# Anyone Want to Buy a House in Vancouver?



## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

Here's a real bargain - only 2.4 million dollars for a house built in 1930 on a 33 foot lot:

http://thekavanaghgroup.com/mylistings.html/details-54343858


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## Woz (Sep 5, 2013)

The listing price looks ridiculous, but compare it to the similar nearby properties below that sold last year and it doesn't seem so crazy (the seller doesn't at least).

http://thekavanaghgroup.com/mylistings.html/details-17553983 sold for $3.3M in July
http://thekavanaghgroup.com/mylistings.html/details-23305884 sold for $3.28M in June

They were larger lots (50/55ft front vs 33ft), but still ...


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

After the crash, people will be claiming temporary insanity trying to get out of their mortgages.

If they show the judge these pictures, he might believe them.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

We only know the asking prices on all these houses, not what they sold for, but houses in Vancouver are selling for many hundreds of thousands dollars over the asking price. I even read about one that sold in this area last week for $2 million over the asking price. And most of these houses will be torn down and new ones built. It truly is ridiculous!


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## Ag Driver (Dec 13, 2012)

Deleted


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

2.4 MIL for a dilapidated cardboard box on a postage stamp lot.
Bubble? What bubble? lol :cower:


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## Woz (Sep 5, 2013)

Karen said:


> We only know the asking prices on all these houses, not what they sold for,


$3.3M and $3.28M was what those properties sold for. You can find the sale price for anything that sold in the past 3 years on BC Assessment (http://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/). Also, Property Insight (http://www.propertyinsight.ca/) has some of the older sales data. It can take 3 months to a year to show up though.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Forget the house.... it is gone. This is near UBC, no view, but they will probably get their price.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

I can only hope that it's HAM buying these places due to their desire to divest money out of China, or in some gambit regarding Canadian citizenship/residency.

If 'old stock' Canadians are paying $2M+ for these shacks they deserve to get burned, they should know better.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

Most of them are being bought as "tear-downs" so the lots are where the value (???) is. I read recently that 91% of all houses in Vancouver would sell for over a million dollars, and 32% of those for over $2 million.


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## Woz (Sep 5, 2013)

Jeez, that house sure is getting a lot of attention:

The Province - http://blogs.theprovince.com/2016/0...eam-home-could-be-yours-for-only-2-4-million/
Greater Fool - http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/01/29/nutso-nation/
Zero Hedge - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-29/meanwhile-canada-real-estate-bargain-emerges


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I have seen some outstanding properties for sale in West Vancouver with a panoramic harbor view..........celebrity types of California style homes.........for 6 million.

If I had the money I would buy that, instead of a run down dump with no view. 

Maybe these are middle tier of almost really wealthy Chinese, because why wouldn't they just spend the 6 million instead of tearing something down ?

I read on CNBC that the Chinese speculators are selling homes at a loss in the US, because they need the cash after getting destroyed in the stock markets in China.

I am glad Canadians are cashing out in Vancouver though...........good for them.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

This is what people want is a knockdown and build their own new home. In Vancouver it is better if your house burns down even if you don't have insurance as long as it is only your house effected.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Sags I would prefer something with a nice view near White Rock on a hill. You get the view and a third of the rain or less. Or you can get much cheaper living near Squamish again with incredible views if you don't mind the rain. Of course this is provided that commuting is not the big issue.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

What a sh**box. Sometimes I'm ashamed to live in the lower mainland-it's just a dog-eat-dog nightmare on many levels. I live in Port Moody- it's still reasonable for the area. I tend to avoid Vancouver proper.


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## Ethan (Aug 8, 2010)

If I lived in the area for a while, and was sitting on $1 million plus in gains on a house like that, it would be tempting to sell and move to a city with cheaper housing. I don't think Vancouver wages are much higher than cities like Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal etc., and you could buy a nicer house for a fraction of the price. Things like leaving friends and family, and the change in weather would be factors to stay, but considering the differences in price I think I'd make the move.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Here is another shocker on what happens to some of this high priced as it is purchased by Chinese investors never to be heard from again as the properties sits vacant.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...11-and-have-been-vacant-and-rotting-heres-why


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

dogcom after reading that story I don't know why Vancouverites aren't doing a sale and lease back.

Sell your house to a Chinese investor and lease it back. You get your cash out and the investor gets someone to take care of his property plus a little rent money.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

To follow up on my original post about this house, I just heard on the news that it has now sold - for $2.48 million - $80,000 over the asking price!


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

One question being raised is with these home prices in Vancouver, how can the workers needed to service the city afford to live there.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

sags said:


> One question being raised is with these home prices in Vancouver, how can the workers needed to service the city afford to live there.


