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Jun 6, 2024 07:24
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- sbaldrick
- Jul 19, 2006
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Driven by Hate
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As one of the last places I looked at before deciding buying was loving stupid, I kept getting updates on this townhouse in an area of town I'd never live in (right next to a sports park that gets a lot of games and loud shows and is along a hobo bottle caravan route as well). It was a 2br townhouse built in the 90's. lovely layout and they wanted about 350k for it. I expressed interest, looked at the neighbourhood, price, and layout and forgot about it. But for months and months I got updates on it which were entertaining.
It was marketed as a PRICED TO SELL urgent sell-off because it was owned by a military guy who never checked if he could rent it out, was told no, and being military he had to move so it was sitting empty.
A couple months later I got an update that it was reduced by about 20k and now it's truly priced to sell because the seller is in the military and needs to sell asap. A few months later I got an update that it was "back on the market" and the seller was very motivated to sell. The realtor sent out an email to anyone expressing interest and they seemed written specifically to each person. Rather than just a price update note it was a whole letter about how I expressed interest in the condo but never saw it and now that it's back on the market with a super reduced bargain price I should come by and see it because I'll fall in love with their new staging. The tone was also almost trying to guilt people. Like "hey this MILITARY guy needs to sell it's ruining his life hanging onto this townhouse you guys need to step up and help this brave serviceman!"
I wish I had kept track of what it eventually sold for, and what the guy bought it for. I wonder if it's as hilarious as my friend's military friend whose self proclaimed "obsessed with finance" lost 60k on a newly built condo by the navy base that he bought as an investment and to live in for 3 years. "Housing by the navy base is always in high demand!".
You do know the government covers any primary residence housing loses right
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Oct 25, 2014 22:46
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- FrozenVent
- May 1, 2009
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The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
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I know they get a lot of their soft costs covered, but I can't believe if some military idiot buys an over-priced condo for 260k and sells it for 200k they send him a cheque for 60k.
Used to be that way until recently if I'm not mistaken. It only changed after the media made a fuss about a general getting a relocation package for moving from one end of Ottawa to the other.
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Oct 26, 2014 00:23
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- HookShot
- Dec 26, 2005
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Used to be that way until recently if I'm not mistaken. It only changed after the media made a fuss about a general getting a relocation package for moving from one end of Ottawa to the other.
I think you are mistaken, my dad was in the air force for years and my mom says that when the housing market crashed in the early 90s they knew a bunch of people that were screwed because they bought at the height and then got transferred elsewhere, so had to sell their homes but were underwater on them.
There were definitely moving expenses paid (as there should be, in the seven years of my life that my dad was in the air force we moved three times) but I never heard of them covering the losses on the selling of a house.
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Oct 26, 2014 01:47
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- blah_blah
- Apr 15, 2006
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Holy poo poo.
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Oct 26, 2014 07:28
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- a_gelatinous_cube
- Feb 13, 2005
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A couple months ago my dad saw that a house up the street that had been for sale forever sold to a Canadian couple, and I told him it was probably a house flipper. Sure enough I drove by today and saw it up for sale again with a "Newly remodeled!" sign under it. I didn't think this was still a sane thing to do in the United States with all the houses for sale in the neighborhood, but I haven't really been following real estate here.
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Oct 26, 2014 07:44
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- on the left
- Nov 2, 2013
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I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit
Literally poo from a diseased human butt
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That's rivaling the top locations of Manhattan's Upper East side, what are these guys smoking 
Does Vancouver have a lot of people who make a couple hundred thousand dollars per year, like Manhattan does?
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Oct 26, 2014 08:46
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- ductonius
- Apr 9, 2007
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I heard there's a cream for that...
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Does Vancouver have a lot of people who make a couple hundred thousand dollars per year, like Manhattan does?
Some, undoubtedly, but Manhattan has three times Vancouver's population living in 75% of the land area along with capital markets rivalled only by London. So, no. What Vancouver has is a lot of people spending like they make a couple hundred thousand a year.
