Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Badhobz]

what about prefab in general? this seems like a great way to build homes. Do most of the building in a temp controlled environment and then just ship it to the site for final erection.

Seems like a better way to do it then buddy guy nailing shit in the rain/snow.

[Hondaracer]

Most townhomes you see built now as basically pre-fab

They are assembling wall structures off site and then ship them to site just to stand and arrange. Easy when you have repeating patterns of buildings etc. and in theory quality should be pretty good.

For detached single family homes it’s hard to say. Imo I don’t think that pre-fab would be as good of construction as a team of very skilled framers because stick framing on site you can do a lot to ensure quality if you know what you’re doing. Also I would think that pre-fab construction depends a lot on the foundation and formwork being close to perfect

[whitev70r]

Those were the days!

[donk.]

Originally Posted by 6thGear.

My buddy has a triplex fully rented out, and right now with current rates he's negative $5k monthly

Jeeeeeeeeeeeezus, I thought I was doing bad at -200/mo

Originally Posted by 6thGear.

Buyers lining up for 3.5mil houses don't need to worry about recessions. They got the money no matter what.

This is facts. It's crazy how higher end properties are still "hot" while entry level condos are dropping by 10% in 6 months

Originally Posted by 6thGear.

Cooling off period aka Rescission, has a 0.25% fee attached if a buyer decides to pull their accepted offer. I'm not sure how many of them are willing to pay a fee just to put an offer in.

0.25% is nothing, if I was buying a 500k place blind, and decided to back out, 1250$ for the chance of owning the property is nothing. Especially on a high demand property, where my odds are slim due to high competition

I'm assuming this applies even moreso for people buying 2mil places, what's 5k when your about to dump 2mil

If people waive inspections, that might cost them 10-50k in unexpected repairs, roof, mold, foundation.... what's 1.2-5k to walk away.

[JDMDreams]

Honestly the $3.5m house might be a deal if you're in that tax bracket. Cuz it's a % drop. And at that level I'm sure you probably have your ducks ready to roll and % might not even affect you.

[Gerbs]

Has entry level homes dropped 10%?

Feels like less,I guess maybe 10% from the highest peak, aka Q2 2021 pricing vs March 2022

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Gerbs

Has entry level homes dropped 10%?

Feels like less,I guess maybe 10% from the highest peak, aka Q2 2021 pricing vs March 2022

Peak to now, yeah

Entry level Port Moody condos are down 10%, limited buyers, regular price drops.
Entry level Mt pleasant condos are also down the same range, don't know about other areas.

Going from 2.5 fixed to 5.5 fixed chewed off 100k of buying power on entry level stuff

I'm actually hoping for further drops, I don't have a "primary residence" currently, so I need to hop back into the market to take advantage of that 5 year capital gain loophole (for renting it out)

[6thGear.]

Originally Posted by donk.

Jeeeeeeeeeeeezus, I thought I was doing bad at -200/mo




This is facts. It's crazy how higher end properties are still "hot" while entry level condos are dropping by 10% in 6 months



0.25% is nothing, if I was buying a 500k place blind, and decided to back out, 1250$ for the chance of owning the property is nothing. Especially on a high demand property, where my odds are slim due to high competition

I'm assuming this applies even moreso for people buying 2mil places, what's 5k when your about to dump 2mil

If people waive inspections, that might cost them 10-50k in unexpected repairs, roof, mold, foundation.... what's 1.2-5k to walk away.

1.5 - 2m range are clients upgrading. $5k to walk away is still a chunk they have to lose. I personally wouldn't want to lose that amount. If anything if there was latent defects on a property, they simply just say they weren't satisfied with the inspection report and subjects won't be removed. The 0.25% fee is after all subjects are removed and the contract is firmed.

Originally Posted by Gerbs

Has entry level homes dropped 10%?

Feels like less,I guess maybe 10% from the highest peak, aka Q2 2021 pricing vs March 2022

I'm getting my first listing of the year ready to go in the Newport Village area and I'd say roughly 5 - 10% off assessment value from sold prices.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

what about prefab in general? this seems like a great way to build homes. Do most of the building in a temp controlled environment and then just ship it to the site for final erection.

