Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Euro7r]

I feel that in order to survive in this city, really have to go above and beyond than the traditional process. I know many friends that go get education/work and their way to build wealth is "save". To me, how much can one save living in Vancouver...Can only save so much. Well as some of you mentioned, $50K average salary, net $40K, plus expenses (rent/living cost), looking at $25K disposable income if you are lucky enough to save aggresive. Then these are the same people that don't invest or find other means to build more wealth, but complain about this and that being expensive. Even if you could generate an extra 10% of income elsewhere, that still goes a long way once you tack on a few years.

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by yray

depends on how much he is into the next bracket

Of course theres TFSA and RRSP

You never make less net income by working more hours (earning more gross income) It's odd how a lot of people misunderstand income taxation.

Originally Posted by Euro7r

I feel that in order to survive in this city, really have to go above and beyond than the traditional process. I know many friends that go get education/work and their way to build wealth is "save". To me, how much can one save living in Vancouver...Can only save so much. Well as some of you mentioned, $50K average salary, net $40K, plus expenses (rent/living cost), looking at $25K disposable income if you are lucky enough to save aggressive. Then these are the same people that don't invest or find other means to build more wealth, but complain about this and that being expensive.

I think the only way to survive without having family support you or inheritance is to find relevant degrees that will pay well, like comp sci. Everything else doesn't really cut it, if you want to be able to live here comfortably after graduating.

[twitchyzero]

quick question for those thinking about starting a family in this expensive city:

is having a family in a condo/basement suite/laneway houses really the end of the world?

let's say you don't want to sit in traffic 6x a week from Agassiz (work, visiting parents/in-laws)

that's going to be the norm in this city going forward as more of these millennials enter their child-rearing years

[Tapioca]

Among the friends of mine who have detached houses, they often complain about the maintenance that needs to be done. Parenting is a lot different these days - parents are helicopters over their children and spend much of their time chauffeuring their kids around from activity to activity or spending time on Facebook/Instagram and discussing or highlighting their children's achievements. So, I think families under the age of 40 want the house, but don't want to deal with all of the work and money that's required to actually take care of the house because parenting the modern way takes up a lot of time.

On the other hand, high rise apartment living with children ultimately becomes unsustainable given our North American attitudes towards stuff. Eventually, going up and down elevators with young kids and all of their crap becomes annoying. That's why ground oriented housing - walk up apartment buildings, townhouses, duplexes, etc become more appealing to families as they grow older and expand. So, while the detached house in the city or inner suburbs is pretty much out of reach for anyone younger than 30, the market for ground oriented housing should be pretty strong going forward.

Another important consideration for families is security of tenure. Since land is worth so much now, there's very little incentive for owners of older walk up apartments and detached homes to keep their existing properties as rentals when they can get a windfall by selling their lots to developers. So while detached housing that is rental makes little sense in a city with no more available land, new forms of purpose rental that is ground-oriented and family friendly should encouraged by policy makers. I'm thinking co-op housing, leasehold, or rent to own. What the city did in areas like Champlain Heights for False Creek south should be a model in other city owned areas going forward.

[lowside67]

Originally Posted by stewie

Some people are blessed with amazing jobs while they've invested half the effort as everyone else who applied for the position. I know several people who have jobs that pay quite well and only have it thanks to a family member. Social networking goes a long way. You build your connections and after 40 years of doing so and now having a child who's a fresh graduate you reach out to a few friends, old colleagues, past bosses, and ask if they've anything that can help your kid out. They think about it and one of them will be able to offer a job that won't be insulting to them. They'll still need to work hard but they just passed a giant hurdle that most can't get past, getting a decent job that has opportunity to move up higher. Having close personal family ties helps.

Me and my girlfriend were talking about this the other day. Her friend just passed the bar exam and because her father has hookups she's now working in a law firm while all the others who passed the exam are still having a hard time just finding work. Some even working for free just for the experience on their resume.

This is exactly my point. Nobody gets a $200k/yr job just by showing up. Your friend might get a head start to get hired to their first job because of a family connection, friend, etc. but that will never make a difference in the long run 25+ years later.

There are lots of "good" jobs that people can get hired to by being in the right place and the right time and then do them for a lifetime by just doing an average job and staying under the radar. $75k/yr jobs. $100k/yr jobs.

Even if you are a lawyer, to get to $200k/yr means you've made partner at a decent sized firm. Your parents might get you your first job but it'll be your performance that will get you to the big money role - nobody makes partner without billing big hours, bringing in clients, etc. - you know, sales.

