Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[JDMDreams]

^^ well how else does manics cousin afford 6 houses

[PeanutButter]

Once a home inspection is done and you found a material concern like a clogged drainage tile, doesn't the selling realtor HAVE to disclose that to the new buyers? Isn't that a law?

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

buddy guy bought this land for 1.7 million bucks. i figure at his shitty work, he was in for less than a million into the 3500sqft, lets say 800k. . soo roughly all in at 2.5 and selling for 3.4mil.

He wouldn't even fucking budge on price, we gave him 3.2 and he accepted. this shit brick pockets ~700k and leaves the new owner another 100k-300k worth of problems within 3-5 years. while shutting down durka durka construction inc and restarting it burka burka construction inc next year.

what a shit show industry.

Eh I doubt even buddy guy could build that for under a mill if not much more

[6thGear.]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

Once a home inspection is done and you found a material concern like a clogged drainage tile, doesn't the selling realtor HAVE to disclose that to the new buyers? Isn't that a law?

Whoever paid for the inspection, the report goes to that party. Inspector and/or realtor will then explain/ go over that report to their client. Once an inspection is ordered, the liability actually goes to the inspector and not the realtor, unless they knew about the issue and lied. That's why the property disclosure statement is required to be filled and ready to present when a listing goes live.

When you refer to selling agent I'll just assume you meant the agent listing the property? For clarification

Selling agent = buyers side
Listing agent = sellers side

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

buddy guy bought this land for 1.7 million bucks. i figure at his shitty work, he was in for less than a million into the 3500sqft, lets say 800k. . soo roughly all in at 2.5 and selling for 3.4mil.

He wouldn't even fucking budge on price, we gave him 3.2 and he accepted. this shit brick pockets ~700k and leaves the new owner another 100k-300k worth of problems within 3-5 years. while shutting down durka durka construction inc and restarting it burka burka construction inc next year.

what a shit show industry.

It's all I see here in Coquitlam with these new $3m houses. Buddy builders/investors have been buying up lots for years, tearing down and building these new homes within a year. Costs them $1M to build 5500sqft out here. They're pocketing a ton of $$$ and everything is poor quality/cheaply done. One giveaway is the real estate agent (usually a nustream/lehomes agent as they are probably part of the financing/investment group) but hey, people are still buying these houses.

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

^^ well how else does manics cousin afford 6 houses

I thought it was by living 6 in 500 sq ft suite and renting out the rest?

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Alpine

They're pocketing a ton of $$$ and everything is poor quality/cheaply done.

How do you know they are pocketing a ton of cash moneys?

[Hondaracer]

People aren’t making a million dollar profit on building single family homes, I’ll tell ya that much.

When my former company subdivided 2 lots into 3 and built some very very nice custom homes in fort Langley my former boss basically backed the entire thing start to finish. We had enough skill to do basically all the ground works, all the form work, all the surveying, and almost all of the framing in-house between 4 guys

While I wasn’t privy to the finances of it, I’m almost certain the payoff for that was under 800k and the risk was massive. Over THREE houses

[Badhobz]

but was your boss a white guy? actually paying people a living wage, insurance, bonded, etc etc?

ive seen these buddy guy doing roof installation on a new house in my neighbourhood and they dont even wear fall protection. Same thing with asbestos abetment (same house), bunch of manics! run in, no mask, no protection and it was all said and done in like a day. They arent making a million, fine, but im pretty sure the fucker who built that seafair place we offered on was still making 500k+ on a single home.

Thats pretty damn good for a ~1.5 year of work and thats why they keep doing it.

[Hondaracer]

Yea they basically ruin the industry for both home owners and good builders alike

Many of the smaller single family home builders who used to build 5-8 homes a year have hung it up as it’s hard to get buy given prices and labour costs when your electrician isn’t also your plumber

[quasi]

Meanwhile in Commercial construction we out here busting balls on large projects, financing them ourselves well managing 100 guys to try and turn 5-7% profit if everything goes well lol. There are much better margins in the Tenant Improvements, Renovations and smaller projects but the large ones are skinny percentage wise.

[Badhobz]

sadly for us stupid ass consumers who dont know any better, it all looks fine and dandy upon viewing. You really dont know how shit these homes are until years down the road.