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Oct 26, 2014 09:30
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- Saltin
- Aug 20, 2003
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Don't touch
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Some, undoubtedly, but Manhattan has three times Vancouver's population living in 75% of the land area along with capital markets rivalled only by London. So, no. What Vancouver has is a lot of people spending like they make a couple hundred thousand a year.
Let's compare apples to apples. Vancouver is a little bit smaller than Scarborough.
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Oct 26, 2014 12:30
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- I would blow Dane Cook
- Dec 26, 2008
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Miscellaneous housing related stupidity from Australia:
quote:
Residents trapped in 'high-rise hell' at Wentworth Point
Residents in a new master planned community on the Parramatta River say they are living a nightmare after the original scheme to accommodate about 11,000 people in a low-rise haven has become a "high-rise hell" with plans for 45,000 people in 20 towers of up to 25 storeys.
Already, residents say the traffic is often so bad on the lone road on and off the peninsula of Wentworth Point, in Sydney's west, that they are regularly trapped in their homes, unable to pull out of their driveways. A trip to the nearby shops at Rhodes, four kilometres away, can take up to an hour at peak times. And this was with only 20 per cent of the population having moved in.
"People have been buying a dream of what life was going to be like at Wentworth Point that's turned into a nightmare," said Auburn City councillor and former deputy mayor Irene Simms. "Everything about the original vision has been changed, and they're being ripped off."
A proposal to build a new bridge for pedestrians, bicycles and buses between Wentworth Point and Rhodes was originally welcomed, with locals feeling that might help the congestion.
But then the NSW government agreed developers could build an extra 1300 apartments in towers higher than the previously agreed eight-level limit to help pay for it. Two urban activation precincts were also announced, adding another 8000 apartments.
"It's now planned that Wentworth Point will hold 20 high-rise towers – a little Hong Kong on what was intended to be a lovely green space promontory," said resident Pamela Dilworth. "It's over-development gone mad, creating a high-rise hell, especially since the peninsula is a dead-end, so traffic, which is already a huge problem, is going to get even worse."
Professor Michael Neuman, a specialist in urban development and design at the University of NSW, said it became a huge problem when residential development outstripped the capacity of the existing infrastructure to support it.
"Clearly, it's happening across Sydney but it's uneven," he said. "Good planning provides infrastructure before, or at least concurrently, with the new development and increases in density.
"There's nothing wrong with higher density – if people want it - but you have to provide the infrastructure, and increasing deregulation and privatisation means government has less capacity and the private sector will only do it if there's a profit in it."
But a spokesperson for NSW Planning Minister Pru Goward said the area could accommodate the extra dwellings, provided the right investment was made in supporting infrastructure and improving roads and transport.
"Wentworth Point is fast becoming a vibrant and exciting community," she said.
"Existing and new residents will have access to more than $5 million in new community infrastructure, road improvements and additional public transport when the project is completed sometime around 2017."
Bronwyn Evans, president of another local advocacy group, Wentworth Point Community Central, said: "They're making quite a windfall on something that's been heralded as 'free' and 'a gift' to the community, with the apartments further stretching the inadequate infrastructure. On weekend afternoons we often can't get in and out of Wentworth Point because of congestion on the roads."
quote:
The numbers speak for themselves: $67 billion in housing finance has been approved over the first eight months of this year in NSW, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
That's an increase of about 26 per cent over the same period last year and represents 36 per cent of all housing finance approved in Australia.
And so far this year, Sydney has generated $17.7 billion in auction sales compared to $11 billion over the same period last year.
The booming property market continues to provide a stamp duty windfall for the government. Total value of housing sales in Sydney this year will exceed $100 billion.
It is neither a coincidence nor a surprise that NSW has been rated Australia's best economy. The once-in-a decade performance by its capital city housing market has contributed to energising the state economy to its nation-leading status.
Over the past year, Sydney has recorded its best house price growth since 2002, clearly outperforming all other capital city markets. House sales volumes remain at record levels as confidence and enthusiasm remain fully restored in the marketplace.
In line with this exceptional local housing market performance, the NSW and Sydney economies are also leading the pack in state and capital city economic performance.
