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I realize that Garth Turner is a bit like Richard Dawkins and religion (he won't persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with him)... but I quite liked this post on the merits of renting: http://www.greaterfool.ca/2013/08/13/renting/quote:All of that is handily represented in what’s called the price-rent ratio.
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Aug 14, 2013 21:30
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Holy poo poo buy some property in Japan.
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Aug 14, 2013 21:34
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Fine-able Offense posted:Well of COURSE they need to blow up more greenfield for their developments! Everyone knows there's no room left to densify in Canadian urban cores. Hey now, some of those are car shops and not just car dealers!
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Aug 14, 2013 21:54
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Fine-able Offense posted:Honestly, Main Street from 7th down to Terminal is either vacant lots or single-story commercial buildings. This is the heart of Vancouver, a few blocks from the Skytrain, and there's loving used car lots and vacant strips of scrub. It's a loving disgrace. A lot of that is being developed, though it's still pretty spotty around Terminal. Also a lot of is tied up with rail operations. I wonder how close Pacific Central Station is to being sold off (together with the sizeable rail yards nearby), or even, whose call it is - I don't think all that crap is owned by a single entity. I love rail and all and it would be great if that station got more use, but it doesn't and won't for the foreseeable future. It could be developed into some prime real-estate without a doubt, though it would take some very serious work.
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Aug 14, 2013 23:53
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Also, just in general, although (as is no secret!) I am extremely in favor of densification, there is no way the existing transportation network would be able to handle the additional capacity. All this talk about opening up building height is sort of meaningless without the corresponding funding for mass-transit. For building up south-of-Broadway, that should almost certainly be streetcars.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:01
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Are you young? Then what are you still doing in Vancouver? http://twitpic.com/d8bc5c/full
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Aug 15, 2013 00:25
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Cultural Imperial posted:Are you young? Not that young on that chart, but either way, friends, family and so forth. These old fashioned institutions are underrated by those who haven't had life throw them a curveball covered in poo poo. If I was a forever-alone I would have left looooooong time ago to I dunno, anywhere else. As it stands I am stuck with Vancouver and Vancouver is stuck with me never shutting the gently caress up about how much I hate Vancouver.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:34
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And you, dear housing thread, you will be forever stuck with me and my incoherent rage on induced demand and that loving bridge. For ever.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:37
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Cultural Imperial posted:Are you young? At one point, Vancouver was seen as such a nice place for young people from Midwestern Canada to move. It, after all, was a place where you could have tattoos, listen to punk rock, and maybe even practice homosexuality if you wanted without the fear of discrimination or persecution. Sure, employment possibilities were limited, but there you had the chance to be free for once in your life. Then everyone else joined in and hosed up the housing market more and increased the competition for work. It was time, then, for the young libertine youth to move on for greener pastures.
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Aug 15, 2013 03:52
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I moved back to Vancouver almost two years ago, I think I'm doing it wrong.
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Aug 15, 2013 04:06
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HookShot posted:I moved back to Vancouver almost two years ago, I think I'm doing it wrong. maybe you're getting old.
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Aug 15, 2013 04:11
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Cultural Imperial posted:maybe you're getting old.
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Aug 15, 2013 04:14
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Gorewar posted:At one point, Vancouver was seen as such a nice place for young people from Midwestern Canada to move. It, after all, was a place where you could have tattoos, listen to punk rock, and maybe even practice homosexuality if you wanted without the fear of discrimination or persecution. Sure, employment possibilities were limited, but there you had the chance to be free for once in your life. Then everyone else joined in and hosed up the housing market more and increased the competition for work. It was time, then, for the young libertine youth to move on for greener pastures.
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Aug 15, 2013 04:46
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Cultural Imperial posted:Well yeah. If you forced developers to do something with the huge empty lot across from Mario's Gelati at Quebec and 1st, that would mean a deluge of condo inventory in the area that would If I recall, someone tried. They wanted to build a casino and condo resort there, but the lefties poo poo the bed about it.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:13
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/investors-group-acquires-olympic-village-apartments/article13864833/quote:Investors group acquires Olympic Village apartments I'm going to try to calculate the investment yield for a $41 mil investment. Assuming Bentall got a sweet interest rate of around 2.7% (prime is what, 3%?), and guessing that the cost to rent a 350k apt is about $1700/month, that's about $200k/month in rental revenue. Say we're working with a 5 year borrowing term, Bentall is paying about 1.1 million to borrow that money. That's 12 million in rental revenue over 5 years. That's around 25% return. Does anyone disagree? Because the city just got seriously hosed.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:28
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A 1 br unit in the potemkin village is probably selling at 500k right now. Bentall just got a 30% discount? That's a very shrewd move.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:30
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I love Tsur Somerville - whatever he says, I know the actual truth is in the opposite direction. "doesn't leap out that the price is too low" => "this was a fire sale price and the city, as always, has hosed up a major financial decision"
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Aug 20, 2013 19:37
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Having met Tsur a few times, I am fairly comfortable in stating that he is, in the immortal words of General Tommy Franks, the loving stupedist guy on the face of the earth.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:44
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poo poo...I should add that that's 5% a year AND the city still got hosed AND the numbers I used were highly favourable to Bentall contra macro 'feelings'. That's terrible yield.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:48
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Does anyone have a good link or run-down on how the city hosed up the olympic village so bad?
