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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 uncle lives in a Vancouver special all his life. He bought it for $300k. His two kids moved out, luckily they have housing, but what are you expecting him to do?
What is he supposed to downsize to that gives him the same quality of life right now? He doesn't want to live in a condo because he wants a yard and doesn't want to deal with an elevator.
Is he supposed to find a townhouse where he has to share walls and space with neighbours?
He makes about $20/hour working in a warehouse and his wife works in an office making about the same. They live modestly and probably have a couple hundred thousand in investments.
You're suggesting they should sell their house and change their lifestyle? They just want to retire, look after their grandkids, but also stay in their home. Why should they need to downsize?
I don't think your assessment is taking into account everyone's position.
Lol so he’s sitting on 1.5 million in equity and has a problem deferring property taxes? You gotta pay to play if you want to live in Vancouver. I don’t have much pity for someone in his situation when we are outlining these situations where people can’t afford shit period.
I think people are greatly overlooking how valuable the money pulled from your home can be in these situations VS dipping into your savings. It’s very basic. My parents came to their senses a long time ago with the boomer mentality of paying down your mortgage ASAP. As a result they probably are a million bucks richer than they would be otherwise today, and that’s outside of their equity gains.
If your pumping your RRSP etc. into your taxes, or even home maintenance instead of using the equity in your home you’re just using good money for bad.
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Dank memes cant melt steel beams
For the members talking about pulling money out of the home or that homeowners have so much equity, etc.
We do realize that taking money out isn't like selling stocks right? If you take equity out of your house, you're taking a loan out. We all understand that right?
It's not free money. It's different if you sell the house, yeah you have a huge gain. But, we're talking about regular working class people with only one house.
How are we supposed to think them taking out a $100k HELOC is not a big deal? They have to pay that back.
Am I missing something here?
Equity in a home doesn't mean anything until you sell. And if you're not selling, how is that fair to expect regular working class people to take a loan just to fund some government BS?
People who employ the Smith Maneuver would beg to differ.
^ thanks for the financial advice ... I believe you're the one who said that CPP can be a tax write off for the rich.
Digging a little deeper it actually is to some degree, whatever term you want to use.
You can proactively withhold the total amount of CPP and old age for tax purposes. A quick search will provide you with the form.
Sorry for the slight confusion though if you were relying on that for your future retirement.
Btw..that’s why you pay for professional advice. As I prefaced all that with, I’m no expert by any means. I simply heard something like that in background chat and spit it out here. My former boss told me some invaluable advice in that, you don’t have to be an expert in everything, that’s what you pay for. I’m half my life away from CPP, couldn’t really care less.
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Dank memes cant melt steel beams
No, the rules change for that. this is for radiant floor heat with no ductwork. It’s a 2000sq ft garage with living quarters.
I'm not familiar at all with the building regulations but are you saying that for radiant heating, you are required to run a ventilation fan, and not an ERV/HRV? Do you have a dedicated intake to make up the air exhausted by the fan?
Ignoring for a second whether or not this tax should exist, how much would it bring in and how exactly would it help people?
While most homeowners would likely defer such a tax, the deferred revenue would allow the federal government to invest that revenue to build subsidized housing so that people who can't afford housing at market rates (either rented or purchased) can have secure housing.
^^ right ... digging yourself a deeper hole because you can't admit you were wrong. Your misunderstanding of 'tax write off' vs. withholding tax amount for income tax has given me more confidence to trust your financial advice.
^^ right ... digging yourself a deeper hole because you can't admit you were wrong. Your misunderstanding of 'tax write off' vs. withholding tax amount for income tax has given me more confidence to trust your financial advice.
Ya got me bro!
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Dank memes cant melt steel beams
We bought a 3br slightly larger than that listing, in the same area, for $1.45m late last year. $1.5m is a good estimate.
They clearly under-listed it just to get the attention. For that type of house you'd typically see it listed it for $1.3m.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skyxx
Sonick is a genius. I won't go into detail what's so great about his post. But it's damn good!
