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Fine-able Offense posted:You're forgetting a bunch of other expenses. Repairs and maintenance, for instance, run about 3-5% of the value of the home per year. Transaction costs, too. And the biggest cost of all in my opinion: lack of mobility.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:28
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Lexicon posted:Transaction costs, too. Yeah only buy if the overall cost is competitive with renting and you also satisfy other things such as working for a financially stable company.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:30
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etalian posted:Yeah only buy if the overall cost is competitive with renting and you also satisfy other things such as And want to live in the same place for some substantial number of years.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:27
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Lexicon posted:And want to live in the same place for some substantial number of years. Yeah due to simple math the first few years of the mortgage is mainly making interest payments.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:34
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Fine-able Offense posted:You're forgetting a bunch of other expenses. Repairs and maintenance, for instance, run about 3-5% of the value of the home per year. That's an outrageous amount for any reasonably new condo (say, one built in the last 10 years), even if you rolled strata fees into that figure.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:44
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blah_blah posted:That's an outrageous amount for any reasonably new condo (say, one built in the last 10 years), even if you rolled strata fees into that figure. It depends on special assessments, too. If a major building system needs replacing, like a pump for the basement, or an elevator, you're going to get a lovely, huge bill in the mail. Trust me, it happened to me last year. "You weren't gonna use that $1700 for anything, were ya? Welp, pay it by the end of the month."
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Oct 11, 2013 16:57
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Yeah, one of the things that totally cemented not getting a condo was my wife working insurance and seeing all the condo related claims. So much poo poo goes wrong, so many unexpected disasters that the whole building has to pay for but ooooops the insurance doesn't quite cover it, guess every resident is out 2 grand. And even when poo poo is insured and everything goes smoothly stuff can still result in big out of pocket costs for the owners.
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Oct 11, 2013 17:05
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PT6A posted:It depends on special assessments, too. If a major building system needs replacing, like a pump for the basement, or an elevator, you're going to get a lovely, huge bill in the mail. Trust me, it happened to me last year. "You weren't gonna use that $1700 for anything, were ya? Welp, pay it by the end of the month." Hah, only $1700? You got off easy. One of my friends had to pay something like 7500 because all the balconies sloped inward. I wouldn't buy anything newer then 30 years in Calgary. Edit: not like they make anything I want these days. There isn't much of a market for small bungalows with sunshine basements that can be easily illegally suited. Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 22:58
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http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/10/10/throne-speech-2011-annotated/ Amazing how little got done. edit: hmm, wrong thread Kafka Esq. fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 23:11
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My dad has an investment apartment in Richmond, on the second floor. The housing association wants all the owners to pay $3000 to replace the old wooden balconies in the building that are falling apart because they've been there since like the 80s or something. Well my dad's balcony is made of concrete because he's so low in the building, so he was like "oh cool I don't have to pay". Turns out it doesn't work like that, they want him to pay $3000 to not change his balcony.
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Oct 12, 2013 03:18
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HookShot posted:My dad has an investment apartment in Richmond, on the second floor. The housing association wants all the owners to pay $3000 to replace the old wooden balconies in the building that are falling apart because they've been there since like the 80s or something. THE TYRANNY OF WE
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Oct 12, 2013 04:12
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HookShot posted:My dad has an investment apartment in Richmond, on the second floor. The housing association wants all the owners to pay $3000 to replace the old wooden balconies in the building that are falling apart because they've been there since like the 80s or something. This anecdote will come in handy if I ever need to explain why socialism doesn't work.
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Oct 12, 2013 04:20
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Haha yeah, I don't necessarily agree with my dad not wanting to pay, it's more of a "yeah there are definitely unexpected expenses involved in owning condos" point.
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Oct 12, 2013 04:38
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Yes if some piece of the building needs fixing and you own a share of it you pay, even if you don't use it. How is this at all "unexpected"? What exactly was he expecting?
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Oct 12, 2013 05:21
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I have another workmate who has actually bought a condo a few years ago, and is actively involved with his strata board, and the topic of maintenance came up. Basically, they know about all the things that will break, as well as the necessary maintenance to stop other things breaking, but residents refuse to vote in strata fees that will actually pay for them until they break.
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Oct 12, 2013 08:35
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It wouldn't surprise me if the people who are voting against preventative maintenance are condo flippers who don't expect to be there by the time things go to pot.
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Oct 12, 2013 14:08
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HookShot posted:Haha yeah, I don't necessarily agree with my dad not wanting to pay, it's more of a "yeah there are definitely unexpected expenses involved in owning condos" point. Some condos also go upgrade crazy adding in even more monthly expense.
