Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[winson604]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

How does mat leave pay work? I know my wife said she gets a certain % from her work during the first 3 months. Then what? Does she transition to EI from the government after that?

With the cost of housing and the general cost of living continuing to go up, I get scared shitless of thinking about how we would manage.

We want to upgrade from our 1 bedroom + den in the next few years, but may have a kid first and wait it out in our place. Everyone tells me you can make do until they are about 2 years old and then they need their own bedroom.

What your wife gets during those 3 months is called a top up which a lot of companies do. Essentially it's them topping up your mat leave pay and giving you a extra. During those 3 months your wife is already on EI and the top up doesn't count against her payments.

As for payments it's a % up to a maximum, basically even if you're making 500k a year you're getting the same amount of money compared to someone who was making 200K a year because of the max cap. The max is roughly $1000 and change every 2 weeks for 12 months or if you decided to take a 18 month mat leave off the bat then it's the same pay you'd get if you took the 12 month duration but spread out over 18months more or less. Also once you commit to a certain duration you can't change it so in PeanutButters case his wife already committed to 12 thus the additional 6 months they may take would be completely unpaid.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

We want to upgrade from our 1 bedroom + den in the next few years, but may have a kid first and wait it out in our place. Everyone tells me you can make do until they are about 2 years old and then they need their own bedroom.

The primary issue for us started when our little person could reliably walk on his own. He wants to explore his surroundings, and he will explore his surroundings. At the time, our tiny 700+ sq ft, 2 bedroom apartment could only afford ~7m's worth of walking space in an L-shaped configuration -- that was basically the walking corridors we had between the bedrooms and the living room area. We also didn't have any play space for him, so we had to move into a bigger space.

Of course, if we insisted on staying at our apartment, I'm sure it could have been done. But the first day when we moved into our current place, the smile on the little person's face when he could run around in circles in the living room was priceless.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

How does mat leave pay work? I know my wife said she gets a certain % from her work during the first 3 months. Then what? Does she transition to EI from the government after that?

Where does your wife work?

If it's in the public sector, a top up to 90-100% of pre-maternity leave salary is almost guaranteed. In the private sector or not-for-profit sectors, you seldom see any type of top-up while on mat leave.

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

With the cost of housing and the general cost of living continuing to go up, I get scared shitless of thinking about how we would manage.

Making choices for your family is tough. For us, we had to buy a small townhouse in the suburbs and tough it out for a few years so that we could balance our reduced income during my wife's maternity leaves. I also had to get out of my habit of buying old BMWs, along with the usual stuff like reduced vacations and less eating out. We also put both of our kids through full-time licensed daycare, which is not the norm for most typical members on Revscene, so the sacrifices that we made are probably very foreign to most, including possibly you.

I also had to pivot careers and leave the security of a modest-paying public sector job behind for more money and less security in the private sector. My wife also had to level-up in her job too.

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

We want to upgrade from our 1 bedroom + den in the next few years, but may have a kid first and wait it out in our place. Everyone tells me you can make do until they are about 2 years old and then they need their own bedroom.

A den is good enough for a nursery, but eventually, you'll need more space. I take it that you do have work within the constraints of most people, so you will have to make compromises somewhere in your life - whether it's commute and/or living space.

It gets better though... we traded up to a detached house last fall because our finances improved following the transition of one of our kids into the public school system.

[JDMDreams]

Having a kid might slow you down a few years from what I've seen. Banks don't really like mat leave, and you most likely will take a while to make what you made before mat leave on paper. Plus with the loss of income will you be draining your savings? You will also have an added liability, and expenses so most likely unable to save additional down payment. You're screwed if your wife decides to stay home and take care of kids and not return to work. Unless you're able to make up for the lost income, accumulate savings.

[Liquid_o2]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Where does your wife work?

If it's in the public sector, a top up to 90-100% of pre-maternity leave salary is almost guaranteed. In the private sector or not-for-profit sectors, you seldom see any type of top-up while on mat leave.

She works for PHSA, so public sector. From my limited understanding, they provide a top up of 85% or 90% up to 4 months. Then it reduces after that. Better than private sector, but not the best out there either. It will be helpful though!

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Making choices for your family is tough. For us, we had to buy a small townhouse in the suburbs and tough it out for a few years so that we could balance our reduced income during my wife's maternity leaves. I also had to get out of my habit of buying old BMWs, along with the usual stuff like reduced vacations and less eating out. We also put both of our kids through full-time licensed daycare, which is not the norm for most typical members on Revscene, so the sacrifices that we made are probably very foreign to most, including possibly you.

I also had to pivot careers and leave the security of a modest-paying public sector job behind for more money and less security in the private sector. My wife also had to level-up in her job too.

