Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Liquid_o2]

June is property tax, home insurance, and car insurance for both my wife and I's cars.

All in one month

[6793026]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

I get my property tax, home/car insurance, and income tax all at the same time late March every year.

yup.. i hate this time of the yr.. my most emo time ever.

xmas credit card bills.
new yr / xmas parties
property tax
income tax
sewage / water bill (city of richmond)... all happened.. FML.
this yr..COVID + unemployment for now 6 mths... falk...

[TOS'd]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Shouldn't you have saved up/planned for property taxes/car insurance/home insurance? It's not something that's a surprise. Sure insurance goes up but everyone knew for the last 6 months that insurance is going up.

Our property taxes has gone up every year. Ditto home insurance. Car insurance has been a mixed bag because I've had a few different cars in the last few years.

It's not that people haven't saved up or planned for the property taxes and various insurances.

It's more like a reminder that everything is coming at once, or around the same time, that you owe this, this, and this.

[fliptuner]

Wait til you have kids lol. Just dropped $3k on dance lessons.

[Tapioca]

Monthly payment plans and the automation of your personal finances generally do a lot to ease the pain of your bills. There should be no additional premiums to pay property taxes on a monthly basis, for example.

[Hondaracer]

It’s not really a surprise ever, it just fucking sucks lol

[JDMDreams]

Deferral? I think Surrey let's you defer with no penalty, not sure where else

[blkgsr]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

June is property tax, home insurance, and car insurance for both my wife and I's cars.

All in one month

March = utilities
May = Truck and home insurance
June = property tax

[CivicBlues]

Property Tax due date has been pushed back to September this year!

[Tapioca]

Real talk – how many of you leveraged your equity and incomes to the maximum to buy your current home?

I’m a pretty risk averse guy, but lately, I’m wondering what lies ahead in terms of the real estate market. The pandemic has made me reflect on our family needs. My wife and I are white collar workers and we foresee working from home being a normal thing for the long-term, so we need more space for ourselves and our young kids.

We probably have about $350K-375K in equity in our townhome. We’ve spent about 40K on it over 4 years and did a significant kitchen renovation last year which has brought the home up to current Pinterest trends. We think it will sell pretty quickly, but there seems to be a bit of froth in the townhome market in our pocket of Metro Vancouver with properties moving slower than typical. Perhaps it’s the condo insurance woes, or the fact that first-time homebuyers (the target market for our home) are feeling the squeeze due to stricter mortgage insurance requirements. The pandemic? Who knows?

Anything decent (2000 square feet) anywhere west of Aldergrove, whether it’s an executive townhouse or an older detached house, is now in the $1 million to $1.2 million range. That would require us to basically fully leverage to upsize. In our late 30s, I thought things would get easier, but it looks like we’re going to have to take more risk in this time in our lives just when we should be starting to de-risk. It’s a bit of a dilemma for sure.

[Gerbs]

Anyone having troubles renting out their units? Tenants are both leaving at the end of July. Not sure how things are with the covid protocols.

[Manic!]

If you are working from home maybe look outside the lower mainland.

[quasi]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Real talk – how many of you leveraged your equity and incomes to the maximum to buy your current home?

I’m a pretty risk averse guy, but lately, I’m wondering what lies ahead in terms of the real estate market. The pandemic has made me reflect on our family needs. My wife and I are white collar workers and we foresee working from home being a normal thing for the long-term, so we need more space for ourselves and our young kids.

We probably have about $350K-375K in equity in our townhome. We’ve spent about 40K on it over 4 years and did a significant kitchen renovation last year which has brought the home up to current Pinterest trends. We think it will sell pretty quickly, but there seems to be a bit of froth in the townhome market in our pocket of Metro Vancouver with properties moving slower than typical. Perhaps it’s the condo insurance woes, or the fact that first-time homebuyers (the target market for our home) are feeling the squeeze due to stricter mortgage insurance requirements. The pandemic? Who knows?

Anything decent (2000 square feet) anywhere west of Aldergrove, whether it’s an executive townhouse or an older detached house, is now in the $1 million to $1.2 million range. That would require us to basically fully leverage to upsize. In our late 30s, I thought things would get easier, but it looks like we’re going to have to take more risk in this time in our lives just when we should be starting to de-risk. It’s a bit of a dilemma for sure.

I wouldn't say we are hugely leveraged on the home we bought compared to others but I for sure spent more than I intended to spend when we listed and sold and it all came down not finding anything we liked with a lower budget.

The house we bought was pretty renovated, they spent a lot of money on finishes I figured that would be money I wouldn't have to spend.

The real tough part about selling/buying is the realtor fees on the sale end and the property transfer tax on the buy end, costs you so much equity it makes it tough to make a small upgrade if you're going to be paying those fees you might as well make a big jump or stay put.

