How can total Real Estate Assessment in BC top 1 Trillion????

[sdifox]

Scary part is it is currently the 8th cheapest condo for sale in Kelowna, and the only one of those built after the year 2000.

I guess I should not feel too bad about buying a 680k 3000sqft house in markham

 

[Doppel]

If Vancouver houses were being bought on Vancouver incomes you might have a point. But they're not.

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

This is just one such image:

If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

 

[J-Money]

I guess I should not feel too bad about buying a 680k 3000sqft house in markham

Should point out I meant 8th cheapest 2 bed / 2 bath condo, not just condo in general.

680k for that size sounds about the same as here would. I'm selling mine to build a 3700sq. foot house at a cost of about $750k so it's in line.

 

[J-Money]

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

This is just one such image:




If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

Canada has MUCH stricter mortgage lending (and governement regulations) than the USA so we run a fraction of the foreclosure rate of the US which really played a part in what happened there.

There are VAST difference between the US and Canada in relation to banking systems which is why Canada hasn't had this happen. Can see many of the differences on why Canada has fared much better than the US during this "recession"

Just a few tidbits:

"Yet Canadian banks remained profitable and reported positive return on equity even in the worst year of the meltdown, 2008, when U.S. banks (and banks in the United Kingdom and Europe) lost money and had negative returns on equity."

"Canada remains the only industrialized country in the world that has survived the last two years of financial and economic stress without a single bank failure"

"Taken together, the features and regulations of banks in Canada outlined above create a healthy and sound “pro-lender” environment absent of political motivations for outcomes like greater homeownership, compared to the often politically motivated “pro-borrower” and “pro-homeowner” policies of the United States. While Canada’s banking system has promoted responsible borrowing and prudent lending and underwriting practices with little politically motivated interference, the U.S. banking system seems to have encouraged excessive lending to risky borrowers because of the political obsession with homeownership."

http://www.american.com/archive/201...canadas-marvelous-mortgage-and-banking-system

Housing costs will obviously plateau and possibly drop some, but we don't have the issues that led to the US problems.

In Canada only those that can afford homes are lent money to buy homes (for the most part) which keeps the prices where they are (and rising).

We saw an increase in foreclosures in 2009 but that was quickly dealt with by the government when they changed the lending rules to REQUIRE 5% down and a max of 35 year mortgage (previously could do 0% and 40 year). The US just lets it slide into oblivion.

EDIT: Also some good information: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2011/01/18/why-canada-doesnt-have-a-foreclosure-problem/

"Canada avoided the housing bubble that both the U.S. and the U.K. faced. That's thanks to the more conservative banking practices in Canada. Canada has stricter underwriting standards, and the banks must set aside more money toward potential losses if the market takes a downward turn. Also, Canada has no secondary market for mortgages, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which means banks can't sell off their risky mortgages, so they don't make them in the first place. "

"Not only are the banks more conservative about lending, but private mortgage insurers have more control over mortgage approval. Any Canadian who puts less than 20 percent down on the house must pay the full cost of mortgage insurance upfront; and the mortgage insurance company has the authority to approve or reject the property appraisal."

"In reality the Canadian system is not that different than the home financing rules that used to be in place before the speculative housing market that led to the U.S. housing bubble. Prior to the boom years, banks required information to prove income and held to strict income standards. Banks also held appraisers to higher scrutiny. That's what Canadian banks continued to do, while the U.S. and U.K. lowered their underwriting standards."

 

[Aquaman]

My dad bought the house I inherited for $22,500 in 1966. On the property assessment it's ~606K but I can probably get at least a $1 million because 2 houses on my block went on sale for $1M and $1.2M. Both smaller lots then mine and my house is bigger. The $1M house just sold for $1.1 (lots of competition) and the other one is still on the market.

ps. my property taxes are around $3100 a year.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[silverpig]

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

A lot of it is yes.

Look, there's the city of Vancouver which is about 600k people and bordered by water on 3 sides and the city of Burnaby on the other. It can't get any bigger. Then, there are the suburbs which stretch down the valley for the most part. That adds another ~1.8 million people.

