Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[6thGear.]

Originally Posted by 68style

I don't own any secondary properties, so I don't have any investment in whatever is decided... but doesn't that just make rents higher? Any cost to an owner of a secondary residence just gets folded up into the rent to cover it. There seems to be an expectation developing that people who own secondary properties should lose money monthly and offer affordable rents even though it might only cover 50-75% of their monthly mortgage cost... but that is never going to be the case and why would it be?

Originally Posted by Traum

The primary concern for investors is ROI. When the ROI from a given form of investment is too low to be attractive (compared to other forms of investment), investors will take their money elsewhere. With secondary properties, ROI primarily comes from:

1. capital gain from the property
2. rental income from the property

To prevent investors from getting good ROI through RE without royally screwing the renters, a policy would have to focus on #1 without massively affecting #2.

So I guess the means to achieve this is to tax the bejesus out of capital gains from secondary properties?

Without me getting into a long write up as I'm sure my son will wake up any minute from his nap. Traum is right now about ROI and investments. But a system where taxation increases as a person/ entity obtains additional 3rd 4th etc properties Ahhh as I suspected he's up

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by supafamous

https://www.bcassessment.ca//Propert...AwMDAzWFdSVQ== Assessed at $1.284m so good bet it'll go for at least $1.5m, wouldn't surprise me if it's 1.6m+.

Also, these people don't look like investors to me. I bet the vast majority are people who just want a roof over their heads to raise their family.

Right on the money: $1.612M; sold in 5 days.

[westopher]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Well, much like the doctors/nurses argument, how long can we go on with politicians and policy makers throwing their hands in the air saying “oh what shall we do?!?!” Instead of actually enacting change in the system with the focus on the future.



Bite the bullet, zone every single family lot for multi family development, build more coops through taxation, incentivize building subsidized housing, whatever. It’s not on your average joe to figure out but clearly the wrong people have been in place for a LONG time to address these issues even remotely.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Our whole representative system needs a drastic overhaul. Representation by area needs to be adjusted to representation by demographic and financial groupings. As long as we have a bunch of politicians that stand to lose their gains made in real estate because most of them are wealthy gen x and boomers that come from wealthy families, they won’t risk that gravy train getting away from them. Cunty Clark is the perfect example of that. Her and her cabinet licked their chops as the money laundering came in and propped up the values of their investments, and could invest with inside info that it would never come to an end as long as they could allow it. Cut the brakes on the freight train and then blame the guy that comes in next shift.

[Hondaracer]

Here ya go, I just walked by the solution:





Zone single family lots for these. You’ll create ghettos and it’s just a step up from a halfway house but you own a roof over your head and you might build some equity

[westopher]

What's gonna create more crime? Cheap housing or the entire homeless population of the whole country being in two cities (van and vic) because everywhere else you'll just die after a night outside. The net decrease in crime will be there.
I don't know. Fuck it. Time for the asteroid to hit and maybe in 65 million years the next round of humans will figure it the fuck out.

[Liquid_o2]

Where is that project Hondaracer?

I'm surprised that the City allowed this project to develop. This looks like something you would see on the south side of Atlanta.

[Hondaracer]

Ahh..Victoria and..I dunno like 3 blocks south of Via Tevere

[68style]

I mean the capitalist system is at fault here.. the need to have more than another person… human nature itself…

What can you do when something is popular besides make it unpopular? You make somewhere nice, people want to live there. Simple as that.

Really if they want to drive house prices down you have to stop people from buying places that already have one or don’t live here and increase supply at the same time. But then you also gut the market.

As Eby already asserted though, 64% of people in Vancouver own a place… do you totally fuck all the 64% that recently bought (not even recent either, the last 10+ years) to get another 36% on the ownership wagon?

I’ll be brutally honest, the people I personally know who don’t own a place and bitch the loudest about it, they couldn’t afford a condo if it was 80% off sale tomorrow. Yes there are exceptions and yes I can be one of them too, I live in a condo not a house and that is NOT by choice on my part…. However, for those people it shouldn’t be on the government or society to fix everything for them.

For me I realize I either need to increase my income, take on a bigger mortgage and cut back on other stuff, or move somewhere else if I want something different. I don’t expect, say, Hondaracer to lose $500k value off his house so I can buy a dip on a bigger place down the street. It’s on me to change something.

[Alpine]

Sorry but I feel all these taxes is stupid. We already have it difficult enough, and now working class people want to tax themselves to death faster.

People don’t understand just how little a million is when compared to a billion.