I maintain there are no easy $200k/yr jobs and nobody gets them without earning them in some way or another.

-Mark

[Eff-1]

Two incomes in one household makes a big difference.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

quick question for those thinking about starting a family in this expensive city:

is having a family in a condo/basement suite/laneway houses really the end of the world?

let's say you don't want to sit in traffic 6x a week from Agassiz (work, visiting parents/in-laws)

that's going to be the norm in this city going forward as more of these millennials enter their child-rearing years

Realistically for an average family, I think you'd want 800+ sq ft for a family with a single child. That'd afford a bit of room both for mommy and daddy, as well as kiddie #1.

With kiddie #2, you can probably get away with 900+ sq ft with relative comfort. As they get older though, you might really want a place with separate rooms for each kid.

Obviously, people have done it in much smaller spaces. At the same time, it is always nicer to have bigger spaces. I know a family of 4 that made do with a 650 sq ft 1 bedroom suit until kiddie #3 sent the notification out. I know families with 1000+ sq ft suites with a single kid that complains about not having enough space.

Some people absolutely can't stand basement suits. They claim it is the lack of natural light. My natural reaction is to just roll my eyes when I hear this, but logically, I know people can have this condition where they literally becomes clinically depressed with the lack of natural light.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

Two incomes in one household makes a big difference.

The difficulty in this ridiculous city is childcare. I can't even begin to tell how frustrating and $$$$ this is.

I know at least a couple of people where one parent has temporarily or permanently quit work, or drastically reduce their work to only 1 or 2 days to become a stay-at-home parent mostly because of a combination of costs and availability for childcare.

When a household is running on a single income for a few solid years, how do you even build any savings, let alone affording real estates?

[Bonka]

The regulations to setting up a daycare are rigorous here. Excluding leasing costs which already make it cost prohibitive since there are requirements for things like outdoor space, you have to find "good quality" staff, deal with exceedingly demanding parents and their demanding children. As much as there could be opportunities here, it's pretty prohibitive once you detail the hurdles.

Growing up, some parents in the neighbourhood each took turns watching 4-5 other children during the week to make it work. These days, parents can barely handle their own brood.

With the continued rise in the cost of housing, the demographic is slowly shifting with the times with the exodus into smaller living spaces/alternate living arrangements. New construction has already accounted for this shift (car share, on-site playgrounds, mid-upper tier groceries/retail within walking distance).

[RiceIntegraRS]

i wanted to share my story on how i managed to buy my place which is kinda similiar to Ghosts story. It wasnt till i hit 30(2014) when i started to smarten up and wanted to have goals in my life. I partied, travelled, spent my money on frivolous things and basically had $0 to my name after working for 12 years at a average paying job. I wanted to get married, and have my own place after renting for 5yrs in Vancouver. First i spent most of my savings on my gfs engagment ring, i also found a better job that paid me abit more than i was making before. when i hit 31(2015) i still had no money in the bank other than 13k in rrsps i contributed back in my early 20s.

This is when i started to save everything i possibly could. i managed to save 31k in a year and a half while paying for a wedding. I dropped 12K into my rrsps and then received 4k back on my tax return. when the spring of 2017 rolled around i hit 50k for a downpayment and i was off looking for a place. I had a Budget, Location, and Size in mind for a place but i knew that something had to be sacrificed and it was location. My budget couldnt change cause i had no more money and i lived in a 2bd condo and that wasnt gonna work for me anymore. I managed to find a 1500sqft townhouse in surrey and i down 10% to get it. I knew there was no way i could never save 20% and keep up with the sky rocketing house prices. It had to be 10% down now or never. Me and my wife moved into our townhouse in August and have never been happier.

I should say during that time i had the option live at my parents rent free but i continued to rent in Vancouver, and due to some circumstances it was just myself saving all the money it wasnt our duel income to paid for the downpayment.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by Traum

The difficulty in this ridiculous city is childcare. I can't even begin to tell how frustrating and $$$$ this is.

I know at least a couple of people where one parent has temporarily or permanently quit work, or drastically reduce their work to only 1 or 2 days to become a stay-at-home parent mostly because of a combination of costs and availability for childcare.

When a household is running on a single income for a few solid years, how do you even build any savings, let alone affording real estates?

Daycare availability in the suburbs is fine. It's still expensive, but at least you're not on a wait list for 3 years.

