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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
My parents were in the same situation, but sold their huge house in Richmond a few years ago and moved into a condo in central Vancouver to be closer to my sister and I. With the extra cash, they could’ve helped my sister and I get set up, but luckily we’re already set up (except my sister’s family is moving back to a bigger place in Richmond, lol). Instead, they went on multiple vacations per year (pre-pandemic), and bought me a new car.
Something for your parents to consider...
Oh they were already vacationing pre-pandemic. Like I said they have enough money to it without needing to sell the house to fund it.
I'm sure one day I'll be inheriting the house, I'm fine to wait and I'm doing alright on my own. I'd rather they live comfortably than buy me things.
New housing, particularly the type for new families, is just not happening enough - it's either a detached multimillion dollar house or it's a condo. The missing middle of duplexes and townhouses has a massive shortage of supply and our civic leaders are too cowardly to tackle that problem by up zoning the entire city. They do spot rezones that only drive up prices further.
Well lets look at this from both sides, if they do -
A boom in the ENTIRE construction industry, from labor to suppliers, real estate industry booms too due to the huge increase in supply. I see this as a positive.... for anyone in those industries.
Infrastructure upgrades will need to happen due to the increase of density, budgets coming from somewhere... So I assume we take the hit in the form of taxes. If we're paying tax towards taking step 1 to tackling the pricing problem, I'm ok with that. Traffics gonna suck though. I think that might be one of the reasons why they're re-zoning to multi-units so slowly.
So now we have a flood of duplex/triplexes, hopefully in the price ranges of what... 600K to 800K? This seems like a positive. It will probably drop condo prices down a bit... why would you pay 500K for a 1br 450 sqft condo when you can buy a 1000-1200 sqft duplex for a little more? Assuming they can somehow enforce the price for duplex/triplexes from going buck wild.
Condo market cools off, anyone who mortgaged their condos are kinda fucked if they got in during the peaks.
Fail me if I'm wrong but someone kind of loses if we suddenly flood the market with affordable housing. I have no experience in the RE industry as sales, and there is probably more nuance to the circumstances but does any of what I said make sense? In a whole sense we all win, specifically those who look for an alternative to condo living, but anyone who's on money that was borrowed during the peak kinda gets shafted.
Well lets look at this from both sides, if they do -
A boom in the ENTIRE construction industry, from labor to suppliers, real estate industry booms too due to the huge increase in supply. I see this as a positive.... for anyone in those industries.
Infrastructure upgrades will need to happen due to the increase of density, budgets coming from somewhere... So I assume we take the hit in the form of taxes. If we're paying tax towards taking step 1 to tackling the pricing problem, I'm ok with that. Traffics gonna suck though. I think that might be one of the reasons why they're re-zoning to multi-units so slowly.
So now we have a flood of duplex/triplexes, hopefully in the price ranges of what... 600K to 800K? This seems like a positive. It will probably drop condo prices down a bit... why would you pay 500K for a 1br 450 sqft condo when you can buy a 1000-1200 sqft duplex for a little more? Assuming they can somehow enforce the price for duplex/triplexes from going buck wild.
Condo market cools off, anyone who mortgaged their condos are kinda fucked if they got in during the peaks.
Fail me if I'm wrong but someone kind of loses if we suddenly flood the market with affordable housing. I have no experience in the RE industry as sales, and there is probably more nuance to the circumstances but does any of what I said make sense? In a whole sense we all win, specifically those who look for an alternative to condo living, but anyone who's on money that was borrowed during the peak kinda gets shafted.
A new duplex will cost north of $1 million easy. At least in Vancouver or Burnaby. Based on construction costs and land value, there is no way a duplex or triplex can cost that little.
Prior to the current craziness their pricing didn’t really make sense as you could get Vancouver specials and a whole lot for less than the duplex. Albeit old and unrenovated however imo you’d be crazy to split a duplex when you could get a fully detached regardless of the interior.
However, the appeal of dat new smell and contractor grade appliances is overwhelming to some seemingly
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Last edited by Hondaracer; 03-11-2021 at 05:12 PM.
Prior to the current craziness their pricing didn’t really make sense as you could get Vancouver specials and a whole lot for less than the duplex. Albeit old and unrenovated however imo you’d be crazy to split a duplex when you could get a fully detached regardless of the interior.
However, the appeal of dat new smell and contractor grade appliances is overwhelming to some seemingly
The challenge is also with timelines. Having to sell, buy, then move into a rental for 6-12 months can be a PITA. Then there's the issue with finding a good contractor vs. trying to play contractor, having to make all these decisions, plus the potential for runaway costs (300-400k+). It's the life I'm living right now lol.