[westopher]

If you look at the rest of the world compared to Canada, you can’t say that our home prices in relation to wages is just the way it’s gonna be.
It’s also not about number of people that own a place as a metric or whether it works or not. Probably a fair number of those people that own places are stretched so thin they couldn’t afford a single month without a paycheque. It’s just fucked beyond fixing now anyway without some sort of collateral damage, so who faces the damage? If someone lives in their home, can afford the mortgage payments, does a decrease in the value really hurt their current quality of life other than feeling shitty about buying to high? It’s a cultural problem in Canada that everyone was pushed into the belief that real estate should simply be treated as a commodity just like the gun culture in the US has become a form of identity. Albeit way less terrible, it’s past the point of no return without coming in heavy handed and pissing some people off. Or just keep it going forever (like the gun problem in US) and until it fucks you over, fuck everyone else who suffers from it.

[68style]

The government really fucked up in the 90's tbh... Canada is just, ugh, so naive on the world stage. A lot of people blame that face on Trudeau nowadays, but we always have had that against us.

Back then they should have been more protectionist of land and had restrictions that nearly every other country in the world has over foreign ownership/investment. Then we wouldn't be where we are now. There was a TONNE of value in, say, HK immigrants who left in the 80's over China fears and sold their condos in HK and were filled with joy at the massive (by comparison) amount of space they could pick up here for pennies on the dollar... I vividly remember like 1986 onward my school filling up with people who make up most of my friend base to this day as HK immigrants. They all went on to build families and very contributing lives here which is what I think the government wants. I can't say the same for what's happened in the 2000's home investment wise. Somewhere in the late 90's it changed from being a land of opportunity for a better honest life to a place to park money and take advantage of lackadaisical rules.

That said, I personally have little qualms about selling here at some point and going elsewhere and taking my small advantage and making it work for me. There's lots of cool places in the world to live. Heck, I could even buy a hobby farm in England for what my condo is worth here. Give it a try one day? LOL

[westopher]

I feel the same way. It's tough to think about leaving though because my interests are pretty Canada centric with snowboarding being at the top of that list. I don't want to live in America (for previously mentioned reasons, among other things) and the best countries for that are difficult to immigrate to like Austria, Switzerland, Norway, etc.
Not like that would be cheap either lol.

[Hondaracer]

In the summer at a friends bachelor party I met a friend of his who grew up in Campbell River and now lives in Long Island after living for years in Brooklyn with a woman he met at coachella and he’s now a dual citizen with 2 kids. He had a crazy story and I thought fuck a guy from CR ends up in Brooklyn. Some people do shit like that but the vast majority never will, gotta be willing to take that plunge. I told the guy I admire that move

This is an interesting use of probably a lot and a half, maybe two lots. Beautiful triplex

[JDMDreams]

Only sucker's pay for housing in Vancouver, you can get water front property for free fuck yo taxes and property taxes

"Residents 'overwhelmed' after judge rules they can stay in CRAB Park encampment"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...uver-1.6315762

[Great68]

Meh, I think in 20 years these massive paper gains aren't going to be worth all that much, inflation is going to catch up hard and fast and even it all out.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by donk.

Houses might have been "cheap" in 1985, only being 5x income

But my god, most other things sure weren't. I remember my parents telling me how insane the first mac was, like 3500$ or something

Pretty sure produce and furniture was also way more expensive in comparison to today, not Ikea garbage that lasts 4 years

Now all goods are imported from slave workers, everything is thrown out instead of repaired

We have everything we need in 2022, with a click, and a fractional dent to the bank account. The only thing missing is real estate

Pick your poison

Partly agree, at least with the bit about every generation having their own challenges. Also with 1985, there a lot less frivolous shit you need to pay for. Nowadays you are at a massive disadvantage to not have a smart phone with a data plan which easily adds up to $60-100 a month.

That $3500 mac is a luxury back then (still is I argue) but the whole premise of a home computer is a luxury. But you NEED a computer/phone nowadays in order to do anything.

I don't think produce was more expensive, but definitely less choices than today.

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

The “20%” interest rate thing is always a funny argument. Considering the house costs what a down payment for a condo does… and likely similar salaries. Meaning who cares what the interest is. So just pull up your pants and be a little more financially responsible

I remember my dad bought a condo after my parents split for 60k. Due to bad luck and bad desicions. He still doesn’t own anything today.

It's not a funny argument and it's real. With my house right now, my payment is more than 50% principle.

$150k loan @ 20% over 25 years

Your total outlay is $755k if you paid according to schedule, and the payments are $2500 a month. The first few years you've put a few hundred into the principle. Most people wouldn't be able to afford that, but housing prices were stable.

