Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Harvey Specter]

Originally Posted by Traum

Are you referring to inventory in general? or specifically only on:

1) apartment/condo
2) townhomes
3) duplex / single detached

?

Single detached homes in Vancouver.

In regards to condos, I feel inventory will be tight and a lot of investors will hold because rent isn't going down anytime soon.

[welfare]

Originally Posted by originalhypa

It makes me wish that Quebec had voted for sovereignty back in 1980 or 1995. Having lived in Montreal, it was a unique society. But no different than the many cultured areas that we have in our province.

Y'know, I used to despise the French Canadians of Quebec. But I've grown much more admirable of their patriotism. Something I feel is lacking in this province. Like you were eluding, it's broken up into cultures here. Scattered really.
IMO, it's like we've focused so much on being a culturally inclusive province, that we've become exclusive to Canadian culture. The culture that should unify us.

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

I'm keeping an eye on inventory this Spring because if inventory stays low don't expect prices to come crashing down. In fact you'll probably see a spike.

Are they even building new detached homes in Vancouver?
I'm no expert, clearly, but if it is foreign money that is propping up the market, I don't see how it could correct itself. Maybe that's why it hasn't happened.
And increasing the interest rates would be relatively futile, if the money holding it together is foreign. It really would only negatively effect the locals struggling to get into the market.
Like I said, no expert. But that's what I see. It's not really a free market when you're dealing with foreign money and non residents. It becomes a manipulated market.

[Traum]

Interesting story in and of itself:

Twisted path for China-to-B.C. cash revealed in real estate deal | The Province

Some relevant bits in regards to the overall LM RE market include:

The CEO of a Chinese company moved $750,000 from China to Metro Vancouver for a real estate deal with the help of nine strangers who each brought $50,000 into Canada for “tourist purposes,” according to a B.C. Supreme Court judgment.

...

The B.C. realtor who acted as the buying agent on the 2011 deal, Ravi Panwar, told Postmedia that such land deals — where offshore investors partner with B.C.-based counterparts — are “quite common,” though he didn’t know how often they involve money shipments like those outlined in this case.

It is also worth noting that this Panwar realtor is currently sitting on the BC Property Assessment Review Panel for a three-year appointment by the provincial government. Judging by his remarks in the news articles, I wouldn't go quite as far as to say that he is a sleazy lying scumbag just yet, but he sounds like someone I would not trust at all. And yet he is on the review panel...

[welfare]

With the amount of loopholes, money laundering through Vancouver real estate is practically encouraged.
It's not even required for the government to know the name of the beneficiary owner of a home.
And to think that the board is going to diligently police matters is a joke. Almost as big a joke as thinking the government is going to rock the boat and turn their pockets out.
They know what to do. It's not complicated.
Would it cause the long awaited correction? Yes. But it would bring back a proper, sustainable market. JMO tho

[stewie]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

Single detached homes in Vancouver.

In regards to condos, I feel inventory will be tight and a lot of investors will hold because rent isn't going down anytime soon.

For the condo market, do you or anybody else think people will refrain from selling for now with the new mortgage stress test? They can ask for a stupidly huge price tag knowing that the everyday person will no longer be approved to purchase it at that price possibly leaving it stagnant for a bit. Maybe they would have to bite the bullet and drop the asking price so a larger pool of people are able to make offers?

For those who buy with the purpose to invest and rent it out, would a speculation tax being thrown around in the air be a deterrent to hold off on it? The buildings I see that last the longest on the market are the ones with "no rentals allowed" on the listing. It's usually the older buildings but it just shocks me how it's night and day with how many days difference there is between them on market.

[Mr.HappySilp]

^^ Most of the condo that are being bought is by people who don't need a mortgage so the whole stress test doesn't matter. Been a few VIP/Pre sale and none of the people there looked like that need a mortgage.

Apartments mostly are now being purchase for investment handle by a rental company/agency to rent it out (mostly to international students) those who purchase to live in it I would say 90% don't need mortgage. For some reason Asian love condos. The people that I talk to during these sales have the money to get a detached home but prefer condos coz of the view and don't have worry about house keeping (most of them are in their early 30s to late 30s). I assume as they age the prefer a detached home.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

The people that I talk to during these sales have the money to get a detached home but prefer condos coz of the view and don't have worry about house keeping (most of them are in their early 30s to late 30s). I assume as they age the prefer a detached home.

They won't (prefer a detached home) unless they grew up on one.

(Gosh I hate taking the elevator or the stairs whenever I need to do something. Taking the garbage out at my MIL's high rise is a ridiculous 10+ min affair because of the stupid elevator wait. Even at home where I am in a low rise apartment, it is still a 5+ min trip.)

