# Vancouver Real estate



## buaya (Jan 7, 2011)

Something to ponder on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqOn5XEm86A


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## cosmica76 (Jan 31, 2011)

Very impressive presentation!!


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

I know that vancouver home prices are high etc., but I wonder how much the % increases/decreases over time (since 1979 as in the presentation) differ from other regions (ie: Toronto).


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

If Vancouver crashes then rest assure the debt crisis from Europe will have crossed into the US and the world will be going into recession. Most likely this will happen as a result of rising long rates like we saw in Europe as everyone knows the US can't pay it back.

Otherwise we are not seeing rates rise and speculation is not in the market from what I can see. So at this time slow and dropping and not crashing prices will probably be the path. However the roller coaster did level off for a bit before crashing.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I have to say that was an impressive visual way to present the housing market.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I read in the paper today that BC is second in the country for being mortgage free at 47 percent. That is pretty high but I am sure there are still a lot of people with way to much debt.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

I don't know how the pct is calculated, but if you polled the houses on my block in West Van, the average house price would be 2+ Million, and I doubt if any are mortgaged. First, gazillionaires from Iran, and now from China, have been gobbling up West Van view real estate for decades..... without any need of mortgages.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

steve41 said:


> I don't know how the pct is calculated, but if you polled the houses on my block in West Van, the average house price would be 2+ Million, and I doubt if any are mortgaged. First, gazillionaires from Iran, and now from China, have been gobbling up West Van view real estate for decades..... without any need of mortgages.


Vancouver is going the same way as HongKong and Tokyo...those with the
financial resources to buy properties outright will buy what they want.

Those without... or the working class will lose..because property prices in the
millions are out of reach of most of the working poor, which are heavily
taxed to begin with.

Whether the housing bubble bursts (as bubbles do) ....or some other unforseen financial disaster
occurs, it remains to be seen...however, if the owners of these properties still have enough to pay 
the taxes ,(which don't necessarily follow the drop in real estate prices).. and the utilities..
they will hold on to these properties until the next rise (cycle). 

If some properties are worth 2 million now...imagine how much they can
rise in 10 years...if the market holds steady..3million? 4 million?


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## Jon_Snow (May 20, 2009)

I just thank my lucky stars that we bought our place in 2002... I pity young families trying to get a foothold in this market today. Scary.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Just wondering..........in this city of millionaires, where will the bus driver live? Or the sanitation worker, the cable installer, waitress, or any of the other hundreds of thousands of workers required to keep a big urban centre serviced?

In South America and Asia..............they live in a slum on the hillside........adjacent to the dump.


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## Jon_Snow (May 20, 2009)

It seems that winds of change may be stirring in Vancouver.... inventories are piling up at unprecidented levels in the first days of 2012. Early signs of a rush to the exits, perhaps? I am a property owner, but I want property values to crash HARD in this city... will hurt my net worth statement, but I'll be able to afford a bloody house. Well, technically I can afford to buy a house in this city, but I refuse to buy at these insane prices. Can't wait for the fall... it will go very badly for those who bought in the last few years. Don't mean to be vindictive, but the stupidity of folks who have overextended themselves via cheap credit needs to be answered.


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## KayCee (Dec 23, 2011)

I don't think it will fall that hard but I am monitoring it as well waiting for the prices to drop a little bit.


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## NotMe (Jan 10, 2011)

I'd be skeptical of a few weeks or even months of data especially at this time. Real estate has a seasonal factor. Garth Turner on his blog was just trumpeting that "As for the cost of a SFH in 416, in May that property was changing hands for $774,046. By last week it had plopped to $701,845 – a drop of $73,000, or more than 9%."

And I was thinking.. so last week real estate transactions were low, skewing some numbers? So only the people who really wanted to sell sold during the holiday season? In the week containing Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Years? In other news, I predict there will be ZERO houses closed on July 1st, 2012. I'd stake my life on it.

Year over Year is a much more accurate unit of measurement, than what one month that may or may not be a statistical anomaly tells us. Not saying you're wrong, just that one or two months does not a trend make.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Comparing Christmas/winter (when people are busy with other things) to May (an annual peak time for closings) is absurd and this does not signal any meaningful trend. Need to compare the same month over several years before you can start to see any meaningful trends.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

It's just the usual BS and data manipulation you'd expect from Garth Turner.
That guy is nothing more than a con artist.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Jon_Snow said:


> It seems that winds of change may be stirring in Vancouver.... inventories are piling up at unprecidented levels in the first days of 2012. Early signs of a rush to the exits, perhaps? I am a property owner, but I want property values to crash HARD in this city... will hurt my net worth statement, but I'll be able to afford a bloody house. Well, technically I can afford to buy a house in this city, but I refuse to buy at these insane prices. Can't wait for the fall... it will go very badly for those who bought in the last few years. Don't mean to be vindictive, but the stupidity of folks who have overextended themselves via cheap credit needs to be answered.


Don't be too sure about that. On my street in West Van, houses are being torn down and new 2-3-4 Million dollar homes are being built. The participants are Chinese and Iranian, and from what I hear, nothing is mortgaged.... these guys are loaded.


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## Causalien (Apr 4, 2009)

So here's a question I've been having on these asian and Iranian money. How do our banks here verify that these people didn't mortgage their house in a foreign country to pay for houses here in cash? 

What are the consequences of when these loans and mortgages are recalled in the foreign country because the person went bankrupt. It's true that these are bought in cash from Canada's point of view and makes me feel safe, but does foreign countries have the ability to reclaim anything in Canada in case of a bankruptcy?