The flip side of the coin is, back then you can actually save money. People made 20-30k a year and without a runaway housing market you can actually keep up. Good luck nowadays, 200k household doesn't keep up with 15% year over year housing inflation.

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

To be effective and remove all possible loopholes, they should just tax capital gains on all RE including primary residences. We all know people who buy a place, live in it for 6 months, and then flip it.

Before the pitchforks come out, I am a home owner, and capital gains is only taxable on 50% anyways. Which means that if you sell your house for $100K more than you bought it for, then 50% marginal tax rate at 50% of taxable value = 25%. So this means you will be pay 25K (25%) out of the $100K in gains. I think that 25% should be pretty close to what most people would pay in average income taxes anyways, so really, it's no different than any other source of income.

Yes, I understand that you will now only "keep" $75K, less property transfer taxes, less RE commissions, so you won't make as much as before. Well tough shit, because this is your primary residence so you shouldn't be trying to cash/flip on it anyways. I truly believe the reason why RE is so high is because most people who stretch themselves out keep buying into the bubble to chase capital gains, including investors who rent out their properties. They think it's "worth it" now because in a couple of years, it will be worth +20% more, so they are willing to pay the high prices today. Reduce away those capital gains, without really introducing any new taxes, and the demand side, or at least the demand to pay ridiculous prices should decrease and will have a ripple effect of downwards pressure on pricing.

Doesn't work like that. You start taxing the gains harder, people would just not sell or sell for even higher prices. Basic economics. With that it also means people that need to upgrade may not be able to afford to as now they need to pay for the gap of the tax between their current sale vs the new place they want to buy.

Originally Posted by Great68

Meh, I think in 20 years these massive paper gains aren't going to be worth all that much, inflation is going to catch up hard and fast and even it all out.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry because it's insane, yet at the same time vaguely possible.

[sonick]

2933 Albion sold for 1.61m

[supafamous]

https://www.rew.ca/properties/376738...k-road-hope-bc

For a sense of how crazy things are this is an 1800sf house in HOPE which is a mere 2 hour drive from downtown Vancouver and it's listed at 850k. At least it's only a 10 min drive to Dairy Queen.

[Hakkaboy]

Originally Posted by westopher

Capital gains taxes will just force people to hold or ask outrageous selling prices which may impact supply or push the market higher.

Originally Posted by Great68

Nah, I have no problem with people flipping their primary residence. They're taking the risk that they'll mis-judge or mis-time and take a bath on it.

Or they're reno-flippers, which I believe we need. They're still taking a risk on the work, and ultimately providing a needed service in upgrading homes.
I have several on my street that are in the middle of this right now, and the end result is that adds to my street looking better.

If you want to tax capital gains on primary residences, then I should be able to write off my mortgage interest as an expense. like they do in the USA

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Doesn't work like that. You start taxing the gains harder, people would just not sell or sell for even higher prices. Basic economics. With that it also means people that need to upgrade may not be able to afford to as now they need to pay for the gap of the tax between their current sale vs the new place they want to buy.

Capital gains is a reduced tax rate on gains. The keyword is gains. If the gain is only $1, you pay 25 cents. If the gain is 0, then you pay 0. If you sell your house for less than what you bought it for, then that should be written off against your other investment income (if any).

Now, what are the 3 key reasons that people sell their principle homes?

a) Upsize
b) Downsize (including being forced due to financial reasons)
c) Move somewhere else

In what world will someone hold out and not sell due to a capital gains tax that will work out to a similar normal income tax rate if they are in the a, b, or c group?

And now, the last point, regarding the gap in upsizing. Yes, capital gains will erode and give you less buying power for your next home. But guess what, since this will apply to EVERYBODY, then there will be less stupid money to buy the next house. You are all assuming that prices will stay the same or keep rising, but fail to realize that this measure should bring prices down for everybody, including those who will be buying their first homes. It's basic economics, as you said. Less money available to be spent, housing prices go down.

This reminds me of the argument for higher minimum wages. "This city is to expensive to live in, let's raise minimum wage by 40%." Well, if you raise minimum wage, then everything goes up since labour will go up and so will operating costs for almost all businesses. Then it just makes everything more expensive again will now affect everyone and you are in a endless cycle of inflation and fixes to it causing more inflation.

To me the solution to the "affordability crisis" isn't by giving everybody more money. It's the opposite.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

Capital gains is a reduced tax rate on gains. The keyword is gains. If the gain is only $1, you pay 25 cents. If the gain is 0, then you pay 0. If you sell your house for less than what you bought it for, then that should be written off against your other investment income (if any).