A den is good enough for a nursery, but eventually, you'll need more space. I take it that you do have work within the constraints of most people, so you will have to make compromises somewhere in your life - whether it's commute and/or living space.

It gets better though... we traded up to a detached house last fall because our finances improved following the transition of one of our kids into the public school system.

This really hits home for me. I was telling my wife that we are going to have to make some difficult decisions coming up. We love the Riley Park lifestyle and my wife has a 6 minute commute to work. Mine is 20 minutes most days. We are definitely spoiled in certain aspects. Wherever we move, the commute is going to increase and we won't have the walkability and amenities we enjoy. It is going to be a big compromise for much needed space, especially for my wife.

Big decision is whether we try and move later this year and get it over and done with even before we start trying for a kid.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Having a kid might slow you down a few years from what I've seen. Banks don't really like mat leave, and you most likely will take a while to make what you made before mat leave on paper. Plus with the loss of income will you be draining your savings? You will also have an added liability, and expenses so most likely unable to save additional down payment. You're screwed if your wife decides to stay home and take care of kids and not return to work. Unless you're able to make up for the lost income, accumulate savings.

Having a kid does slow you down from a financial and wealth perspective, but that doesn't stop people from making the decision to have children. Everyone who decides to have children should be prepared to make sacrifices, unless of course you/your family comes from money.

The Canada Child Benefit is an important part of helping new families from falling below the poverty line, particularly when one partner has no or significantly reduced income.

IMHO, it's important for households to have multiple sources of income for tough times. I commend the families that have made the choice to have one partner leave the workforce, but that decision does come with significant risk in the event of a prolonged layoff, life threatening cancer, or sudden death. For most people, CPP and OAS are significant parts of their retirement planning and not having two incomes in a household reduces those benefits for households also.

Your life changes when you become a parent in more ways than one. It drives you to do more with your life because you have mouths to feed. You also need to make some difficult decisions and what may have been important to you before kids (e.g. the latest/greatest restaurants) becomes much less so when you become a parent. How does this tie into real estate? Well, you may become less concerned with a postal code and more concerned about your space, your neighbourhood, and the quality of your dwelling.

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by Traum

IMO, the more important question is -- how is the little guy going to be cared for if your wife returns to work?

If you are relying on grandparents, that comes with the usual pros and cons, and only you and your wife can decide how good or bad the arrangement is.

If you are sending the little person out for daycare, first of all, do you already have a place arranged? Childcare for those under 2.5 yrs old was exceedingly difficult to find pre-pandemic. It could be a lot easier now, but it is still going to cost a pretty penny. The question would then become:

1) does your wife's salary justify the cost of daycare?
2) does your wife's salary justify the loss of their bonding time and watching the little person grow?

Both our parents are retired and they have both expressed interest to look after our little guy. So it will likely be some sort of split between the two grand parents. We are extremely fortunate to be in that situation. The only issue my wife has is the cultural/generational differences of raising children that our parents have.

The main issue is the wife doesn't want to give up taking care of our son because she loves being with him, watching him grow/develop. She says she can't imagine not being with him =(

My wife makes about $80k gross a year. So her contribution to the family finances is significant.

I've crunched the numbers and we could survive on my income, it's just that our financial goals and retirement will be pushed back. We were planning on buying an investment condo and if she doesn't go back to work, we will have to dip into the savings for the down payment for that and the investment condo would definitely not happen.

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

How does mat leave pay work? I know my wife said she gets a certain % from her work during the first 3 months. Then what? Does she transition to EI from the government after that?

With the cost of housing and the general cost of living continuing to go up, I get scared shitless of thinking about how we would manage.

We want to upgrade from our 1 bedroom + den in the next few years, but may have a kid first and wait it out in our place. Everyone tells me you can make do until they are about 2 years old and then they need their own bedroom.

For most people, mat leave pay is the same as EI pay. We get the max amount which is like $515/week. You can spread that out over 12 months or 18 months.

My wifes company "tops up" her mat leave/ei pay because of a company benefit. I can't remember the exact amounts, but for the first three months of mat leave, they topped up her pay 100% and it decreased to about 60% until six months (something like that). After six months, we only get the EI pay, which is ~$515/week. I don't know a lot of people who get the "top up", but we were so lucky her company did that.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

Big decision is whether we try and move later this year and get it over and done with even before we start trying for a kid.

If you're definitely going to be trying for a kid, do it now. That way you're not under a time crunch to move before the baby arrives or trying to move with a new baby.

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

I've crunched the numbers and we could survive on my income, it's just that our financial goals and retirement will be pushed back.

Obviously everyone has different priorities and is in a different situation but if scooting your retirement a little further back is the biggest hit to you then I know what I'd be doing. Life is short, and everything is a compromise. You kid is only that age once and you have no way to know what the future will bring.