The Sydney ABS unemployment rate over September stands at 5.4 per cent, now the lowest of all state capitals. ABS retail sales in NSW have increased by 3.1 per cent over the first half of this year, again the best performance of all the states.
Economic activity has also been driven by population growth with almost 25,000 new overseas migrants coming into NSW over the March quarter, the highest quarterly result since 2008, and all seeking somewhere to live.
Construction has also benefited from increased housing market activity with almost 24,000 new dwellings approved for building over the first eight months of this year in Sydney, an increase of 17.5 per cent over the same period last year.
Low interest rates have been the key catalyst of energising the Sydney housing market, releasing pent up demand and improving affordability to the highest levels since 2010.
House price growth is set to moderate in Sydney as incomes growth remains subdued despite the solid local economy. Subdued incomes and profit growth constrains the capacity of buyers to bid up house prices.
The boomtime prices growth of the past year was clearly unsustainable with the market now likely to enter a period of more stable and orderly prices growth.
Despite the flattening of house price growth from the extraordinary levels of a year ago, Sydney's robust housing market will continue to generate downstream economic activity with sales volumes remaining high.
quote:
The childhood home of former prime minister Gough Whitlam could be demolished within days to make way for a "McMansion" after a heritage protection for the century-old property was refused by the state government and Heritage Victoria.
Boroondara Council and concerned residents have lobbied Premier Denis Napthine and Planning Minister Matthew Guy to save Ngara, the family home at 46 Rowland Street in Kew where Mr Whitlam was born in 1916.
According to local legend, the future prime minister was born on the kitchen table of the home.
Ngara was purchased by overseas buyer Youquing Liang for $3.3 million in November 2013, and the new owner wants to bulldoze the historic house to make way for a new residence.
According to documents obtained by The Age, Dr Napthine was advised of the historical significance of the property in May this year, and passed on the information to Mr Guy.
In June, Jim Gardner, the executive director of statutory planning and heritage at the Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure, wrote to local residents on behalf of Mr Guy, and told them that heritage protection had been refused "on the grounds that there is not a prima facie case for inclusion of the place on the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR)."
That letter, titled "Gough Whitlam birthplace", was forwarded to Dr Napthine.
Mr Guy later refused permission for interim heritage protection to be given to the property.
According to Boroondara Council's heritage application Ngara is worthy of heritage protection as a place of "individual significance".
At least seven other homes in Victoria have been given heritage protection because a prime minister was born in or lived at the property. These include nearby 10 Howard St in Kew, the former home of Robert Menzies, and 167 Cotham Road in Kew, the former home of Billy Hughes. The birthplace of John Curtin has also been given heritage protection.
City of Boroondara spokeswoman Deb Ganderton said an application to fully demolish the property had been lodged in April, but the council had only been alerted that the house was the birthplace of Mr Whitlam when it was nominated for the Victorian Heritage Register later in the month.
"Council investigated the association to Gough Whitlam and confirmed that the property was of local individual heritage significance," she said.
"A request … was subsequently lodged with the Minister for Planning for interim heritage protection of the property on 7 May, 2014.
"That request was refused by the officers of the Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure under delegation from the Minister for Planning on 17 September, 2014."
Ms Ganderton said a demolition permit was issued by a private building surveyor on October 14, just a week before Mr Whitlam passed away.
Local residents said they would be heartbroken to lose the property. "It's sad to lose these places of local significance, but it seems we have lost the fight," said one neighbour. "Instead we will have another large, bland building on the street."
Jellis Craig's Peter Batrouney said he was unaware of the property's historical significance when he sold the three-bedroom early-Edwardian quietly off-market for $3.3 million last November.
"There was no heritage overlay on it when we sold it," he said.
"The owner mentioned that there was some history to do with Gough Whitlam being in the house.
"That's all I knew about it."
Work has already begun on the demolition of garden surrounding the house, which has stood empty since it was sold.
Under Foreign Investment Review Board rules, a foreign buyer has two years to demolish an existing home to make way for a new dwelling.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:24
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- Kalenn Istarion
- Nov 2, 2012
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Maybe Senpai will finally notice me now that I've dropped :fivebux: on this snazzy av
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If the area is considered a depressed market the treasury board is supposed to reimburse the difference since members don't have much of a say in when or where they're going.