Now, what are the 3 key reasons that people sell their principle homes?

a) Upsize
b) Downsize (including being forced due to financial reasons)
c) Move somewhere else

In what world will someone hold out and not sell due to a capital gains tax that will work out to a similar normal income tax rate if they are in the a, b, or c group?

And now, the last point, regarding the gap in upsizing. Yes, capital gains will erode and give you less buying power for your next home. But guess what, since this will apply to EVERYBODY, then there will be less stupid money to buy the next house. You are all assuming that prices will stay the same or keep rising, but fail to realize that this measure should bring prices down for everybody, including those who will be buying their first homes. It's basic economics, as you said. Less money available to be spent, housing prices go down.

This reminds me of the argument for higher minimum wages. "This city is to expensive to live in, let's raise minimum wage by 40%." Well, if you raise minimum wage, then everything goes up since labour will go up and so will operating costs for almost all businesses. Then it just makes everything more expensive again will now affect everyone and you are in a endless cycle of inflation and fixes to it causing more inflation.

To me the solution to the "affordability crisis" isn't by giving everybody more money. It's the opposite.

Capital gain taxes are applied on investments, primary homes are NOT supposed to be investments, they only started to become like investments because such b/c of a lack of supply but that doesn't mean we should penalize people for it. Homes are supposed to be HOMES. If the price of water increases due to scarcity and we see people speculating on water we wouldn't apply a cap gain tax to it, we'd find ways to get more water or we'd find ways for people to use less water. Housing is one of the very few essential things where it seems we're willing to suspend the basics of supply and demand to explain the price of it.

The cap gain taxes punishes heavily when it comes to social mobility whether or not housing prices go up quickly or slowly (and housing prices can and do go up slowly, they generally do not go down). Example:

I'm Joe Blow who lives in Squamish in my condo which I bought in 2012 for $500k which is now worth $600k (hypothetical low increase of just 20% over 10 years). I've met the love of my life but she lives in Abbotsford. Also I found my dream job (same pay though) out there too so I'm gonna move over there as I can't commute this far every day and she's not moving. Turns out housing costs exactly the same and an equivalent condo costs $600k in Abbotsford.

So now I'm on the hook for:

Property Transfer Tax: $10K (a tax that was made up to try to slow real estate price increases)
Real estate commission: $20K
Capital gains: ~$15-30k depending on income.

WTF mate? I'm out 10% of the value of my home just to move to be with the woman I love and work my dream job? It's fortunate that he's met the love of his life so he's willing to lose a bunch of money over this but if it was just for a job there's a good chance Joe Blow passes on the job b/c he can't afford to lose this money over a house.

That's just the lowest end scenario - a below inflation rate increase in the value of his home. Use a slightly higher rate of increase like 5% YoY and this guy is losing his hat over a move.

Blowing a hole in social mobility is just not an acceptable outcome here. We punish the wrong kind of people - the rich can eat that cost just fine, the working/middle class will take it in the teeth.

[Hakkaboy]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Capital gain taxes are applied on investments, primary homes are NOT supposed to be investments, they only started to become like investments because such b/c of a lack of supply but that doesn't mean we should penalize people for it. Homes are supposed to be HOMES. If the price of water increases due to scarcity and we see people speculating on water we wouldn't apply a cap gain tax to it, we'd find ways to get more water or we'd find ways for people to use less water. Housing is one of the very few essential things where it seems we're willing to suspend the basics of supply and demand to explain the price of it.

The cap gain taxes punishes heavily when it comes to social mobility whether or not housing prices go up quickly or slowly (and housing prices can and do go up slowly, they generally do not go down). Example:

I'm Joe Blow who lives in Squamish in my condo which I bought in 2012 for $500k which is now worth $600k (hypothetical low increase of just 20% over 10 years). I've met the love of my life but she lives in Abbotsford. Also I found my dream job (same pay though) out there too so I'm gonna move over there as I can't commute this far every day and she's not moving. Turns out housing costs exactly the same and an equivalent condo costs $600k in Abbotsford.

So now I'm on the hook for:

Property Transfer Tax: $10K (a tax that was made up to try to slow real estate price increases)
Real estate commission: $20K
Capital gains: ~$15-30k depending on income.

WTF mate? I'm out 10% of the value of my home just to move to be with the woman I love and work my dream job? It's fortunate that he's met the love of his life so he's willing to lose a bunch of money over this but if it was just for a job there's a good chance Joe Blow passes on the job b/c he can't afford to lose this money over a house.

