Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by 68style

I know a sugar baby who feels the same way about her 70 year old bf

We're gonna need pics to correctly assess this, thanks.

[westopher]

Eh if she was that good she’d be banging a younger rich man for his money.

[donk.]

Originally Posted by SkunkWorks

We're gonna need pics to correctly assess this, thanks.

Of the 70 year old?

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

You speak of this like your cousin owning a 3rd rental/investment property is an awesome thing but this is exactly the type of behavior/mentality that we need to curb in the residential RE market. I respect your cousin's hustle and financial discipline but I'd much rather see his capital directed towards other sectors of the economy where people aren't struggling to secure basic living needs. If people weren't so crazy about owning 2nd, 3rd, 4th investment properties, maybe the renters of those investment properties could actually own their own home? Like, imagine if we were allowed to buy up hospital beds to the point where price per bed becomes unattainable for the average person and we can charge people rent when they're sick?

From Globe and Mail, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...ng-in-ontario/:
"There’s new evidence to suggest that a minority of Canadian homeowners are amassing large amounts of residential real estate in Ontario and B.C. New data reveal that 15.5 per cent of individual homeowners own 31.1 per cent of all residential properties in Ontario as of 2019. In British Columbia, 15 per cent of individual owners held 29.1 per cent of the provincial housing stock."

From Global News, https://globalnews.ca/news/8754816/m...housing-stock/:
"New data from Statistics Canada shows multiple-property owners held between 29 and 41 per cent of the housing stock in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 2019 and 2020."

This is unchecked capitalism rearing its ugly head.

That's the simplest way for an average person to get a head. My parents did the same thing. At one point they owned 4 duplexes and the house we lived in. Sold them all to build our gas station. 2 of the duplexes that where next to each other housed multiple relatives when they first arrived from India.

People get upset about the person owning a couple of houses but what about the corporations that own tens of thousands?

60 minute segment. Canadian company owns 30K single family houses in the US.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rising...-2022-03-20/#x

Originally Posted by underscore

Sure, but after how many years of sharing a space and having to deal with managing tenants and their bullshit? I'm sure it's fine for some people, and for some it's the only way to make home ownership work, but if I'm buying a house for 4 million dollars I want to be able to let my kids bang around or watch the bank scene in Heat at the proper volume without having to worry about someone below me complaining.

He is from India. His previous house looked like this. I don't think he or his tenants mind the noise.

[68style]

But... but... how did he get ahead so incredibly well here when there's so much racism and white privilege in Canada?

[PeanutButter]

The best and worst thing about our parents generation is they can work their asses off and not bat an eye.

If I worked half as hard as my dad, I'd be a hard working man.

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

Corner lots are fun until a Mustang plows into your house, like that corner House at 41 and Rupert

lol, that house is brutal. I think they've had a handful of accidents there. The worst part is ICBC won't pay for their fence. That's why they haven't fixed it yet.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by 68style

But... but... how did he get ahead so incredibly well here when there's so much racism and white privilege in Canada?

He got ahead because he works his ass off. He worked 6 days a week from sun up to sun down as a roofer. While idiots spend all day complaining about JT and attending protests every weekend.

White privilege has made some people lazy.

[westopher]

Pretty fuckin hot take there.
Have a look at where he’d be if he worked his ass off starting in 2019 as a roofer and I assure you he wouldn’t even be able to look at a one bedroom condo until 2030.

[Hondaracer]

Buddy probably lived in a house with 15 people as soon he moved here as well food etc. taken care of, cheap, accessible accommodation etc. . I’m sure it wasn’t your typical immigration story

[68style]

Originally Posted by Manic!

He got ahead because he works his ass off. He worked 6 days a week from sun up to sun down as a roofer. While idiots spend all day complaining about JT and attending protests every weekend.

White privilege has made some people lazy.

Was JT PM 15 years ago?

That's a pretty big paintbrush you're holding lol... SWIPE... everyone is lazy except my hard working cousin.

What percentage of the population is out protesting every weekend?

