Pixelboy posted:

I have less than half a PhD... and make... considerably more than that.

Edit: I've been hiring BSc. graduates for more than that... what was your degree in?

blah_blah posted:

Are you sure that you're reading my post correctly?

blah_blah posted:

Are you sure that you're reading my post correctly? Anyways, my Ph.D is in math, I'm a data scientist.

Whiteycar posted:

Oh god I bought....

In Calgary, rent situation is still hosed, super hosed if you have pets.

At least I locked in my rate for 7 years?

We bought an infill in an area of the city that seems to be in the process of being redeveloped (shacks turning into 2 million dollar 4 plexes)

4 bedroom 4 bathroom with renting the basement the place is going to be less than 2100 a month which is far less than we would pay renting a place of the same quality.

Still get to customize some aspects so trying not to go crazy on that, everyone I've told seems to cream themselves on the idea of the resale value.

Whiteycar posted:

Oh god I bought....

In Calgary, rent situation is still hosed, super hosed if you have pets.

At least I locked in my rate for 7 years?

We bought an infill in an area of the city that seems to be in the process of being redeveloped (shacks turning into 2 million dollar 4 plexes)

4 bedroom 4 bathroom with renting the basement the place is going to be less than 2100 a month which is far less than we would pay renting a place of the same quality.

Still get to customize some aspects so trying not to go crazy on that, everyone I've told seems to cream themselves on the idea of the resale value.

sitchensis posted:

I was on the verge of breaking up with someone this past summer. We share a 1 bedroom in Calgary. Because of the floods I couldn't find a decent place to move into for anything approaching a reasonable price. Ended up staying in the relationship.

etalian posted:

Sunk cost syndrome strikes again

Demon_Corsair posted:

Where about, and how much are you renting the basement for?

I'm living in a ratty as gently caress building right now because I have a dog. Seriously, gently caress mainstreet.

Edit: And this was before the floods.

quote:

Amid condo glut, Toronto developers luring buyers with fat discounts
By Tara Perkins
As inventory levels rise, incentives become less gimmicky

Toronto condo developers are ramping up efforts to attract buyers, offering their biggest incentives yet amid a market glut.

Inventory levels are creeping up in Canada's most populous city, and a large number of new towers are still projected to come on stream next year. In a bid to make their unfinished projects stand out, the bells and whistles that developers are offering to buyers have become more valuable, industry players say. The incentives are less gimmicky than those that were seen when the market was hotter, and instead amount to a more sizable discount on the purchase price.

"We're seeing a larger number of incentives and their absolute value has increased relative to past offerings," says Mimi Ng, vice-president of marketing at Menkes Developments Ltd. "The market is definitely in a much more competitive state than last year."

There are some 300-odd new condominium projects that are actively selling units in the Greater Toronto Area, she adds. "That's a lot of developers with a lot of product that's still sitting on their books that they have to sell."

Sales of these units are being watched closely in Montreal, where real estate players are increasingly concerned a similar glut is forming.

In Toronto, sales of new condos during the first nine months of the year came in at 10,449 units, down 21.5 per cent from the average level of the past decade and 27.4 per cent from the 14,399 units sold during the first nine months of 2012, according to data from RealNet Canada Inc. There were 20,726 sales during the same period in 2011.

The level of inventory on the market is now around 23,153, up 13 per cent from 20,553 a year ago.

"Buyers are cautious about the condo market and almost every building is either offering aggressive incentives, such as one-year free maintenance, or special credits and upgrades," says Oliver Baumeister von Bretten, a broker who specializes in the condo market.

Developers didn't have to work nearly as hard to move product not so long ago, and have been ramping up their incentive offerings in the period since. "In the spring of last year the market was a bit frothy and we saw a lot more undisciplined buying activity happening, and a lot of that was investor driven," Ms. Ng says.

Condo prices fell about 1.5 per cent in the past year to around $433,000, according to the latest RealNet price index. Some economists say that when you take the incentives into account, prices are down more significantly. Mr. Von Bretten estimates that many of the incentives out there amount to a discount of about 11/2 to 3 per cent of the purchase price.

At its Fabrik Condos project in the downtown entertainment district, which is scheduled to start construction in the new year and is currently about 60 per cent sold, Menkes has started offering buyers two years worth of free maintenance, two years with no property taxes, and cash discounts of $10,000 on studio and one-bedroom units and $16,000 on larger units.