That's just the lowest end scenario - a below inflation rate increase in the value of his home. Use a slightly higher rate of increase like 5% YoY and this guy is losing his hat over a move.

Blowing a hole in social mobility is just not an acceptable outcome here. We punish the wrong kind of people - the rich can eat that cost just fine, the working/middle class will take it in the teeth.

I agree that principle homes should not be an investment, but I am suggesting a way to combat runaway prices and reduce the stupidity that is feeding into FOMO and creating artificial demand.

In your scenario, yes, too bad so sad. An alternative is to rent out his current place and rent another place. Might still take a bit of a loss there depending on rental income delta, but moving to be with someone comes at a cost.

You think of the new purchase price being $600K + ~50K cost. However, I think of it as a $500K + $50K cost for the new place, because be bought in at 500K originally and now only have to put in another $50-60K. He's still better off than than if he was a first time home owner and having to pay the full $600K for the Abbotsford place. Different way of viewing things I guess, as it's a matter of perspective.

Now, my argument is that if prices were more reasonable and fundamentally sound, then perhaps he will not be as stretched out and can actually afford that moving cost without needing to be rich. What a foreign idea, I know.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Hakkaboy

Capital gains is a reduced tax rate on gains. The keyword is gains. If the gain is only $1, you pay 25 cents. If the gain is 0, then you pay 0. If you sell your house for less than what you bought it for, then that should be written off against your other investment income (if any).

Now, what are the 3 key reasons that people sell their principle homes?

a) Upsize
b) Downsize (including being forced due to financial reasons)
c) Move somewhere else

In what world will someone hold out and not sell due to a capital gains tax that will work out to a similar normal income tax rate if they are in the a, b, or c group?

And now, the last point, regarding the gap in upsizing. Yes, capital gains will erode and give you less buying power for your next home. But guess what, since this will apply to EVERYBODY, then there will be less stupid money to buy the next house. You are all assuming that prices will stay the same or keep rising, but fail to realize that this measure should bring prices down for everybody, including those who will be buying their first homes. It's basic economics, as you said. Less money available to be spent, housing prices go down.

This reminds me of the argument for higher minimum wages. "This city is to expensive to live in, let's raise minimum wage by 40%." Well, if you raise minimum wage, then everything goes up since labour will go up and so will operating costs for almost all businesses. Then it just makes everything more expensive again will now affect everyone and you are in a endless cycle of inflation and fixes to it causing more inflation.

To me the solution to the "affordability crisis" isn't by giving everybody more money. It's the opposite.

Taxes work in your theory if there's an abundant supply of the target good and you want to discourage people from consuming the good. The problem we have is there ISN'T an abundant supply of it and it has not kept up with demand. If the supply isn't so tight then the runaway market wouldn't have run away in the first place and there would be no suggestion of taxes to control the market.

A blanket tax would just hike the the price across the board as people will keep raising the sell price to cover the loss on taxes. Your basic economics understanding is unfortunately wrong and you are assuming this is an elastic demand on a good that has no supply constraints. All you are doing is pricing people out with the tax as you raise the price floor. Time and time again it's shown that the "consumer" thus the buyer in this case, will be the one that bears the brunt of the tax.

There are other variables in play here such as some of the very stringent building codes that have been put into place in the last decade, plus the cost of labour and raw materials.

A targeted tax like the empty home's tax, and foreign buyers tax are theoretically much better initiatives to try and reign in the market as they target portions of the consumers instead of everyone. Yes there will be unintended casualties but most policies will. I'm not against a higher capital gains tax on 2nd and 3rd properties as it would again be a targeted tax that would not hurt regulars.

Minimum wage in a way is tax, as the gov't mandates the business to pay a certain amount for services instead of a market rate. Though, there aren't that many jobs that are REALLY minimum wage, and everytime they hike up the min wage everyone takes a hit.

[whitev70r]

Unfortunately, we are in this universe now that if you did anything to make it affordable for young families, so many vultures will swoop in and buy them all up before the intended families could even make an appointment with their bank to arrange a mortgage.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Unfortunately, we are in this universe now that if you did anything to make it affordable for young families, so many vultures will swoop in and buy them all up before the intended families could even make an appointment with their bank to arrange a mortgage.

Unfortunately also true. The seller will always sell to a no subjects all cash deal.

[jing]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Unfortunately also true. The seller will always sell to a no subjects all cash deal.

Not true. We made a clean offer slightly under ask on a 3br TH in late 2020 but the winning bid ended up being 5% over ask with subjects.