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Oct 12, 2013 14:14
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Demon_Corsair posted:Hah, only $1700? You got off easy. One of my friends had to pay something like 7500 because all the balconies sloped inward. I wouldn't buy anything newer then 30 years in Calgary. I don't know, I think there's a clear division between good builders and bad builders. The parkade pump issue is the only thing that's gone wrong with my building in 12 years, and to be honest, the new system is excellent and probably had a lot to do with the fact we received no damage whatsoever during the flood, despite being in the evacuation zone. On the other hand, the Pointe of View buildings across the street are, uh, somewhat less well-built, to put it mildly. I've heard some pretty frightening things, and all of them seem to concern the buildings that were built very quickly and ended up being suspiciously inexpensive (in other words, every PoV building, but also some others).
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Oct 12, 2013 18:19
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PT6A posted:It depends on special assessments, too. If a major building system needs replacing, like a pump for the basement, or an elevator, you're going to get a lovely, huge bill in the mail. Trust me, it happened to me last year. "You weren't gonna use that $1700 for anything, were ya? Welp, pay it by the end of the month." Well, 5% of a $400k condo is $20k, so you need a lot of $1700 pump repairs in a year to get to that point. Unless something goes catastrophically wrong in your building every year, 5% is a pretty crazy amount for a new-ish condo. That being said, I got pretty lucky in my old building (less than $200 in repairs over a 4 year period).
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Oct 13, 2013 07:14
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I'm looking forward to when condo owners start getting the bills to replace the skins on their buildings in fifteen years and you have to dodge falling glass and suicidal owners to get to work.
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Oct 13, 2013 11:29
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blah_blah posted:Well, 5% of a $400k condo is $20k, so you need a lot of $1700 pump repairs in a year to get to that point. Unless something goes catastrophically wrong in your building every year, 5% is a pretty crazy amount for a new-ish condo. That being said, I got pretty lucky in my old building (less than $200 in repairs over a 4 year period). When somebody says "about 3-5%", it is pretty dumb to immediately run out and cite the best-case edge scenario (a well-built new condo) and then pick the highest number in the range (5% instead of 3%) and then say "wow, that's too high!!1!". There is not a single condo in Greater Vancouver whose strata has been properly assessing future expenses and building a fund to match. If you don't believe me, all you need to do is look at why the government changed the rules for mandatory depreciation reports to force them to confront the matter. And of course they can still ignore those reports with a 3/4ths vote, so nothing has changed. If you want to count on your piddly $300 a month covering something like a new roof when all it can do is barely keep up with elevator servicing and the gardener and somebody to hose out the parkade once a year, you're loving delusional. -Boilers go, on average, every 15-20 years, at a 90% confidence interval (so figure yours could easily go at the ten-year mark) -Same range for roofs. -Envelopes fail no later than around the 20-year mark. Etc. etc.
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Oct 13, 2013 17:17
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Paper Mac posted:I'm looking forward to when condo owners start getting the bills to replace the skins on their buildings in fifteen years and you have to dodge falling glass and suicidal owners to get to work. The Strata fee will cover installing those nets like they have at the horrible Chinese suicide dorms?
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Oct 13, 2013 18:12
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To be fair though a lot of condos I looked at back when I was looking had proper contingency funds, great insurance, and like 50 years of upkeep all planned out and budgeted for. No matter if you lived in your unit for 30 years or 1 year, everyone paid their fair share of minor and major upkeep for the building. The problem is these buildings were almost always "NO RENTALS" buildings. Probably because the sort of person who buys a condo as a rental investment is a cheap greedy piece of poo poo who would vote against actuallying paying their fair share for the upkeep of the building. Buy new then sell before any major upkeep comes. It's the only way to even hope to make any sort of profit.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:26
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I think it's great that stratas are banning renters. This should help bring down prices as they're reducing investment yield to zero. With more building policies like this, you wouldn't need to introduce nonsense policies to limit foreign ownership.
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Oct 13, 2013 19:04
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Cultural Imperial posted:I think it's great that stratas are banning renters. This should help bring down prices as they're reducing investment yield to zero. With more building policies like this, you wouldn't need to introduce nonsense policies to limit foreign ownership. I disagree completely. Why would you want rental opportunities to be more scarce, and thus more expensive? Not everyone needs to own. I make a very good living and I'm an enthusiastic condo renter by choice.
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Oct 13, 2013 19:24
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Cultural Imperial posted:I think it's great that stratas are banning renters. This should help bring down prices as they're reducing investment yield to zero. With more building policies like this, you wouldn't need to introduce nonsense policies to limit foreign ownership. It would be a good idea if the rental vacancy rate wasn't already at an all time low...but as it stands rental prices are really high and banning renters will push them even higher. If anything I would think it should be the other way around, they should encourage renting out condos because it's pretty retarded that we have a condo surplus and a rental shortage.
