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In Australia auctioning houses is common and I think it's incredibly stupid and should be illegal. Seriously, you don't want to get into the psychological state an auction puts you in over the most expensive purchase of your life.
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Apr 26, 2014 01:14
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| # ? May 12, 2024 23:44 |
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Brannock posted:What's supposed to be the appeal of condos if you have to deal with all that bullshit and also pay exorbitant "maintenance" and membership fees? Even housing bubble aside, it doesn't seem like you save any money at all by buying a condo than renting an apartment when you take in all the money costs and wasting-your-time costs. I bolded the benefit, though you may be approaching the problem from the angle of being a reasonable person. I made the mistake of getting elected to my large townhouse strata. Never again.
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Apr 26, 2014 01:16
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ocrumsprug posted:I made the mistake of getting elected to my large townhouse strata. Never again. Do tell more, I guess it ended up being hell due to all the petty politics and bickering.
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Apr 26, 2014 02:20
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Cultural Imperial posted:https://twitter.com/taraperkins/status/459786233510514688 Here's the press release: http://www.cmhc.ca/en/hoficlincl/moloin/moloin_014.cfm What I love is how they actually had a product called "Self-Employed Without 3rd Party Income Validation mortgage insurance".
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Apr 26, 2014 07:54
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Here's the press release: http://www.cmhc.ca/en/hoficlincl/moloin/moloin_014.cfm CMHC is to use the old american saying, closing the barn door after the cows already escaped.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:05
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HookShot posted:In Australia auctioning houses is common and I think it's incredibly stupid and should be illegal. And that's when you know you shouldn't be participating in a market.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:36
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So what's the deal with SAP? I'm standing outside their building and it looks like the whole thing is for lease.
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Apr 26, 2014 17:52
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Brannock posted:What's supposed to be the appeal of condos if you have to deal with all that bullshit and also pay exorbitant "maintenance" and membership fees? Even housing bubble aside, it doesn't seem like you save any money at all by buying a condo than renting an apartment when you take in all the money costs and wasting-your-time costs. Speaking for myself, it's because I don't want a landlord telling me what I can and can't do in/with my living space, or having (even restricted) access. Yes, there are some condo board rules I don't agree with, but they would almost certainly exist for any rental, along with a whole bunch of other rules, and I would have even less say about possibly changing them. I might be coming out a little behind money-wise, but to me it's worthwhile.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:14
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I was pretty gung-ho and set on buying a condo when I first came into this thread. My general idea was that rental buildings are mostly all ratty, never have in-suite laundry, and are full of terrible noisy nasty people. I wanted a place that if I wanted to, I could redo the kitchen, or repaint a room, or enclose a balcony into an office. I had a sense that I'd have more "control" over a condo and more power to make it feel like a home. It wasn't just the financial reality of a condo being a horrible waste of money, but talking to more and more people who owned condos that really changed my mind. Nightmares with condo boards, rules not being enforced due to internal politics and favourtism, inexcusable financial mismanagement by the board, you name it. Most proper rental buildings are actually run very professionally and by the book, you have your rights, you have the rules, and if things really don't work out you just move. With a condo, if things go to poo poo you're still trapped there unless you can sell. Yeah you can change the fixtures in your bathroom or what ever but holy poo poo that isn't worth the huge trade offs. I'm sure there's great well run condos out there, but I'm not going to risk the biggest purchase of my life and a 20 year commitment on lucking out and moving into one. Now, if condos here were like in some other countries where the city "owns" the building or at least manages it so there's no local building-specific council of amateur landlords and professional busy-bodies, or at least a severely limited and standardized council, I'd consider it. But how every condo building is basically a little vertical gated community with a HOA with all the bullshit and politics that go along with it, no thanks. I found an awesome rental building downtown with a fussy and serious landlord and it's awesome. Problems are all fixed same or next day, complaints are dealt with very quickly and fairly (not that anyone does anything to generate complaints because everyone knows the rules and that landlord will enforce them). Dude visits the building every single day. I'll notice some dirt on the carpet coming home one evening, gone the next day. Scuff on the wall? Gone the next day. Bulb out on a minor decorative light in the lobby? Replaced the next day. I'd love a little more control over my space, like the ability to paint or change a door, but it's not really a big deal and not worth destroying my finances over.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:40
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Baronjutter posted:I found an awesome rental building downtown with a fussy and serious landlord and it's awesome. Problems are all fixed same or next day, complaints are dealt with very quickly and fairly (not that anyone does anything to generate complaints because everyone knows the rules and that landlord will enforce them). Dude visits the building every single day. I'll notice some dirt on the carpet coming home one evening, gone the next day. Scuff on the wall? Gone the next day. Bulb out on a minor decorative light in the lobby? Replaced the next day. I'd love a little more control over my space, like the ability to paint or change a door, but it's not really a big deal and not worth destroying my finances over. I can say the exact same about my condo building management, though. There can be poorly run condos, and poorly run rental properties, or they can be run by people that have some clue what they're doing. The fact that some condos and some rentals are poorly run shouldn't really be a deciding factor. If you're renting, you should see what others are saying about the management company, and if you're buying, you should probably fork over the money for a background check on the condo (to make sure the finances are in order, and to see what, if anything, residents have been complaining about). Every annoyance I have with my condo board and management company would probably be even worse if I were in a rental-only building, and I'd have less control over fixing the things I don't like. The only special assessment we had was fairly minor (I think my portion was $1700 or something) and it was to put in a new pump system to keep the basement from flooding. It sucked at the time, but then the following year the huge flood happened in Calgary, and we had 0 water infiltration despite being less than a block from the river, so it was completely worth it.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:50