2010 Toyota Rav4 Limited V6 - Wifey's Daily Driver
2009 BMW 128i - Daily Driver
2007 Toyota Rav4 Sport V6 - Sold
1999 Mazda Miata - Sold
2003 Mazda Protege5 - Sold
1987 BMW 325is - Sold
1990 Mazda Miata - Sold
lol. if I was given 1~1.5M of capital gain in my principal residence, most of which I could mobilize to snowball to even greater wealth, the last thing I would be doing is complain about having to pay less than 1% of it back to help the housing crisis we got going on here.
My issue with this solution is that it feels like giving regular homeowners a papercut when we should really be targeting investors that are speculating in the housing market. Nobody in the GVA and GTA should own more than one property. There is no reason why anyone needs to own a second property within the same city other than pure speculation. Increase property tax to 20% for second and third properties to make carrying costs too punitive to own multiple properties. If you want to invest your wealth, go look at stocks, bonds, bitcoin/nft, commercial real estate. rare art etc. My friend who's only in his early 30s owns 4 condos because he can. He started with 1 in 2015 and snowballed his way to 4. Its absolutely ridiculous but everyone and their mom is owning multiple properties in Toronto and Vancouver. Its literally, rich getting richer while the rest gets priced out. If you want to go in all-in on real estate so bad, then pool all our resources into one luxury property instead of multiple properties. If you want to secure housing for your children, buy one into each of their names but that should be the end of it.
Lol so he’s sitting on 1.5 million in equity and has a problem deferring property taxes? You gotta pay to play if you want to live in Vancouver. I don’t have much pity for someone in his situation when we are outlining these situations where people can’t afford shit period.
I think people are greatly overlooking how valuable the money pulled from your home can be in these situations VS dipping into your savings. It’s very basic. My parents came to their senses a long time ago with the boomer mentality of paying down your mortgage ASAP. As a result they probably are a million bucks richer than they would be otherwise today, and that’s outside of their equity gains.
If your pumping your RRSP etc. into your taxes, or even home maintenance instead of using the equity in your home you’re just using good money for bad.
So your parents can predict the future? Can you ask them how the market will be like in 20 years and see if the comment ages like fine wine?
With interest rates what they have been for the last 10+ years, instead of focusing on paying down the principle on the balance of their mortgage they’ve been using the additional funds for investing.. if you were to invest in nothing but index funds in that time you’re looking at a 20-40% return.. vs paying down a loan borrowed at single digit percentages.. in their case they aren’t borrowing from equity. They are just hugely throttling back the repayment of their mortgage.
We did the same thing recently when our mortgage came up.. added as much as we could possibly add without legal or reassessment at 1.28 or whatever our variable rate is, sprinkled that back into TFSA and RRSP on the advice of our financial guy, our returns since have already covered the additional interest we will pay on that new balance for the entire year in a few months. Pretty simple
If you’re leveraged out the ass you gotta have some balls to pull even more equity out into the unknown, but interest rates and market performance look pretty good in the last 10-15
Edit* this all kind of goes back to takes money to make money though
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Dank memes cant melt steel beams
Last edited by Hondaracer; 01-10-2022 at 01:41 PM.
I'm not familiar at all with the building regulations but are you saying that for radiant heating, you are required to run a ventilation fan, and not an ERV/HRV? Do you have a dedicated intake to make up the air exhausted by the fan?
For radiant I am required to have an exhaust fan run 24/7 and have passive air vents in bedroom and living space. How they come up with those rules is beyond me. It will be disabled as soon as it passes inspection.
My guess this gets 20+ offers and will sell for $1.5M-ish.
2933 Albion drive.
That's been the scene for entry-level detached since mid-2019. I started shopping for an entry-level detached in Q3 2019, and homes that were under-priced & move-in ready had hundreds of people in them at any one time. I couldn't walk down a hallway without bumping elbows with others. The most competitive bidding situation I ever faced was an original van special in north Burnaby in Nov 2019. 7 subject free offers the night the house was listed on MLS.
Entry detached is the hottest product around. I have a friend that is in the market and was going to see this house on the weekend. He bailed when he heard how many groups had signed up.
No doubt, 20+ offers (most will be subject-free), and 1.5M sounds about right. Keep an eye on 1053 Spar drive too.