Zach Burnett, project manager at developer Burnac Holdings Ltd., says the incentives being offered at its South Hill on Madison project are worth about $18,000 to more than $30,000, while prices range from about $250,000 to more than $1-million. The incentives come in the form of covered closing costs, with Burnac paying for things such as the land transfer tax, development fees and hydro metering costs. "Definitely there's more value in this incentive than what we've offered in the past," says Mr. Burnett.

Past programs including things such as upgraded kitchens for amateur chefs, a package geared toward women that included nicer closets and heated bathroom floors, and a technology package for TV buffs.

Mr. Beaumeister von Bretten says another trend is more flexibility on the deposits that buyers must put down for new condos. Park Towers at IQ Condominiums in Etobicoke is allowing buyers to pay their deposits in small increments , and is offering $2,000 cash back on closing.

Meanwhile, industry watchers are increasingly concerned that too many condos are being built in Montreal. Brian Hurley, CEO of Genworth MI Canada Inc., the country's second-largest mortgage insurer, told analysts on a conference call last week there are "emerging dynamics around condos in montreal, with concerns of oversupply in some areas." and the majority of Genworth's mortgage insurance delinquencies are happening in Quebec, where employment growth has been modest and the housing market soft.

Montreal's condo market is "somewhat slower than it was last year and there is a lot more product coming out on the market," says Riz Dhanji, vice-president of sales and marketing at developer Canderel. But his firm is still looking at opportunities there.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...rticle15268342/


I'd love to know what sort of margin these developers are making per unit in the first place.

quote:

Mr. Golini doesn’t quite see a bubble appearing in the city’s condo market but said developers have to work harder now to convince homeowners to purchase a new condo. Profit margins have shrunk as much as 10 percentage points over the past few years thanks to rising construction, land and marketing costs, he said.

“Before you got lucky on your first date, now you have to date a while before you find your match,” Mr. Golini said of wooing potential buyers.

quote:

“There’s an self-imposed safety valve that the industry has placed on itself,” Mr. Golini told Canada Real Time. “Builders in this area have learned their lessons from their neighbors from the south and they’re holding back … Let’s not flood the market with projects.”

quote:

That’s what I keep telling people who have purchased in pre-construction, with a 2016 closing date, who come to me looking to sell their “condo.”

You don’t own a condo. It’s that simple. You own a piece of paper, which I believe is actually a liability, but that’s another story.

So if you want to sell your piece of paper or “assign” it to another buyer, how do you do it? Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t know who is buying assignments, or why they’d buy from you when they can buy at the sales centre. Let me explain…

$700 per square foot.

That’s what somebody paid in pre-construction, and they’re looking to make money by selling the condo that won’t be ready for three years.

No problem right? Just get a cool $900/sqft when the building is done, and Bob’s yer uncle. That should cover all your costs, and put some money in your pocket.

Wait – you don’t think the market for this standard, cookie-cutter condo that you paid 120% of fair market value for through the developer will end up increasing another $200/sqft? Well, you can just sell your magical piece of paper, or “assign” it, right?

Well, with assignment fees through the developer, commissions, legal fees, and some sort of “incentive” to the new buyer or assignee, you’re going to come out with a loss – assuming you can actually find a buyer, since the developer prohibits you from marketing the magical piece of paper on MLS.

Don’t want to take a loss?

Then I don’t know what to tell you.

In any market, pigs get slaughtered. And I’m seeing more and more people who have put down 5-10% on a pre-construction condo, with another 15-20% due in the next year, who don’t have the funds. These folks are in big trouble.

It’s the real estate equivalent of a “margin call,” is it not?

sitchensis posted:

I was on the verge of breaking up with someone this past summer. We share a 1 bedroom in Calgary. Because of the floods I couldn't find a decent place to move into for anything approaching a reasonable price. Ended up staying in the relationship.

Still unhappy. Still waiting for the rental market here to move an inch. God I wish I could buy.

quote:

A leaked report from China’s central bank estimated that from the early 1990s to 2008, some 18,000 officials and employees of state-owned enterprises pilfered a total of 800 billion yuan ($123 billion) from state coffers, with the culprits most likely to flee to the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands.

quote:

The soon-to-retire Chinese bigwig who has stashed money and relatives abroad in preparation for his escape is such a common character in China that it has its own phrase: luo guan, or “naked official.”
+
Some of them have laid the groundwork for years; one common ploy is to send a son or daughter overseas to a private university as a way to legitimize sending funds out of China. For example, the leaked Chinese central bank report on corruption showed that former ministry of finance official Xu Fangming deposited roughly 1 million yuan ($164,000) into the bank account of a son studying abroad. Perhaps not coincidentally, the number of Chinese students studying abroad has jumped in recent years. In the United States, it more than doubled to 194,000 in the 2011/2012 school year from five years ago.