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Baronjutter posted:I was pretty gung-ho and set on buying a condo when I first came into this thread. My general idea was that rental buildings are mostly all ratty, never have in-suite laundry, and are full of terrible noisy nasty people. I wanted a place that if I wanted to, I could redo the kitchen, or repaint a room, or enclose a balcony into an office. I had a sense that I'd have more "control" over a condo and more power to make it feel like a home. You could probably work out a deal to get at least part of the cost of any pre-agreed upgrades netted off your rent if you talked to you landlord. We just looked at a place in Vancouver where the landlord had allowed a tenant to do this and it resulted in a really tasteful upgrade in an older rental building. We'd be living there now if it wasn't for too many stairs for us.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:51
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Cultural Imperial posted:http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/condo-hell/ As a recreational ballet dancer (who does pointe), I'd tell anyone telling me to stop practicing at home to get hosed. Sorry. quote:“We have to be very cautious we’re not building future one-bedroom ghettos,” he says. This is interesting because I have a few friends who are architects and I asked one of them about the Toronto Waterfront. He basically said we are setting ourselves up to have a ghetto. Keep in mind this has already happened in Toronto before and our crooked city council has learned nothing from it.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:52
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etalian posted:Do tell more, I guess it ended up being hell due to all the petty politics and bickering. It is probably not that interesting of a story, and I found being on the strata board of another smaller building to be a much better experience. If you have any crazy, rude or angry people (the larger the strata the more of these you will have) in the strata you have a good change of them making your life hell. In my year on the council, here are some of the fun things that came up. - I had a pleasant old lady scream at me about having a conflict of interest since someone in the building, who ran a landscaping business, won the landscaping contract. It wasn't me or anyone on the council, and I am unaware that anyone on council had any interest in his business. She didn't feel it was her job to provide any information/evidence regarding this accusation. - We tried to replace some crappy shrubs near the pool. This ended up becoming 30-40% of strata business over the next two years, as one (and only one) of the owners was really dedicated to the existing shrubbery. This escalated to her calling the city to report us for dumping into a neighboring creek during some landscaping on that side. (We weren't.) It culminated the next year when her and her friend were elected to council and proceeded to do such a bang up job running amok that they needed to be removed from council. - The fellow that stood for election, and volunteered to act as the strata financial guy showed up for one meeting. - Two residents were engaged in a long standing feud, and one of them used the council as her weapon of choice. If he parked more than two vehicles on the property, we were informed. If his daughter let the dog off the leash, we were informed. Hey, he has a canoe in his garage... that's a vehicle right. FINE HIM!!! - One of my fellow council members was elected to the council for what appeared to be the sole purpose of ensuring that she didn't get fined for the behaviour of her son. This behaviour included putting a garden hose through the mail slot of a neighbor. etc... Please note, that I didn't include any of our dealings with the property management company or any of our contractors and would have included a similar list of garbage. ~~~ A co-worker that is on his strata board had some applicable stories. - They have a lady that doesn't understand why she has to pay rent (strata fee) on the apartment that she owns. Eventually the bank got sick of having a lien placed on the property every three months, so they pay her strata fee for her. Presumably this is added to her mortgage amount. (Let that one sink in for a few moments.) - There is a small group of people (owners) that sue the strata. FOR EVERYTHING. Meeting minutes had typos. Sue. You wouldn't let us vote on whether the strata will fund a defense for my lawsuit. Sue. You had an in camera meeting to discuss my disruptive behaviour on the council. Sue. ocrumsprug fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 18:52
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The way to get hosed from both ends is to rent in a condo building. Your landlord is most likely absentee and a majority of the time the Condo board is making rules to actively dissuade renters. It cost me $500 to move out and unfortunately the landlord had the law on his side because the lease incorporates all new condo rules/fees.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:54
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http://www.biv.com/article/20140422/BIV0108/304229958/nearly-700-bc-coal-miners-being-laid-offquote:Another 280 Chetwynd miners will be laid off in July, when the company temporarily shuts down its third mine in that area – the Brule.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:14
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Whiteycar posted:The way to get hosed from both ends is to rent in a condo building. Your landlord is most likely absentee and a majority of the time the Condo board is making rules to actively dissuade renters. It cost me $500 to move out and unfortunately the landlord had the law on his side because the lease incorporates all new condo rules/fees. Yeah, the absolute worst nightmare situations I've heard are all rentals in condos. You also get a huge 2nd class citizen effect where the owner-occupied units hate the rental units and the renters hate the owners. It often escalates to the renters doing petty poo poo like vandalism after people continue to use the council to gently caress with them. It's like a perfect microcosm of any society that introduces 2nd class citizens.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:37
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ocrumsprug posted:It is probably not that interesting of a story, and I found being on the strata board of another smaller building to be a much better experience. This all sounds like Hell. Who would want to live in this?
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Apr 26, 2014 20:24
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I hate to join in with the condo apologists because I know how the Canadian Housing Bubble Thread feels about condos, but I bought a town house condo last summer and my experience has been pretty positive. The condo corporation's finances are in good shape, there are no unruly neighbours, and while the condo fees are definitely a detractor, my utility bills are very low due to water being included and having two shared walls. A similar quality single family home would cost significantly more in my area of Halifax, and the heating costs would be insane. Also, since it's a town house I even have my driveway and garage! Shovelling snow sucks, though.
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Apr 26, 2014 20:26
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What ever happened to row houses? Like where every house was a house on an individual lot and your property ended at the side walls. It's all strata town-houses now. Is it just too much legal trouble to parcel up the lot? Easier for the developer to build a common roof and only need a party wall and not a fire wall between each unit?
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Apr 26, 2014 20:56
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I rent in a condo but am one of two permanent people living in the whole building so it's pretty awesome 
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Apr 26, 2014 21:11
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Baronjutter posted:What ever happened to row houses? Like where every house was a house on an individual lot and your property ended at the side walls. It's all strata town-houses now. Is it just too much legal trouble to parcel up the lot? Easier for the developer to build a common roof and only need a party wall and not a fire wall between each unit? Yeah, but what if I don't like my neighbours curtains? Who's going to force them to change if there's no strata council? Topic change: I'm also in the "rents a condo" club. There's only ten units in the whole building though and one got bought by an investor and is unoccupied. My landlady is on the strata council too and is a wonderful human being. So I guess it comes down to "there are well run buildings, and poorly run buildings".
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Apr 26, 2014 21:26
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peter banana posted:As a recreational ballet dancer (who does pointe), I'd tell anyone telling me to stop practicing at home to get hosed. Sorry. Your right to practice ballet at home doesn't outweigh your downstairs neighbor's right not to have to deal with hours of WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP on their ceiling on a regular basis. It's the same effect as playing music with loud bass.
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Apr 26, 2014 21:40
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah, the absolute worst nightmare situations I've heard are all rentals in condos. You also get a huge 2nd class citizen effect where the owner-occupied units hate the rental units and the renters hate the owners. It often escalates to the renters doing petty poo poo like vandalism after people continue to use the council to gently caress with them. It's like a perfect microcosm of any society that introduces 2nd class citizens. It seems like some people here have had some really lovely experiences with condo rentals. As someone who owns one which is rented out to tenants I can say that I've never had any of the issues mentioned here. I am absent from the city, but I hired a professional property manager to come and deal with poo poo when stuff breaks. My neighbours are not fuckwads, and as far as I know there's never been a problem in most of my building. I will agree that the condo corp council is a general bag of poo poo though. I continue to be baffled as to how our maintenance fees are rising at a steady rate of 4-7% while inflation is running at or below 2%. I'm tempted to run for the council just so I can figure out what exactly is going into the budget because the statements we get don't make it apparent. Our condo management corp did get a 10% raise this year though.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:19
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I will agree that the condo corp council is a general bag of poo poo though. I continue to be baffled as to how our maintenance fees are rising at a steady rate of 4-7% while inflation is running at or below 2%. I'm tempted to run for the council just so I can figure out what exactly is going into the budget because the statements we get don't make it apparent. Our condo management corp did get a 10% raise this year though. Assuming your condo is in Vancouver, I bet your fees are rising at that rate because depreciation reports are forcing stratas to actually deal with maintenance that they should have been dealing with in the past. If you compare Vancouver strata fees with HOA dues in Seattle, they are shockingly low in Vancouver. I'm talking 50% lower.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:25
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Cultural Imperial posted:Assuming your condo is in Vancouver, I bet your fees are rising at that rate because depreciation reports are forcing stratas to actually deal with maintenance that they should have been dealing with in the past. If you compare Vancouver strata fees with HOA dues in Seattle, they are shockingly low in Vancouver. I'm talking 50% lower. The other big part of the condo trap, is how strata fees are often set low since you don't want to scare off buyers. However after 10-15 years you get a massive increase due to things such as having to do big exterior repairs. Factor in the shoddy quality of the boom construction condos and you are looking at a much lighter bank account.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:40
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Nope to both of those, I bought in a mature building which had a history of stable condo fees and is located in Toronto where there were much less shoddily built buildings.  What I really need to do is a) get on the council and b) read the reserve fund report in detail. I would be less fussed if it was possible to recapture in rent but the Toronto rent market is such that if you raise more than the statutory cap your renters will just leave, even if your place isn't rent controlled. I have good tenants and will need to just eat the extra $500 or so to avoid needing to find new tenants. That said, if the increased fees are being used for useful and necessary improvements it's not necessarily hurting my property value in the long run, which is why I need to read the report.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:26
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Unless the strata did some hardcore long term planning and stuck to it, maintenance cost will increase according to maintenance needed, which is a function of wear and tear and aging, which is a function of the age of the building, the use it's seeing and environmental conditions. Inflation's basically the one factor you can rely on for planning purposes; the slow creep upward beyond that is probably because someone on the board is realizing that there's a maintenance / repair shitstorm coming, but the rest of the board is keeping them from charging what they actually need to charge. Does your building have balconies? When were they last replaced? God forbid, did you buy into a condo with a pool? When people say that rent is a maximum and a mortgage is a minimum, they aren't kidding. gently caress maintenance.
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Apr 27, 2014 05:09
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FrozenVent posted:Unless the strata did some hardcore long term planning and stuck to it, maintenance cost will increase according to maintenance needed, which is a function of wear and tear and aging, which is a function of the age of the building, the use it's seeing and environmental conditions. The best thing is the glass wall windows since they are really expensive to replace after 20-25 years, not to mention probably being very maintenance intensive
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Apr 27, 2014 05:18
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etalian posted:The best thing is the glass wall windows since they are really expensive to replace after 20-25 years, not to mention probably being very maintenance intensive Rooftop pools are my favorite. It's like a literal sword of Damocles, with the added possibility of mold.
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Apr 27, 2014 05:25
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FrozenVent posted:Rooftop pools are my favorite. I loving love the ads for this place. http://www.livingattheone.ca/amenities.html In addition to your tiny shitbox, you have a nice rooftop pool.
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Apr 27, 2014 05:37
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Awesome. A movie about tulip fever starring Christoph Waltz: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491203/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_2
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Apr 27, 2014 06:07
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Cultural Imperial posted:Awesome. A movie about tulip fever starring Christoph Waltz: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491203/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_2 The South Sea company is another one of my favorite bubble stories: http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes3.asp But but the Canadian housing bubble will not have any bad consequences when it bursts
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Apr 27, 2014 06:21
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u r a not a Good Canadian for even implying that there is a housing bubble good sir
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Apr 27, 2014 06:27
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I wonder how the excited canadian buyer would react to Buffets bit about on how it's dumb to buy things because it will much more expensive in the future?quote:short quiz: If you plan to eat hamburgers throughout your life and are not a cattle producer, should you wish for higher or lower prices for beef? Likewise, if you are going to buy a car from time to time but are not an auto manufacturer, should you prefer higher or lower car prices? These questions, of course, answer themselves.
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Apr 27, 2014 07:35
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Cultural Imperial posted:I loving love the ads for this place. I bike past that one a few times a week. They have a huge billboard mainly to advertise the pool. It always makes me think of this thread.  .
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Apr 27, 2014 08:24
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Here's a CBC article on why the glass wall architecture is so horrible, basically a flashly ad gimmick that becomes really expensive after only 15-25 years: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/throw-away-buildings-toronto-s-glass-condos-1.1073319 quote:Many of the glass condominium towers filling up the Toronto skyline will fail 15 to 25 years after they’re built, perhaps even earlier, and will need retrofits costing millions of dollars, say some industry experts.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:49
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How the hell do they get rid of the Aura after 20-30 years?
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Apr 27, 2014 17:52
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Kafka Esq. posted:How the hell do they get rid of the Aura after 20-30 years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YQSNy5ZRFY
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Apr 27, 2014 17:54
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It's almost 300 meters tall.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:59
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Any of you guys reading all the Thomas Piketty stuff that's been coming out of the internet the last week and a half? His book, Capital in the 21st century draws 3 conclusions: 1) There is no tendency towards equality. 2) The equality we have now is a result of the destruction of inherited wealth. 3) There is an emerging trend towards patrimonial capitalism where the world will be dominated by inherited wealth. First political party to get rid of the capital gains tax exemption on primary residences, and implement a nice fat loving estate tax gets my vote. gently caress all the 'waiters'.
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Apr 27, 2014 18:05
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