|
Just helped a friend score a two-bedroom apartment in Calgary yesterday. The rent is pretty insane, the building had some damage (though not to his unit) from our floods, and it was still the last one offered by any of the major rental companies anywhere in the city (for a halfway reasonable price, that is). As long as rental availability rates are well under 1%, as is the case here, can it really be called a bubble even if prices are exploding? Obviously it's a response to supply and demand as much as it's speculation.
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2013 16:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 11:42 |
|
|
ocrumsprug posted:There isn't enough purpose built rental stock. However I suspect that there are more than enough amateur landlords, or soon to be accidental landlords in town to meet Vancouver's needs. I'll take an amateur landlord over the average rental company, which has already figured out the legal and least-risky illegal ways to gently caress me and has it down to a science.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2013 05:34
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:My rental company is fantastic about everything from repairs to never ever coming to check on me. That's nice to hear. When I was dealing with the rental company trying to secure a place for my friend last week, they threatened to illegally hold the security deposit even after my friend found another place, despite the fact they'd never told him he'd been approved and he'd never signed an actual lease. Luckily, they were also too stupid to have deposited the cheque, so I simply stopped payment on it and let them know. If they behave like that before you're even living in their place, I'm guessing it's only going to get worse once you live there.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2013 16:52
|
|
|
Lexicon posted:You're aware that cars can be financed over different length time periods? The guy said the car was 22k, so $900/month => a 2 year term. I'd have amortized it over longer myself if the principal and offered rate remained the same, but this is all orthogonal to whether or not Canada has a housing bubble. Yeah. Presumably there's much less interest to be paid, so the total amount paid to buy the car will be less than if it were financed over a longer term with a lower payment. If you believe a high payment on a car to reduce the term of the loan is inherently bad, then taking it to its natural conclusion, you would arrive at the idea that buying a car outright (thus paying no interest) is the worst move you could make, which is obvious nonsense.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
Cultural Imperial posted:This is the best series of posts I've ever seen on why buying new cars can be a humungous waste of money. I'm not saying it's a bad decision for you Baronjutter, but holy poo poo, the motherfuckers who think nothing of plunking down 50k for an impreza sti...gently caress Who are you to judge people for choosing to spend income they have on things they want? I'm guessing the people buying STIs brand new know full well what they're getting themselves into and choose to do it anyway. Do you also criticize people for spending their money on nice vacations and going out to restaurants and bars?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2013 17:08
|
|
|
Cultural Imperial posted:Wait these are just numbers. I have no right to judge. or make any sort of moral argument against profligacy. How do you know if these people do or don't have the income to afford these things without cutting into savings or going into debt? Carrying high levels of consumer debt is indeed a bad thing, but you don't know for sure that the people buying $50k cars are going massively into debt to pay for them. Presumably, they know what the payments are, know how much will be spent, and know how much they make. If they decide $X/month is an appropriate price to pay for the thing they want, and they can afford to pay it, it's their business.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2013 19:22
|
|
|
Lead out in cuffs posted:We know that on average these people do not have the income to afford these things from the fact that the average person in BC is in (non-mortgage) debt to the tune of their annual salary (as Cultural Imperial posted at the end of his post). Is the person making the average salary really the one buying a $50,000 car? If this is a common thing for people making the average salary, I'll concede, but I don't think by any stretch of the imagination that this is truly the case, and no evidence has thus far been presented that it is.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2013 20:18
|
|
|
Cultural Imperial posted:Forget the car. The point I really want to make is that the average debt load per person is too high when you compare it to the median family income. Stop loving spending money you don't have. That's a great point; however, it has nothing to do with people buying nice cars (or any other luxury goods) provided they can afford them. I took offence to your original post because it sounded like you were angry at people for spending money on nice things.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2013 20:37
|
|
|
It's loving hilarious to me that condo prices in Calgary, according to that article, are so low in comparison to places like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Victoria. We still have lots of jobs, and an absurdly low rental availability (and correspondingly high rents). How/why did this happen? We have idiots with lots of money who love to speculate on things here too, yet we seem to have avoided the worst of it in comparison.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 17:37
|
|
|
