Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[donk.]

I get a quart chub reading other peoples success stories with real estate
Half chub on ricescene because its actual local people

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by quasi

I bought my place January, 2 months before Covid kicked off, my house totally renovated high end finishes.

A year later my neighbour across the street sells his house that's on a lot 35% smaller than mine, hasn't been touched basically a tear down. He sold it for 40% more than I paid for my house precovid in two days, it's insane. My wife and I have been stupid lucky with real estate over the last 20 years, we've doubled our money on each of the last two properties we owned and made an imaginary unrealized 40%+ on this one 20 months. We've spun a $7,500 down payment on our first townhouse in 2001 into over a million dollars in equity in 20 years. As a blue collar working stiff this is pretty great for us, might actually get to downsize and retire someday.

Hind sight is 20/20 but we did the same.

We managed to come up with $23K down payment for our first place in 2004.
Sold that in 2008 and moved into a bigger unit. Once that place was paid off, we were living mortgage free before buying our current TH.
After 2 years of owning the TH, we decided to upgrade to a house.

Very similar story, only a high school degree and a few years at UBC before I dropped out and found full time work in sales.
Wife has a university degree and works for the gov.

[hotjoint]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

I looked into kings landing, but I didn't want to deal with the drive into Surrey as you are stuck in city traffic for a bit until you get on the bridge or highway.

I've lived in Surrey practically all my life. Used to live in Guildford 5 mins away from Port Mann. Now I'm in the middle and it's only an extra 5 mins to either get to Alex Fraser or Patullo so not a big deal. I work super early and get off around 4 and only need to cross Alex Fraser to get home so it's not really that bad. 20 mins to get to work in the morning to new west and 30 ish to get home after. That thing that moves the barrier to change it to 4 lanes during rush hour has been a life changer

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

It’s to do with the design of neighbouring units. Also in almost all of those Dawson Sawyer layouts the neighbouring units master bedroom is over top of your living room.

The company I used to work for built over 300 units for Dawson Sawyer, almost all in that same style, I know them like the back of my hand. They’ve never really strayed away from that design because it maximizes space and it’s a relatively simple design that’s easy to build.

My former company no longer builds for them as far as I know, but I’d say they are pretty solid in that entry-level, mid range townhome game. They are cheap and expect higher quality than what they pay for so it can go both ways

The open concept, massive island, having 4 washrooms for every member of the family and side by side garage vs tandem parking are what sold us. There were tons of places that didn't have as many options and asking for way more

[Hondaracer]

Past weekend in Whistler wife and I had some time so we drove around into a few neighborhoods to check out some real estate. Man..Whistler is kinda depressing knowing I’ll never even have a chance at owning anything in a place I’d love to..lol

We stayed in an Airbnb, a nice little complex at the end of the lower village, a 500 sq ft studio apartment, the neighbouring unit in the same layout sold for 680 last year

Anyways, some eye catchers we came across:

This ski in-ski out beauty was located next to some weird 4 seasons townhome development which touches the runs down to creek side, this 3000 sq ft home is assessed at 12 million..



And the seemingly new trend of having your own elevator built into the rock so you don’t have to brave the weather in between your Cayenne Turbo and your couch:

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

And the seemingly new trend of having your own elevator built into the rock so you don’t have to brave the weather in between your Cayenne Turbo and your couch:

Is that the one right by Nita Lake Lodge? Think I saw that when I was up there last month.

[donk.]

Best part about whistler investments, are the 3x strata fees in comparison to vancouver

If i was ever buying up there, i would go 20 minutes north or south to avoid all the amenities and "village fees"

[Hondaracer]

Both of them are just east of creek side, the next road or so east of the highway. So across the Hwy from Nita lake

Wouldn’t doubt this is the new style though as the two I posted were on the same block pretty much

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by donk.

Best part about whistler investments, are the 3x strata fees in comparison to vancouver

If i was ever buying up there, i would go 20 minutes north or south to avoid all the amenities and "village fees"

I don't think "village fees" are thing tbh.

Strata fees in Whistler are high, but that's driven primarily by heating, garbage and snow removal, a lack of local trades to handle things, amenities like hot tubs, and high insurance as a lot of places are typically older inventory. Not a lot of new multi-family developments are built in Whistler unfortunately. All I'm saying is if you go 20 mins north or south, none of those factors necessarily change.

[westopher]

Snow removal is huge money. If you look at stratas in places like edmonton they are astronomical compared to here. Places that are mid 300s here would be 6-700+
Depending on what you’re looking at it also probably doesn’t exist 20mins North or south. Pemby real estate has gone nuts and the supply is next to nothing. Black tusk is just giant cabins that start at 3 million for the most part.

[Acura604]

been coming across some condos/townhouses that have 'geothermal heating & cooling'....is it really much more cost effective than regular hvac? and in terms of cooling - on par with traditional centralized AC?

[JDMDreams]

^^ what happened to your investment townhouse that went dark?

[Great68]

Originally Posted by Acura604

been coming across some condos/townhouses that have 'geothermal heating & cooling'....is it really much more cost effective than regular hvac? and in terms of cooling - on par with traditional centralized AC?