The board gets around this by having some pretty janky definitions of 'depressed market' so they almost never pay out, and even when appeal boards rule their decisions as bullshit they can't be compelled to pay. Troops in some locations get hosed pretty hard by the whole thing.
I'm all for supporting our troops but... They know they don't need to buy when they work in a job that by definition will force them to move every couple years, right? This seems like sort of a self-inflicted problem.
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Oct 26, 2014 20:26
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- Guest2553
- Aug 3, 2012
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I'm all for supporting our troops but... They know they don't need to buy when they work in a job that by definition will force them to move every couple years, right? This seems like sort of a self-inflicted problem.
It really depends on the circumstances. Buying a condo in Toronto is pretty lolworthy whoever does it, but things like the oil boom in Alberta create some pretty lovely conditions that see people lose tens of thousands. It's hard to find affordable rent in cold lake because troops can't compete with oil firms who pay top dollars for hovels with no questions asked for their workers. This inflates the cost of housing on base because it's by law tied to the local economy and actually resulted in a rent increase cap to delay a spike.
Most of those houses are in bad condition and contain asbestos. Heating bills can hit 300/mo in winter because there is next to no insulation. The difference between capped rent and assessed market value is considered a taxable benefit which costs an extra hundred or more a month. There aren't enough houses on base, however lovely they may be, and with stupid low interest rates, the cost of ownership can be competitive with rents (especially given the lovely condition of a lot of the available housing). Something like a third of the people posted there rely on food banks or second jobs to make ends meet, but alternative for many is suck it up and try to make it work or get fired.
Not everybody who suffers a loss is eligible for full renumeration, and losses of ten thousand here or there are expected, but there are a non trivial number of people who have their finances long term destroyed because the system that was supposed to prevent it doesn't work. The treasury board also did some gerrymandering with geographical boundaries in the wake of the 2008 meltdown which resulted in nowhere being considered a depressed market so tl;dr: gently caress the troops I guess
Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Oct 27, 2014
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Oct 27, 2014 01:06
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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http://www.vancourier.com/vancouver-votes/election-news/candidates-debate-subway-jericho-lands-1.1455296
quote:
More than 200 people came to the West Point Grey United Church on a rainy night Wednesday to hear a dozen city council candidates debate a new subway to UBC, the future of the Jericho lands and city hall secrecy.
Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s ambitious transit plan for the West Side includes a subway along Broadway from Commercial Drive to UBC, a proposal that will likely be put to a referendum. A city report calls for rapid transit to Arbutus Street, then as a temporary measure, dedicated buses from Arbutus to UBC.
“I absolutely support this as a transit corridor,” said Vision incumbent Coun. Heather Deal. She added that the subway will stop at Arbutus because the second highest bulk of employment after downtown is in central Broadway, and the train will transport all the people who come from the suburbs to work there. “We will also have a very robust increase in buses to get those students to UBC, because if not buses they will go in cars, and you don’t want that in your neighbourhood.”
The audience applauded the subway opponents. The Green Party opposed the Vision plan, as did COPE candidate Jennifer O’Keeffe. “We do not need a subway, we do not need the upzoning and density, and the mayor does not have the funding for it,” she said.
NPA candidate Suzanne Scott did not speak out against the subway, but said her party has released a transit platform with “many diverse options.” Vancouver First party candidate Jesse Johal warned that “If you elect either Vision or NPA, you will get a subway, and a new Metrotown from Main Street all the way down.”
The audience also asked about the announcement that the 21-hectare Jericho military site will become a new residential neighbourhood. The federal government’s property arm, Canada Lands Company, formed a joint partnership with three First Nations, but it is not yet clear exactly how the property will be developed in the next decade, a fact that made some questioners uneasy.
Deal pledged fulsome community consultation. “When Canada Lands makes a proposal to the city it will be considered very carefully and you will have your say on that. We learned a lot about the consultation process from the Marpole Plan. People said they really liked it when our planners came and sat down with them in the kitchens. We look forward to engaging with you on this.”