[CRS]

Originally Posted by Manic!

If you are working from home maybe look outside the lower mainland.

The issue is no one knows how long this WFH situation will keep going.

[Y2K_o__o]

Originally Posted by fliptuner

Wait til you have kids lol. Just dropped $3k on dance lessons.

mine is due november
As a pre-dad, i can feel my wallet's hole is like a sinking boat now.........

[Y2K_o__o]

Originally Posted by CRS

The issue is no one knows how long this WFH situation will keep going.

But i think pandemic has just changed the trend.
I think the high rent commercial office is going to lower the rent as corporate will downsize their office.

We will be facing a very keen competition over as people from other part of the world can also work from home too.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by quasi

The real tough part about selling/buying is the realtor fees on the sale end and the property transfer tax on the buy end, costs you so much equity it makes it tough to make a small upgrade if you're going to be paying those fees you might as well make a big jump or stay put.

Great advice here... selling our condo and buying a detached house in Coquitlam cost us around 40-50k in fees alone... It's a huge hit that most don't notice (I certainly didn't) until you realize what happened after both transactions are said and done.

Honestly, coming from a Chinese family, it's been ingrained in me that buying a home will always be a struggle in the first 5-10 years and you will need to make a lot of sacrifices. You're going to inevitably stretch your budget further than you thought you would and maybe more than you are truly comfortable with. Condition, location, curb appeal, school catchments... they all become so much more important when you buy into a "forever" home. The "easiest" way to afford more is to buy a property with a 1 or 2 bedroom suite... even if you rent it for below market value you are looking at a min. $1k/month in rental income + the other tax advantages that come with it.

If you're looking for how things are selling, use Zealty.ca to monitor prices.

[Hondaracer]

Thing with other parts of the world is that many 3rd world countries and potential competition that could work from home don’t have the infrastructure in place to WFH

[CivicBlues]

*laughs from India*

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Real talk – how many of you leveraged your equity and incomes to the maximum to buy your current home?

IMO, given the current mortage lending practices and assuming that you are a level-headed and financially sensible person, the maximum amount you can leverage probably depends more on how much the bank is willing to lend to you, than your real life actual ability to service that mortgage.

For example, the bank will probably only want you to spend no more than 33% of your income on servicing your mortgage. But if you are willing to be frugal, perhaps you can spend 50 - 60% of your income on mortgage repayments.

So I'd say you want to ask yourself -- how much of your living in the present are you willing to trade to obtain that "maximum leverage" to get into a bigger home?

[JDMDreams]

I think town homes usually aren't starter homes as they are easily $700+ plus. One thing my realtor told me is if you have anything above $500k it kinda prices out first time home buyers cuz they lose the property transfer tax discount. So it reduces some potential buyers. Most people with no kids don't really need 3 bedrooms.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Real talk – how many of you leveraged your equity and incomes to the maximum to buy your current home?

I’m a pretty risk averse guy, but lately, I’m wondering what lies ahead in terms of the real estate market. The pandemic has made me reflect on our family needs. My wife and I are white collar workers and we foresee working from home being a normal thing for the long-term, so we need more space for ourselves and our young kids.

We probably have about $350K-375K in equity in our townhome. We’ve spent about 40K on it over 4 years and did a significant kitchen renovation last year which has brought the home up to current Pinterest trends. We think it will sell pretty quickly, but there seems to be a bit of froth in the townhome market in our pocket of Metro Vancouver with properties moving slower than typical. Perhaps it’s the condo insurance woes, or the fact that first-time homebuyers (the target market for our home) are feeling the squeeze due to stricter mortgage insurance requirements. The pandemic? Who knows?

Anything decent (2000 square feet) anywhere west of Aldergrove, whether it’s an executive townhouse or an older detached house, is now in the $1 million to $1.2 million range. That would require us to basically fully leverage to upsize. In our late 30s, I thought things would get easier, but it looks like we’re going to have to take more risk in this time in our lives just when we should be starting to de-risk. It’s a bit of a dilemma for sure.

I'm in a similar boat, with slightly more equity. We are looking for similar space. If you don't mind an older place, there are larger TH in the 1600-2000sqft range that can be had in Burnaby and Vancouver for 800k-1.3m. Obviously, building maintenance and strata fees are a consideration, as well property taxes.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by Manic!

If you are working from home maybe look outside the lower mainland.

You know, this is the advice I see often on the internet. It's great in theory, but in practice, it's actually quite hard. Sure, many of us are the descendants of immigrants who gave up everything they had to come to Canada, so the logic is that we should toughen up and move.

But, I will say that this changes once you have a family and kids of your own. My kids are very lucky that they have both sets of grandparents only ten minutes to a half-hour drive away. I also want to ensure that our parents are taken care of in old age, rather than sending them to a long-term care home. Quite frankly, the pandemic has revealed how little we as a society care about our elders.