Throatwarbler posted:Calgary is also *really* not running out land. You'll notice that downtown Calgary is still pretty expensive even compared to BC, but the average and the SFH figures are somewhat more reasonable because people can(and are) build outwards more or less forever, and the transportation infrastructure is relatively decent making living in the far off suburbs slightly more tolerable. If you think Calgary's transportation infrastructure, especially from far-out suburbs, is decent, I hate to think of places you'd consider mediocre. Downtown Calgary condos are pretty expensive, but not insanely so. You could probably find a modest condo (let's say 2BR, around 1000sq.ft.) downtown or in one of our inner-city neighbourhoods for south of $300,000, which is something I'm led to believe is impossible in places like Vancouver or Toronto. I looked on MLS and there are definitely walking-distance-from-downtown properties in the $200,000-$250,000 range. Now, does that still represent a significant premium over places further out? Unquestionably.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 18:50
|
|
|
HookShot posted:Yeah in BC realistically the only direction you can build is east, whereas Calgary you can build wherever the gently caress you want on super flat land that extends to Ontario. I don't entirely disagree with your premise, but at the same time it fails to account for why downtown real estate is comparatively inexpensive to these other cities. I know why Okotoks is cheap, I'm just not quite sure why the areas closer into downtown are. Like I said, they're still a little more expensive (and realistically, they always will be), but there's affordable places to be had in some pretty excellent locations.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 19:40
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:For all my/our bitching about the "BEST PLACE ON EARTH", its not thy there isn't some truth to all that. Like, people do actually want to live here (and Montreal, and Toronto). There is nothing especially sinister about these cities, especially the fashionable downtown cores, being a fair bit more expensive then less hip downtowns. It's just insane when prices get ideas far above their station, e.g. London (UK) or New York - they have no business being in that league. And again, many of those rankings place Calgary (and Ottawa) high up in the rankings overall, and usually in the top 5-10 cities in North America. If you can deal with the cold snaps during the winter, I would say that our winters are better than those in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal due to the low amounts of snow, high amount of sunlight, and the occasional Chinook. Calgary certainly flies further under the radar than those other cities, but arguably I would say that there's no city in Canada that's really on the same level as places like London, New York or Tokyo.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 21:56
|
|
|
Lexicon posted:It's beyond 'arguably'. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is a maple-waving buffoon, or, more likely, a BPOE fanatic. Yeah, I was going to include some other cities like Berlin, Paris, Sydney, HK, and maybe even San Francisco and/or LA where the distinction wouldn't be quite so drastic, but there are certainly no cities in Canada that I would consider on the level of London, NY, or Tokyo and it's really not even open for debate.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 22:19
|
|
|
Whiteycar posted:Talk me out of this bullshit. Honestly, the rental market in Calgary right now is so hosed that, even if a housing bubble exists, it may well be easier to ride that out than the current rent bubble. As long as you take into the account that the value of your property isn't guaranteed to increase, and you will have to pay for maintenance on it, I think there's a reasonable argument to be made for buying vs. renting in the current market in this city. Outside of a few specific areas, the market isn't massively overheated. Could you lose some money, depending on what happens? Yes. That's the inherent risk in home ownership. Given rents in Calgary right now, though, I'd probably take a loss of property value rather than throwing money into the incinerator as renting would represent at this point. If the property market is inflated here, it's absolutely nothing compared to how inflated the rental market is at this moment. Price-to-rent ratio is still very low compared to other cities, especially so since the flood.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 06:59
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:Why isn't the 2013 line starting where the 2012 one ended? Presumably because the number of active listings jumped sharply between December 2012 and January 2013, just as it increased significantly between January and February.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 19:58
|
|
|
rhazes posted:It seems very suspect though, because the rest of the year, the fluctuations are generally seasonal. Yet every year, the big availability hike is between Dec-Jan? If you look at the graph, you'll see that November 2012 is barely lower than January 2013, so apparently that level of fluctuation on a month-to-month basis is quite normal. It just looks jarring because your brain looks at the discontinuity between two consecutive Januaries instead of the difference between December of one year and January of the next.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 21:20
|
|
|
Cultural Imperial posted:http://www.straight.com/news/418221/vision-vancouver-accused-misleading-residents-use-term-affordable-housing Considering you can get a 2BR in Calgary, even now, in a decent area for $1500-1600, yes, that's very high.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2013 18:43
|
|
|
blah_blah posted:That's an outrageous amount for any reasonably new condo (say, one built in the last 10 years), even if you rolled strata fees into that figure. It depends on special assessments, too. If a major building system needs replacing, like a pump for the basement, or an elevator, you're going to get a lovely, huge bill in the mail. Trust me, it happened to me last year. "You weren't gonna use that $1700 for anything, were ya? Welp, pay it by the end of the month."