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Aug 20, 2013 19:50
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Baronjutter posted:Does anyone have a good link or run-down on how the city hosed up the olympic village so bad? The city decided to turn itself into a developer and planned to build the village upon very optimistic future property value projections. The lehman collapse/credit crunch hosed everything up and sent the project over the edge. The city then took over the entire project (construction, sales) so the 2010 olympics wouldn't be an embarassment ie, 2 week party but everyone has to camp out or billet lol. They also didn't count on the housing market slowing down. This basically turned a bad situation worse. No one is really buying anything in the potemkin village. http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/debacle+Olympic+proportions/1186798/story.html http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/scale-of-olympic-village-disaster-warrants-full-audit/article624059/ https://www.google.ca/search?q=olym...chrome&ie=UTF-8 The last link is a google search for everything written by Frances Bula on the subject. She's very 'best place on earth' but her writing in the globe is well edited and informative. namaste friends fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 19:54
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As previously discussed, there isn't enough rental stock in the city. I think offloading the unsold units to become rental units is a step in the right direction but holy poo poo, Bentall better pray that rents don't go down.
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Aug 20, 2013 20:03
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Cultural Imperial posted:As previously discussed, there isn't enough rental stock in the city. I think offloading the unsold units to become rental units is a step in the right direction but holy poo poo, Bentall better pray that rents don't go down. There isn't enough purpose built rental stock. However I suspect that there are more than enough amateur landlords, or soon to be accidental landlords in town to meet Vancouver's needs. The city really needed to get that white elephant off their books though, lets just hope they didn't have to secretly backstop any of it.
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Aug 20, 2013 22:39
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ocrumsprug posted:There isn't enough purpose built rental stock. However I suspect that there are more than enough amateur landlords, or soon to be accidental landlords in town to meet Vancouver's needs. I'll take an amateur landlord over the average rental company, which has already figured out the legal and least-risky illegal ways to gently caress me and has it down to a science.
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Aug 21, 2013 05:34
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PT6A posted:I'll take an amateur landlord over the average rental company, which has already figured out the legal and least-risky illegal ways to gently caress me and has it down to a science. My rental company is fantastic about everything from repairs to never ever coming to check on me.
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Aug 21, 2013 06:27
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So we (my parents) are shopping for building lots in Victoria, so far things are still overpriced IMO, right now they have their eye on a lot that the developer wants $389k for, which even compared to the current price of houses is worth closer to $300k.
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Aug 21, 2013 07:53
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JawKnee posted:My rental company is fantastic about everything from repairs to never ever coming to check on me. That's nice to hear. When I was dealing with the rental company trying to secure a place for my friend last week, they threatened to illegally hold the security deposit even after my friend found another place, despite the fact they'd never told him he'd been approved and he'd never signed an actual lease. Luckily, they were also too stupid to have deposited the cheque, so I simply stopped payment on it and let them know. If they behave like that before you're even living in their place, I'm guessing it's only going to get worse once you live there.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:52
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Our landlady is in the process of selling the house (we're in the basement). The upstairs part is a two bedroom with 800 square feet of space. In theory you could reclaim the basement space as part of the house, but in practice it would require renovations as it is currently set up as a separate suite. Anyway, in some ideal world, it would be the perfect size for a young family just starting out. She's asking $1,48 million, and so far has been getting interest from buyers. Out of curiosity, I plugged that into a mortgage calculator, and it spat out a monthly payment of just under $8,000 (for 30 years, $30K up front). For the mortgage payments to be "only" sucking up 50% of your income, you would need to be making $150K/year. Also, in terms of renting, you couldn't get more than $1K/month for the basement, and you would be lucky if you got $3K for the rest of the house ($2 to $2.5K seems more realistic). So the rent value is about a third to half of the monthly mortgage payment. It does make me realise that the people who have been moving in around the neighbourhood must have family incomes upwards of $200K/year.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:34
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That down payment is hilariously low - should be more like $150,000 on that asking price - but yes, it's bugfuck insane. Though I guess you can't CMHC-insure a mortgage over $1 million anyhow, so it's the wild west!