Cultural Imperial posted:

This is interesting.

http://qz.com/143017/beijing-goes-hunting-for-overseas-real-estate-by-corrupt-officials/

Paper Mac posted:

Some of these numbers are insane. 6 billion in cash was brought into the US in 2012 by mainlanders to buy real estate. In cash. I was especially surprised by this: "Canada keeps no hard data about foreign investors in real estate, but Chinese buyers in one year outnumbered local buyers in Vancouver by a three to one margin." - I thought the HAM story had been discredited?

quote:

Housing affordability not as cut-and-dried as it seems

Complex issue: The figures look daunting, but somehow Vancouverites have been coping with the cost

BY DON CAYO, VANCOUVER SUNNOVEMBER 6, 2013


The simple numbers on housing affordability in Metro Vancouver are unequivocally alarming: It costs just over 8½ times the median after-tax household income of $61,975 to buy a home for the median price of $517,677.34.

This is a daunting number for buyers here compared to most Canadian cities - or compared to the norm in banking circles just a generation or two ago when low-equity borrowers were likely to be denied a mortgage if the cost of the house they wanted was more than three times what they earned in a year.

But if you look at the issue more closely - both at the numbers and at the way many thoughtful experts interpret them - the message is nuanced and somewhat mixed.

Today's 8.5-to-one ratio is, to be sure, quite a bit worse than 20 years ago when it was 6.6 to one, and even worse still than the 5.9 to one figure in 2003. But ...

These historical ratios, though lower than today's, were still very high by any conventional measure, and they never once dipped to a low or even "normal" level during the entire duration of the last two decades. Yet Vancouverites still coped, and the population still grew by well over 500,000 in that 20-year period.

Today's ratio is at least lower than the 9.4 to one in 2010, the peak of 9.5 to one in 2011, or the 8.7 to one in 2011. The ratios are still headed in a slightly more affordable direction. Cameron Muir, the chief economist for the British Columbia Real Estate Association, projects Vancouver's ratio will drop to 8.2 to one next year and to 7.9 to one in 2015 as home prices hold steady (in inflation-adjusted dollars) and incomes slowly rise.

These numbers aren't the only factor that determines housing

affordability. Another huge cost for the majority who must borrow heavily to buy is interest, and the rates for mortgages have been at or near historic lows for several years, substantially reducing the total cost of buying a home. (Of course, as nervous homeowners well understand, there's no guarantee interest rates will stay low, and most analysts think it's inevitable that, sooner or later, they'll rise - though how far and how fast remains a matter of speculation and debate. But the heavily mortgaged are undoubtably vulnerable, and no one knows for sure how this factor will affect the affordability of maintaining a mortgaged home, let alone buying a new one, in the years to come.) Half the reason for a high priceto-income ratio is not the cost of a home, but rather the lacklustre growth of personal incomes in Metro Vancouver over recent years to the point where we trail most major cities in Canada. If this turns around - and, once again, there are no guarantees - the affordability squeeze will ease.

Robert Helsley, dean of the Sauder School of Business, added an additional perspective when he spoke last week at a UBC-sponsored symposium on affordability. He suggested Vancouver's high home prices are "the price of admission" to this amenity-rich little corner of the world.

Similarly highly priced real estate is found in other places where people really want to live - Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York, to name a few.

"If you want affordable housing," Helsley said, "go to Detroit."


The median price for a home in that half-abandoned rust-belt city is just $21,000, he said, and the median income there is $30,000, making Detroit's ratio a small fraction of Vancouver's.

Tsur Somerville, an associate professor at the Sauder school, said the amenities which Vancouver has in spades (and Detroit lacks) tend to attract high-income people. They bid up the prices of homes, and this reinforces the pattern of high prices.

But others on the panel suggested Vancouver prices may not be quite as unmanageable as they appear.

Michael Goldberg, a UBC professor emeritus who used to hold Helsley's job, said when people are trying to calculate affordability, they often fail to look at all costs.