Scott argued Vision did not listen to residents. “You cannot trust them. If you do, you will have a massive Oakridge-style development on one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods right here next to your home.
We know it will fetch over a billion dollars for developers and decisions are moving very quickly. I will watch this Jericho redevelopment like a hawk.”
Johal voiced a bleak view of both parties. “We hear a great catchphrase from NPA — ‘People need to be seen, they need to be heard, they need to be understood.’ Well, as NPA and Vision have shown, they’ll see you, they might hear you, and they definitely won’t understand you,” he said.
Panelists from all the parties except Vision also voiced strong and repeated complaints about the level of city hall secrecy. NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe said his first priority is transparency. “I have spent 35 years in journalism fighting for government openness and I cannot wait to make that our first law. It is my policy goal to die on.”
The debate was sponsored by the West Point Grey Residents Association and moderated by Courier contributor Bob Mackin.
I really hope the natives build a huge loving casino in place of the jericho barracks.
gently caress everyone in the west side.
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Oct 27, 2014 01:15
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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https://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/what-the-commodity-bust-means-for-canadas-economy/
quote:
Aside from our stagnant stock market, which has dramatically underperformed the U.S. S&P 500 since 2011, the slowdown is showing up in the jobs sector. Whereas two years ago miners were hollering about a shortage of skilled labour, the job vacancy rate for the mining, oil and gas sector has since fallen to its lowest level since Statistics Canada began tracking it in 2011. At least one multi-billion-dollar oil sands project, proposed by Norway’s Statoil, has been shelved. Others look tenuous. Earlier this month two Asian firms that had paid $1 billion to buy Calgary-based Grande Cache Coal in 2011 ended up unloading the company to a Chinese coal producer in return for assuming the company’s debt. The selling price: a toonie.
In other words, the 15-year commodity boom—which gave Canada its Teflon-like strength during the deep global recession and helped make us the envy of the world—has run its course.
What comes next if oil prices continue to collapse is a question that, not very long ago, would have garnered incredulous laughter. No one’s laughing now. David Madani of Capital Economics is hopeful prices will remain above US$80 a barrel over the next few years. But he’s also considered the repercussions if the bottom continues to drop out of the market. “The energy sector is the bright spot for the Canadian economy. If that were to turn sour, where’s the growth going to come from?” asks Madani. Others warn of an impact on Canada’s bubbly housing market, a slowdown in income growth—which would make it harder for Canadians to manage their massive debt loads—and, as the resource sector cools, a painful readjustment for those workers who have flooded to the West from other parts of the country in recent years.
It would leave Canada’s economy in the most precarious position it’s been in since the financial crisis. “Given that we’re already in a slow-growth environment, I’d be concerned about stagnation in the economy,” says Madani. “Or something worse.”
quote:
That hasn’t stopped some observers, including the Bank of Canada, from predicting China will continue to keep oil and other commodities afloat. In the bank’s January monetary policy report, it stated, “China’s solid growth outlook and the size of its economy mean that the demand for commodities should continue to be robust.” As evidence, it pointed to a doubling in the size of China’s economy over the past five years. But in a new paper, Larry Summers, the former economic adviser to the White House, cautions against that type of thinking, warning that investors have succumbed to what he calls “Asiaphoria.” “Abnormally rapid growth is rarely persistent, even though economic forecasts invariably extrapolate recent growth,” Summers wrote. In other words, because China’s growth rate was so spectacular in the past, forecasters believe it must go on being spectacular. Instead, by looking at half a century of growth miracles in other countries, Summers makes the case that China’s annual growth will average just 3.9 per cent over the next two decades.