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2013 16:57
|
|
|
Demon_Corsair posted:Hah, only $1700? You got off easy. One of my friends had to pay something like 7500 because all the balconies sloped inward. I wouldn't buy anything newer then 30 years in Calgary. I don't know, I think there's a clear division between good builders and bad builders. The parkade pump issue is the only thing that's gone wrong with my building in 12 years, and to be honest, the new system is excellent and probably had a lot to do with the fact we received no damage whatsoever during the flood, despite being in the evacuation zone. On the other hand, the Pointe of View buildings across the street are, uh, somewhat less well-built, to put it mildly. I've heard some pretty frightening things, and all of them seem to concern the buildings that were built very quickly and ended up being suspiciously inexpensive (in other words, every PoV building, but also some others).
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2013 18:19
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I can't imagine living beyond walking distance to my work and most friends/activities, or at most a 10-15 min drive. North America is the dumbest continent. Increasingly, it seems other people can't either, which is why otherwise decent houses in good locations are now considered knock-downs. Part of the reason decently-located, reasonably sized houses are so hard to find for a good price is because they're being bought and torn down to make way for a million-dollar-plus (comparative) monstrosity.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2013 23:40
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:That's actually a really good deal for over 4000 sqft. All the 1000 sqft's I've looked at are 1200-1500. Rents seem to go way down per sqft the bigger it gets. This is because a lot of the most expensive things in any apartment or house exist in basically the same form whether it's a tiny bachelor or a huge house. My intuition is that the kitchen is far and away the most expensive room in any dwelling, and there's only ever one of those in 99% of dwellings. Even if there's a separate wet bar or something, it probably won't have a range and a dishwasher and whatnot. Space itself is not terribly expensive in comparison.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2013 18:43
|
|
|
cowofwar posted:Everything the CPC does is populist bullshit. Like cutting the GST. It's all about pandering for votes and not about running a country. Yeah, they cut a regressive tax. Those bastards! Should income or capital gains taxes have been increased to make it a revenue-neutral proposition? Yes, probably. That doesn't make the GST cut a bad thing, and I firmly oppose a provincial sales tax (and the constant increases in sin taxes) here in Alberta for the same reason. Sales taxes and sin taxes (which are really just an ultra-regressive sales tax, considering that the poor are more likely to use cigarettes and possibly alcohol) are both regressive, and anyone claiming to be the least bit progressive should oppose them. EDIT: This is the housing bubble thread, probably not the best place for this decision. Still, the GST cut is hardly the best example of lovely CPC populist policy. PT6A fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Oct 30, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2013 06:11
|
|
|
I think things like department stores are closing up because they're essentially useless in this day and age. They don't hold enough stock that you can comfortably be assured the thing you want will actually be available, they rarely have competent, well-trained salespeople who know the products they're dealing with, and they are large and inconvenient to navigate. You're going to end up paying the same (or lower) prices at a retailer that specializes in whatever it is you want to buy, and you'll be a lot happier with the shopping experience. Unless of course you already know exactly what you want, in which case you might as well just order it online.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2014 21:13
|
|
|
Cultural Imperial posted:So what's a successful middle class retailer? The Bay? Joe fresh? One of the multitude of shops that isn't a big chain, perhaps? Independent stores do still exist, and they generally offer superior service. I never buy my clothes at the Bay because it's all a bunch of overpriced poo poo and the employees know sweet gently caress-all about any of it. I go to a local, independent menswear store, where the prices are good, and the owner can compensate for the fact that I know nothing about fashion and have no interest in it whatsoever. Consider retail liquor, too (this may not apply if you live in a place where private liquor stores aren't allowed). There's been a significant growth in the part of the market that caters to people interested in (not always very expensive) niche products, and millions of dollars have been made in building good, mass-market liquor stores in good locations as well. Why hit up some Superstore or Safeway liquor store staffed by average retail drones when I can go to a nice liquor store, staffed by people with a good knowledge of their product, who will offer me samples, and be able to recommend new products I might like? What about specialty grocers/butchers? Those, too, are taking off, at least here in Calgary, as people want higher quality foods and a better experience. Again, the prices aren't