It's just way easier to move into a contractor-grade new house lol.
Depending on the house, you could do zero maintenance and still be fine, and the way prices have been the last 10-15 years, a poorly maintained house isn’t really a deterrent for purchase. Whereas a building that has poor management, no contingency, and issues with envelope etc. Are massive red flags to potential buyers even in this climate
it’s like those ice vs Tesla price breakdowns where you can substitute a Toyota and get away with only oil-battery-tires for maintenance costs
will an alternator fail at age 15, possibly but it’s the roughest of estimates where in reality you might pay so much less
Houses cost a tonne to run too... one average roof job is equivalent to 4 years of strata payments... never mind all natural gas use is rolled up into the strata too.
FWIW, I recently did some tree maintenance on my property. $4K with buddy discount of ~ 1K LOL. I do his bookkeeping, so I can easily see the market rate of what a job this size would normally cost.
Some background, I got him in to do some tree trimming and to check on the health of all the trees. I have 3 gigantic cedars and 3 other tall trees. 2 are pretty much dead and will probably have to be cut down (read: more money)
Lawn maintenance isn't necessary, but tree maintenance is. If you're negligent in ensuring the health (or safety) of your trees, and it comes down during a wind storm into your neighbours house, your insurance may not cover it.
You really only have to do this every 2-3 years, so roughly $135/mo. But this is just the tree upkeep.
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I went to check this one out and it happens to be very, very nice. Built by a premium home builder (https://noorthomes.com) so the quality inside and out is top notch. Not sure why the property owner went down that path as it's gonna take a while to sell (I bet it'll come down to about $2m when it does move). /
Infrastructure upgrades will need to happen due to the increase of density, budgets coming from somewhere... So I assume we take the hit in the form of taxes. If we're paying tax towards taking step 1 to tackling the pricing problem, I'm ok with that. Traffics gonna suck though. I think that might be one of the reasons why they're re-zoning to multi-units so slowly.
Upgrades are paid by fees that developers pay the city to build and the city charges a mint for these (though it's sometimes not enough, witness how the developers of the River District are asking for more density to cover the cost of the promised daycare).
Traffic CAN get worse but there's actually easy opportunities to minimise the impact - the areas around the skytrain stations (Nanaimo, 29th Station, Renfrew, Rupert for example) are ripe for development and highly transit friendly. It's nuts that the city hasn't made more progress around adding density to those areas in the last 30-40 years (the Expo line has been around since 1986!!!). Even if you don't build in transit friendly areas a doubling in density doesn't mean a doubling in traffic - many people already don't own cars and/or can't afford them. You're looking at pretty modest increases (like 10-20%) even in the worst case b/c you also get more liveable neighbourhoods - more shops get opened wherever density happens so people walk/bike more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qmx323
So now we have a flood of duplex/triplexes, hopefully in the price ranges of what... 600K to 800K? This seems like a positive. It will probably drop condo prices down a bit... why would you pay 500K for a 1br 450 sqft condo when you can buy a 1000-1200 sqft duplex for a little more? Assuming they can somehow enforce the price for duplex/triplexes from going buck wild.
Condo market cools off, anyone who mortgaged their condos are kinda fucked if they got in during the peaks.
Fail me if I'm wrong but someone kind of loses if we suddenly flood the market with affordable housing. I have no experience in the RE industry as sales, and there is probably more nuance to the circumstances but does any of what I said make sense? In a whole sense we all win, specifically those who look for an alternative to condo living, but anyone who's on money that was borrowed during the peak kinda gets shafted.
There's no scenario where someone doesn't lose when more housing is built but the same is said when not enough housing is built - right now the people getting screwed are the 98% of the population that can't afford a home. Let's spread the pain out to the top 2% as well.
The GVRD's approach to the housing crisis is akin to using a garden hose to put out a house fire - Vancouver rezoned the whole city to allow for duplexes but they force you to build a smaller house than a normal detached (3000sf vs 3700sf) b/c they were afraid duplexes would be too popular and as a result the price of duplexes are still stupid and some aren't very liveable (450sf per floor is pretty small for a family home - 500-600sf per floor makes it nice to live in and allows a usable basement that can be rented out.
We need radical surgery - we need to allow 5000sf of housing on any standard lot (1.25FSR). That's either a single 4 story building with 3-4 units or two buildings (a 3 story in the front and a coach house in the back). Property values would increase a bit to build these but if you do it across the entire city it'll flatten things out so you end up with:
1.7m for 4000sf of land
1.3m to build 5000sf of housing
15% profit
You end up with four 1250sf, 3 bedroom units that can sell for $850-900k anywhere in East Van.