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Oct 13, 2013 23:27
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Allow rentals but cities/government need to actually tighten up how stratas are run. Too many end up going down in flames of brutal debt. There need to be more government mandated minimums for strata congingency funds so that a few speculator assholes can't short-sightedly doom everyone in the building 20 years down the road to 10k each out of pocket expenses. Like just have it the law that all condos need to have like 50+ years of upkeep all planned and budgeted for within their strata fees, no "oh we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" deals. Plan for your roof replacement, plan to re-do the siding, and plan to have a good fund for the things you can't plan for.
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Oct 14, 2013 03:05
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Cultural Imperial posted:I think it's great that stratas are banning renters. This should help bring down prices as they're reducing investment yield to zero. With more building policies like this, you wouldn't need to introduce nonsense policies to limit foreign ownership. I wish it was an all or nothing type thing. Right now its such a pain in the rear end to be a tenant in a place with a Condo Board. Everything is delayed by 12-24 hours due to conversations having to flow through the "landlord". Right now they are instituting a 30 day prebooking (ie cant book 28 days from your move out date) for elevators plus a 150 fee for 3 hours of booking of elevator time. Registration of tenants is another 300 bucks. I am sure most of it is breaking some discriminatory law but no one is complaining and seems to take it as par for the course. Either you let renters rent and deal with them on a case by case basis and treat them the same or just don't and don't pussy foot around the subject by making up some clearly targeted condo laws.
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Oct 14, 2013 03:12
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Lexicon posted:I disagree completely. Why would you want rental opportunities to be more scarce, and thus more expensive? A fair point. My rationale is to discourage property speculation. I also don't believe there's a shortage of housing, whether for sale or for rent in Vancouver. What we have here is a bunch of greedy people buying and sitting on property for the sole purpose of capital appreciation. I think quite a few property speculators couldn't be bothered to rent out their property because thus far, the appreciation of property value and volatility of the market have diminished the requirement of rental yield. Back in 2003, I was one of these people. I put out an ad in the sun and ask the replies I got were from renters with questionable income sources. I poo poo you not one guy was a 'film maker' and his girlfriend was in 'child care'. I gave up trying to find a renter. Renting or owning, it doesn't really matter to me. The problem I have now is trying to find a livable 3 or 4 bedroom. Edit: to clarify, I think the market needs two types of consumers to fail to restore a modicum of sanity in the vancouver market. The well capitalized speculator and the poorly capitalized speculator who needs the rental yield to stay afloat. namaste friends fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 05:56
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Starks posted:It would be a good idea if the rental vacancy rate wasn't already at an all time low...but as it stands rental prices are really high and banning renters will push them even higher. If anything I would think it should be the other way around, they should encourage renting out condos because it's pretty retarded that we have a condo surplus and a rental shortage. You'd think the vacancy rate would drive rents up considering how high the price to income ratio is.
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Oct 14, 2013 06:03
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Whiteycar posted:I wish it was an all or nothing type thing. I've been told that strata meetings froth with vitriol about renter scum clogging up the elevators. Vancouverites are all such degenerate assholes.
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Oct 14, 2013 06:06
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Cultural Imperial posted:You'd think the vacancy rate would drive rents up considering how high the price to income ratio is. Sorry I thought you were talking about toronto originally so I don't know how vancouver is, but yes rents are also at an all time high here in toronto because of the vacancy rate. Starks fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 06:41
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Fine-able Offense posted:When somebody says "about 3-5%", it is pretty dumb to immediately run out and cite the best-case edge scenario (a well-built new condo) and then pick the highest number in the range (5% instead of 3%) and then say "wow, that's too high!!1!". I am really not looking forward to my next AGM as I expect the prevailing attitude will be to ignore the maintenance report and not increase the contingency budget. Not sure why they thought it was a good idea to make it optional, but it was a terrible idea. All the people crying about a 5% fee increase (less than a 1/3rd what was recommended) are certainly going to cry more when we have an assessment to cover some of what in on our report. I suspect that they don't intend to be here that long.
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Oct 14, 2013 08:15
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Cultural Imperial posted:A fair point. Understandable motivation. Look, the bottom line is: Vancouver, as a culture, is absolutely obsessed with real estate. Absolutely obsessed. It's quite sad, because aside from natural beauty, that's really its main defining characteristic as a city. Whatever regulations get enacted (capital controls, rental restrictions, higher-non-domicile property taxes) are not going to materially dissuade this obsession. They'll just channel it into new accounting tricks, and other unintended consequences. The only sane response is to not live there. I realize that's not necessarily easy for some people, but that's the only way. No law is going to discourage this fundamental obsession. Cultural Imperial posted:I've been told that strata meetings froth with vitriol about renter scum clogging up the elevators. Vancouverites are all such degenerate assholes. Lol, I can just imagine. I've lived in quite a few cities, in Canada, the USA and Europe, and nowhere has vitriol for renters anything like Vancouverites. See above: obsession with real estate.