much higher, and it's such a better product and experience. Let's look at MEC, too, which is possibly my favourite large retailer at the moment and an example of how a chain can be done "right." They inspire brand loyalty by providing good products at reasonable prices, and acting responsibly. I wouldn't purchase anything I could find at MEC anywhere else, because I know it will be a painless experience and I will get what I want. Because it's not managed with a typical corporate mindset, the experience of going there doesn't make me want to tear my hair out by the roots. Those are just the few that spring to mind. Most chains are (rightly) suffering because they offer poo poo products, poo poo service, are managed by orangutans, and don't even offer significantly better prices. I swear, they can't even be bothered to keep half their loving product line in stock at any given time.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2014 22:40
|
|
|
Rime posted:Other than the part about MEC, which hasn't been true for about five years, I agree with PT6A. I only started going there about two years ago, so I really can't compare. If it was even better before, that's amazing. I'm not a really outdoorsy type, but I buy all my travel gear there, and the product selection, prices, and service are better than any of the lovely department stores or luggage stores. What problems have you seen with them?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2014 23:05
|
|
|
Valhalla Pure is pretty cool, too, and I grew up across the lake from Valhalla Provincial Park in BC, so I'd give them my business first. Except they don't have a location in Calgary, so I'm probably not going to bother driving out to Canmore just to shop there. I also couldn't find an equivalent on their website to the perfect travel pack I picked up at MEC the first time I went there. It's perfectly sized to fit an overhead bin, and doesn't have any wheels or handles to take up valuable space. Luckily, it appears to be well made, because when it gives up the ghost I'll be very sad.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
xerxus posted:Calling it a fancy garage is disingenuous though. Certainly not worth the 1.7 million, but according to the blueprint the place is over 1200 sqft. You can get a beautiful condo on a high floor in the middle of downtown Calgary, around 1200 sq.ft., for under $500,000. We also have an insane growth rate, high salaries, and incredibly low rates of rental vacancies at the moment. Some of these markets are just crazy.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2014 19:02
|
|
|
Rime posted:I found this part interesting: Without seeing their books, hard to say. It really depends on their assets, not their profit. There's a big difference between "not making profit" and "being insolvent."
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2014 21:22
|
|
|
Lead out in cuffs posted:Isn't there also the issue of selling the property in the first place? I mean, wasn't part of the problem in the US housing crisis that there simply wasn't enough liquidity in the market for the banks to unload the properties at any price, let alone a fair one? In this regard, I think the fact we've priced so many people out of ownership might be our saving grace. I'm not educated about the markets in the rest of the country, but at least in Calgary, we have people paying so much for rent that they'd jump at buying a "distressed" property for a decent fraction of its current value.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2014 09:21
|
|
|
The obvious flaw with that article is that it treats the Canadian housing market as a whole, while clearly there are some very meaningful differences between cities. The Toronto and Vancouver markets are, in any realistic estimation, greatly overvalued compared to the markets in the rest of the country, and those markets probably make up a great portion of the Canadian housing market by any metric, but I don't think the situation is quite as dire as presented, if you're looking at the value of your property in most other areas of the country.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2014 08:31
|
|
|
What's the rental vacancy rate like in Vancouver? In Calgary it's still ridiculously low. I can't see a decent place staying empty for long, as long as the owner doesn't want some completely ridiculous amount of rent. Has the overheated real estate market in Vancouver created a glut of rental properties or something, or are they just asking for too much rent?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2014 03:57
|
|
|
PC LOAD LETTER posted:Actually even then it still may be a liability due to ongoing repair costs associated with home ownership! The rule of thumb is to put away at least 1-5% of the value of the home per year for up keep but almost no one does that since the mortgage alone is enough to push them to the financial limit. The lack of up keep can, and often does, cause expensive smaller problems to turn into huge financial disasters that wreck the owners!* You're not even touching on the fact that you must pay property tax as well. Real estate is a godawful investment, and every sane rich person I know shies away from it. They will typically own their own home, as well as (possibly) vacation properties, but I honestly don't know anyone that sees real estate as a true investment. Obviously, owners hope their properties will hold their values or make money, but I wouldn't say it's viewed as a money-making enterprise by most of the rich people I know. My grandfather, in particular, was adamant about not ever owning property you aren't living in.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2014 08:11
