Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Gunsmokez]

when I sold mine, I had to get all my mins from the strata managment. But, i i did have most of it on hand . The owners should have it as well.

[Ch28]

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

we all know the "reasons" why, but this is what's so stupid about the whole RE market and what most people are sick of

Exactly.

If he wanted "mid to high 1.8" then just list it at that price. Instead, he chose to list it at a lower price to try and incite a bidding war between buyers, and when he didn't get what he wanted he just peaced out. It's a giant waste of every person's time and energy. This is the exact behaviour that's wrong with the real estate market in BC

[westopher]

Originally Posted by yoursyumiko

Expecting somewhere in mid to high 1.8, asking 1.79.

So you chose not to sell your 1.8 million dollar home over 20k when you were offered over asking.
Thats some interesting logic.

[Sw0op]

Originally Posted by westopher

So you chose not to sell your 1.8 million dollar home over 20k when you were offered over asking.
Thats some interesting logic.

oh man...seriously???....TGIF...

[Gunsmokez]

Originally Posted by Ch28

Exactly.

If he wanted "mid to high 1.8" then just list it at that price. Instead, he chose to list it at a lower price to try and incite a bidding war between buyers, and when he didn't get what he wanted he just peaced out. It's a giant waste of every person's time and energy. This is the exact behaviour that's wrong with the real estate market in BC

Nothing wrong it. There are cons to that as well, and he ended up on the losing side of it. I've done it, was on the upper end of it. Had some really stupid low ball offers, mid offers, asking price and higher then asking price.

[hud 91gt]

I’d be so pissed of I offered over asking and the offer was turned down because they wanted more. Should be some sort of fee the seller has to pay for doing that. Instead the realtor takes the hit. Although it was probably their idea in the first place. Lol.

The guy above says there is nothing wrong with it. What’s wrong with you?

I listed my car for sale last fall. Had an excellent offer and I got scared and turned it down, saying I was taking it off the market (which I did). I felt so shitty. I still feel like an ass. The next day something fell on the car and dented the trunk. Karmas a bitch.

[Gunsmokez]

Why would there be any thing wrong with it? They can state which ever price they want and decide if and when they want to sell. If you do not like it , do not offer a price. Seeing a low price from the get go, your realtor should have told you what a proper offer would entail and the reasoning behind it.

If you feel sad for someone by simply declining a offer there perhaps is other issues to that.

Other issues that your offer could be turned down to , could be a ton of other factors just not money. Could be timeline, stipulations or they just might not like the way you look lol. My point is, it is THEIR house and property and they can choose however they want to sell it.

[welfare]

don't people usually price waaay below market to incite bidding wars? His asking isn't much below what he wants

And I agree
He can ask and decline what he wants. Free market.
He might gain, might lose. His business

[Hondaracer]

It’s their asset. Who are you to say what they value it at?

[twitchyzero]

I don't think people have any gripes about the seller expecting 1.8x when assessed value is 1.7

but let that be the asking price, and if you really don't feel comfortable selling you can always back out, it's your home

meh, free market, if there's buyers wanting to get into a bidding war, more power to the seller

[hud 91gt]

It is the norm. I’m not debating that. Doesn’t mean there isn’t something wrong with it. Its just dishonesty really. That’s the world sadly.

I can be a pretty shrewd negotiator when I want to be. But my word, is my word. (My example above was still below my ridiculously high asking price, but Very fair).

Gunsmokez, obviously the terms or subjects of the offer would have an impact. I am talking strictly the dollar value being the only issue.

Hondaracer: maybe it’s just me, but when I price something to sell, I’ve valued it at that point. But I also hate drama/bullshit/games in my life, so maybe that’s why I have an issue with the sales tactic.

[Hehe]

He was looking to upsize... whatever the price he'd sell is indifferent as his house and the house he's looking to buy would move up and down with it.

Nevertheless, not sure where exactly his house was... I'm surprised that he turned down an offer over assessment given the recent developments in RE market.

From what I'm hearing, except some special cases, detached are mostly selling below assessment if seller is looking to get the deal done.

[DA9ve]

these are the codes of conduct they need to put in place for realtors and sellers. You set price $xxx and if it meets that (or beyond), you MUST sell. none of this bs "oh i wanted more and priced it lower to start bidding wars". When do you price a vehicle and ask for below value just to entice people to look at it and say "yes ill buy it for asking" and you come back and say no.... i actually wanted for more... fuck sakes.. man fuck you (or your realtor) for doing that

[SkunkWorks]

Absolutely.

Yes it's a free market. Doesn't mean seller isn't a time-wasting douche however.