Not ALL of those 2.4 million people live in a million dollar home. You can go out into the burbs and get something much cheaper.

Saying "Vancouver" isn't the same as saying "New York City". It's more like saying "Manhattan". There are other parts of the city that are much cheaper.

And it hasn't been the past few years. Expo '86 ignited a huge foreign investment boom that, yes, is still ongoing. I lived (rented) in one of the nicer parts of Vancouver and saw the houses get bought and sold there. You'd have a little old lady with her old run down 3br house sell because she wasn't able to pay the taxes on it anymore. A guy from China would buy it, knock it down and build a 3500sqft 3 storey beautiful house on it without even seeing it. He'd then send his kids over to go to school at UBC. Happens all the time.

Look at this:

That's Vancouver in the mid 80s. All around that lower body of water there is logging mills, shipbuilding yards, and industrial factories. You can see the lumber floating in the creek. Expo 86 came and a company called Concord Pacific came in and bought up a lot of that land.

Here's the same area today:

All that industrial land was cleaned up and now there are parks, a sea wall, condos, and restaurants all along there.

"Normal" people like teachers and police officers are getting married and buying a $300k condo on a dual income. Within a few years a teacher here makes $55k and a cop can be at $80k with O/T. It's doable, and even if rates rise, they'll be okay. They might be in trouble when they have kids and need a larger place and have to sell their current place for what they paid for it originally, but they will just move out in the valley where things are cheaper.

And besides that, owning a home in your 20s is not the goal of everyone. People are content to rent for longer, and a lot of people do. I'm 30, make good money, and I rent (in Toronto).

 

[Miramonti]

Within a few years, this is going to be a 'Top 5' place in the world to squat.

 

[J-Money]

Within a few years, this is going to be a 'Top 5' place in the world to squat.

Luckily for us in BC it is currently not possible to gain ownership of land through squatting (adverse possession or "squatters rights"). In fact most Canadian provinces have or are currently in the process of making it impossible.

And if someone is on your land and won't leave you can just beat the hell out of them, legally.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

Taking Canada as a whole and comparing it to Vancouver is stupid. Vancouver is considered the most desirable city to live in the WORLD for a reason and the demand is reflected in housing prices.

I just wish I bought a house and moved up there when I first started traveling up there for work.

 

[actuarial]

That's another thing that doesn't make sense to me. You Canadians have a shitload of natural resources for building homes. You have all the wood you could possibly want. And, there's no shortage of land. How the hell does a tiny little house - outside the city - cost $500k? Materials in such a house, excluding the kitchen, are a small fraction of that amount (or so I'd think.)

That's not what a tiny little house costs outside the city (though the lot sizes are small). I live outside the city and commute right downtown (80-90 minute commute sucks but there aren't many actuarial jobs outside the city) and recently bought a 2,200 sqft house for $300K. It's only a 34ft lot though.

The place we want to move in the next few years is another new build, and it's a 2,900 sqft house on a 50ft lot for $400K. My in-laws bought a house last year, same town outside the city for $450K and it's a 3,800 sqft house.

East is cheaper than North or West though so that factors in a bit. And while the commute seems long the trains are packed because tons of people do it.

 

[alent1234]

I cannot fathom how people can afford to live there, or why, if they're skilled enough for a high paying job, they wouldn't take those same skills elsewhere & live where they can purchase 10 times the house for the same amount of money.

if you have kids than chances are it's for good schools

 

[Miramonti]

Luckily for us in BC it is currently not possible to gain ownership of land through squatting (adverse possession or "squatters rights"). In fact most Canadian provinces have or are currently in the process of making it impossible.

And if someone is on your land and won't leave you can just beat the hell out of them, legally.

Yeah, that sounds a bit different up there, lol.

 

[alent1234]

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

This is just one such image:

If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

believe it or not there are parts of NYC where RE values are flat to up in the last 5 years

 

[Miramonti]

This is just one such image:

I missed this one, that's a great bubble depiction. :thumbsup:

 

[Macamus Prime]

I guess this thing is for real after all

http://www.crackshackormansion.com/

I stumbled across this sit a while back - I thought it was a joke.