[yray]

Originally Posted by Traum

They won't (prefer a detached home) unless they grew up on one.

(Gosh I hate taking the elevator or the stairs whenever I need to do something. Taking the garbage out at my MIL's high rise is a ridiculous 10+ min affair because of the stupid elevator wait. Even at home where I am in a low rise apartment, it is still a 5+ min trip.)

pump those legs

[Traum]

Originally Posted by yray

pump those legs

LOL~ I already do as often as the situation allows it. It takes exactly the same amount of time for me to take the stairs vs the elevator at home, assuming there is no waiting for the elevator at all, and I get a bit of exercise while I'm at the stairs.

At my MIL's highrise, the geniuses there (or maybe it is the management company's idea) have the stairwell door hooked up to the building alarm, so you can't even use the stairs without tripping off the alarm. With only 3 elevators serving 40+2 floors (and roughly 8 units per floor), the elevator wait is ridiculous.

[Mr.HappySilp]

Originally Posted by Traum

LOL~ I already do as often as the situation allows it. It takes exactly the same amount of time for me to take the stairs vs the elevator at home, assuming there is no waiting for the elevator at all, and I get a bit of exercise while I'm at the stairs.

At my MIL's highrise, the geniuses there (or maybe it is the management company's idea) have the stairwell door hooked up to the building alarm, so you can't even use the stairs without tripping off the alarm. With only 3 elevators serving 40+2 floors (and roughly 8 units per floor), the elevator wait is ridiculous.

Try having 2 out of 3 elevators broken every 3 days for a month. God is such a gong show.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

Try having 2 out of 3 elevators broken every 3 days for a month. God is such a gong show.

Been there, done that too. The building was a long strip type thing, with 2 elevators in the building at opposite ends. Only 1 of them leads to the lobby where the main (street level) entrance and mailboxes are, and that is the one that continually breaks down. At its worst, I think it was continually out of serivce for a solid 1+ months, and there were break downs before, and continued to have breakdown afterwards. It was a KONE elevator in a brand new building too.

Incidentally, the 2 elevators at work closest to my office are also KONE, and they too have some very questionable reliability issues.

[Harvey Specter]

Interesting look at where Millionaires live...



Rank (North America) City Country # of Millionaires
#1 New York City USA 339,200
#2 Bay Area USA 180,300
#3 Los Angeles USA 173,300
#4 Toronto Canada 109,300
#5 Miami USA 31,600
#6 Washington D.C. USA 31,200
#7 Vancouver Canada 31,100

The U.S. has 4.3 million millionaires, and they are widely dispersed through the country.

The Knight Frank 2017 report lists five cities: NYC, Washington, D.C., San Francisco (incl. Bay Area), Los Angeles, and Miami – all of which, according to their calculations, have more than 30k millionaires.

Canada’s Toronto also has broken the six-digit barrier with over 100,000 millionaires. That puts the Big Smoke in pretty unique company, as only 17 cities globally can make such a claim.

[subordinate]

i think I'm pretty much priced out.

At this point,

I feel like I'm better off with keeping my downpayment in a CCP portfolio, assuming modest return of 5% annual and monthly investments of 2000, could get me just under 2 million @ 60, plus my pension.

Relocation is possible.

Owning a 2br condo just for the sake of it, is too much of a risk. Over 50% of my net income to a mortgage + utlities+ property tax, etc, and insurance and other surprise fees (Doesn't really leave much for emergencies), unless I rent the other room. Eh..lots of factors.

pretty much, life's a beach

[Mr.HappySilp]

Originally Posted by subordinate

i think I'm pretty much priced out.

At this point,

I feel like I'm better off with keeping my downpayment in a CCP portfolio, assuming modest return of 5% annual and monthly investments of 2000, could get me just under 2 million @ 60, plus my pension.

Relocation is possible.

Owning a 2br condo just for the sake of it, is too much of a risk. Over 50% of my net income to a mortgage + utlities+ property tax, etc, and insurance and other surprise fees (Doesn't really leave much for emergencies), unless I rent the other room. Eh..lots of factors.

pretty much, life's a beach

I hope you are not dating an Asian girl. Coz they will want you to own a property. Heard so many irl stories from firend's friend or even people I know that they can't get a serious gf or can't find one because most of them wants their bf to own a property even if it is on mortgage. Girls feel more secure that way. But with so many rich guys around these days what chance does the average joe have anyways.

[ForbiddenX]

Originally Posted by Traum

They won't (prefer a detached home) unless they grew up on one.

(Gosh I hate taking the elevator or the stairs whenever I need to do something. Taking the garbage out at my MIL's high rise is a ridiculous 10+ min affair because of the stupid elevator wait. Even at home where I am in a low rise apartment, it is still a 5+ min trip.)