We sincerely tried to find a reputable builder in richmond who didnt cut corners but the process was just too long and obnoxious to deal with. The potential cost overruns, my bat shit crazy wife changing her mind on finishing, even arguing whether or not we should have 4 or 5 bedrooms (for only 2 fucking people) ended in huge fights.

I gave up, no more building.... We can only buy one of these hunks of junk and hope for the best. We will do our best with the house inspections but im seriously not impressed with the quality of these new builds. Anytime I hear east indian/chinese builder a vein in my eye twitches. Unfortunately white guys dont really build in richmond and when they do, its a friggin arm and a leg for shit that looks like sub 2 million dollar mark.

Even high point Langley (we looked at a few there because its within the same price range as the Richmond ones) were all built by east Indian and i heard many of them have leakages into the basement.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by quasi

Meanwhile in Commercial construction we out here busting balls on large projects, financing them ourselves well managing 100 guys to try and turn 5-7% profit if everything goes well lol. There are much better margins in the Tenant Improvements, Renovations and smaller projects but the large ones are skinny percentage wise.

Yeah if you are just a contractor that might be the case, but then you are not "financing" the project, you are probably just Net30 or Net45, and you get jerked around by the owners group and dont get paid for 60 or 90 days.

But you aren't actually "financing" the project.

People like Beedie who actually own and finance their projects, and sell or rent the units after they are done, make way more than 5-7%. Dont be naive.

On a side note: any contractor not making 10% has something wrong with their model. Industry standard is 10%. Yeah there might be jobs you lose a bit, or you dip under that, but there should be just as many jobs where you make more as well. It should balance to 10%. Any bank, bonding agent, etc looks for a company that consistently turns 10%. It was the earliest lesson I learned regarding business in this industry. If you can consistently turn 10% across all your projects, you've got a healthy company, and you can happily continue to grow.

If you cant turn 10%, you are working with the wrong companies, chasing the wrong work, structuring your contracts wrong, or conducting business poorly. Usually a combination of these things, or potentially all of them. What i know is that a company will not last long like that. Period.

[quasi]

Originally Posted by meme405

Yeah if you are just a contractor that might be the case, but then you are not "financing" the project, you are probably just Net30 or Net45, and you get jerked around by the owners group and dont get paid for 60 or 90 days.

But you aren't actually "financing" the project.

People like Beedie who actually own and finance their projects, and sell or rent the units after they are done, make way more than 5-7%. Dont be naive.

On a side note: any contractor not making 10% has something wrong with their model. Industry standard is 10%. Yeah there might be jobs you lose a bit, or you dip under that, but there should be just as many jobs where you make more as well. It should balance to 10%. Any bank, bonding agent, etc looks for a company that consistently turns 10%. It was the earliest lesson I learned regarding business in this industry. If you can consistently turn 10% across all your projects, you've got a healthy company, and you can happily continue to grow.

If you cant turn 10%, you are working with the wrong companies, chasing the wrong work, structuring your contracts wrong, or conducting business poorly. Usually a combination of these things, or potentially all of them. What i know is that a company will not last long like that. Period.

I mean you kind of are financing it by definition, you're paying all your labour and your materials before your paid for that labour material so you have to have the cash flow or financing to sustain that, would that not be the definition of financing it? All those bills are due before we're paid, we're always behind because of net 30 or 45 and that's if they pay on time and aren't chasing the cheque which happens a lot. You know if I start a job December 1st on Net 45 I'm not seeing a penny until middle of February, where does that money come from to cover those costs if not from us?

It's competitive out there, would love to be able to charge more but would never get a job. We're not Beedie big not even the same stratosphere and we're only a subcontractor but were doing 50-70 million a year on this side, the owner of this company also has a development company where he'll buy the land, build the development and sell the units himself on a smaller scale. He even used to own our material supplier, had probably a dozen supply houses across western Canada so he got to double dip there (he's sold that off trying to scale down), there is money to made but the margins on our large projects are small.

I can't really speak to what the developers are making, I'd hope it's a lot more than we are and I'm sure it is.