Nobody taking anything away from your cuz, but you shouldn't be so arrogant on his behalf that it was just sweat dripping off his ball-sack hammering roofing tiles in that afforded him multiple homes today. If someone in his position tried to do the same today, between truck prices being massively inflated, materials cost, fuel, rent, housing prices having doubled since 15 years ago... he would NOT be in the same place no matter how many roofs he hammered on.

[MarkyMark]

Yeah these 15+ year old success stories don't really relate to today's climate. It's not a secret that at one point hard work paid off when it came to buying a property.

[Alpine]

People get upset about the person owning a couple of houses but what about the corporations that own tens of thousands?

Generally speaking, people suck at thinking in scale. You get past a certain point and people simply can't comprehend the size and scale. They get overwhelmed and feel powerless, so instead turn their anger on micro issues for the perception of control.

There's more than enough money & wealth in the world to take care of most of the world's issues, without having to resort to taxing poor bastards like us to death. It's bullshit, just like how BP coined the phrase carbon footprint to blame us for climate change.

[68style]

Yah I am vehemently against massive corporations coming in and buying swaths of housing to rent them out.

I was just in LA and my friend lives in a rental suite in Brentwood, typical 3-4 story old LA condo building that's seen a couple of repaints but no serious renovation in 30+ years... the company that owns his building is some investment conglomerate that buys up every building that comes to market... you drive down his street (South Barrington for reference) and every single sign in front of a building advertising suites for rent is the same company/phone number block after block... and now they're slowly going through and luxury renovating them and doubling or tripling rent costs... the company is worth about $6B now... it's not good for society and it's only getting worse.

It is, however, good for contractors who get lost in the system charging massive money to a faceless corp that is monitoring too much to even try to have jobs go out to tender for handiwork/maintenance around their buildings!

[GGnoRE]

Originally Posted by Manic!

... People get upset about the person owning a couple of houses but what about the corporations that own tens of thousands? ...

Originally Posted by Alpine

... People get upset about the person owning a couple of houses but what about the corporations that own tens of thousands? ...

Lol, is this some standard go-to phrase to deflect all the attention away to the evil corporations?

In my previous posts, I provided clear data that shows mom & pop investors "scaled" to population level is a problem in our residential RE market (25% of transactions and 30~40% of housing stock attributed to multiple property owners). Those aren't some minuscule amount of demand that we can afford to ignore.

Speaking of corporations, its not like they are owned by an entirely different species of aliens or robots. They are owned by people with the same speculative motivations as the mom & pop investors. In that sense, of course I support heavier scrutiny and regulations against them as well. Let's also keep in mind that, a lot of these "corporations" are available to everyone that wants to buy into their real estate funds (instead of buying a property, you would buy shares in RE funds or REITs). With institutional capital, there is more nuance because there is a clear role for them to play due to their scale and size. Large development projects aren't going to be built by mom & pop investors (ie. condo buildings, townhomes, student housing, undeveloped land etc.). I'm obviously shooting from the hips but maybe they should be restricted certain segments of the markets like develop-to-sell projects.

Bottom-line is that we have a multi-prong issue; foreign investors, retail investors, and institutional investors all play a role in creating excess demand.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

In my previous posts, I provided clear data that shows mom & pop investors "scaled" to population level is a problem in our residential RE market (25% of transactions and 30~40% of housing stock attributed to multiple property owners). Those aren't some minuscule amount of demand that we can afford to ignore.

...

Bottom-line is that we have a multi-prong issue; foreign investors, retail investors, and institutional investors all play a role in creating excess demand.

Yes but...this technically is only a problem if this housing stock isn't available on the market in the form of rental housing.

That mom and pop are buying up additional real estate is little more than a symptom - they're able to do this because their homes have appreciated so much in value that they can take the money out to buy additional homes and the reason their homes appreciated is because there isn't enough homes in the first place.

That rental prices are climbing wildly is another signal of a lack of housing stock which then causes more mom and pops to take money out of their homes to buy more investment properties. Rinse and repeat.

The excess demand isn't from foreign investors, mom and pops, corporations etc - they're just acting on lazy fucking city governments who are too god damned fucking chicken shit to allow more housing which has caused housing to change from HOUSING into investments.