It's great to see so many socialist in the forum though. And I don't mean that in a negative way.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to pay more tax and help the lower economic classes in our province.
The older I get, the more I think people should pay their fair share, but I think the 1% surtax isn't right, but if you think it's a good idea then all the power to you guys.
That's been the scene for entry-level detached since mid-2019. I started shopping for an entry-level detached in Q3 2019, and homes that were under-priced & move-in ready had hundreds of people in them at any one time. I couldn't walk down a hallway without bumping elbows with others. The most competitive bidding situation I ever faced was an original van special in north Burnaby in Nov 2019. 7 subject free offers the night the house was listed on MLS.
Entry detached is the hottest product around. I have a friend that is in the market and was going to see this house on the weekend. He bailed when he heard how many groups had signed up.
No doubt, 20+ offers (most will be subject-free), and 1.5M sounds about right. Keep an eye on 1053 Spar drive too.
Reading through back through the last few pages, not surprised so many of us grew up in lower middle class immigrant families where our parents pinched every penny, worked long hours, deferred any luxuries, and lived vicariously through their children.
What I am surprised about is how willingly Millennials following in their footsteps but with 6 figure salaries. What happened to the immigrant dream of the next generation? So you're not washing dishes or cleaning houses but you're chained to a computer 10-12 hours a day. Are you satisfied passing on this world to your children? I sure as fuck am not. Everyone thinks they're getting ahead but really we're all just pushing each other's heads below water.
Generally speaking, I don't think it is a crime for people to profit from real estates. In particular, I think investment - rental properties are an excellent vehicle for generating passive income. They just have to be taxed in an appropriate manner.
We all know a proper investment portfolio is important in this day and age to keep up with your wealth, and I know a lot of RS-ers are savvy stock market / securities investors. At the same time, we cannot overlook the fact that a lot of people are also clueless when it comes to that sort of investments, even if it is just an index fund. Real estate properties and landlordship, on the other hand, is a concept that is very easy to grasp and understand. For people like that, RE investments become an excellent vehicle to generate wealth. In light of that, demonizing RE investments while allowing for the Wall Street style runaway wealth generation seems highly hypocritical to me.
For quite a few years, I was helping my parents manage their 1 apartment rental unit. Later on, I became a landlord myself for a few years with another apartment unit (that I later moved back into when I got married). IMO, independent landlords like that can span the entire spectrum to include the best landlords as well as the worst slump lords. In a more normal world, independent private landlords are providing a very important resource to society -- they provide rental housing! I think we can all agree that having a healthy rental market is important in society. And if that rental housing market is only provided by massive major real estate firms, that would be a very unhealthy housing environment. It is really no different than having both independent small businesses as well as Big Box stores, and banning independent private investment property owners / landlords while allowing major rental property companies to remain is akin to killing off all small businesses while exclusively allowing Big Box stores to remain.
(And primary residences absolutely need to be treated in a different manner than investment properties.)
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Originally Posted by GGnoRE
My issue with this solution is that it feels like giving regular homeowners a papercut when we should really be targeting investors that are speculating in the housing market. Nobody in the GVA and GTA should own more than one property. There is no reason why anyone needs to own a second property within the same city other than pure speculation. Increase property tax to 20% for second and third properties to make carrying costs too punitive to own multiple properties. If you want to invest your wealth, go look at stocks, bonds, bitcoin/nft, commercial real estate. rare art etc. My friend who's only in his early 30s owns 4 condos because he can. He started with 1 in 2015 and snowballed his way to 4. Its absolutely ridiculous but everyone and their mom is owning multiple properties in Toronto and Vancouver. Its literally, rich getting richer while the rest gets priced out. If you want to go in all-in on real estate so bad, then pool all our resources into one luxury property instead of multiple properties. If you want to secure housing for your children, buy one into each of their names but that should be the end of it.
If you look at the pics of this house from the realtor's website, you'll notice that quite a few renovations were completed for the interior.
The garage looks like shit though.
That's the classic, hire an asian contractor with zero design EQ and use random bits of hardware found at the Burnaby contractor shops to spruce up my space.
e.g. huge ass victorian crown molding with the cheapest baseboard.