The island or Kelowna seems better and better all the time.

fuck,Victoria isn't any better for traffic rush hour either,Burned 2 hours trying to get home at 5:45 DT....snail pace traffic

Is no surprise the rental market is so tight here. I mean we have tons of ppl moving in to Vancouver everyday and they rent. We also have tons and tons of international students studying here in Vancouver. There is just not enough rental units.

I just find it funny when I see ppl on the news complaining about the high rental fees and the gov should force landlord to rent out at a lower price. Ppl also like to complain they are force to move because landlord don't want to rent to them. Just looking at these ppl if I was a landlord I wouldn't want to rent to them either. Just remember if a are a decent person, who doesn't trash the place and pay your rent on time most of the time your landlord will want you to stay.

Victoria traffic is brutal, but anything north of the Malahat is easy (except Duncan in the summer, but even then, it's not THAT bad; especially if you use it as an excuse to take the backroads, which are clear and nice to drive).

It's only really brutal on Highway #1. Every pleb commutes to the west shore and up island.

I take the pat bay to/from keating every day, average commute is 15 minutes.

I normally took the back roads everyday (Wilkinson, West Saanich, Oldfield) and it took a couple minutes longer, but with way less traffic, and a much more enjoyable Twisty country road, but the Wilkinson bridge replacement has put a hold on that route.

Big news today from the province: interest-free loans for 5 years for first time homebuyers, up to $37,500.

BC to offer interest-free loans for first time home buyers - NEWS 1130

Got to keep the condos and multifamily construction moving, I guess.

As always, I am cynical as fxxk, especially when it comes to stuff that Crusty and the Libs do. But I call this yet another blatant vote buying scheme right before the election year.

And the dumb thing is, too many voters would be too stupid to remember how Crusty and the Libs have been raping us all these years. So as soon as a little "generosity" like this gets tossed at us, they all go gaga and happily votes for yet another term for the Liberals. :yuno:

B.C. Premier Christy Clark?s approval rating spikes after introducing foreign buyer tax: Poll - Article - BNN

Lol Libs will win next election...pretty much all but guaranteed

i might not like them but they know how to play the people who will end up voting.

The only chance NDP has is that removal of MSP premiums.

Where does the money for these "interest free" loans come from? Current home owners and tax payers? Fuck off

Right? Money is never free in the world. Someone is paying the interest. Who suffers when some of these loans default? Obvious vote grab is obvious. Current homeowners and especially those that just bought are screwed over the most.

We removed subjects last night. Deal closes January 20. Applications for the new loan program start January 16 and you must be pre approved. We fit all other criteria. No one seems to know if we will qualify for the new program yet because they havent announced what the start date of the program is, and what counts as the start point for that date.

We did have to borrow a little via other means to hit our down payment target so this program would be a good alternative for people like myself. Saving 50% in up front cash of our down payment in a no interest for 5 years loan would be nice.

what's the rate after 5 years is up?