 

[RbSX]

Of course they are. You mean to tell me all of this has to do with foreign investment? What happened in the last few years that magically now all the homes are being bought by foreigners? Absolutely not, and if it were what happens to the locals, are they pushed out? The whole thing is absurd in BC in particular.

How about you go to google images, plug in "Canada housing bubble". A multitude of beautiful charts showing reality.

We should bump this thread in a couple of years for the lols.

This is just one such image:

If you own one of these crazy-valued properties in vancouver you should sell it.

You're pretty ignorant so let me clear a few things up for you, some of this has already been covered by other people but let me reiterate.

1) Housing prices are not indicative of domestic wage earnings unlike the US where minimum wage people qualified for mortgages.

2) Canada has much more strict lending rules, and has taken special moves to curb speculation following the 2008 debacle in the states.

3) The prices are being driven up by foreigners. For the fucking record: YES, 99% of the price driving forces has been Asian immigration, cram that into your tiny head. Immigration + Limited Space = High Prices.

Or in simpleton terms Supply < Demand = Price Increases.

4) Non-conventional lenders have, for all intents and purposes, been marginalized under the new rules.

While I have no doubt that the prices will go down as soon as foreign cash keeps flowing in, comparing it to a bunch dumb fucks in the states taking out mortgages with 40 year amortization periods (which are illegal in Canada, the longest is now 30 years). If Canada's real estate market claws back, it will be from 'super heated' to 'normal' not from 'fucking retarded' to 'abysmal'.

My parents bought their house 23 years ago for $250,000 -- now that same lot (different house) is worth nearly 3 million. Why? In overly simpleton terms, Chinese people will literally buy anything, especially in that area because it's next to the University. It's sparked some debate about revising land ownership laws to curb immigrants buying property and displacing locals further and further into the Valley, and I for one, support limiting it.

 

[D1gger]

Curious what percentage of assessment value they end up paying in annual taxes.

My Vancouver condo has a 2012 assessed value of $643,000, and an estimated property tax bill for 2012 of $2472.00 (it is only an estimate at this time, as the final city budget is not set until March 31). I received an invoice for 50&#37; of the estimate to be paid this month, and the final settlement will be due at the end of June.

That makes the estimated 2012 property taxes about .38% of the assessed value. The tax rate in 2011 was .42%.

http://vancouver.ca/fs/budgetServices/taxrates_2011.htm

 

[alent1234]

My parents bought their house 23 years ago for $250,000 -- now that same lot (different house) is worth nearly 3 million. Why? In overly simpleton terms, Chinese people will literally buy anything, especially in that area because it's next to the University. It's sparked some debate about revising land ownership laws to curb immigrants buying property and displacing locals further and further into the Valley, and I for one, support limiting it.

racism alive and well even in canada

 

[RbSX]

racism alive and well even in canada

No, simple fact. Sorry chap.

Asian people come to Vancouver for a very few specific reasons. Not only is it the gateway to the east with the second largest port on the west coast, but our socalized health care and relaxed immigration rules have caused us some serious problems.

I'm not specifically talking about Chinese (though the majority of the guilty party are Chinese or people from Hong Kong), but all Asians including East Indians, of which there are a significant number. My father is East Indian.

Now let us specifically focus on the Chinese problem. There's a pandemic growing here, where Asian people will buy a house here in Vancouver to avoid paying international student rates for the big university here (UBC). In my estimation, this is one of the biggest causes of the problems. When they purchase the house here, they also get to take advantage of our medical system, free education (both elementary, middle, high and discounted post secondary school), while paying little to no income tax despite Revenue Canada's rules for income tax on global income.

This isn't just an issue of real estate, it's actually a real societal problem, Asian people come here and drive up the cost of living and deprive locals from positions in our schools, while contributing very little in the way of societal value. Now I'll capitulate, some of my friends are Asian, but they are also white washed. But for the record here, we have a city called Richmond which may as well be called "Little China", they come over here, buy the whole city, and it's basically Asian town.