|
|
|
PC LOAD LETTER posted:The T in PITI is for tax. Oh, I didn't see that. I mainly read your first paragraph and skimmed the rest. Insurance is, indeed, another fairly big cost that I didn't mention, so PITI covers it very well. Basically, as an investment, property costs a whole gently caress of a lot to maintain, and that's before you consider the massive pain in the rear end that it is to be a landlord and actually make money off your property. We're all getting to the same place, which is: real estate (especially that you aren't living in) is a terrible investment, and doubly so in a bubble. If you aren't in a bubble, and you're living in it, it can be acceptable since you need a place to live anyway, but even so I wouldn't stake my future on making money off it. If anything, you're paying for the convenience of never having to deal with a landlord and/or not having your lease renewed.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2014 09:05
|
|
|
etalian posted:Something like a balanced stock portfolio is a better investment due to better liquity and also how you can easily hedge your bets by purchasing different types of investments such as bonds, stocks, commodity ETFs. And, of course, if you have a really good feeling about the real estate market, you can buy stocks in companies that stand to benefit from a hot market, instead of tying up a whole bunch of your assets (and likely going into debt) to have a giant, illiquid thing that you need to upkeep and pay taxes on every year.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2014 18:46
|
|
|
sitchensis posted:Ugh. loving ugh. Boomers are retiring so they "treat themselves" to luxury cars. As if the self entitled ninnies hadn't gorged themselves enough through their working years. Well, they're people with jobs that can afford it. There's plenty of people that can comfortably afford to eat out regularly, and people that can comfortably afford to spend $400 on jeans. This is something that you'll just have to accept until you become a billionaire: other people will have more money than you. If you let it upset you, you're going to be unhappy. Now, you can be upset when their spending habits gently caress over everyone else, but that's not the case for everyone buying luxury products.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:When I think 'middle-class' I don't tend to think 'wears $400 pairs of pants' Why not? Middle-class can include, fairly reasonably, up to around $100,000/year earners. If you're single and live in a modest dwelling, there's easily $400-jeans budget available.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 16:29
|
|
|
Lexicon posted:Way to miss the point. I could spend thirty-seven dollars on a muffin - I have the money available to do so. But there's no loving way that I would, because that's bananas. Agreed, but where does that line of thought end? What is the maximum amount one is allowed to spend on unnecessary luxuries before being crazy, as a percentage of discretionary income? Frankly, I think as long as these purchases aren't being financed on credit and the purchaser has a reasonable savings rate, I believe that should be 100%. I could be pissed off and jealous of the guy who has two Range Rovers so he can keep one at his vacation home, but since I know he can easily afford it, it's none of my goddamn business.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 16:51
|
|
|
ocrumsprug posted:Yeah, but this particular topic was kicked off by a mention of how HELOCs are 14% of Canada's GDP now. It is all fueled by credit. Is it, though? Of the people I know who are working full-time, salaried jobs, I'd say only one of them has consumer debt problems (caused by stupidity and possibly a gambling problem). Consumer debt is a major problem, I agree, but luxury purchases needn't necessarily be made on credit.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 17:05
|
|
|
Franks Happy Place posted:You live in Calgary, one of the least sustainable economies in Canada. Try thinking harder. Yeah, but when it crashes there won't be massive levels of consumer debt compared to other cities (unless we take on huge amounts of debt at that point), because a lot of things are bought with cold, hard cash (or credit cards that are paid off monthly). My only point is that buying $400 can reasonably be included as "living within your means" on a middle-class salary. It may not be true for all areas, but it is at least true in some areas. If people can afford the things they're buying, you should have no problem with it. It may not be an optimal use of that money, but it's not your business.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 19:01
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 11:42 |
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Do we actually know the consumer debt load of alberta vs other places? I know some people who went to alberta to live the whole oil patch dream. They're making like 80k a year but that just means they feel they can go into even bigger debt. People are loving stupid and will go into what ever debt the system allows them. My guess is they aren't doing it with $400 jeans, though.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2014 19:16
|
|