[Special K]

If you can afford it, definitely have your wife stay at home to raise the children. No one, including grandparents, will provide love and care that match mom.

Another consideration is stress level. Is your wife’s job demanding? With daycare pick up and drop off, it’s hard to get everything done during work hours. We find ourselves working night shifts often to get stuff done.

[quasi]

There are some huge advantages to having a parent stay home with the children for sure, there are also some advantages to sending a child to daycare primarily the early interaction with lots of kids and learning a school like environment at an early age.

We sent our son to Daycare from his 1st birthday until he was about 10 or 11, there would have been some benefits to one of us staying home with him but that said he did learn a lot of social things a lot earlier than he would have had he been at home.

I can't say 100% it's because of Daycare but he ended up being very social and super extroverted, no issues making new friends, tremendous leadership skills quickly became the Captain of the Lacrosse team, QB of the football teams and he was never ever the best athlete out there. I really do believe that early daycare played some role in this, obviously I haven't run studies lol that's just my opinion.

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by Special K

If you can afford it, definitely have your wife stay at home to raise the children. No one, including grandparents, will provide love and care that match mom.

Another consideration is stress level. Is your wife’s job demanding? With daycare pick up and drop off, it’s hard to get everything done during work hours. We find ourselves working night shifts often to get stuff done.

Her job is definitely stressful, but for the most part, the work stays at work. It's not common to have her bring work home with her.

We definitely have a lot to consider. Things were so much easier pre-baby. But, it's definitely true. Having a kid has been the best thing to ever happen to us, we finally have a purpose in our lives now.

All that being said, we wanted that investment condo for our little guy when he grows up. If we don't get him in the market, I fear he will never be able to get into the market.

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by Special K

If you can afford it, definitely have your wife stay at home to raise the children. No one, including grandparents, will provide love and care that match mom.

Another consideration is stress level. Is your wife’s job demanding? With daycare pick up and drop off, it’s hard to get everything done during work hours. We find ourselves working night shifts often to get stuff done.

The stress level would have been crazy for us over the past year if my wife wasn’t at home. Schools were closed March-June last year, then there were exposures at school (very few, looking back), appointments, etc. Whatever happened we could accommodate it because she was available. We’re not big spenders so fortunately we’ve been ok with one income (steady, stable job, but not raking in big bucks, got a house with adequate space before prices became ridiculous).

For those where both parents had to work from home, how do you get anything done if you can’t find “emergency” childcare? Use up all your vacation days?

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by quasi

There are some huge advantages to having a parent stay home with the children for sure, there are also some advantages to sending a child to daycare primarily the early interaction with lots of kids and learning a school like environment at an early age.

I'm a big advocate of sending kids to daycare - the social aspects of daycare are so valuable. While my daughter won't get the same love at daycare that she would being at home with her parents or grandparents the skills she develops at daycare are SO important and not something any of us at home could offer her.

I suppose the ideal would be that she goes to daycare 3-4 days a week while my wife or I take the extra day (or the grandparents) but as it stands sending her 5 days a week beats having her home 7 days a week in terms of her growth.

My sample size is small but I've watched my nieces and nephews get a wide range of care and the results are really obvious - daycare plus highly engaged parents make a MASSIVE difference to a child's development. Being a highly engaged parent is really hard to do every day though - parenting is likely the hardest thing you'll ever do and being on all the time is so hard (heck, I can barely keep it up 2 hours at a time).

Then again the care I got when I was a child was nothing to write home about (it was what you'd expect with 2 working class working parents who were new to Canada) and I turned out fine.

[quasi]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Then again the care I got when I was a child was nothing to write home about (it was what you'd expect with 2 working class working parents who were new to Canada) and I turned out fine.

Lol I hear you, I had a dad who worked out of town Monday-Friday and was at the clubhouse on the weekends, I barely knew him growing up I never really got to know him until later in life after high school when I went to work for him.

I had a mom who was very hard working, worked full time took care of me and my sister went to University at night, did everything around the house. Even when my dad was home my mom did everything, to this day he still snaps his fingers if he wants a coffee. I ended up mostly fine, although neither of my parents were ever interested in what I was doing at school. I was babysitting my sister from a young age probably 10 she was 6. Mind you this was a different time, the 80s was a trip lol.

I'm white but I treat my son like a stereotypical asian parent, I'm so hard on him if I don't feel he's giving it 100% and if he gets anything less than an A in any class I'm all over him because I know he's smart, way smarter than I am and if he doesn't get an A it's due to nothing else but laziness and lack of effort.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by quasi

I'm white but I treat my son like a stereotypical asian parent, I'm so hard on him if I don't feel he's giving it 100% and if he gets anything less than an A in any class I'm all over him because I know he's smart, way smarter than I am and if he doesn't get an A it's due to nothing else but laziness and lack of effort.