The costs associated with having children is why many child-rearing women have jobs in the public sector. The public sector offers maternity leave top-ups, flexible working arrangements, and a defined benefit pension. That's how a family pays for daycare, juggles schedules, and saves for retirement simultaneously.

Also, all cash gifts for the kids from relatives should go into an RESP immediately for an immediate 20% from the government. 18 years of compounding in a couch potato mix plus 20% from the government can easily yield 50-60K by the time the kid hits post-secondary. I'm sure a lot of people here would have appreciated that kind of foresight from their parents.

[Traum]

I would say daycare costs is as big a difficulty as availability. Esp when the child is young, why put the child in daycare when the costs of daycare pretty much eats up an entire salary? One of the parent might as well stay home to enjoy the child rearing experience while not having to work, and saving on the daycare costs.

[Tapioca]

Lots of people in here have mocked the Trudeau government, but if you had young children, you would benefit a lot from the child benefit program. Lots of couples with children receive hundreds of dollars, tax free, from the federal government each month. This puts a significant dent in expenses, like child care.

Once a woman takes home over $3000 per month, putting 2 kids in daycare does actually make sense as full time daycare for any child below 2.5 years is about 1300-1400 per month. Daycare becomes cheaper once the child hits 3 years old (about half). Assuming that there's a 2-3 year age gap between kids, daycare costs are around 2000-2500 per month. Using the child benefit and the daycare tax credit, those costs are roughly halved at the end of the day.

Lots of women change when they become mothers, but lots of women also find being a stay at home monotonous and cannot wait to get back to work. And unless that young mother works in the public sector, with job security, a significant gap in employment can be detrimental to her career.

[CivicBlues]

Parents can't afford kids on meager private sector salaries >
One or both parents move into public sector jobs to make it work >
Public sector becomes bloated with overabudance of employees >
Public sector crown corp. raises rates across the board to cover new costs (i.e. salaries and benefits)>
Cost of living goes up >
Parents can't afford kids on meager private sector salaries

Vicious cycle I tells ya

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Lots of people in here have mocked the Trudeau government, but if you had young children, you would benefit a lot from the child benefit program. Lots of couples with children receive hundreds of dollars, tax free, from the federal government each month. This puts a significant dent in expenses, like child care.

People harp on and mock JT because he is 1) a libtard 2) a hypocrite and 3) detached from reality. If it wasn't for PET being his influential father, his own libtard views would have landed him in the left end of the NDP spectrum.

[Hondaracer]

not having children, JT policies negatively effect my wallet far more than positively.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

With all those questions, I would highly recommend using a mortgage broker to answer them. A bank will of course answer them in a way that is beneficial to them and them only.

Going back a few pages, what makes you thunk a broker dont take care of their own interests first? I say do your due diligence and explore all options. It's your money, there are no easy ways out

Originally Posted by westopher

A lot of homeowners in Vancouver really accomplished nothing more than being born into the right generation, when homes were a couple years wage instead of 20.

I get what you're saying, but its easy to take for granted the cheap money we've enjoyed for 10+ years now. Not that long ago, mortgage rates were 10+%, even nearing 20%. Those numbers really mess around with affordability too, saying a house used to cost 4x an average annual salary is really not fair.

Many of our parents toughed it out during those times for our betterment, and made it work. So now its up to us to tough it out as well and find a way to make it work for our kids -- and im not advocating about complaining for gov intervention. Things are never easy, nor have they ever been easy.

[MarkyMark]

How much money does the government give you per child if there's only one income? There's this guy at my work who's always taking time off so he's probably only pulling in around 50k a year and he says he gets around 500 bucks a month per kid, and he just got 8 grand from the government from back pay because his wife was from the states and his kid was born there.

He's always bragging about how he gets more than he actually spends on his kids so he just pockets the rest. I'm sure that changes when your kids get older but I was always curious if he's exaggerating or not.

[68style]

^
Child and family benefits calculator

It’s about $5,600 a year per child at $50k income if you’re single. It doesn’t change with age, stays the same until the child is 18.

[Bonka]

Originally Posted by UFO

Going back a few pages, what makes you thunk a broker dont take care of their own interests first? I say do your due diligence and explore all options. It's your money, there are no easy ways out



I get what you're saying, but its easy to take for granted the cheap money we've enjoyed for 10+ years now. Not that long ago, mortgage rates were 10+%, even nearing 20%. Those numbers really mess around with affordability too, saying a house used to cost 4x an average annual salary is really not fair.