Or allow RS-1 lots to be subdivided into smaller units - let me build a 2600sf home on a 25x122 lot. Land costs would be $1m with building costs of $650k. Add in 15% profit and you're living in a detached home with a garage for $1.9m.
Edit: Technically this isn't radical at all, it's just a return to the era before zoning became restrictive and discriminatory (zoning came about due to racism and economic discrimination). If you walk around our older neighbourhoods you'll find lots of 4 story walkups and homes built right up to the property line - none of which people complain about. Try building a 4 story walk up now in a SFH zone and it "ruins the character of the neighbourhood yet you walk around south Kerrisdale and there are apartment towers next door to SFHs.
Willing to sell a family member for a few minutes on RS
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Too many people in charge of decision making don’t want to lose the exponential gains their retirement funds hinge on (their homes) and their constituents would cry bloody murder if there was any loss to their investments as well.
The taxes should increase exponentially on people who own more than two properties.
Properties in Vancouver, no question should be the most expensive in Canada. You don’t get to just do what you want without working for it, I get it.
But
A. People shouldn’t have to be paying 20x for housing that their parents did when wages have only doubled or tripled.
B. People who work mid level jobs should be able to afford a fucking 1 bedroom apartment. I mean actually afford, not pay 50% of their income for housing leaving no money for things like eating fruits and vegetables.
C. People should not be able to own 10 homes and have such a drastic effect on supply just because they were born in the 60s or 70s and it was an investment.
Housing should not be a commodity, it’s a basic human need and there is enough in this giant country that housing should match career/job opportunities.
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98 technoviolet M3/2/5
Quote:
Originally Posted by boostfever
Westopher is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fsy82
seems like you got a dick up your ass well..get that checked
Quote:
Originally Posted by punkwax
Well.. I’d hate to be the first to say it, but Westopher is correct.
^^ nah mate, parks and hotels for the homeless and vi the tax payers, that's where the priority is at. don't forget to sprinkle some bike lanes on top but ban e bikes
^^ nah mate, parks and hotels for the homeless and vi the tax payers, that's where the priority is at. don't forget to sprinkle some bike lanes on top but ban e bikes
Housing the homeless is cheaper than leaving them on the street:
Willing to sell a family member for a few minutes on RS
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: North vancouver
Posts: 12,756
Thanked 32,637 Times in 7,615 Posts
Failed 214 Times in 162 Posts
Vancouver has created such an us vs them mentality that many of the homeless would rather remain homeless. It’s the first sense of community some of these people have ever had in their lives. I don’t know what they can do to curb that mentality, and I doubt will see it before the very distant future.
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98 technoviolet M3/2/5
Quote:
Originally Posted by boostfever
Westopher is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fsy82
seems like you got a dick up your ass well..get that checked
Quote:
Originally Posted by punkwax
Well.. I’d hate to be the first to say it, but Westopher is correct.
Upgrades are paid by fees that developers pay the city to build and the city charges a mint for these (though it's sometimes not enough, witness how the developers of the River District are asking for more density to cover the cost of the promised daycare).
Traffic CAN get worse but there's actually easy opportunities to minimise the impact - the areas around the skytrain stations (Nanaimo, 29th Station, Renfrew, Rupert for example) are ripe for development and highly transit friendly. It's nuts that the city hasn't made more progress around adding density to those areas in the last 30-40 years (the Expo line has been around since 1986!!!). Even if you don't build in transit friendly areas a doubling in density doesn't mean a doubling in traffic - many people already don't own cars and/or can't afford them. You're looking at pretty modest increases (like 10-20%) even in the worst case b/c you also get more liveable neighbourhoods - more shops get opened wherever density happens so people walk/bike more.
There's no scenario where someone doesn't lose when more housing is built but the same is said when not enough housing is built - right now the people getting screwed are the 98% of the population that can't afford a home. Let's spread the pain out to the top 2% as well.
The GVRD's approach to the housing crisis is akin to using a garden hose to put out a house fire - Vancouver rezoned the whole city to allow for duplexes but they force you to build a smaller house than a normal detached (3000sf vs 3700sf) b/c they were afraid duplexes would be too popular and as a result the price of duplexes are still stupid and some aren't very liveable (450sf per floor is pretty small for a family home - 500-600sf per floor makes it nice to live in and allows a usable basement that can be rented out.