It’s the fading of China’s miracle growth that has led David Rosenberg, the chief economist at Gluskin Sheff and Associates in Toronto, to openly muse about a return to US$40 oil. In a recent report, he noted that China’s pace of growth is back to early 1990s levels, “when $40 was generally the high end of the range for the oil price.” He didn’t make an outright prediction that oil would fall back to US$40, but that Rosenberg even raised the possibility is a remarkable sign of how much and how fast things have changed. (It’s worth noting that the average price of oil in real, or inflation-adjusted, terms, has been US$40 for the last half-century, through booms that saw prices above US$100 in the late 1970s and 2008 and subsequent busts.)
quote:Since 2000, the number of births in Alberta has grown three times faster than the Canadian average. And since 2004, Alberta has accounted for more than a quarter of all the net new jobs created in Canada. Ontario still added more jobs—about 33 per cent of the Canadian total—but, of course, 40 per cent of Canadians live there, while Alberta’s share of the total population is just 11 per cent. With better jobs and higher incomes, Albertans also spend way more—as a sample, since 2000 their spending on new cars and trucks (OK, mostly trucks) has grown at nearly five times the average of the rest of Canada, while the increase in their pace of spending on alcohol, games and jewellery has also left everyone else behind. Alberta’s economy has punched far above its weight, doing much of the heavy lifting for Canada’s overall employment and income figures.
But a commodity bust will have a far wider impact than just in Alberta. Close to half of all Canada’s exports are tied to commodities, while oil and gas alone account for roughly 20 per cent. At the same time, the natural resources sector makes up about 15 per cent of Canada’s GDP. Any slowdown in Alberta would also have a ripple effect across the country, particularly in the Maritime provinces, which have supplied so many of the young workers in the oil patch.
hahahah gently caress you alberta. I can't wait to see that province get raped by a loving great depression. Bring on the loving dust bowls.
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Oct 27, 2014 02:15
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- Kalenn Istarion
- Nov 2, 2012
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Maybe Senpai will finally notice me now that I've dropped :fivebux: on this snazzy av
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It really depends on the circumstances. Buying a condo in Toronto is pretty lolworthy whoever does it, but things like the oil boom in Alberta create some pretty lovely conditions that see people lose tens of thousands. It's hard to find affordable rent in cold lake because troops can't compete with oil firms who pay top dollars for hovels with no questions asked for their workers. This inflates the cost of housing on base because it's by law tied to the local economy and actually resulted in a rent increase cap to delay a spike.
Most of those houses are in bad condition and contain asbestos. Heating bills can hit 300/mo in winter because there is next to no insulation. The difference between capped rent and assessed market value is considered a taxable benefit which costs an extra hundred or more a month. There aren't enough houses on base, however lovely they may be, and with stupid low interest rates, the cost of ownership can be competitive with rents (especially given the lovely condition of a lot of the available housing). Something like a third of the people posted there rely on food banks or second jobs to make ends meet, but alternative for many is suck it up and try to make it work or get fired.
Not everybody who suffers a loss is eligible for full renumeration, and losses of ten thousand here or there are expected, but there are a non trivial number of people who have their finances long term destroyed because the system that was supposed to prevent it doesn't work. The treasury board also did some gerrymandering with geographical boundaries in the wake of the 2008 meltdown which resulted in nowhere being considered a depressed market so tl;dr: gently caress the troops I guess
Why wouldn't the military offer rent subsidies? This just seems like a clusterfuck of stupid.
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Oct 27, 2014 02:36
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- Whiskey Sours
- Jan 25, 2014
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Weather proof.
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Gotta love how we're willing to let the Norwegian government nationalize our natural resources.
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Oct 27, 2014 02:56
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- FrozenVent
- May 1, 2009
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The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
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Why wouldn't the military offer rent subsidies? This just seems like a clusterfuck of stupid.
Politics. The military only gets so much budget - increasing it makes the left go MAH TAX DOLLAH - and I guess the higher up like to spend it on poo poo that get attention and / or post retirement jobs with suppliers. Like helicopters.
Heck if you really wanted to you could probably turn the right against military housing subsidies too because all government subsidies are welfare and free market uber alles.
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Oct 27, 2014 03:09
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- I would blow Dane Cook
- Dec 26, 2008
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dutch disease ftw since Canada has hitched its economic future to both the commodities bubble and also real estate/credit bubble.
Just like Australia!