Majuju fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 17:38
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Lead out in cuffs posted:
Isn't that frightening? Even with a family income above 200k (let's say 300k), you're dumping 40% of your income into housing.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:09
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From a real-estate and development forum I frequent regarding the bubble not bursting yet: "So the game has changed from awaiting a surefire bubble burst and promises of buying real-estate for pennies on the dollar to taking responsibility for your own actions? It's too bad it took the better part of a decade for that reality to sink in, but I suppose any snake oil dealer will eventually close his little stand and blame his customers for being fools and believing his ultimate elixir actually worked. Untold thousands of individuals bought not into real-estate but into hype (and someone else's mortgage) that a myriad of bubble burst blogs propagated with fancy numbers, analyses and educated opinion. Years of opportunity, years of paying down a mortgage and years of living in a home of one's dreams were pretty much erased for those who became absolutely convinced they were making the right decision thanks to those who cooked up a very palatable theory. I know several of these folks myself and they're pissed. Of course it's too late for me to tell them they were fools for sitting on the sidelines for as long as they did, but what do you say to someone blindly convinced that promises of a good deal were always just around the bend? Whatever. The only good thing to come out of all of this is we can finally say case closed for this bubble burst nonsense" People who say there's a bubble are snake-oil dealers who have tricked people into throwing money away on rents waiting for prices that are never coming down. Other info on why it isn't a bubble and prices will never go down: -People are willing to take pay cuts to move here because it's the best place on earth -Everyone wants to retire here and that's never going to dry up -People are getting very rich in alberta right now and once they're done on the oil patch they're all going to want to retire or settle down here or at least buy investment condos and houses to rent now and retire in later. "Those of us who have lived here our whole lives should know that when demand dries up in this market at a given price and prices slide, pent up demand waiting for a small correction is right there and waiting to snap up real-estate. And that's exactly what happened over the last decade and that's exactly why prices remained stable despite years of bubble burst paranoia driven largely by those who found themselves in Victoria after living elsewhere and believed that this market is like most others in Canada." Victoria is special, no bubble, anyone waiting to buy is a paranoid idiot who's going to miss the boat. On this forum for the last decade there's been a tiny minority of people calling the current market a bubble and that it's going to pop some time and recommending people rent rather than buy. They are drowned out by people like the above. For the last 10 years I always thought they were right because prices have done nothing but go up and the bubble-bursters seem to say a huge pop is just around the corner (for the past 10 years). This thread on SA is literally the only place I get any info from that not only questions the wise investment of ownership but the fact that prices in Vic/Van could ever go down or are unsustainable 
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 18:12
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hahaha what forum is this?
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Aug 21, 2013 18:17
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Baronjutter posted:From a real-estate and development forum I frequent regarding the bubble not bursting yet: It's amazing, there are so many words yet not a single piece of data. I mean it's like these people don't understand that numbers mean things. They do, and the numbers are clear in Vancouver - do not buy.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:25
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Arabidopsis posted:I mean it's like these people don't understand that numbers mean things. Most people are innumerate, and even if they weren't, would still have no clue how to make quantitative financial decisions.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:31
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Numbers can be cooked and presented in any way, but for those of us on the ground, those of us who live here, we've NEVER seen the prices go down or a bubble burst so y'all peddlin' some rental snake oil to pay someone else's mortgage. To be fair though if you don't understand the numbers (and I still don't fully) anecdotes like that are pretty powerful. People have been saying it's a bubble and it's going to burst for so long, buyers are thinking they've been calling wolf. Many people have saved up but were waiting for a price drop before they bought in, which never happened, and now they're resentful because although prices haven't really gone up here in the last couple years, they could have been living in their "dream home" by now so they feel lied to or tricked. Developers keep building brand new million dollar 2,000 sqft houses and if shewed capitalists think there's still a market then there's still a market. On better news my wife is now firmly in "never do buy" territory after reading some good articles about buying vs renting in general (let alone how hosed Victoria's market is) and she's realized how big and long term an investment buying is, and how risky and cage-like it is. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 18:32
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^ Baronjutter - some unsolicited advice: the flip side of being a diligent renter is that you ought to be funnelling your excess not-spend-on-mortgage-and-property-tax-and-maintenance cash into quality long term investments. I recommend http://canadiancouchpotato.com/ as a starting point, if you haven't already. I only say this because you've lamented frequently about the lack of good information, etc 
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Aug 21, 2013 18:38
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I've got my finances sorted out much better now. We had 60k just sitting in a savings account earning like 1.2% because this was our downpayment money and we didn't want to risk having it in any sort of investment since we had this idea we'd be using it very soon. So instead of using it for a downpayment we bought a 22k new car but at .99 financing then distributed our 60k in savings amongst some conservative and moderate investments and maxed out both our tax-free savings accounts. We have a new investment guy who I'm pretty happy with so far. Also the 900ish car payment is close to what rent would be if we moved, so living for 2 years with that monthly payment will be a bit of a test to see how our finances are and how much we can still save.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:45
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Cultural Imperial posted:Isn't that frightening? Even with a family income above 200k (let's say 300k), you're dumping 40% of your income into housing. Only if you put 5% down.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:02
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Baronjutter posted:Also the 900ish car payment is close to what rent would be if we moved, so living for 2 years with that monthly payment will be a bit of a test to see how our finances are and how much we can still save. Am I reading this correctly? In the thread where everyone is whining about Vancouver real estate prices, someone un-ironically posts that a $900 car payment is ok?
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Aug 21, 2013 19:09
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Pixelboy posted:Am I reading this correctly? In the thread where everyone is whining about Vancouver real estate prices, someone un-ironically posts that a $900 car payment is ok? You're aware that cars can be financed over different length time periods? The guy said the car was 22k, so $900/month => a 2 year term. I'd have amortized it over longer myself if the principal and offered rate remained the same, but this is all orthogonal to whether or not Canada has a housing bubble.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:15
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