Everybody rents, trading the future security of home ownership for their perceived greater value of living in Vancouver. I've seen people splitting one-bedroom apartments into three makeshift 'suites' just to be able to live downtown (one person {or even a couple} gets the bedroom, one gets the living room, and one gets the dining area- and they think it's normal for three to five unrelated adults to share a one bedroom flat. It's just asinine. And many (most, nowadays) who buy a house or condo west of Boundary Road need to rent part of it out to strangers just to make the mortgage. When I was working at UBC, some of my student staff had 4 or 5 roommates in two bedroom suites.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> dogcom after reading that story I don't know why Vancouverites aren't doing a sale and lease back.
> 
> Sell your house to a Chinese investor and lease it back. You get your cash out and the investor gets someone to take care of his property plus a little rent money.


Supposedly, the Chinese prefer to live in a house which has never been lived in before. There are 9 houses (mostly new) in the next block to mine which are completely empty.... nine.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

I have no idea what people are thinking in Vancouver. Sure, it might be a nice place to live but almost $2.5M for a shack, to tear down? Really? #nuts. I would sell, move to somewhere else in Canada and simply retire / do whatever I want. I can't believe people are willing to pay this much money for houses there...


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

My Own Advisor said:


> I have no idea what people are thinking in Vancouver. Sure, it might be a nice place to live but almost $2.5M for a shack, to tear down? Really? #nuts. I would sell, move to somewhere else in Canada and simply retire / do whatever I want. I can't believe people are willing to pay this much money for houses there...


Probably some developer bought it, or some multi millionaire had some loose change burning a hole in his pocket. 

Real estate is a good investment in Vancouver. There won't be a crash if one defines crash as a very rapid 20% + plunge in prices. 

The situation is similar to Palo Alto, CA. The US housing bust bare dented the rise in prices in that local as house prices are up about 50% from the bust in '09. the average house there is about 3000000 US. 
A desirable area with limited supply is great for real estate investing, and Vancouver happens to be one of those places. Wouldn't surprise me if prices double in 10 years.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

My Own Advisor said:


> I have no idea what people are thinking in Vancouver. Sure, it might be a nice place to live but almost $2.5M for a shack, to tear down? Really? #nuts. I would sell, move to somewhere else in Canada and simply retire / do whatever I want. I can't believe people are willing to pay this much money for houses there...



Chilliwack is 1.5 to 2 hours east of Vancouver and prices are very reasonable. Your in the mountains, valley and still have the mild weather in the winter.

http://www.rew.ca/properties/R2028221/8853-copper-ridge-drive-chilliwack?property_search=362351700

Steve your right for some reason not lived in is a plus for Chinese. This is why it is better to own an older home that you keep nice but can also be sold as a knockdown. Thats what I do with my house, keep it in good shape live in it until the day I want to retire and move away from where I am. Still however I live few blocks from the Georgia Straight and with the mild weather it will be difficult to want to move when the time comes. My parents still live in Steveston and I don't think they will ever move unless they can't walk anymore.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

dogcom said:


> Chilliwack is 1.5 to 2 hours east of Vancouver and prices are very reasonable. Your in the mountains, valley and still have the mild weather in the winter.
> 
> http://www.rew.ca/properties/R2028221/8853-copper-ridge-drive-chilliwack?property_search=362351700


Chilliwack might be fairly safe for a while, but the insanity is rapidly spreading eastward. I was speaking to a realtor/friend in Abbotsford today and she told me that anything priced right is selling almost as soon as it hits the market. In some cases people are lining up with offers over the asking price, which was very rare in the past.

In the past, people were reluctant to move out this far from Vancouver, but now they're being priced out of areas further west and they're getting desperate. Decent places (nothing fancy) are going for 500K and up. Even on the lower end, the realtor says my mom's 2-bdrm, 1450 sqft, built in 1982, no updates, in a pretty working-class neighborhood, will probably fetch around 430K.


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## Durise (May 16, 2016)

Hahahaaa  such a ridiculous post. Nowadays it's really ridiculous.


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## RCB (Jan 11, 2014)

As I understand it, price increase contagion has spread to Abby and Chilliwack. I would expect a future drop, if commuters truly move in. Reversal of pattern to avoid commuter hell. 

My in-laws commuted first from Maple Ridge, then Abbotsford, and finally the Chilliwack area (Yarrow), from mid-80s through to 2002. It was brutal on my FIL who worked at the waterfront. They eventually moved back in to PoCo due to increasing traffic ballooning their commute times.

One thing not taken into account in this type of pattern is the loss of equity moving ever farther away. Right now this bubble doesn't make this apparent. In a normal RE market RE commissions and legal eats up equity. I would expect my in-laws could have bought their current Ontario house outright with just their commissions and legal paid on RE transactions since the mid 80s. They arrived with debt upon retirement, very little for a down payment, and seeking new jobs. Sad.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

According to the news, BC and Vancouver in particular are already suffering from labor shortages.

The tourism industry is looking for thousands of employees. Restaurants are looking for hundreds of "cooks" and staff.

High home prices in one area of a city is sustainable, because there are other areas for the people who keep the city running (the majority of people) to live.

When the entire city becomes unaffordable for average workers............"we have a problem Vancouver".