Like I said on small projects we can make huge margins, I've had projects that have made almost 100 points, those are few and far between but it does happen.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by quasi

I mean you kind of are financing it by definition, you're paying all your labour and your materials before your paid for that labour material so you have to have the cash flow or financing to sustain that, would that not be the definition of financing it? All those bills are due before we're paid, we're always behind because of net 30 or 45 and that's if they pay on time and aren't chasing the cheque which happens a lot. You know if I start a job December 1st on Net 45 I'm not seeing a penny until middle of February, where does that money come from to cover those costs if not from us?

No. Your thinking is flawed.

You have a contract where you are going to be paid for that work. Yes you have carrying costs between when you conduct that work and when the payment clears, but that does not mean you are financing the project.

I hear this from contractors and subs all the time, and unequivocally my response is always the same: if you dont have the money to float your payroll for the month, or your materials, then you are trying to do work outside the realm of what you should be doing.

By your own logic really it would be your vendors who are financing your operation, as I'm sure you have a net30 agreement with them. I dont know what business you are in, but that could be andrew sheret, acklands, Russel metals, whatever.

The person who finances the project, is the ownership group, the people that take out the loan to buy the property, and hired you or the prime to make the project be. Those are the financiers.

Nobody pays upfront for construction work, unless you are stupid and hiring someone to do renovations at your house, in which case they will likely take however much they can get upfront and thats when we hear stories of people who disappear and never come back to a project.

[SSM_DC5]

All the various contractors I've dealt with so far from home renovations all want a large portion upfront when the agreement is made to do work. Reasons I get are to pay for materials or to pay for the labours that they need to start booking. Am I stupid to believe that's just industry standard?

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by donk.

How do you know they are pocketing a ton of cash moneys?

Cause many of these builders/investment groups purchased these homes 5+ years ago and are slowly tearing them down and building a new house now. $600k house + 1m building cost, sell for $3.1-3.3.

Hell even today, lot value = 1.5m. 1m building cost. Sell for $3.1-3.3.

[Badhobz]

when we were planning on building our house, we interviewed a ton of these famous design/architect groups like Sarah Gallop, SuCasa, etc. Not only were they booking 1-2 years, they also wouldn't give recommendations as to who a reputable builder would be.

ended up literally on Houzz and calling each and every single one of them that was highly rated. 90% of the ones we interviewed had me wanting to gouge my eyes out... 90% of them also didnt have a decent body of work and most did not have any projects on the go that i could tour.

How does the average consumer even know what is good vs bad?

i think there would be a market where i would hire a builder/contractor with years of experience to come house shopping w/ me so that i can just avoid all the bullshit. And this person would be in a fiduciary relationship with the buyer. Fuck realtors, i dont trust them at all when it comes to giving me an honest answer about the build quality of these homes. Every single home we liked, my realtor said it was well built, and implied that at our budget all the homes were great..... yeah you would think so, but thats far from the case.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

sadly for us stupid ass consumers who dont know any better, it all looks fine and dandy upon viewing. You really dont know how shit these homes are until years down the road.

Even high point Langley (we looked at a few there because its within the same price range as the Richmond ones) were all built by east Indian and i heard many of them have leakages into the basement.

From my experience plumbing is a common issue... extended family has one of these EI homes built 5 years ago and they have some sort of water damage/leakage between the bathrooms upstairs (they are back to back). They recently spent $$$ replacing their hot water on-demand setup. Their neighbor (same builder) has had major issues with water backing up in their basement.

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Alpine

Cause many of these builders/investment groups purchased these homes 5+ years ago and are slowly tearing them down and building a new house now. $600k house + 1m building cost, sell for $3.1-3.3.

Hell even today, lot value = 1.5m. 1m building cost. Sell for $3.1-3.3.

I don't think it's that easy, between shipping nightmares of last year, staffing shortages, deadlines for turnover, and risk involved, it's fair pay

Add in taxes, payouts to hard money investors, etc, they aren't making as much as you think

If they bought 5 years ago, half their profit is the land, not even the Reno
Ask the homeowners in this thread if anyone made less than 200k/yr simply by holding their home for the last 5 years

inB4 someone says "unrealized gains"

You could argue it would be much more efficient to simply buy a decent 30 year house in 2017, in your own name.
Rent it for 4 of the 5 years, put in 0 work, and claim a cool million with 0 taxes.
For literally 5% of the effort required to demo and build new for profit.
0 taxes because primary residence
If you want to do 2-3 houses instead this way, just put them in your cousins and uncles names.