Seems like a better way to do it then buddy guy nailing shit in the rain/snow.

have both pros and cons, yes built in a controlled/dry environment is great, but i've seen errors were made done over and over and over...other issues that can screw things up are transport, storage, laydown etc, and can still go wrong. when everything shows up to site, everything is already built vs stick build where you do site reviews for work progression...so you really need eyes in the factory which can be located in a diff region which may limit production reviews...

with pre-fab panels, like above, QC is important. if they're "off", a lot of site work may be required by other trades to make the pieces fit is the best way to explain it.

you can lose a lot of benefits from pre-fab when there's screw ups, while paying the premium if not done right or things go wrong...

my 2 cents anyway

[EvoFire]

The pre fab would be as good as your foundation on which it sits. I feel like a nailed together frame would be able to mitigate some foundation issues whereas a prefab wouldn't.

[quasi]

We're seeing more requests for prefabbing even portions of our work, exterior walls for example.

I cannot speak on residential but we've done some old folks homes out of prefabbed steel and hambro mainly due to combustibility issues with using wood and honestly a huge pain in the ass. I can't speak to cost over the entire project but it obviously increases our price a lot but they are saving on some structural steel and concrete.

Even on two of the latest hospitals going up RCH Phase 2 and St Paul's they are using prefabbed exterior walls and I wouldn't be surprised if the Burnaby Expansion is also using prefabricated wall systems. We have no interest in doing them due to the space required to build them, supplying tables to build them is fine but you need a warehouse and an overhead crane as well as storage and trucks to get them on site. There are companies that will build them but then you're relying on them to keep up and I know a few my competitors who are in real trouble because they cannot and the trades are going to get hit with huge back charges for delaying the project. You go through all that and once on site you need a lot of crane time to get them in place and cranes are nothing but money. I'm not a fan but I'm not obtuse to the fact that they probably are the future for a lot of projects.

[westopher]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Those were the days!

Spoiler!

"Make your coffee at home and maybe you could afford a house!"
Said by someone whose house cost as much as a modern coffee maker.

[GLOW]

even with pre-fab steel, there's container style which i'm not a fan of personally, and then bespoke...there's also options of hybrid eg steel H-frames and can be a combo of wood, or wood and say poured floor, etc...

like mentioned, i'd be concerned about thermal bridging, but with steel you can also build higher where wood frame can only go so high, unless you go mass timber, which is a diff story as well...

at the end of the day i say right tool for the right job, purposefully choose 1 style of construction over the other. sometimes tried and true ain't so bad, sometimes there's a better way to skin a cat

[underscore]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Those were the days!

That'd be $44k CAD today, which is probably still a decent deal but that doesn't include labour, plumbing, electrical, a foundation, or land.

[westopher]

Land back then was 80 cents so can't really compare anyways

[6thGear.]

0.25% interest increase

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/01/...se-2023-01-25/

[Hondaracer]

Love it, love it.

Do we have to get to 8% before BoC realizes the people pushing the inflation aren’t effected by interest rate hikes?

[sonick]

Many believe this will be the last one as the latest inflation numbers in Canada and US are starting to revert.

[GLOW]

does that mean if my term is due in march, to stay variable until rates go down before fixing again?

[JDMDreams]

Let's just say I've seen fixed rates well under 5% this week. So get your 5% gics while you still can.

[Gerbs]

I'm sure there's inside info that's leaked to big 5 banks so they can drop rates prematurely.

[Hondaracer]

Not locking in at 2.2 or whatever I was offered for 5 year fixed was one of the biggest financial mistakes I’ve done.

Luckily it’s not the end of the world but def feels shitty losing out on investments and fun money :/

[sonick]

Probably the first time in decades that fixed has turned out better than variable. Based on historical data and probability at the time it was the right call. Who knows in the long run in a few years, might even out.

I went variable even knowing well they would very likely have to raise rates.

[Gerbs]

80% of friends from a non finance background took variable too. Their ecision was 1.29% variable or 1.49 - 1.59% fixed.

I can't fathom the idea of why anyone would go variable for 30 basis points of savings lol.

Ended costing them $30 - 45K over 5 years, while not life changing for those buying I guess but still enough to pay for a used Model 3!

[Spoon]

Nobody imagined that rates would rise that fast, so I feel for those who went variable. IMO, the BoC deserves some backlash in how it misguided the markets regarding long term low interest rates, so I'm surprised they're not trying to do a little more to relieve the pain for property owners.

On that note, I was fortunate enough to borrow more than I needed when I bought a little over a year ago during peak. Taking the bank's money at 2% fixed and putting them in a number of dividend yielding preferred shares, GICs etc has worked slightly in my favor. It doesn't cover the drop in property value, but it eases some of the damage. End of the day, money has to be tied to something. I probably dodged a bullet sinking money into the house rather than equities in the past year.