Definitely happening in the 1.5-2m range - I know of several houses sold in that range with no subjects in the East Van area.

Fraserview is red hot but this takes the cake...

7315 RUPERT STREET
Vancouver

Listing Date 2021-Feb-23
Sold Date 2021-Mar-02
Sale Reported Date 2021-Mar-04
Days on Market 7
Selling Price $2,300,000
Asking Price (Final) $1,688,000
Asking Price (Original) $1,688,000
Size of House 3,089 sqft
Price per SqFt $745
Basement Separate Entry
Lot Size 0.13 ac
Lot Frontage 50.06 ft
Lot Depth/Size 110.93 ft
Age of House 56 years old
Property Taxes $5,945.53 (2020)
Ownership Interest Freehold NonStrata

Don't forget 6867 Fraser Street.
Teardown on a short 33x113 lot for 1.9M. And we're talking South Fraser and facing a big street. Land prices are absolutely insane.

where do you suggest then?

ship them off to a business park? then businesses will complain

it also has to be relatively close to help resources

How's this as an indicator of where the market is: the selling agent on the home I bought in December called to ask if I would be interested in flipping the house, as they have multiple interested buyers calling back with offers now above ask. What is this...

If it's your principal residence would be pointless as you'll have to buy something else in the same ridiculous market.

+1

BUT DO IT, WE WANT TO SEE FLIP GAINS

then go buy a condo penthouse further away, 2 nsxs, a gen 1 gtr, maybe a lotus, import a noble m12 for starters

Exactly. We need a place to live at the end of the day, and you’d have to make a convincing argument for me to get back in the market as a buyer. It was already a long/tiring process and it only seems worse now.

"Condos (namely highrises) should only be used as bridge housing. Living in them long term, to put it bluntly, is gross."

-GS8

Well the list price was pretty low so while it's a high sold price it's not THAT crazy - this was a $1.8m lot back in November though.

Doesn't 4365 PRINCE ALBERT STREET set a new level for craziness in East Van?

Sold Date 2021-Mar-01
Sold Price $3,410,000
Asking Price (Final) $3,198,000
Asking Price (Original) $3,198,000
Size of House 3,623 sqft
Price per SqFt $941
Basement Fully Finished
Lot Size 0.09 ac (3,960 sqft)
Lot Frontage 33 ft
Lot Depth/Size 120 ft
Age of House 1 year old
Property Taxes $5,355.87 (2020)
Ownership Interest Freehold NonStrata
Listing Date 2021-Feb-19
Days on Market 10
Assessed Value (2021) $2,440,000
Price:Assessment Ratio 1.40

My little real estate story. Had an accepted offer on a rancher in South Surrey at 1.27m (30k under asking) with a subject to inspection. Inspection brought back lots of problems so I tried to knock another 50k off but they killed the deal. House sold the next week for 1.3m.

Everyday the wife and I would check for new homes but nothing of interest was showing up. Fast forward to February and finally see a home at 1.38m. We know the market is heating the fuck up so we can't have any subjects. Take a gamble and do a pre-inspection, few issues but nothing major. Put in a 120k over asking offer. Lose out to a 155k over asking offer. Pretty bummed.

Last week we see another home for 1.4m, 2000sqft, 8300sqft lot in South Surrey. House is immaculate. We go balls to the walls and offer 163k over asking.... up against multiple offers... And we barely got it.

God I'm glad to be done with this. Real Rollercoaster of emotions.

when you buy white hot makes you never want to sell because of the crazy stress you endured getting it

congrats

Listing the house as 3,623 sq ft is such BS. That has to be the main house, plus laneway, plus the full roof-top deck! So misleading...

Acceptable and being leveraged? You should mention that any property price in the lower mainland is unacceptable, so you are getting leveraged no matter where you choose to buy here...

Sonick wants to buy a house, so for what he can afford, best bet would be North Delta/Surrey region IMO.

People still can't get away from the Surrey stereotypes, and it's mostly coming from people who have never lived there. Like BIC BAWS mentioned, it's a quick 20 minutes drive from North Delta to Richmond, better than commuting from North Van, Maple Ridge. Fuck Hwy 1 and the tunnel should there be any snow if you are commuting from North Van, may sound cool that you live in North Van, but commute is horrible. Safety wise there isn't any issue in North Delta.

How is buying to live in East Van/Burnaby not getting leveraged as much as living in Surrey? More expensive, so a lot of families like Sonick can't actually afford, small ass lot, narrow ass street, house is literally hugging the next house. Aside from having to say you live in Surrey/North Delta (maybe dining choices and shopping too) there isn't really much sacrifice to be made, commute will take about the same for majority of people. You get a much bigger house, bigger lot, your own driveway, possibly dual garage, to me that's better quality of life than having to live in a small ass house in East Van/Burnaby or having a horrible commute if I were to buy in North Van.