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Oct 27, 2014 03:22
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- Kalenn Istarion
- Nov 2, 2012
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Maybe Senpai will finally notice me now that I've dropped :fivebux: on this snazzy av
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Politics. The military only gets so much budget - increasing it makes the left go MAH TAX DOLLAH - and I guess the higher up like to spend it on poo poo that get attention and / or post retirement jobs with suppliers. Like helicopters.
Heck if you really wanted to you could probably turn the right against military housing subsidies too because all government subsidies are welfare and free market uber alles.
It doesn't have to be new subsidies, just reallocate some of the funds currently nominally allocated to purchase subsidies.
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Oct 27, 2014 03:34
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- FrozenVent
- May 1, 2009
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The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
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It doesn't have to be new subsidies, just reallocate some of the funds currently nominally allocated to purchase subsidies.
Why do you want to keep our troops from building equity? Do you hate our troops or the economy? After the events of last weeks, I can't believe you could even say something like that, you should go back to Montreal so you can vote for zombie Lesveques, etc etc etc.
Yeah I know it's ridiculous but that's the argument someone is going to make.
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Oct 27, 2014 03:44
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- PT6A
- Jan 5, 2006
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Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
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To be fair, back when property was reasonably affordable and people didn't do stupid long amortizations, home ownership was a decent investment and a good way for the "middle class" to save money (probably one of the reasons why baby boomers are so fond of viewing it as a great investment). Denying soldiers access to such would be very bad for their ability to invest/save money.
The problem is, now that renting is by far the better option in a lot of the country, the subsidies have not been changed to reflect it. Before, we were subsidizing a good, fairly reliable investment that was, all things considered, very comparable to alternatives. Now, we're subsidizing a lovely, risky, expensive investment that doesn't make financial sense.
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Oct 27, 2014 04:20
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- PT6A
- Jan 5, 2006
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Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
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Homes are only a decent investment once you overlook all the flaws like like of diversification, liquidity and also pile of often unpredictable upkeep costs.
Basically seeing home ownership as clever money making investment is one of fundamental roots of the problem, "you are throwing away your money renting!"
If property values weren't artificially high, this wouldn't necessarily be the case.
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Oct 27, 2014 04:48
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- blah_blah
- Apr 15, 2006
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If property values weren't artificially high, this wouldn't necessarily be the case.
No, e.g. Robert Shiller has shown that housing prices historically (i.e., over 100 years back) more-or-less track inflation, and that people consistently overestimate the typical amount of that homes appreciate by:
wikipedia posted:
The US Census, since 1940, has asked home owners to estimate the value of their homes. The home-owners' estimates reflect an appreciation of 2% per year in real terms, which is significantly more than the 0.7% actual increase over the same interval as reflected in Case–Shiller index.
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Oct 27, 2014 05:50
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- on the left
- Nov 2, 2013
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I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit
Literally poo from a diseased human butt
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Properties do badly on a nationwide basis, but you can be sure that if you bought property thirty years ago in a now-booming international city, your returns are going to be much higher than normal. It's probably not something you should recommend your kids to do though.
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Oct 27, 2014 05:53
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- Jimmy Jerkboat
- Apr 8, 2009
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Properties do badly on a nationwide basis, but you can be sure that if you bought property thirty years ago in a now-booming international city, your returns are going to be much higher than normal. It's probably not something you should recommend your kids to do though.
If you have any faith that wage stagnation is going to be seriously addressed in the near-future buying now wouldn't be such a poor decision.
Someone who purchased in the 90's(or 80's lol) bubble could have been in pretty good shape within a decade.
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Oct 27, 2014 06:46
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Shelley+Fralic+Housing+affordability+Metro+Vancouver+real/10326688/story.html
quote:
Right now, in New Westminster, there is a well-kept, 1,080-square-foot, two bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath apartment for sale, with a fireplace, in-suite laundry, stainless steel appliances and a wraparound balcony in an older three-storey building on a quiet street near parks, shops, transit and schools.
The price: $249,000.
Which means, if you negotiated it down to, say, $240,000 and put down 20 per cent and qualify for a three-per-cent, five-year variable mortgage, the monthly payment would be under $1,000, or less than the average rent in Metro.