Is there a reason why garbage chutes aren't more common in Vancouver? This is something I really miss lol. Both places I lived at in Toronto had garbage chutes and the low rise in SF had one out the window in the hallway lol.

I don't ever remember seeing one at any of the buildings we checked out. Although we have a garborater which has been super handy for the smaller compostable stuff.

[subordinate]

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

I hope you are not dating an Asian girl. Coz they will want you to own a property. Heard so many irl stories from firend's friend or even people I know that they can't get a serious gf or can't find one because most of them wants their bf to own a property even if it is on mortgage. Girls feel more secure that way. But with so many rich guys around these days what chance does the average joe have anyways.

Lol...seeing an asian girl,

but if she leaves me, so be it.

[Matsuda]

Originally Posted by ForbiddenX

Is there a reason why garbage chutes aren't more common in Vancouver? This is something I really miss lol. Both places I lived at in Toronto had garbage chutes and the low rise in SF had one out the window in the hallway lol.

I don't ever remember seeing one at any of the buildings we checked out. Although we have a garborater which has been super handy for the smaller compostable stuff.

oh man that's one thing I missed living in TO, throw the garbage down the chute =D

[Traum]

Originally Posted by ForbiddenX

Is there a reason why garbage chutes aren't more common in Vancouver? This is something I really miss lol. Both places I lived at in Toronto had garbage chutes and the low rise in SF had one out the window in the hallway lol.

I don't ever remember seeing one at any of the buildings we checked out. Although we have a garborater which has been super handy for the smaller compostable stuff.

Was living in an apartment with one of those when I was living in Ontario too, but unlike you guys, my experience with them has been pretty horrible. First of all, the tunnel just reeks. And then the idiots at the building (with a good portion being ugrad students, probably?) regularly find creative ways to clog the tunnel. Other times, they will just jam / attempt to jam a bag that is obviously larger than what will fit into the chute... I mean, come on...

Seeing how some of Metro Vancouver residents here operate in an apartment building, I have to say I am kind of glad we won't have garbage chutes here...

[Hondaracer]

my last building had a garbage chute but the way the residents treated the building in the garage system was a joke and it’s probably best we didn’t have one. The people on my floor would open the hatch and just leave a bag sitting right in there instead of pushing it down every time. I was gonna snap if I ever saw the person doing it because it was always a half ass packaged bag of garbage

[CivicBlues]

Used to have a garbage chute as well here in Vancouver. It was boarded up after too many idiots clogged it. Some resident even posted photographic instructions on how to operate it, but the stupid idiots just kept leaving their garbage behind the door but not "pushed" down. Suspect ESL fobs for ruining it.

It was nice to just take out the garbage in my underwear as it was right outside our door. Now I have to get dressed to take out the garbage downstairs. FML

This is why we can't have nice things.

[originalhypa]

A long and interesting read.

Following real estate money from China — impossible!

A new lengthy B.C. Supreme Court judgment reveals the complicated financial and real-estate legerdemain gatekeepers face trying to regulate ultra-wealthy Chinese investors in Canada.

Those on both sides in the litigation, who called each other liars, acted as if they cared little about financial transparency or honesty in record-keeping even in deals involving sums that would stagger ordinary Canadians.

As a result, the court concluded it was virtually impossible to “follow the money” to determine who paid what and who truly owned three multi-million homes on Vancouver’s west side

“The very structure of the transactions at issue in this case was unusual in the Canadian context, as it involved large sums of money changing hands over several years, without any written agreements in place or any common accounting practices,” Justice Susan Griffin said.

She explained the two rich families from the People’s Republic were “wealthy enough not to be bothered to account with each other down to the penny, or indeed to the nearest tens of thousands of dollars.”


These representatives of China’s elite played fast and loose with the truth and treated provincial immigration programs and permanent residency requirements as mere annoyances.

One compared having to spend the required qualifying time in her expensive residence to a jail stint.

The two families had invested together for nearly a decade but fell out in 2014 when their joint investments soured, giving rise to lawsuits in China and B.C.

The Fu family, who arrived in Vancouver in 2010 after applying under the P.E.I. investor program, initiated the Supreme Court action as part of their efforts to recoup losses they blamed on their former friends.

The Xia family, the successful defendants, obtained approval from Manitoba and came as landed immigrants in Aug. 2012.

In good times, the families made astronomical profits in the republic, particularly in Hangzhou, known as China’s Gold Coast near Shanghai, between 2010 and 2012.

They transferred millions to Canada and purchased three properties in Vancouver: 3561 Mayfair Ave. in 2010 for $2,380,000; 3307 West 19 Ave., in 2011 for $2,850,000, and 4769 Elm Street in 2012 for $3,080,000.