What I see is that companies will want people to be close for the occasion meeting etc, but that they will allow their employees to work flexibly. I don't work in tech, so I'm not making my 6-figure salary in Castlegar and neither will my wife.

Originally Posted by Alpine

Great advice here... selling our condo and buying a detached house in Coquitlam cost us around 40-50k in fees alone... It's a huge hit that most don't notice (I certainly didn't) until you realize what happened after both transactions are said and done.

Honestly, coming from a Chinese family, it's been ingrained in me that buying a home will always be a struggle in the first 5-10 years and you will need to make a lot of sacrifices. You're going to inevitably stretch your budget further than you thought you would and maybe more than you are truly comfortable with. Condition, location, curb appeal, school catchments... they all become so much more important when you buy into a "forever" home. The "easiest" way to afford more is to buy a property with a 1 or 2 bedroom suite... even if you rent it for below market value you are looking at a min. $1k/month in rental income + the other tax advantages that come with it.

If you're looking for how things are selling, use Zealty.ca to monitor prices.

Yep, I've been looking at data on Zealty for almost a year.

My oldest is starting school in September, so the longer we stay in our current home, the more difficult it will be to move to a neighbourhood in a different catchment.

I've never been fan of renting out the basement, but it seems like the majority of middle class families are doing this out of necessity. With the tenancy laws increasingly in favour of tenants, it's hard to get rid of problematic tenants. If we had to, I would be open to finding a home with a bedroom and bathroom in the basement for a homestay to avoid having our rental business coming under the purview of the Residential Tenancy Act.

Originally Posted by Traum

IMO, given the current mortage lending practices and assuming that you are a level-headed and financially sensible person, the maximum amount you can leverage probably depends more on how much the bank is willing to lend to you, than your real life actual ability to service that mortgage.

For example, the bank will probably only want you to spend no more than 33% of your income on servicing your mortgage. But if you are willing to be frugal, perhaps you can spend 50 - 60% of your income on mortgage repayments.

So I'd say you want to ask yourself -- how much of your living in the present are you willing to trade to obtain that "maximum leverage" to get into a bigger home?

We actually have very modest expenses - we drive used cars that were under $20K, we've only been on one vacation involving a plane over the last 4 years, we eat at home, we have cashback credit cards, we have modest phone and internet plans, etc. Cash flow is something we are very mindful about because we chose to send both of our children to daycare. Until the pandemic, we were paying over $2000/month for full-time care. That's more than our total housing costs on our small townhouse. Come September, we may have to think about after-school care if we leave our neighbourhood and we will still need to pay full-time fees for our youngest for another 2 years.

We also have other necessary expenses like insurance, RRSPs (my wife doesn't have a company funded retirement savings plan), RESPs, and other prudent rainy day buckets such as car maintenance and home maintenance.

So, when we look at what we would have to cut in our budget to get to that 50-60% of income on housing costs, we would have to cut our kids' RESPs or our long-term retirement planning. Which is kind of why I wanted to get a sense of what others are doing - how many others are facing a similar situation when it's not a simple matter of cutting lifestyle inflation?

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

I'm in a similar boat, with slightly more equity. We are looking for similar space. If you don't mind an older place, there are larger TH in the 1600-2000sqft range that can be had in Burnaby and Vancouver for 800k-1.3m. Obviously, building maintenance and strata fees are a consideration, as well property taxes.

We live in a 19 year-old townhouse that has a good mix of old and new - overheight ceilings with an open floorplan, but with forced air heating, larger windows, and storage closets. Ideally, I'd want to buy a unit that was built in the same era - rainscreen, no asbestos, modern electrical, PEX plumbing, etc.

Strata fees are not much of a concern as long as the strata is well managed and the owners know where the money is going. The biggest risk that I see is that the changes in the condo insurance market have screwed over a lot of strata corporations, despite the fact that there are very different risks for each complex based on what they are (high-rise vs low-rise, contingency fund, claims history, etc.). That's kind of why we're looking to get out of a strata property and into a non-strata rowhome, detached house, or at last resort, a non-conforming strata duplex which is likely not subject to the same chaos in the condo insurance market as other strata-titled properties.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Until the pandemic, we were paying over $2000/month for full-time care. That's more than our total housing costs on our small townhouse. Come September, we may have to think about after-school care if we leave our neighbourhood and we will still need to pay full-time fees for our youngest for another 2 years.

You may not be able to cut out the typical excess spending people have but if you wait til your youngest is in school you can redirect that $2k/month towards a mortgage though. If you want to move now you'd only be cutting into RRSP/RESP for those 2 years, and only for whatever amount the care for your youngest costs since by the time you actually move in your oldest will be in school.