Estimates of housing costs routinely include B.C.'s property transfer costs, strata fees, repairs and even the potential for capital losses and/or eventual default, he said.

But transportation - often a much larger expense for people who live far from the city core - is also a cost that should be factored into the equation, he noted.

And when homes are well located to minimize transportation costs - as they are in many expensive parts of Vancouver - "We capitalize transportation savings into home prices."

Other factors that drive prices up in Vancouver - quite apart from offshore buyers, who are blamed by many, but not by Goldberg - include a steadily growing population, supply restricted by both policy and topography, and restrictive and costly zoning barriers.

Stanley Hamilton, another professor emeritus at UBC, said the issue isn't that people can't afford to live in Vancouver, but rather that so many can. And they do, often by settling for less space than they'd expect to have if they lived elsewhere, and by leveraging a large amount of debt.

But, he said, the conventional affordability measures don't suit the new reality and need to be changed to reflect what homeowners are actually accepting and coping with.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Is UBC's commerce dept. exclusively staffed by bros and retards?

Cultural Imperial posted:

Is UBC's commerce dept. exclusively staffed by bros and retards?

Cultural Imperial posted:

Is UBC's commerce dept. exclusively staffed by bros and retards?

quote:

The incident took place on a bus ride during the Sauder FROSH, a three-day orientation for the Sauder School of Business, organized by the Commerce Undergraduate Society (CUS).

The chant condones non-consensual sex with underage girls saying, "Y-O-U-N-G at UBC, we like 'em young, Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for go to jail."

HookShot posted:

I gave up on my application to the UBC commerce department when they wanted a whole series of essays about why I should be able to grace their campus' presence with my dumb rear end.

It was only barely phrased more politely than that.

quote:

Michelle Cook and Brent Harris moved to one of B.C.’s hottest real estate markets this summer.

The couple sold their single-family home in Kelowna for $420,000 and headed north to Fort St. John, confident they’d find a better house for less money in a smaller market.

Things didn’t exactly work out as planned.

“We tried looking online but by the time we saw something we liked and asked our real estate agent about it, it had already sold,” Cook said in an interview. “Things were moving within a day or two.”

Cook, Harris and their two huskies — Moose and Hudson — eventually moved into a $340,000 duplex that suited their needs and feel lucky to have it because another person wanted to make an offer on the property.

B.C. has many real estate markets of varying strengths.

In Fort St. John, it’s all about the booming energy sector and new jobs that continue to attract buyers to the market and drive prices higher.

The average selling price for a Fort St. John residential property rose by 12.5 per cent to $343,600 during the first half of 2013, up from $305,400 during the same period last year.

Cook and her husband moved to Fort St. John for work. She was transferred to the city by her employer, an engineering firm, while Harris found a job as a geographic information systems technologist for the City of Fort St. John.

“The area is really booming and it just feels good to be a part of that working environment,” Cook said.

B.C. Real Estate Association chief economist Cameron Muir said northern B.C. remains one of the province’s strongest real estate markets.

“It’s quite remarkable how resilient the North has been since the (2008-09) recession,” he said. “The amount of investment in mines and LNG should help a lot of markets such as Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Prince George, Prince Rupert and Kitimat.”

How the rest of the B.C. real estate market will perform over the next five to 10 years is an open question.

Muir feels the provincial housing market and the B.C. economy in general will gradually strengthen over the next decade, especially as the U.S. economy improves. But he doesn’t forecast runaway housing prices.

“There’s no real evidence we’re going to see a significant upward jump in prices over the next few years,” Muir said. “I think prices will be relatively flat, maybe climbing by the rate of inflation.”

He said interest rates will rise from their current historical lows as the economy improves, which should keep future real estate price increases relatively moderate.

Tsur Somerville, a professor at the University of B.C. Sauder School of Business, said the B.C. market could easily absorb interest-rate hikes of half to a full percentage point a year for a few years without any serious damage to sales or prices.

He feels rates would have to jump about five percentage points in one year for a “significant correction” to take place and that doesn’t appear likely because high inflation doesn’t loom as a serious threat.

“My sense is the world remains in a more inflation-adverse environment than in the 1960s and 1970s,” Somerville said. “We still have bad memories of what happened when inflation spiralled out of control in the late ’70s and early ’80s.”