Many of our parents toughed it out during those times for our betterment, and made it work. So now its up to us to tough it out as well and find a way to make it work for our kids -- and im not advocating about complaining for gov intervention. Things are never easy, nor have they ever been easy.

Notwithstanding affordable housing costs, how many of us gen-x/millennials were willing to live our parent's lives? We're now more than ever a consumerist/consumption society and while our incomes are generally higher than our parents the amount of income we're willing to spend on non-essentials is markedly higher. "Maintaining lifestyle" is such a prevalent word being used nowadays that it begs the question - how many of the 20-30 somethings were truly willing to sacrifice their lifestyle for (overpriced) housing?

Alongside wanting affordable housing, there's the lust for multiple top of the line electronics, vacations, eating out, premium cars, renovations, full fledged cellphone plans. Cheap money has given us all a feeling of entitlement but the give should be that housing is within easy grasp for a generation not willing to sacrifice anything on a personal level.

I can certainly guarantee a large percentage (myself included) not willing to live in a home as is with outdated finishings, do without eating out, driving 20yr old shitboxes, own dummy cells and no travelling but that's what many of our parents did with their meager incomes.

As much as everyone bitches about the cost of housing, I'd wager the same group would likely not be willing to enter the market if interest rates were 20%. Everyone becomes a genius when hindsight is 20/20.

The new realities of today end up either being a walking debt machine or if you're fortunate, your parents can supplement your down payment. It was mentioned before in this thread, but if we really cared to address housing costs, we'd certainly make way more noise than we do. Instead, we'd rather take it up the ass and complain online. What times we live in.

[68style]

Say what you want about house prices, lord knows everything's been said in the media and this thread, but I just hate the feeling that in Canada... specifically Vancouver and Toronto... it's become a situation where you have to do something crooked or underhanded to get ahead. You gotta know someone who knows someone or go the China route or whatever... there's so many underhanded "games" being played by so many big money players and politicians... this isn't supposed to happen in a place like Canada, and it definitely shouldn't be happening with a life necessity like shelter.

It's disheartening and disappointing on so many levels. Knowing that for the average person who's not in the RE industry and/or doesn't have access to vast sums of money, you are for sure going to get ripped off and you have to go into a home buying situation accepting that you're being ripped off and that someone else is profiting huge off of you. That isn't the way Canada is supposed to feel and it's the ugliest of the ugly faces of capitalism. A sad commentary of today's society.

[MarkyMark]

There is a lot of truth to the fact that probably most people don't want to live with only the bare essentials even if it meant owning a house. Unfortunately for the ones that would, you'd still be priced out. I admire the way our parents lived to get where they are, but they at least had a fighting chance compared to what's going on right now.

[GS8]

Probably the thing I hate most about renting an apartment

Spoiler!

Luckily, my place isn't so bad

For me, personally, the more I read about the twisted shit that goes on in this part of the country with real estate, the more I do not want to take part in it. I'd rather move to a different city and buy something the 'old fashioned' way.

But I know the parasitic nature of this business is going spread across like the virus it is.

[twitchyzero]

boomers could work during the summer in college/university and not ever have to think about loans

aside from a recession in the 80s, they also likely landed cushy jobs with benefits out of school

heck even 10 years back, there were recruiters going to schools. Now it's fighting for scrapes

[Tone Loc]

Originally Posted by 68style

Say what you want about house prices, lord knows everything's been said in the media and this thread, but I just hate the feeling that in Canada... specifically Vancouver and Toronto... it's become a situation where you have to do something crooked or underhanded to get ahead. You gotta know someone who knows someone or go the China route or whatever... there's so many underhanded "games" being played by so many big money players and politicians... this isn't supposed to happen in a place like Canada, and it definitely shouldn't be happening with a life necessity like shelter.

That isn't the way Canada is supposed to feel and it's the ugliest of the ugly faces of capitalism. A sad commentary of today's society.

Agreed 100%. Speaking for myself and my family, who immigrated from the Philippines to escape the corruption that is still taking place today, the situation that is slowly unfolding in Canada reminds them of how, in the Philippines, if you aren't wealthy and/or well-connected, you're never going to move up.

All of my Chinese friends feel the same way, all of whom are middle-class (I don't have any wealthy friends lol). Their families immigrated to Canada to escape the corruption and underhandedness of their own country, and are noticing it becoming the norm here, especially where real estate is concerned.

And it's only going to get worse, especially with Trudeau's "you're on your own" attitude to policy change regarding foreign ownership: https://globalnews.ca/news/3334510/t...nto-vancouver/