[GGnoRE]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Yes but...this technically is only a problem if this housing stock isn't available on the market in the form of rental housing.

That mom and pop are buying up additional real estate is little more than a symptom - they're able to do this because their homes have appreciated so much in value that they can take the money out to buy additional homes and the reason their homes appreciated is because there isn't enough homes in the first place.

That rental prices are climbing wildly is another signal of a lack of housing stock which then causes more mom and pops to take money out of their homes to buy more investment properties. Rinse and repeat.

The excess demand isn't from foreign investors, mom and pops, corporations etc - they're just acting on lazy fucking city governments who are too god damned fucking chicken shit to allow more housing which has caused housing to change from HOUSING into investments.

I think we are arguing about semantics now but respectfully, I'd have to disagree. I don't think we can trivialize the issue down to one dimension when there are so many factors at play. There is an obvious feedback interplay between supply and demand. In your view, just with changes to the existing gov't policy, do you think that the market can be flooded with enough supply such that it will be immune to speculative demand cornering the market? Without any guardrails, our market is up for sale against virtually unlimited amount of capital worldwide that can enter as foreign direct investment or via partnerships with local corporations.

[T4RAWR]

Wtf does white privilege have to do with housing?

I don't believe in that shit, they're just as fucked as the rest of us

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

Lol, is this some standard go-to phrase to deflect all the attention away to the evil corporations?

In my previous posts, I provided clear data that shows mom & pop investors "scaled" to population level is a problem in our residential RE market (25% of transactions and 30~40% of housing stock attributed to multiple property owners). Those aren't some minuscule amount of demand that we can afford to ignore.

Speaking of corporations, its not like they are owned by an entirely different species of aliens or robots. They are owned by people with the same speculative motivations as the mom & pop investors. In that sense, of course I support heavier scrutiny and regulations against them as well. Let's also keep in mind that, a lot of these "corporations" are available to everyone that wants to buy into their real estate funds (instead of buying a property, you would buy shares in RE funds or REITs). With institutional capital, there is more nuance because there is a clear role for them to play due to their scale and size. Large development projects aren't going to be built by mom & pop investors (ie. condo buildings, townhomes, student housing, undeveloped land etc.). I'm obviously shooting from the hips but maybe they should be restricted certain segments of the markets like develop-to-sell projects.

Bottom-line is that we have a multi-prong issue; foreign investors, retail investors, and institutional investors all play a role in creating excess demand.

Sorry dude, that was a screwed-up quote that I didn't bother to fix. The point of my post was to say that the wealthy (whether they are individuals, corporations, etc) have the money to provide/create affordability housing for all. But instead of "taxing the rich," we put the onus on the poor and "tax the poor" instead.

You can apply this "principle" to all facets, not just housing.

[Special K]

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

I’ve heard this a couple times, corner lot=less desirable? What fricken world are you guys living in? Lol. Since when. Especially in the city with neighbours 6 feet away. Unless it’s cornered onto a busy street, the corner lot is way more desirable.

Seems like I sparked a debate.

During my search last year, my wife and I agreed that we will not consider corner lots for the following reasons:
- people cutting across your lawn. That means fencing is a must.
- more yard work and more snow removal
- less privacy
- more traffic because all neighbours will likely go travel to an intersection.
- house door is weirdly placed because it’s often on the long side.
- close to stop sign, fire hydrant, and/or power box.

My observation from last year’s house search was that corner lots typically take longer to sell and the price is lower. Someone probably compiled that data and research. I didn’t search for this evidence.

Corner lots have these perks:
- bigger yard and free city land
- more parking on the side
- laneway is a true “separate entrance”

[westopher]

It's not a debate though. You can like something more or less, but the numbers dictate in the sales that a corner lot is more desirable. Unless you're on the corner of two busy streets, but that's just a bad location in general.

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by Special K

Seems like I sparked a debate.

During my search last year, my wife and I agreed that we will not consider corner lots for the following reasons:
- people cutting across your lawn. That means fencing is a must.
- more yard work and more snow removal
- less privacy
- more traffic because all neighbours will likely go travel to an intersection.
- house door is weirdly placed because it’s often on the long side.
- close to stop sign, fire hydrant, and/or power box.