Right now, in Surrey, one low-rise complex currently has three condos for sale. They have multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, and range from 1,145 to 1,334 square feet. The most expensive is $269,900.
Right now, in Coquitlam and Burnaby, there are 200-plus listings for two-bedroom, two-bath units under $300,000.
And so it goes.
Do an MLS search on Metro Vancouver condos and townhouses and there are hundreds, yes hundreds, of similar offerings across the region.
There are even a number of two-bedroom condos for sale for less than $300,000 in, wait for it, the city of Vancouver. A two-bedroom, two-bath unit in East Van is on the market for $238,000. It has in-suite laundry, and the building has a gym and pool.
And yet the moaning about unaffordable housing in Vancouver and environs grows ever more loud, especially on the eve of municipal elections. Good lord, the cry goes up, who can afford to live in this place? Who can afford to raise a family here? It’s not right, and the mayor/feds/my parents need to do something about it.
Fuelling the chorus are the endless surveys and comparisons reminding us that if this is heaven on earth, it’s also a mighty pricey postal code.
The latest dose of bad news, delivered recently by this paper, reported that 76 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s 21 municipalities are unaffordable for the average family earning $80,000.
But is that true?
Well yes. And no. Those statistics, like so many published before them, refer to the purchase of single-family homes. The kind of place with no shared walls. No elevators. No pot smoke wafting in from the adjoining balcony. No restrictions on window coverings and tomato planting.
It’s the dream, right? The picket fence. The big backyard for the kids and dog. The two-car garage. We have been conditioned to believe that ownership of a single-family home is the symbol that you have made something of yourself, that you have secured the lottery ticket to ensure a happier family and comfortable retirement.
But why, one wonders, does one’s first home have to be a house?
Oh right. Easy for the big bad baby boomer to say. We had it easy, didn’t we? All those post-secondary jobs for the taking, all that cheap local real estate.
I was born in Vancouver nearly 62 years ago. I have never been able to afford a house in the city.
Nearly 40 years ago, when I was in my early 20s, my young family’s first “house” was a condo in Burnaby, purchased for $49,900 with the help of the CMHC’s Assisted Home Ownership Program. The unit was eventually bought back from us because the complex was leaky, riddled with mould, and eventually torn down.
Our next “house” was a townhouse in a co-op in Newton, a neighbourhood then on the wrong side of the Surrey tracks.
In 1984, facing soaring gas prices and an increasingly brutal commute into Vancouver, we bought a little heritage pile on a postage-stamp lot in New Westminster. It cost $73,000 and the roughly 13-per-cent interest rate demanded a mortgage payment of $800 a month, exactly half of my then take-home pay from this newspaper. Oh, and the bathroom in the basement had a dirt floor.
In 1988, we moved a few blocks over into the house in which I now live. It cost $130,000, and my husband and I lay awake at night wondering how we could possibly afford it, along with two young children to raise.
But I knew then as I know now that the best way to get into the market is to get into the market, even if the dream doesn’t come with stainless steel appliances and isn’t in the dream neighbourhood.
I have equity now, but I will still never be able to afford a single-family house in Vancouver, and gave up that notion long ago, along with the arrogance to think it is somehow my right.
And, as it turns out, Vancouver has nothing on the ’burbs. This is where density and congestion are traded for wide open spaces, family-oriented neighbourhoods and, yes, more affordable housing, single-family and otherwise.
So for the love of God, people, stop complaining about the price of housing in Vancouver. Market forces, not your mayor or mom, determine the cost of housing. Just ask home buyers in New York, Paris and London.
And consider that your home doesn’t have to be a house, and that it doesn’t hurt to start small and think big.
Who knows? Someday, a new generation of Metro Vancouver house hunters might be grouching about your good fortune.
sfralic@vancouversun.com
hahahaha what the gently caress
No wonder Shelley Fralic can't afford a loving house, it's because she's loving dumb
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Oct 27, 2014 06:47
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Jun 6, 2024 07:24
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- I would blow Dane Cook
- Dec 26, 2008
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Hey CI wanna go on a baby boomer killing spree?
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Oct 27, 2014 11:35
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Oct 25, 2014 15:21