I don't know enough about a process of this scale, I'm just stirring the pot from my own views/opinions

[ssjGoku69]

Originally Posted by donk.

How do you know they are pocketing a ton of cash moneys?

I've done financial statements and tax returns for durka durka construction inc and burka burka construction inc. One project that really dragged on for 5 years that sticks out in my mind is the purchase of heritage home in Kitsilano that got converted to 3 unit complex. The overall profit after corporate taxes, realtor fees, bank interest, etc was $1.9M split between the two shareholders. about ~$970k each.

But profits was only this high because they bought the property in 2016 and didn't begin construction until 2019/2020 mostly due to permit approval.

[quasi]

Originally Posted by meme405

No. Your thinking is flawed.

You have a contract where you are going to be paid for that work. Yes you have carrying costs between when you conduct that work and when the payment clears, but that does not mean you are financing the project.

I hear this from contractors and subs all the time, and unequivocally my response is always the same: if you dont have the money to float your payroll for the month, or your materials, then you are trying to do work outside the realm of what you should be doing.

By your own logic really it would be your vendors who are financing your operation, as I'm sure you have a net30 agreement with them. I dont know what business you are in, but that could be andrew sheret, acklands, Russel metals, whatever.

The person who finances the project, is the ownership group, the people that take out the loan to buy the property, and hired you or the prime to make the project be. Those are the financiers.

Nobody pays upfront for construction work, unless you are stupid and hiring someone to do renovations at your house, in which case they will likely take however much they can get upfront and thats when we hear stories of people who disappear and never come back to a project.

Yeah, the carrying costs are what I'm referring to I guess we're talking semantics. Carrying the cost of the project isn't the same as financing it to you, that's fine to me whoever is fronting the costs of construction is financing it, we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by ssjGoku69

durka durka construction inc and burka burka construction inc.

im revscene trademarking this by the way.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by donk.

I don't think it's that easy, between shipping nightmares of last year, staffing shortages, deadlines for turnover, and risk involved, it's fair pay

Add in taxes, payouts to hard money investors, etc, they aren't making as much as you think

If they bought 5 years ago, half their profit is the land, not even the Reno
Ask the homeowners in this thread if anyone made less than 200k/yr simply by holding their home for the last 5 years

inB4 someone says "unrealized gains"

You could argue it would be much more efficient to simply buy a decent 30 year house in 2017, in your own name.
Rent it for 4 of the 5 years, put in 0 work, and claim a cool million with 0 taxes.
For literally 5% of the effort required to demo and build new for profit.
0 taxes because primary residence
If you want to do 2-3 houses instead this way, just put them in your cousins and uncles names.


I don't know enough about a process of this scale, I'm just stirring the pot from my own views/opinions

There's nothing wrong with your thinking. It's perfectly logical to think that way, and that's also why hiring a "white" or a local builder/contractor/etc that's been trained/educated here costs soooooooo much more and EI/asians are so much cheaper (30%+).

These builders are pumping these out like factories. Takes 1 year to build, and they have multiple teams running. I'm not saying they're pocketing a 1.5m a house as they have been accumulating land for years and not everything was purchased 5 years ago. But they are pocketing 500k+/ house even with the most recent examples.

[ssjGoku69]

I also wanted to add another perspective for this thread. The main reason the owner of burka burka construction inc. creates a new company (burka-chong development inc.) for a new construction project rather than continuing to build under burka burka is because I find these guys are generally smaller budget builders who need a different set of investors/shareholders for the next construction project. Since each property has different ownership holders and percentage of ownership, it's just makes it easier to split profits at the end.

However this also plays into the narrative of these guys creating poor quality work because of their inexperience and dabbling into the real estate construction industry.


It's true that these new builds are being pumped out faster than a high-school kid at home alone. There is a property in east van (gladstone catchment) that didn't get demolished until September 2022 and it's already being listed for sale for completion in spring 2023. SFH to duplex/triplex