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## OurBigFatWallet (Jan 20, 2014)

I'm not sure anyone would want to live in Vancouver. The house prices are so high it would surely eat away at your quality of life. It's a beautiful city but so is Honolulu, Sydney etc. I guess if someone has $2M to spend they can surely buy something decent but I don't understand people who pay $1M+ for a fixer upper with a down payment of 10% (or less), the cost of living would be so high you'd be better off to move almost anywhere else and get something cheaper (IMO)


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## RCB (Jan 11, 2014)

Re Vancouver labour shortage.... Van is the new Fort Mac. What will win out? Increased wages for normally low wage jobs, or the TFW program?


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

RCB said:


> Re Vancouver labour shortage.... Van is the new Fort Mac. What will win out? Increased wages for normally low wage jobs, or the TFW program?


It's not even close. Wages in Ft Mac were by far the highest in Canada. House prices, and rent went up with it, and are now going down as wages go down as well.
In Vancouver, wages are low. What do people even do there for work?


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## BigMonkey (May 31, 2016)

Dang. What a deal! 

I'd be a fool not to buy.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

Most people I know have two or three jobs or have something on the side for extra income. But yes, there is also a labour shortage. I looked for a manager for six months at my last place and have now been looking for four months at my current place. We're also crying for cooks.


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## RCB (Jan 11, 2014)

nobleea said:


> It's not even close. Wages in Ft Mac were by far the highest in Canada. House prices, and rent went up with it, and are now going down as wages go down as well.
> In Vancouver, wages are low. What do people even do there for work?


I was speaking to the past issue in FM of what would have normally be minimum wage jobs in the rest of the country, paying a premium due to shortage of workers. Fast food, coffee shops, etc. I know there are good wages there, my brother has flown in and out for work from northern Ontario for about 6 years.


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## Nordic (Dec 17, 2014)

Pluto said:


> Probably some developer bought it, or some multi millionaire had some loose change burning a hole in his pocket.
> 
> Real estate is a good investment in Vancouver. There won't be a crash if one defines crash as a very rapid 20% + plunge in prices.
> 
> ...


Palo Alto is the tech hub of the western world.... as per Wikipedia: "headquarters to a number of high-technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Space Systems/Loral, VMware, Tesla Motors, Ford Research and Innovation Center, PARC, Ning, IDEO, Skype, and Palantir Technologies. It has also served as an incubator to several other high-technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Logitech, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal."

2012 median household income there was $163,661. Vancouver's barely cracks $70K.

You can't compare Palo Alto to Vancouver with a straight face.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Nordic said:


> Palo Alto is the tech hub of the western world.... as per Wikipedia: "headquarters to a number of high-technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Space Systems/Loral, VMware, Tesla Motors, Ford Research and Innovation Center, PARC, Ning, IDEO, Skype, and Palantir Technologies. It has also served as an incubator to several other high-technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Logitech, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal."
> 
> 2012 median household income there was $163,661. Vancouver's barely cracks $70K.


So what? The average Vancouver price for a detached home was 1.8 mil. In palo alto the average was about 3 mil, with median income about 2x's Vancouver. They seem to be about on a par: that is the average price divided by median income give a similar ratio.


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## FI40 (Apr 6, 2015)

Pluto said:


> So what? The average Vancouver price for a detached home was 1.8 mil. In palo alto the average was about 3 mil, with median income about 2x's Vancouver. They seem to be about on a par: that is the average price divided by median income give a similar ratio.


Using the numbers above, price/income ratio would be 1.8 mil/70k = 25.7 in van, vs. 3 mil/164k = 18.3 which is not on par. However, when I check the Palo Alto median price, using the link below, it's actually ~2.5 mil which makes the palo alto ratio more like 15.2, so not on par at all.

Also I'd mention, Americans have access to very inexpensive 30 year fixed mortgages, whereas we fix for 5 yrs which could end up being like a "teaser" rate if rates rise. Americans also typically pay less tax, not sure if that's the situation here, but anyway it just adds to the fact you can't compare between the two countries very well here.

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Palo_Alto-California/market-trends/


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## wert (Jan 26, 2014)

What is that quote about stats? Remember that student with zero income who bought the 35 million home a few months back. What would that do to the price/income ratio, I wonder? Vancouver is a tourist city. The homeowners are tourists, the low wage workers are tourists (waiters are talking with a kiwi/auzzie accent like in Whistler). Any rate, come join me for a coffee in Pt Grey and I will show you the budding suburb of Beijing. All my kids' friends live with their moms and have a dad who comes to see them a few months a year. They all insist Vancouver is a deal comparatively, and there are millions of people back home who would pay double to get citizenship.


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## tavogl (Oct 1, 2014)

The tourism industry pays bananas, thats why they have a shortage


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## Johnny199r (May 20, 2014)

Aside from wanting to be close to family, I don't see the appeal of living in Van or Toronto with these real estate prices. Sure, Toronto has jobs, but so does Calgary or Edmonton.

If Canada suddenly annexed some Caribbean country or Hawaii, I'd understand paying big bucks to live there, they would offer something that nowhere else in Canada has, a great climate. But these two cities? Having been to both, I just don't get it.


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