Somerville said B.C. should continue to attract about 40,000 international immigrants a year, which generally boosts the demand for housing. But he noted changes in federal immigration policy could change the type and location of housing sought by new immigrants.

Somerville said old policies used to favour immigrants with wealth, who often bought expensive homes.

“But now immigration policy wants more people with certain job skills and they need to go where the jobs are,” he said.

“That doesn’t necessarily favour the Lower Mainland, so the linkage between immigration and high real estate prices and high real estate demand will be weakened a little bit.”

Re/Max regional executive vice-president Elton Ash feels most B.C. real estate will be worth more a decade from now because the province will continue to attract investors from developing countries such as China, India and Malaysia.

He said a rebounding U.S. economy and a Canadian dollar that remains below par with U.S. currency should drive more U.S. buyers north of the border and reduce the number of Canadians buying U.S. properties.

Ash predicts B.C. resort property prices, which have been hammered in recent years, will regain their lost values over the next decade as U.S. buyers return to the market.

“I think in 10 years, those values will be even higher than they were before because the U.S. economy should be back full tilt and buyers will have their mojo back,” he said.

Muir said many Canadian resort property buyers chose to buy in the U.S. instead of B.C. because of “relative bargains” available south of the border in recent years.

But he feels that should become less of a factor in the next decade as the U.S. economy improves and drives real estate prices there higher.

Somerville said B.C. regions that typically attract retired persons, including parts of Vancouver Island and the Okanagan, should benefit from the continuing “demographic bulge” of baby boomers selling their homes and looking for new places to live.

Commercial real estate broker Avtar Bains expects office, retail and industrial land values in B.C. to appreciate over the next decade but he’s concerned about a looming shortage of industrial land in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

“We lose business to Alberta because their industrial land in some areas is half our price,” he said. “We have to review our policies and maybe free up some (Agricultural Land Reserve) land that is level, close to a highway and where they only have cows eating grass. Let the cows eat grass somewhere else. Do you want jobs or not?”

Bains feels there’s too much interest in B.C. real estate for any kind of serious collapse or “bubble burst” to occur in the market, at least in the near term. “There’s too much liquidity around for anything like that to happen,” he said.

“If you take a piece of real estate out to market and find there is just one reluctant buyer out there, then you could have a bubble. But right now there are 10 people interested in buying a good piece of property.”

Somerville agrees and feels anyone who thinks it would be good to have B.C. real estate values drop by 40 per cent because it would improve affordability should think again.

“A lot of people are employed directly or indirectly because of real estate and construction,” he said.

“Having all those people unemployed isn’t good for anybody. Having foreclosures and having credit unions fail because they have mortgages to people who are now under waters isn’t good for anybody.”

Cultural Imperial posted:

The dean of UBC's commerce department says 'go to detroit' you fuckin poors.


http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Housing+affordability+cutanddried+seems/9131335/story.html

Baronjutter posted:

Can confirm! Friend moving to Seattle as his first "real" career job and starting at nearly 100k. Rents seem about on par with Victoria and cheaper than Vancouver, except you know, actual jobs and an economy exists there.

So we have a house buying thread and a Canadian bubble thread but is there a good thread on renting? I'm about to get my lease and I'd love to know some of the ins and outs or at least bullshit to be wary of. It seems like the standard 1y lease most places make you sign.

Cultural Imperial posted:

First of all 300k to live in loving ft st john

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Here, probably.

And for BC specifically, try the RTO: http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/

As far as I can tell BC has some of the best (ie tenant-favouring) rental laws in the world. Once you've signed the lease, you're pretty well protected. Just make sure to do a good condition inspection -- the RTO actually provide a form to help with that.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Baronjutter,
If anyone knew the answer to that question, he/she would be a billionaire. Just listen to my homie eugene fama and don't bother trying to time poo poo.

Lexicon posted:

By Eugene Fama, I assume you mean Robert Schiller?

Fama is notable for his skepticism that asset bubbles even exist, or can be defined.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Nope, I mean Fama. I believe there is a bubble but I was referring to Baronjutter's anxiety about timing the housing market. Just play the indexes in the long term.

Lexicon posted:

Fair point. He's an odd celebrity-economist to cite in a housing bubble thread though

Number Two Stunna posted:

I'm looking at rental prices in Montreal, and they're a lot cheaper than any large city in the west, even Winnipeg. What's the deal with that?

Cultural Imperial posted: