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Subjunctive posted:Yeah, the best you can hope for is that the seller had an inspection done by Carson Dunlop, since they have a reputation to care about. Outside of Toronto (like Hamilton, Brantford, KW, Cambridge, Guelph) no one is doing inspections at all. Like the seller sure as poo poo isn't, and the buyers wouldn't possibly dare And 3/2 townhouses in KW that were selling for 450k in 2019 are now selling for 850k. we live in a hell world.
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Nov 26, 2021 17:45
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Nov 26, 2021 18:06
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evilpicard posted:If I had to spend millions of dollars without knowing whether it would kill and/or bankrupt me I simply would not buy a house.
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Nov 26, 2021 18:30
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Down here in Seattle the seller will do an inspection usually and you're free to do one also but any faults they might find are basically immaterial. They'll be "reflected in the asking price," and any offer that has a contingency will be discarded immediately in favour of the many others without that. Ditto with trying to muscle down the price to cover any corrections.
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Nov 26, 2021 19:32
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Slotducks posted:Outside of Toronto (like Hamilton, Brantford, KW, Cambridge, Guelph) no one is doing inspections at all. Like the seller sure as poo poo isn't, and the buyers wouldn't possibly dare I haven’t looked recently, so maybe that’s the case in Toronto as well!
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Nov 26, 2021 19:34
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when I bought a house in 2019 I had it inspected and literally tore the seller open getting things fixed before hand, and this was just after a renovation.
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Nov 26, 2021 19:39
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AtomikKrab posted:literally tore the seller open getting things fixed Do tell!
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Nov 26, 2021 19:42
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Subjunctive posted:Do tell! Oven was cracked by the laborers, made them replace it, made them fix up the AC unit (ended up replacing it this year because it was simply too old.) I did try to get them to replace it but that was too hard a go. Had them redo the entire hardwood floors in the basement, bunch of fixes to the water pipes, had them add battery backups to every sump pump in the house (i'm close to the water and the house has 3) Though we decided two month in we hated the hardwood, ripped it out and put in tile so 
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Nov 26, 2021 19:52
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AtomikKrab posted:Though we decided two month in we hated the hardwood, ripped it out and put in tile so Lol. Owned.
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Nov 26, 2021 19:57
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Subjunctive posted:I haven’t looked recently, so maybe that’s the case in Toronto as well! I think SOP and unspoken rule in Toronto is that the seller just nuts up and gets it done ahead of time and shares the report with all potential bidders. Makes sense to be an open book when you're getting 1.4 million for a crackshack How it's not common practice outside the 416... greed? laziness? general apathy from realtors?
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Nov 26, 2021 20:16
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it's not common practice because the report would probably demand a lower sale price
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Nov 26, 2021 20:23
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I've looked at a bunch of houses in Toronto in the last year (20-30 maybe), and it's definitely the norm to have the seller do an inspection. I don't think I've seen a single one without one.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:25
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That's wild, everything here in Vancouver/Van Isle has no inspection and lol trying to get one.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:28
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Another reason to do it as the seller is for a long while covid meant only one buyer at the property at a time. If each wanted to do their own inspection that could tie up the property for half the day reducing the number of total people able to get through. In my experience inspections are pretty lame. They're always mealy mouthed about missing anything, even something critical, and if you do four on a property you'll only have like 60% overlap on what they will find in common.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:47
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Claes Oldenburger posted:That's wild, everything here in Vancouver/Van Isle has no inspection and lol trying to get one. 100% this, the only property I’ve seen with an inspection done by the seller had an obviously unconventional addition that they needed to counteract with it.
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Nov 26, 2021 21:37
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We bought about a year ago on Van Isle and got an inspection done, but it was a FSBO and we were the only ones looking at it. The only reason they didn't laugh at us was because we rationalized it as a way to inventory all the poo poo we'd have to do to get the deferred maintenance under control. And also to make sure it wasn't a complete death trap.
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Nov 26, 2021 22:09
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Slotducks posted:Outside of Toronto (like Hamilton, Brantford, KW, Cambridge, Guelph) no one is doing inspections at all. Like the seller sure as poo poo isn't, and the buyers wouldn't possibly dare My neighbours house in KW sold 2 years ago for 700k and just last month it sold again with an asking price of $1m. I don't know what it sold for though.
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Nov 27, 2021 00:32
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Thanks Justin
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Nov 27, 2021 04:03
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Oakland Martini posted:I've looked at a bunch of houses in Toronto in the last year (20-30 maybe), and it's definitely the norm to have the seller do an inspection. I don't think I've seen a single one without one. Wow that's crazy, why would they do that? It would sell just as well without one and who would trust an inspection commissioned by the person trying to sell the property? It's basically worthless. Also interesting because inspectors generally don't allow their inspections to be shared as that ruins their own market. I guess it's just something that became an expectation in Toronto?
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Nov 27, 2021 14:21
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It's pretty well the norm when we got our place, every one that we saw that didn't need renos* (gut job) had an inspection already done - generally by a no name inspection company that misses** things. * - they all need real renos, everything done in the previous 2 years is done as cheaply as possible. ** - probably intentionally. The inspection report always has a limit of liability of like $100 to be redeemed by the previous owner only.
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Nov 27, 2021 15:02
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I wish there was an inspection+insurance product. At least covering any missed major issues. Something the seller could get and the buyer could trust. Victoria real estate update: We looked at two smaller houses in the $825-$850k range… both sold for over a million. My partner’s been talking about moving to Portugal.
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Nov 27, 2021 16:08
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yippee cahier posted:I wish there was an inspection+insurance product. At least covering any missed major issues. Something the seller could get and the buyer could trust. I’m sorry  we just went through the process in Victoria in late August/September and it’s a war zone out there.
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Nov 27, 2021 17:56
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Maybe the solution is to have insurers require inspections in order to hahahahaha then people just wouldn’t buy insurance
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Nov 27, 2021 19:43
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Well, if the banks made it a condition of the mortgage. Or the federal or provincial governments made it mandatory. Lol just got a flyer in the mail for 1200 sqft 3BR prebuild townhouses near Commercial Drive. $1.3 million each. Free Tesla with every purchase.
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Nov 28, 2021 06:22
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Number19 posted:Maybe the solution is to have insurers require inspections in order to hahahahaha then people just wouldn’t buy insurance What bank is going to lend to someone without insurance? But yes, a cool situation would be an enforced inspection done at the seller's expense by some sort of arm's length agency, and the report must be given for free to anyone interested in buying. Basically everyone would lose their minds at this so it's probably a good idea.
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Nov 28, 2021 16:03
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Fidelitious posted:What bank is going to lend to someone without insurance? Any bank in BC. I moved from BC to Ontario this year and I was surprised when I had to get insurance before I could get a mortgage.
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Nov 28, 2021 16:35
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If you had to get an inspection every time to got a new mortgage along with when you renewed/refinanced and have those inspections in a central registry linked to the MLS listings it would be very buyer friendly. We can’t ever do anything like that or number might stop going up forever You’d probably get a bunch of “Joe’s Fried Chicken and Discount Home Inspections Shack” type places and the inspection would become a rubber stamp anyways
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Nov 28, 2021 17:19
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we needed proof of insurance to buy our place in victoria, but our lender is based in Ontario
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Nov 28, 2021 17:26
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Same, bought 3 different places in BC and were required to show proof of insurances each time.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:43
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You must purchase at least fire insurance in BC. If its not in place the bank can buy it for the property and add the to the mortgage. At least credit unions do this.
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Nov 28, 2021 19:01
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Claes Oldenburger posted:I’m sorry It’s nuts. Looked at an absolute tear down in Oak Bay today. It was owned by a senior (now deceased) who had a major hoarding disorder. Selling features include asbestos, a failed roof and building envelope, and an in ground pool. Oh wait, I mean the perimeter drainage has failed and the driveway has six inches of water in it that is leaking into the garage/basement. Low seven figures. Unbelievable. And the boomers act baffled they can’t get a family doctor in this town. Maybe if you stopped leveraging up prices, young families could afford to move in and work in the community?
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Nov 28, 2021 23:31
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drat, a lot more Victoria posters in this thread than back in the day when I lived there and posted in this thread regularly. I talk to people where I live (UK) occasionally and they're like "mate you're crazy why did you move here!!! It must be so much better living in Canada" and then I tell them that a 3 br that costs 500k CAD here costs like 1 million CAD in my home town the size of a mid-sized British city and they're mildly bemused. Also my wife's best friend has been trying to convince her for years to move back by sending job postings and stuff (my wife humours her) and when my wife asks her about housing her friend is like "it's always been hard to get on the property ladder! You just have to dive in and it'll work itself out." Meanwhile, she, a middle manager in the BC government whose husband has a good comparable job, just moved from a basement suite in Langford to a 2 br house... in Ucluelet. MeinPanzer fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Nov 29, 2021 |
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Nov 29, 2021 07:22
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Man, do I hate the term property ladder. The implication that the normal thing to do is buy in and continually leverage more and more debt until you can live in the big house on the fancy street. Also, the theory behind it is dead in the water anyway. The theoretical "starter home" is not attainable until at least your 30s and with wage stagnation and *points at everything* good luck moving "up" to a home with a bedroom for each of the 2 kids that you may want to have. To move to a bigger house you're probably going to be adding debt that will last until you're dead.
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Nov 29, 2021 14:35
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Fidelitious posted:Also, the theory behind it is dead in the water anyway. The theoretical "starter home" is not attainable until at least your 30s and with wage stagnation and *points at everything* good luck moving "up" to a home with a bedroom for each of the 2 kids that you may want to have. To move to a bigger house you're probably going to be adding debt that will last until you're dead. This is an irksome point that most people I hear saying the term 'starter home' don't seem to get. I've also heard the same people tell me that since there are mortgages with 5-10% down you can actually attain a million dollar home as if they've never heard of a limit to how much the bank will lend you. the solution of just borrowing more has a limit.
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Nov 29, 2021 15:45
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It's a dream from a different (uh 1950s) era. You get out of school and get a good union job at the lawnmower factory in town. Get married to your highschool sweetheart and buy a tiny post war bungalow. The house holds its value with inflation, and after a while you sell it and the value plus what you've saved from your earnings is enough to "move up the ladder" to a bigger and more expensive 2 bed house which is perfect because your wife (stay at home of course because your salary is plenty for two) is expecting and you just adopted a golden retriever. The modern version of this is you're in your early 30s and finally have a steady career-ish job after years of underpaid contract work. Your parents leverage the HELOC on their $3M house to give you a few hundred thousand dollars that you use for a down payment on a $1000/sqft tiny "jr 1 bedroom" condo. There is no space for kids but the nook the marketing calls a "den" is perfect for a high end gaming rig. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Nov 29, 2021 |
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Nov 29, 2021 18:46
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It also implies that other housing doesn't increase in value relative to your home, because if all the housing increased by the same ratio then you're not really climbing a ladder, you're just saving money like everybody else. This is different to renting and saving though because renting is just "money down the drain" and to be fair this may have been a legitimate concern when interest rates were high and property prices were low relative to today. But rent vs buy isn't even a debate today, today renting and investing in broadly diversified index funds is more lucrative financially and this is only not true if you expect insane valuation rises in your specific home. Eitherway, I don't want the other guy's house to rise in value in lockstep with my house; this isn't helpful if I'm trying to "climb a ladder". If anything, I want savings which has higher return generally and as detached as possible from the RE market, that's the only way I see property as potentially being a ladder.
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Nov 29, 2021 19:31
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MeinPanzer posted:drat, a lot more Victoria posters in this thread than back in the day when I lived there and posted in this thread regularly. The UK is poo poo though and getting worse, emigrating to Canada is the best thing I ever did tbh (I know it's different if you are born in a place and I still miss the cheese, humour and deserts)
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Nov 29, 2021 20:11
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I recall that MeinPanzer lives outside of the big cities. Your experience if you're in London will be different, unfortunately the big cities are where the important tech careers are and the pay vs CoL is garbage compared to NA. It's a common thing for people complaining about low wages in London to be dismissed because "this isn't New York". Really? Because the cost of living is about the same. I also agree that moving to Canada was the best thing I ever did, financially.
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Nov 29, 2021 20:17
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Mandibular Fiasco posted:It’s nuts. Looked at an absolute tear down in Oak Bay today. It was owned by a senior (now deceased) who had a major hoarding disorder. Selling features include asbestos, a failed roof and building envelope, and an in ground pool. Oh wait, I mean the perimeter drainage has failed and the driveway has six inches of water in it that is leaking into the garage/basement. Low seven figures. Unbelievable. It's brutal. The majority of our searching was 800-1000sqf homes in the gorge because our budget was lower than 800k. We did inspections while viewings were open and had the yards scanned for buried oil tanks before putting offers in. Multiple times bully offers with no inspections or tank sweeps took the place off the market BEFORE offers were due. So we spend all the money to make sure we aren't getting a death trap and then someone just slides in. Why even have a time that offers are accepted until if people can just swoop in and take it? loving ridiculous. In the end it really feels like we just got lucky. The house we ended up getting is on a "busy" street, showed very poorly but the inspection showed that the place is actually well maintained where it counted, it just looked lovely. I put busy in quotes because after coming from cambie/22nd and dundas/nanaimo, this is like a side street despite being a main road. MeinPanzer posted:Meanwhile, she, a middle manager in the BC government whose husband has a good comparable job, just moved from a basement suite in Langford to a 2 br house... in Ucluelet. This is what bothers me the most, it's just a game of displacement. People come from larger cities with more savings or higher salaries to buy houses in smaller cities (us included), so people in smaller cities take what they have and move to smaller places which displaces the folks there. We have been very privileged and very lucky in our situation but I feel pretty terrible that for me to get the space for a home studio (basically my dream) I have to move to a place that just continually bumps people down to other places.
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Nov 29, 2021 20:51
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Alctel posted:The UK is poo poo though and getting worse, emigrating to Canada is the best thing I ever did tbh We don’t have to relitigate this discussion but all I’ll say is that my wife and I don’t make huge amounts of money but we can enjoy a quality of life living in mid-sized UK cities that my friends and relatives of a similar age and employment situation in BC simply can’t. quote:This is what bothers me the most, it's just a game of displacement. People come from larger cities with more savings or higher salaries to buy houses in smaller cities (us included), so people in smaller cities take what they have and move to smaller places which displaces the folks there. Don’t worry, those people can just move to scenic Prince Rupert and start up artisanal surf shack dispensaries. Problem solved
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Nov 29, 2021 22:35
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