My observation from last year’s house search was that corner lots typically take longer to sell and the price is lower. Someone probably compiled that data and research. I didn’t search for this evidence.

Corner lots have these perks:
- bigger yard and free city land
- more parking on the side
- laneway is a true “separate entrance”

I live on a corner lot; fortunately no busy streets! My front door is on the short side, right hand side of the house if you're looking at it from the front. When the house was being built, I insisted on having a fence.

Pros:
-not being squished between two houses (this is HUGE for me)
-only having to deal with 1 neighbour
-extra street parking (I have a 2-car garage but 3 cars)

Cons:
-more yard work (but me and 2 other corner lots all pay the same guy to do basic work)
-more snow removal (it doesn't snow THAT often, and that's why I had kids)
-telephone pole in my back lane, preventing me from parking a 3rd car on my property
-immediate neighbour has 4 cars parked on the street, other owners/tenants nearby either don't have a garage or use it for storage so their cars spill over to my side so it can be busy at times
-street facing side faces west so in the summer it can get really hot (fortunately I have A/C), and that side takes a beating from dust/rain/etc.

[GIZZ]

There are some car catered corner lot houses on hills in Burnaby with garages on 2 sides/levels.

Dead end streets are nice, it's nice to be by the end of a dead end. Extra parking, no unwanted traffic, it's impossible to be that lot if you're on the corner.

[Hondaracer]

If the amount of “extra” yard work a corner lot provides is a turn off between a non-corner lot, I got some news for ya, a detached home is probably over your head lol

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

I think we are arguing about semantics now but respectfully, I'd have to disagree. I don't think we can trivialize the issue down to one dimension when there are so many factors at play. There is an obvious feedback interplay between supply and demand. In your view, just with changes to the existing gov't policy, do you think that the market can be flooded with enough supply such that it will be immune to speculative demand cornering the market? Without any guardrails, our market is up for sale against virtually unlimited amount of capital worldwide that can enter as foreign direct investment or via partnerships with local corporations.

I'm not trying to trivialize the root of the problem - like the effects of climate change, the impact of supply restrictions have built up over time (100 years) and for the last 20 years the effects have become extremely outsized but it should not at all be surprising if we look at the underlying metrics (number of houses per capita which is lower than ever). All the other things that are causing it to accelerate even further like foreign investment and the investor class are largely window dressing. These other causes make for easy villains but the villains are ourselves and politicians who are too chickenshit and ignorant to focus on the root cause.

At the other end there's what we can do to solve the problem and just as it took 100 years to get here it's going to take a long ass time to get out of it (the same will apply for climate change - god, we're really fucked there).

Tackling the supply challenge will take 20-30 years to address even if we put huge efforts into it - we have to double housing starts over the next 6-7 years just to get back to a reasonably healthy state and that's basically impossible because where do we find the workers and materials? Best case we can probably increase housing starts by 20-30%.

So that leaves us the levers that we've been trying, most of which are band-aids and we should acknowledge them as that. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try them as we can't fix the supply problem in a year - it just means we can't act like they will solve the actual problem and that they are temporary measures (restrictions on foreign investments are worthwhile to some degree) to help ease the pain while we solve the real problem, like tying a belt around your thigh after you get the rest of your leg blown off by a grenade (a reasonably analogy considering our situation).

We rolled out the property transfer tax nearly 40 years ago with the intent of slowing down the investor classes and it did basically nothing and harms us if anything as middle class buyers empty their bank accounts to pay that. All these other taxes will do next to nothing as well - speculation tax, empty homes tax etc but it's worth trying as temporary measures.

I'm pissed about this b/c 90% of our attention is directed to the band-aids while the 90% of the problem is supply. Only a tiny number of politicians (like David Eby) will say what needs to be said and then even some of them will only say it when they're wrapping up their term (see Vancouver city council just before the election waving their hands in this direction after 3.5 years in power). It's like solving climate change by going to paper straws and adding a 25 cent cup fee.