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Oct 14, 2013 15:27
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Fine-able Offense posted:There is not a single condo in Greater Vancouver whose strata has been properly assessing future expenses and building a fund to match. Do you want to buy my place? We also have a provision which says the building can't have more then 15 rented units (out of 80) at one time. Since I've been here, there's never been more then 9 renters. I think the higher strata fees will drive that down even more.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:58
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Italy's Chicken posted:My strata fees went up 40% this year because we just had a 10 year depreciation report which showed the previous fee structure wasn't going to cover squat. We're now pegged to cover almost everything for the next 30 years (not including a catastrophe). I'm paying just over half of what the strata average costs are for the lower mainland. I stand corrected, there's ONE place that has a proper strata fee. :iamafag:
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Oct 14, 2013 18:17
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Lexicon posted:Look, the bottom line is: Vancouver, as a culture, is absolutely obsessed with real estate. Absolutely obsessed. It's quite sad, because aside from natural beauty, that's really its main defining characteristic as a city. Whatever regulations get enacted (capital controls, rental restrictions, higher-non-domicile property taxes) are not going to materially dissuade this obsession. They'll just channel it into new accounting tricks, and other unintended consequences. I really disagree. Sure, it is absolutely the case now, because real estate being what it is, nobody can help but become interested in it. It affects everyone, even if you rent. But it is hardly immutable and certainly not something that was baked into the city culture at any time pre-2000, at least nothing that I would classify as standing out from any comparable city. The "obsession" with real estate was triggered by all that "BEST PLACE TO LIVE" bullshit but it was primarily fueled into a mass hysteria by cheap credit. Then catching Hong Kong's overflow of "very rich, just not preposterously so" investors kind of provided all the confirmation people needed to really buy into the idea that oh yeah, this is totes reasonable and not batshit crazy. Although any reasonable person without family ties (not I  ) really should leave as soon as they can, the situation absolutely is fixable, just not easily so. Tightening credit is the first part, and this is already happening and seems to have been at least the proximate clause of the hold up in price growth. The bigger problem being that of course is that the economic fallout from that is going to be quite painful. Because people have started to accept simply taking on a much higher debt load relative to their income, 1) prices won't go down easily - people will continue to keep taking on credit even when they can only barely afford it with new more stringent terms and 2) when prices do drop and interest payments rise (e.g. because their fixed term expired) there are going to huge swathes of people that just cannot afford those payments. This won't just mean some satisfying schadenfreude for those of us who have been on the skeptical side all this time - this will seriously impact spending and overall economic activity in the region.Tightening regulation is definitely the second part though. There are still far too many incentives out there that encourage home buying for no good reason. Strate and RTA rules can help tremendously. And of course social housing is a thing that is good although the current line of mayorships seem to have been treating the issue with either disdain or incompetence or both. Mrs. Wynand fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 18:31
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It's a really dumb concept since in my mind hope affordability not home appreciate should be the main goal of housing. Instead you get the US speculative casino system where people think their home is a "investment"
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Oct 14, 2013 18:33
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etalian posted:It's a really dumb concept since in my mind hope affordability not home appreciate should be the main goal of housing. It seems to be an "Anglosphere" problem. Us, the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand - they are all loving obsessed about property ownership. Most have these politically popular, but fiscally and socially insane, schemes in place to incentivize home ownership out of tax revenue. First time home buyer's credit, RRSP robbing, tax deductible mortgage interest, negative gearing - you name it. Hell, the UK even went so far as to import Mark Carney to run the Bank of England. Guess what Britain just got into the business of doing? A treasured Canadian practice - guaranteeing mortgages! https://www.gov.uk/government/news/help-to-buy-mortgage-guarantee-launches-today
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Oct 14, 2013 18:45
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Mr. Wynand posted:the situation absolutely is fixable, just not easily so. It is my firm belief that the Vancouver nuttiness will only be solved by real estate becoming its own undoing. There's a few interesting nuggets among the occasional puff pieces on real estate in the Vancouver Sun, CTVNews, etc. There are occasionally interviews with doctors and so on who are struggling to afford to live in Vancouver. If doctors and similar professionals cannot afford your city, that sort of reality will eventually undo the desirability itself.
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Oct 14, 2013 18:51
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