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## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

I've been calling a top to Vancouver real estate prices for 10 yrs. Garth Turner's been calling it longer then that. At some point these prices aren't sustainable and we'll be right....but, so far, Garth and I have been very wrong and prices have gone up exponentially. It's simply a nutty market. 

A dumpy, run down home in my neighbourhood just sold in a weekend over asking (and my neighbours and I all thought the ask was too high). Can't explain it. I wouldn't buy today. But I wouldn't bet on a sharp decline either.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

There are lots of places to live East of the city where real estate is much cheaper. It is not for me and I can't stand commuting but it is there if you can handle it.


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## KayCee (Dec 23, 2011)

*Metro Vancouver*

I lived in Metro Vancouver almost all of my life and have many friends and colleagues who own properties. One thing I know is that, in this demographic, people only buy if they have the means to pay for it. The small percentage who bought with an intention to flip will likely suffer but most homeowners buy their homes and live in it. I am looking for a waterfront property in preparation for an early retirement so I am looking forward to a price drop. A 10% drop will be nice.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

KayCee said:


> I lived in Metro Vancouver almost all of my life and have many friends and colleagues who own properties. One thing I know is that, in this demographic, people only buy if they have the means to pay for it. The small percentage who bought with an intention to flip will likely suffer but most homeowners buy their homes and live in it. I am looking for a waterfront property in preparation for an early retirement so I am looking forward to a price drop. A 10% drop will be nice.


Waterfront in Vancouver? A 500% price drop would be more like it.


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## KayCee (Dec 23, 2011)

steve41 said:


> Waterfront in Vancouver? A 500% price drop would be more like it.


Not West Van or downtown area. I couldn't afford that even if it drops by 100%. I'm leaning more towards Tsawwassenn or White Rock.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

dogcom said:


> If Vancouver crashes then rest assure the debt crisis from Europe will have crossed into the US and the world will be going into recession. Most likely this will happen as a result of rising long rates like we saw in Europe as everyone knows the US can't pay it back.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again, they US federal government will always have the ability to repay its nominal USD denominated debt. All they have to do is crank up the printing press. Europe is a fundamentally different situation, where the ECB is legally prohibited from printing money to monetize government debt (though they certainly are trying very hard to get around this).


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

steve41 said:


> Waterfront in Vancouver? A 500% price drop would be more like it.


So someone would pay me 4x the current value to take their property off their hands?


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

andrewf said:


> So someone would pay me 4x the current value to take their property off their hands?


I'm not sure but I think perhaps Steve was being facetious. It seems that he knows his way around numbers!

I didn't take a job in Van in 2004 because I thought real estate prices were crazy then and it turns out buying in would have been a great investment. Still the thought of having such a high percent of net worth tied up in such an illiquid asset is so unpalatable. Can't last forever but who knows.


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

Doesn't seem sustainable to me. I know you can point to rich Chinese to prop it up but they aren't stupid and if they think prices will drop they will stop buying. Prices can and have dropped in Hong Kong too.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Causalien said:


> What are the consequences of when these loans and mortgages are recalled in the foreign country because the person went bankrupt. It's true that these are bought in cash from Canada's point of view and makes me feel safe, but does foreign countries have the ability to reclaim anything in Canada in case of a bankruptcy?


Probably like Mexico where the American have their places on the market for whatever they can get. There is one villa in Conchas Chinas that was listed for $3.4 million last year and is now listed at $1.95 million but not selling. The sweet spot seems to be under $400k where resales are holding their value (or at least attracting offers).


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

kcowan said:


> Probably like Mexico where the American have their places on the market for whatever they can get. There is one villa in Conchas Chinas that was listed for $3.4 million last year and is now listed at $1.95 million but not selling. The sweet spot seems to be under $400k where resales are holding their value (or at least attracting offers).


Similar to Arizona. We have seen many places that started out listed at$3.5million and are now at half that and still unsold. Typically 5-7,000sq ft on 1 acre lots.


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## zidane (Jan 8, 2012)

Another growing city is Richmond, BC. In the last 5 years or so, I've seen an abundance of new condos and townhouses being built in Richmond. They are going to build a lot more condos near the Olympic stadium, IIRC. I believe the main driving force behind this is the Chinese. Richmond has the most concentrated Asian population in BC.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

zidane said:


> Richmond has the most concentrated Asian population in BC.


Actually the most concentrated outside of China.


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## RichmondMan (Jan 31, 2011)

Engaging video, but sorry, I do not share your pessimism at the moment. Some financial analysts and realtors said about the future stagnation of the real estate market in BC. On the other hand, we should not see everything in red numbers. Also the current numbers indicate acceptable expectations for this year. However, I agree with it that this year will not simply and everything can change.


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## supersocco (Apr 3, 2009)

Head and Shoulders pattern forming


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Biggish house across the street in WV listed 4 days ago at $2.4M, just sold today for $2.6M. 10,000 sqft lot, wood frame built in 1935, probably a tear-down.

What's "holy crap" in Farsi? (or Mandarin)


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## kbbt (Aug 26, 2011)

1/27/2012 news:
BC Real Estate Association Chief Economist Cameron Muir predicts Greater Vancouver Area to experience an average price drop of *-3.3% in 2012* (while expecting it to gain back +1.1% in 2013).

That’s worse than BC provincial average’s drop of -2.2%.

Hard to believe that the okanagan area will fare better than GVA though, with a average price increase of +0.6% (okanagan mainline).

http://www.bcrea.bc.ca/docs/economics-forecasts-and-presentations/housingforecast_.pdf


I think Cam Muir may be grossly underestimating the magnitude of the downturn...


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