[Euro7r]

RE agents is a small word, people know each other somehow someway. Reminds me of my neighbour place, got his asking price and then didn't decide to sell, flaked out. Now he's known as the "flaker" on his place. Not so easy to sell anymore LOL according to neighbour.

[nah]

I hope he doesn't get an offer higher than the one he turned down. Greed is how we're in the current RE situation.

[Roach]

Originally Posted by nah

I hope he doesn't get an offer higher than the one he turned down. Greed is how we're in the current RE situation.

I also hope the realtors get a rude awakening.

While there are some great people out there in the profession, my experience with many is that they are on average incredibly entitled and condescending to others. Over compensating for a profession that requires little education or experience to penetrate. Its time for this madness to stop so it filters out some truly poor realtors and humbles the rest who use hype to prey on the uneducated.

Kev

[Drow]

Overcompensated as fuck

Yes im jelly

[nah]

I'd love to see this happen to some realtors in town as I know a lot of them are doing these activities.

How to lose big money in Toronto real estate

[Gunsmokez]

Originally Posted by SkunkWorks

Absolutely.

Yes it's a free market. Doesn't mean seller isn't a time-wasting douche however.

Takes alot of effort to sell as well. Even more so, if you stage your place (this is not cheap and time sensitive ). Take time to clean up, get family away etc. And the up and downs of pricing and negotiating. Also, the risk if you put down too low in a bidding war that does not work. Then your house or place gets nothing but low ball offers later since it sat for a while. Real sellers, will also have a place they want to buy as well. So the pricing game is very important. Hence why you see lower then normal pricing, so the seller has options and more offers . Whether is lower or higher, they can decide on what to do. Where as if you price it at what you THINK or WANT then it can sit, while the place you want gets taken.

I do not think, people will just their place up for the hell of it. If the place is even half decent that is. If its a shit hole, or tear down. Yah, I can see people wasting time and testing the waters.

[Traum]

Not sure if this video has been posted before here in the thread, but I'd be interested in what RS thinks about Sullivan's comments:

https://www.facebook.com/samsullivan...5671279161042/

The video has been circulating in my social media feeds lately. Personally, I am quite skeptical of the views Sullivan is projecting. In particular, I find the "income" comment, the 3-, 4-bedroom comments, and density comments to be especially questionable or problematic in one way or another. Lastly, I am extremely skeptical of Sullivan himself because of his BC Liberals party ties.

One indisputable fact that I will always remember is, under the BC Liberals party reign, RE prices in BC, and esp in the Lower Mainland, soared to levels that have become unaffordable for working class Vancouverites. And during this price hike, the governing party -- the BC Liberals -- did next to nothing until they finally realized they are about to lose in the upcoming election.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Traum

Not sure if this video has been posted before here in the thread, but I'd be interested in what RS thinks about Sullivan's comments:

https://www.facebook.com/samsullivan...5671279161042/

The video has been circulating in my social media feeds lately. Personally, I am quite skeptical of the views Sullivan is projecting. In particular, I find the "income" comment, the 3-, 4-bedroom comments, and density comments to be especially questionable or problematic in one way or another. Lastly, I am extremely skeptical of Sullivan himself because of his BC Liberals party ties.

One indisputable fact that I will always remember is, under the BC Liberals party reign, RE prices in BC, and esp in the Lower Mainland, soared to levels that have become unaffordable for working class Vancouverites. And during this price hike, the governing party -- the BC Liberals -- did next to nothing until they finally realized they are about to lose in the upcoming election.

I'm a fairly avid follower of folks in the urban planning world and while I don't know if Sam is right or not I do whole heartedly agree that the there's not enough attention paid to the supply side of the equation and that the response from Vancouver and Burnaby City Hall has been grossly inadequate.

Zoning laws used to be far less restrictive than they are now (when there was more available land there was less to NIMBY to worry about). Today, rules on things like setbacks (how far back your house needs to be from the property line), floor space ratio, and parking requirements make it incredibly hard to add the kind of density that city needs (Sam is 100% on point about the lack of 3 and 4 bedroom options - Burnaby, behind Derek Corrigan's leadership is a terrible offender of this, they have caused far more harm than Vancouver IMHO).

Right now, it's pretty easy to build high density housing in the form of towers but nearly impossible (and not particularly profitable) to build mid-density housing (duplexes, triplexes, townhomes) b/c of how little of it is allowed. NIMBY-ish is driving a lot of this - despite Vancouver allowing laneways on all SFH lots for ~10 years (I think it's longer now) there are still only about 4,000 of them in Vancouver. You can see the demand for mid-size housing playing out in prices to some extent (stuff around $1M is super-HOT).