I'm going to assume this means Geothermal heat pumps. All this means is that the system gets its heat/cooling energy from water pipes buried in the ground (Or, "ground source") versus a typical condensing unit with a fan exchanging to the air ("Air Source).

There's negligible difference in terms of efficiency between the two.

The advantage of ground source systems is that you don't have noisy & unsightly condensing units on outside of the building. And if you size the system right it can handle weather extremes better (IE Air source heat pumps stop working well below and above certain ambient temperatures, whereas the ground stays relatively stable. This is a bigger factor in other parts of Canada, but the south coast has pretty much perfect air source heat pump weather year round)

The disadvantages are that the system has greater complexity than air source, more points of failure. You have a whole additional hydronic system you need to maintain with water, glycol, circulation pumps etc

[Acura604]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

^^ what happened to your investment townhouse that went dark?

they backed out due to a 'family crisis' event - i didnt bother going through with it as i didnt want to hear whatever it was ... wasn't out any cash thankfully

[Acura604]

.... still on the hunt for a townhome..

and i run into this.... someone explain why a realtor would do this?

went to see one listed/priced at $888k. wasn't too bad. saw it on 08/17.

today, i get a notification on my realty app that the same property was relisted at $749k under a different mls number.

i called my realtor to ask whats up - he mentioned they have offers at the higher price.

so... what is up with this? if one of those offers goes through- will that property appear to have sold for much higher than asking? but its under a diff mls number but they can easily edit the offers with that. what would have been the point of doing this?

[bcrdukes]

It's possible it was listed too high and they didn't get enough offers. So by cancelling the original listing, they list it lower to solicit more attention and bids to drive up the final sale price. It's a normal sales strategy and nothing new.

[Liquid_o2]

This is why I'm dreading to get back into the market. I know it is a normal tactic that many agents use, but nobody can defend it is absolutely ridiculous. It makes the buying process fucking terrible.

[snowball]

Originally Posted by Acura604

.... still on the hunt for a townhome..

and i run into this.... someone explain why a realtor would do this?

went to see one listed/priced at $888k. wasn't too bad. saw it on 08/17.

today, i get a notification on my realty app that the same property was relisted at $749k under a different mls number.

i called my realtor to ask whats up - he mentioned they have offers at the higher price.

so... what is up with this? if one of those offers goes through- will that property appear to have sold for much higher than asking? but its under a diff mls number but they can easily edit the offers with that. what would have been the point of doing this?

Greed, relist to get a bidding war because not enough bids. The offer is probably at or near their original asking right now and they want people to bid recklessly with FOMO.

[Acura604]

i'm tempted to call the realtor and ask him WTF? i mean i just saw the place yesterday - and bam, they relist at much lower. in this market, i guess realtors can get as dirty as they want.

listing yesterday:



relisted today:

[68style]

Originally Posted by Acura604

been coming across some condos/townhouses that have 'geothermal heating & cooling'....is it really much more cost effective than regular hvac? and in terms of cooling - on par with traditional centralized AC?

My buddy lives in the condos behind silver city in Richmond with geothermal heating/cooling… no amenities and high strata fees, BChydro won’t touch the building have to use an independent contractor to maintain the system and heat pumps for the individual units seem to go out every 5-7 years for $5,000 replacement cost each time.

Stay away.

[GLOW]

EXP realty with the 'X' discoloured?
so is the engineering firm gonna sue these guys? they trying to look like professional engineers from building science?

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Acura604

i'm tempted to call the realtor and ask him WTF? i mean i just saw the place yesterday - and bam, they relist at much lower. in this market, i guess realtors can get as dirty as they want.

They probably have an offer that’s close to the list (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bit under), but it’s a last ditch effort to drum up a few more offers to try and bump up the original bids. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sells for the original best offer. And then the realtor will advertise that it sold significantly above list.

When this happens there may be an opportunity to play ball if you don’t mind doing so. You can shorten the expiry date of your offer to put the screws to the listing agent and seller if you think you have a strong or strongest offer.

[Bonka]

Originally Posted by Acura604

i'm tempted to call the realtor and ask him WTF? i mean i just saw the place yesterday - and bam, they relist at much lower. in this market, i guess realtors can get as dirty as they want.

Spoiler!

listing yesterday:



relisted today:

Underpricing is merely a strategy and it's not foolproof. It's also as much about getting a clean(er) offer as it is getting the highest price. If the seller/listing agent feels the opportunity is there it's their privilege. It's amazing how buyers operate in today's market - a listing can sit for months on end and then sell with multiple offers well above any previously listed price on re-list.

There are other similar units for sale in that complex, move on if you don't like what's happening - you might even have a better chance knocking the price down if they've been sitting stale. Lower Mainland is all about cookie-cutter homes as there's always the next one.

You're the one to talk though - how many times did you re-list and de-list within a week at a higher price each time until you sold?

[bcrdukes]

Originally Posted by Bonka

[/spoiler]You're the one to talk though - how many times did you re-list and de-list within a week at a higher price each time until you sold?

:

I remember this. His wife had a change of heart or something and delisted ASAP.

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by Bonka

You're the one to talk though - how many times did you re-list and de-list within a week at a higher price each time until you sold?

Yes officer, this comment right here.

[JDMDreams]