We need radical surgery - we need to allow 5000sf of housing on any standard lot (1.25FSR). That's either a single 4 story building with 3-4 units or two buildings (a 3 story in the front and a coach house in the back). Property values would increase a bit to build these but if you do it across the entire city it'll flatten things out so you end up with:
1.7m for 4000sf of land
1.3m to build 5000sf of housing
15% profit
You end up with four 1250sf, 3 bedroom units that can sell for $850-900k anywhere in East Van.
Or allow RS-1 lots to be subdivided into smaller units - let me build a 2600sf home on a 25x122 lot. Land costs would be $1m with building costs of $650k. Add in 15% profit and you're living in a detached home with a garage for $1.9m.
Edit: Technically this isn't radical at all, it's just a return to the era before zoning became restrictive and discriminatory (zoning came about due to racism and economic discrimination). If you walk around our older neighbourhoods you'll find lots of 4 story walkups and homes built right up to the property line - none of which people complain about. Try building a 4 story walk up now in a SFH zone and it "ruins the character of the neighbourhood yet you walk around south Kerrisdale and there are apartment towers next door to SFHs.
Now this would be very very reasonable pricing. This is very informative.
So basically we had the right idea a few generations ago but stopped due to complaints of the folks living in the areas of potential growth?
I had this discussion with my co workers with all the detached to duplex conversions. Are they considered freehold or strata? Who shovels, keeps the building maintained. Sounds like it's gonna be a can of worms if your neighbour sucks. And hundreds of thousands of cans of worms if everyone turns their lot into these mini multi units with no strata. Sounds like the only ppl who will profit is strata and maintenance companies.
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Location: North vancouver
Posts: 12,756
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If you turn your own property into a multi unit dwelling, it would be your responsibility. If a developer turns a single family lot into multiple dwellings the property would be subdivided would it not? It’s pretty simple if the property is divided as you’re in charge of your own area. For the 3 days a year there’s snow on the ground I’d have no problem shovelling for everyone without getting bent about it.
__________________
98 technoviolet M3/2/5
Quote:
Originally Posted by boostfever
Westopher is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fsy82
seems like you got a dick up your ass well..get that checked
Quote:
Originally Posted by punkwax
Well.. I’d hate to be the first to say it, but Westopher is correct.
I had this discussion with my co workers with all the detached to duplex conversions. Are they considered freehold or strata? Who shovels, keeps the building maintained. Sounds like it's gonna be a can of worms if your neighbour sucks. And hundreds of thousands of cans of worms if everyone turns their lot into these mini multi units with no strata. Sounds like the only ppl who will profit is strata and maintenance companies.
The majority of duplexes and triplexes built today are strata-titled. I think that there are more hoops to jump through for the builder to get a non-strata titled duplex. This means that in theory, they are supposed to be managed in accordance with the Strata Property Act including the creation of budgets, depreciation reports, and the application of dispute management provisions. You and your neighbour(s) are the strata corporation in these situations.
In reality, small strata corporations like duplexes and triplexes are non-conforming which means they are managed informally amongst neighbours. This is a problem when you have a bad neighbour because the strata corporation is you and your neighbour(s). If you can't agree on vital maintenance, such as a roof or foundation repair, then you'll have to go to the courts to determine an outcome.
Basically rich people didn't want poor people near them (surprise!) and got government to zone most of the land so that only rich people could afford it (detached SFH) - everyone else was forced into apartments. Back then it was to keep minorities rounded up into certain areas (Chinatown and Japantown for example, notice how both towns are in shitty parts of Vancouver?).
So in my example you could take a 33x122 lot in Vancouver and allow 5000sf on it via something like:
- Main building (27' wide, 46' long) consisting of 3 units (a ground level garden suite and a two 2 level units, a front and back or side by side) that would be about 1250sf each.
- 2 story house above a 3 car carport in the back (27' wide, 25' deep that's 1250sf.
Reduce the setback requirement (how far back the front of the building has set back from the front) to 10% from 20% and you'll get a backyard that measures 33'x38' that can be shared (the front yard would be 33'x12'). Reduce the setback to 5% or 0% and you get a very usable, shareable backyard. Allow the main building to be 4 stories and you get another 10' in the backyard (33'48'). Turn the lane (20' wide) into a "street" (it's wider than many streets in Europe/Japan) and you can make the house in the back as appealing as the one in the front.
None of this would "ruin" neighbourhood character - take a walk around Strathcona or parts of Mount Pleasant and you'll see stuff that's not that different from what I described, they're just old b/c they were made before it was banned.
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don't forget to sprinkle some bike lanes on top but ban e bikes