My daughter graduated to JK1 at her daycare but was placed in the JK1B class (the 1A class wasn't actually open at the time) so it led to me making the High Expectations Asian Father joke of "JK1B? How about JK1A?!" for a solid 2-3 days.

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by supafamous

My daughter graduated to JK1 at her daycare but was placed in the JK1B class (the 1A class wasn't actually open at the time) so it led to me making the High Expectations Asian Father joke of "JK1B? How about JK1A?!" for a solid 2-3 days.

Oh geese, that would annoy me.

Especially once they open up JK1A and kids get enrolled for that...

[bobbinka]

[supafamous]

4236 Inverness R2584459

Property Type 1/2 Duplex
Style of House 2 Storey w/Bsmt.
Bedrooms 3
Bathrooms 3
Listing Date 2021-May-25
Sold Date 2021-Jun-01
Sale Reported Date 2021-Jun-02
Days on Market 7
Sold Price $1,325,000
Asking Price (Final) $1,199,000
Asking Price (Original) $1,199,000
Size of House 1,242 sqft

This is something - only 1240sf and it goes for $1.33m. My duplex is 1900sf and we only got assessed at $1.4m by the bank. Granted this duplex is in a better area (I'm over by 41st/Rupert) and this is slightly better finished but I get $1350 in rent from my basement and I still have just as much space as they do to live in.

[rb]

Originally Posted by bobbinka

Apparently those miniature building models for the sales centers and preplanning meetings can cost upwards of a 100k

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by supafamous

4236 Inverness R2584459

Property Type 1/2 Duplex
Style of House 2 Storey w/Bsmt.
Bedrooms 3
Bathrooms 3
Listing Date 2021-May-25
Sold Date 2021-Jun-01
Sale Reported Date 2021-Jun-02
Days on Market 7
Sold Price $1,325,000
Asking Price (Final) $1,199,000
Asking Price (Original) $1,199,000
Size of House 1,242 sqft

This is something - only 1240sf and it goes for $1.33m. My duplex is 1900sf and we only got assessed at $1.4m by the bank. Granted this duplex is in a better area (I'm over by 41st/Rupert) and this is slightly better finished but I get $1350 in rent from my basement and I still have just as much space as they do to live in.

This is a brand new build though. Makes sense why it sold for what it did.

Also, do people actually like this sort of layout? Why separate the living and dining area? make it one open concept area. People like to entertain and have people over. Having a separate living room doesn't make sense in 2021.

I saw so many places like this when I was looking at places. Seems crazy to do it like this. But, I guess this is what you have to settle for when we live in such a crazy housing market zone. Ugh. I feel so bad for some of my friends who will never be able to afford a condo, let alone a detached house.

edit: I guess if you didn't put the stairs in the middle of the house, it would be difficult for the other floors to have a workable layout, so I suspect it would be too hard to have an open concept main floor living area.

[Great68]

Probably can't make much else work with the narrow layout of the unit and the stairwell in the middle.

No bathroom on the main floor kinda sucks too.

[Oshiguru]

Washer dryer in the basement bedroom is interesting too. Essentially a laundry room

[underscore]

The split levels look really awkward too. That basement "bedroom" seems more like an office/den, having the laundry in there and having to go up 2 flights of stairs for a shower would make it pretty obvious who isn't the favourite child

I'm curious wtf the little flap in the back of that basement closet is for too.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

This is a brand new build though. Makes sense why it sold for what it did.

Also, do people actually like this sort of layout? Why separate the living and dining area? make it one open concept area. People like to entertain and have people over. Having a separate living room doesn't make sense in 2021.

I saw so many places like this when I was looking at places. Seems crazy to do it like this. But, I guess this is what you have to settle for when we live in such a crazy housing market zone. Ugh. I feel so bad for some of my friends who will never be able to afford a condo, let alone a detached house.

edit: I guess if you didn't put the stairs in the middle of the house, it would be difficult for the other floors to have a workable layout, so I suspect it would be too hard to have an open concept main floor living area.

The listing I saw of it on Zealty has it at 10 years old (Street view confirms this) which makes it 4 years older than my duplex.

re: layout. It's a weird one. That 3rd bedroom is barely a 3rd bedroom - it's only 6'8" wide and has the laundry there.

I can't find the lot size but I think it's a 33' wide lot so it's a real skinny unit - 12'3" wide on the inside. They could have done the stairs on the side as a single piece - I actually looked at the duplex next to it 6 years ago and it is also a 33' wide lot and they managed to make it work really well. Came really close to putting a bid on it until the in-laws got my wife all worked up about how narrow it was.

[supafamous]

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...reet-vancouver

What a bargain!