There are a lot of options available - outright approval for duplexes on any SFH lot in Vancouver/Burnaby, family size laneways (900sf) that can be stratified (sold off), relaxation of parking requirements for legal rental units, allow large SFH lots to be sub-divided (Burnaby has a ridiculous number of 50'+ wide lots that should be split up).

All of these have potential bad impacts long term but it's addressable via course correction (people are too afraid that these kinds of changes are irreversible which they are not and the change happens very slowly anyways).

[Traum]

On the topic of lacking 3 - 4 bedroom apartments, I think the reasons are multi-fold, but are really quite simple. From the developer's perspective, these units don't sell as well as the 1 or 2 bedroom units, and are less profitable to boot. From the buyer's perspective, traditionally these don't compare as well as townhomes and duplexes. So you have a situation where there are low incentives from both the supply and demand sides. And so you don't see them that often -- if ever at all. Personally, for a working class apartment, I have never, ever seen a 4 bedroom apartment, and I wouldn't want one anyway because I would have preferred townhomes or duplexes if I needed 4 rooms. A few years back when I was looking at presales, whenever there is a lack of 3 bedroom apartments in the entire development, I'd ask the developer staff why this is so, and "slow selling" was almost always the answer they told me. A realtor I've worked with before also told me that 3 bedroom apartments are more difficult to sell.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Traum

On the topic of lacking 3 - 4 bedroom apartments, I think the reasons are multi-fold, but are really quite simple. From the developer's perspective, these units don't sell as well as the 1 or 2 bedroom units, and are less profitable to boot. From the buyer's perspective, traditionally these don't compare as well as townhomes and duplexes. So you have a situation where there are low incentives from both the supply and demand sides. And so you don't see them that often -- if ever at all. Personally, for a working class apartment, I have never, ever seen a 4 bedroom apartment, and I wouldn't want one anyway because I would have preferred townhomes or duplexes if I needed 4 rooms. A few years back when I was looking at presales, whenever there is a lack of 3 bedroom apartments in the entire development, I'd ask the developer staff why this is so, and "slow selling" was almost always the answer they told me. A realtor I've worked with before also told me that 3 bedroom apartments are more difficult to sell.

I think Sam's reference to 3-4 bedroom units isn't isolated to apartments (I agree that 3 bedroom apartments are harder to sell and less profitable - also much harder to layout b/c a bedroom requires a window) but to things like townhouses and duplexes. The cities haven't zoned enough land to make building townhouses and duplexes as profitable as condos.

In my neck of the woods (East Van Norquay), most of the area has been zoned for duplexes but the zoning was written over 10 years ago and doesn't reflect actual demand. The smaller units (900-1300sf, 3-4 bedroom) sell for between 900K-1.2M and get snapped up very quickly while the bigger ones (like my 1900sf, 5 bed unit) are sitting for long periods at $1.4-1.6M. The problem though is that most of the lots in my area are setup for larger units which are less profitable for builders.

Eg. A lot of the lots in my area are 5000sf SFH and zoning allows for a duplex with a couple 1900sf units with 5 bedrooms (selling for a total of ~$3M) - if the city would instead allow that lot to be 3 or 4 units with a higher total SF allowance we'd be talking about 4 units of 1200sf selling for ~1.2M each ($4.8M total). A win for buyers, for the homeowner and the builder. Or allow a subdivision of the lot into two parts do it's two separate duplexes or even two separate SFH.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by supafamous

In my neck of the woods (East Van Norquay), most of the area has been zoned for duplexes but the zoning was written over 10 years ago and doesn't reflect actual demand. The smaller units (900-1300sf, 3-4 bedroom) sell for between 900K-1.2M and get snapped up very quickly while the bigger ones (like my 1900sf, 5 bed unit) are sitting for long periods at $1.4-1.6M. The problem though is that most of the lots in my area are setup for larger units which are less profitable for builders.

This is interesting because I have been looking at the Champlain / Killarney area, and that's exactly where I see 5 townhouses -- 4 in the 1500 sq ft range, and 1 in the 1200+ sq ft range -- have been sitting for at least 2 months. The smaller one is priced just below $1M, and the other 4 are all in the $1.2M range. They are doing open houses again this week, and have been doing so for a long time now. But they just aren't selling!

Granted, these are freehold strata townhouses, not freehold duplexes. But still, when the asking price and square footage are so similar, and Champlain / Killarney is arguably a somewhat nicer neighbourhood than Norquay, I am surprised to see the Norquay duplexes moving while the Champlain townhouses sit for months on end.