Seems like 2021 is going back to the 2014-2016 days, minus the foreign funds it appears. I don’t understand why zero subject is such a surprise to the buyer. It’s so common in a hot market. When we bought in 2015, I insisted on a house inspection. Basically I offered $20-30k more than what I think bidders would offer for adding the subject to inspect.

Another observation is here that... who can afford a $2M home? Say you got $400k down by saving or parents or whatever, financing a $1.6M is about $6k monthly. That means the household would have to make at least $10-12k after tax monthly to survive. That’s $120k annual salary x2. This is not even accounting for kid’s daycare that costs $2k a month.

^agreed, 2mil house is unattainable even when the family income is extremely high >200k per year.

$1 to 1.5mil, the same family can afford it, but they have to make sacrifices to their lifestyle, they have to be extremely disciplined and frugal in order to make the budget work. But according to the few high income earners, They say they can't afford it because they still want their monthly entertainment $$, vacation $$. It's not right to make that much money and still not being able to afford a decent house in a good city. Complaining is justified but on the other hand, Millennials gotta adjust their expectations and realize there are many immigrant families (I know quite a few) who make no more than 80-90k combined, but upgraded from condos to houses in the 1 to 1.5mil range. They are on a extremely tight budget but they make sacrifices to their lifestyles so their children can inherit more when they die. Meanwhile we are here complaining we can't afford it while making 100-200k per year.

Either choose to:

-make sacrifices to your lifestyle so you can afford the single house that you wanted, stop saying you are getting leveraged for having to pay 1 to 1.5mil in Surrey. No you are not, prices have been like that for the past few years. And half an hour commute is not long.

-or just get a condo or townhouse, problem solved

-or if you really want a single house but can't afford it here, move to a more affordable city

According to the listing it doesn't count the roof top deck but there's definitely some exaggerating going on.

They listed the main house at 2,894sf and the laneway at 729sf and unless it's a passive house (it clearly is not) then they should be at 2,772sf and 673sf for a total of 3,446sf.

I've seen these kinds of exaggerations happen with other listings as well, particularly with laneways where even the parts of the building where the ceiling is less than 5' are counted. It's BS but I suppose it's a case of ""Buyer to verify measurements"

I don't know but I think ppl who are buying the $2m houses right now aren't young people. They are more likely Asian families who bought their house 15 20 years ago. So their houses are paid off. Have a bit of cash in the bank + now have their kids income to add. So if they sell their tear down for like $1.4-5 going up to $2 even $2.3 is do able depending on income. Basically they are buying a condo on top. But now they can add rental income back in to support the borrowing. :pokerface:

generally you don't just go from renting -> 2m home. most ppl who are buying these have made money on RE before, not first time buyers. a bank wouldn't even give you a 1.6m mortgage unless you were making at least 300k or so household.

The other thing is that when you're talking 1.2+ mil House, what's the value of a potential defect? 20K for a new roof? 50K for a new foundation? It's a relative drop in the bucket.

no one likes a major surprise like that though
it's like spending a good coin on a collector car then you find rust bumper to bumper underneath the carpet or something was fixed improperly...how much disruption and headache will that new fix cause you?

are 7-figure loans actually pretty common now? i'd figure it's mostly equity/cash if you're closing 2.3M homes fending off 12 other bidders

A lot of talk about north van commuting from someone who's not doing it. Leave my house at 7:20 every day, at work by 7:35 downtown Vancouver. Leave work at 4:15, home by 4:35-4:40.
That's nowhere near a Surrey commute to downtown Vancouver. Not to mention I drive 10kms and use that amount of gas, not 40+
Of course it depends where you live. If you have to have an hour commute each way to work, it doesn't matter what burb you are in, it's not the right one.

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation (guess?) would suggest that to qualify for a 7-figure loan, you'd need an annual household income of $250k, and it is still going to be a 30 year debt. If the bank is crazy enough to lend you $2M, you'd need at least a $500k combined income -- probably more -- to qualify for it.

If you are a power earner, would you really do that? I am probably thinking small here with my decidedly small time thinking, but I wouldn't be comfortable taking on a debt that large...

I managed to get a $750k loan on a $105k income, presumed $1200 monthly rental income, and 25% down-payment.

I'm talking to a couple banks right now and they're pretty comfortable with putting me on the hook for around $2.5M. I'm not gonna do that though I may temporarily need to in order to buy a lot and build a house. Assuming $4k of rental income on a house with 2-3 suites I'm only ok with about 2/3rds of what they're offering me and even then I'm doing a bit of butt clenching.

The bankers all seem to be trying to max out what they can get me approved for - they're not lying but they are trying to be as optimistic with how to describe my income/wealth as possible. This wasn't the case 5 years ago when getting approved for a $900k mortgage seemed like a stretch - my household income is up 65% since then so they are really stretching now.