Spoiler!

The Fu family launched the B.C. litigation when the West 19 Ave. property was sold in 2014 and the money reputedly used to buy two other homes.

A realtor associated with Pacific Place-ARC Realty Ltd. apparently had “no trouble” abetting them in their local real-estate sleight-of-hand but did not testify, the judge noted.

According to the ruling, there were some 174 transactions between the two families during the years in question in both countries, money was loaned in one country and repaid in another, some transactions used false beneficiaries and information about the true source of funds was falsified.

Justice Griffin said the families agreed it best to structure the transactions in ways that disguised true ownership, “just as they often did when buying properties in China.”

The Fu family used their employees to transfer lump sums just under the personal restriction on transferring more than $50,000 out of China to avoid detection. They transferred almost $1 million in Sept. and Oct. 2012 this way.

The parties acknowledged that steps were taken to evade Chinese currency controls, minimize taxes, obtain a favourable mortgage, evade Chinese restrictions on the number of properties a person could own or otherwise gain an economic leg-up, Justice Griffin said.

Spoiler!

“The parties admit that their intentions in their dealings were oral and not written and it seemed to me from the evidence that at times the intentions were not even stated but implied,” she added.

Although the justice didn’t address it, the duplicitous practices acknowledged by the families are often the badges of money-laundering and created a screen that prevented financial and real-estate regulators from knowing what was truly happening.

In the end, Justice Griffin concluded in spite of inconsistencies with the Xias’ evidence, the plaintiffs were bald-faced liars.

Guoqing Fu, father of the family, claimed on his income tax return a minuscule worldwide income of $97.11, she said:

“This was an incredible assertion given the fact he owns one of the top 10 textile manufacturing and distribution companies based in one of the biggest textile manufacturing centres of China. The whole of the evidence led me to conclude that the Fu Family will assert false facts in this legal proceeding when they believe it suits their interests. I did not find any one of the plaintiffs to be generally credible or reliable.”

The justice added about 26-year-old son Xiao Feng: “It was clear to me from the content of his evidence that (he) had no internal moral guideline to tell the truth, and absolutely no hesitation in lying when he thought it might help him or the Fu Family. I could not detect any sincerity in his evidence.

“Indeed, (he) was sophisticated in lying, including scheming to deceive Canadian immigration authorities in 2012 so that he could maintain permanent residency status without spending the necessary days residing in Canada.”

Spoiler!

Given all the shenanigans, the decision read more like a divination than a forensic accounting.

Justice Griffin concluded the Xia family had been the true owners of the properties on Mayfair and West 19th while both families were deemed to own a half interest in the Elm Street home, which she said should be sold and the proceeds split.

And she couldn’t help quipping in a wry swipe at the raging domestic real-estate controversy: “For some reason the parties on both sides of the case seem to be reluctant to suggest that some property purchases in Vancouver were for investment purposes.”

http://vancouversun.com/opinion/colu...ime=1515458564

Ain't nobody wants to move to PEI or Manitoba!
Except for those of us who were born in Vancouver, because it's the only place that is affordable to raise a family.

[rsx10]

I put down an offer on a townhouse in Richmond at a little over asking price but was outbid by $100k. How can one person compete with type of market anymore.

[Traum]

These 2 sections pretty much summed it all up:

Guoqing Fu, father of the family, claimed on his income tax return a minuscule worldwide income of $97.11, she said:

“This was an incredible assertion given the fact he owns one of the top 10 textile manufacturing and distribution companies based in one of the biggest textile manufacturing centres of China. The whole of the evidence led me to conclude that the Fu Family will assert false facts in this legal proceeding when they believe it suits their interests.

...

about 26-year-old son Xiao Feng: “It was clear to me from the content of his evidence that (he) had no internal moral guideline to tell the truth, and absolutely no hesitation in lying when he thought it might help him or the Fu Family.

[hud 91gt]

and nice Canadians just let it happen... But with those sly tactics and morals, how do you even fix it?

[Traum]

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

and nice Canadians just let it happen... But with those sly tactics and morals, how do you even fix it?

If you ask me, what I'd like to see is to have their citizenship / permanent residency status revoked. (Damn I never would have thought I'd be supporting Harper's Bill C-whatever it was that revokes citizenship...) But in reality, a person cannot be stateless. So if an ex-Chinese national has become a naturalized Canadian, under Chinese law he has to forfeit his Chinese citizenship, and Canada would be unable to revoke his Canadian citizenship.

What is clear is, we -- or at least I -- don't want to see this kind of lying SOB scumbags staying in our country.