If you're going to come over here contribute something, rather than abuse the system.

 

[silverpig]

racism alive and well even in canada

It's not racism. There are tons of (mostly) Chinese who are buying up a lot of the homes near the university. It's not racist to point that out.

If you're referring to wanting to control who can buy property, there are perfectly valid reasons for doing it from a city planning and community perspective. A lot of other places in the world do it.

Vancouver is a very multicultural place, and there is no majority race (caucasians are less than 50% of the population). Everyone gets along well. This isn't a "locals vs Chinese" thing, or even a "locals vs foreigners" thing. It's a "there are tons of houses that sit empty for several months of the year while the kids are not in school and that messes up the city planning and neighbourhood building" thing. If they came and lived in the houses year-round and were residents of the city no one would care. As it stands though they are leaving houses empty while people who want to live there are pushed out into the valley, and housing prices are such that your average Joe can't afford a house in the city and the lowest income people can end up homeless.

RbSX comes off harsh, but foreign ownership drives prices up to unaffordable levels, and lack of continual residence creates other problems.

 

[silverpig]

There's a pandemic growing here, where Asian people will buy a house here in Vancouver to avoid paying international student rates for the big university here (UBC). In my estimation, this is one of the biggest causes of the problems. When they purchase the house here, they also get to take advantage of our medical system, free education (both elementary, middle, high and discounted post secondary school), while paying little to no income tax despite Revenue Canada's rules for income tax on global income.

Yeah that's true too. I was taking the bus one day and chatted with a grandma who was taking the kids (~5-6 yrs old) to school. Mom and dad were both working in Korea. The parents bought a house in Vancouver, shipped grandma and the kids over so the kids could go to school and take advantage of the amenities, yet they could keep their jobs in Korea. I don't know if they paid taxes in Canada or not. The kids and grandma went back to Korea every summer.

Happy to have them, but it would be nice if they stayed and worked in Canada after, or paid some income taxes.

 

[Miramonti]

Its ironic how this is the reverse of many situations, where current residents don't want other races in the neighborhood for fear they will hurt values. In BC, people don't want Asians around because they are driving prices up.

Either case, it's all about protectionism...protect one's own interests and resources.

Bottom line - a bubble is a bubble is a bubble, and when it falls, it will fall hard and drag much down with it.

 

[sandorski]

Its ironic how this is the reverse of many situations, where current residents don't want other races in the neighborhood for fear they will hurt values. In BC, people don't want Asians around because they are driving prices up.

Either case, it's all about protectionism...protect one's own interests and resources.

Bottom line - a bubble is a bubble is a bubble, and when it falls, it will fall hard and drag much down with it.

Not really. The underlying causes of Bubbles differentiates how they deflate/correct.

 

[silverpig]

Its ironic how this is the reverse of many situations, where current residents don't want other races in the neighborhood for fear they will hurt values. In BC, people don't want Asians around because they are driving prices up.

Either case, it's all about protectionism...protect one's own interests and resources.

Bottom line - a bubble is a bubble is a bubble, and when it falls, it will fall hard and drag much down with it.

First, no one cares that they're Asians. There are tons of Asians in the neighbourhoods already anyways. More or less doesn't make a difference - it really doesn't.

When the shit hit the fan in the US, people with a $50k salary owed $750k on a house worth $400k. That probably won't happen (at least nowhere near the same extent) in Canada. Banks won't go under. If you don't have 5% down and can't afford a 30 year mortgage, you don't get a loan. The people who buy the $2M houses can afford the mortgages with some padding, or buy them outright.

 

[RbSX]

First, no one cares that they're Asians. There are tons of Asians in the neighbourhoods already anyways. More or less doesn't make a difference - it really doesn't.

When the shit hit the fan in the US, people with a $50k salary owed $750k on a house worth $400k. That probably won't happen (at least nowhere near the same extent) in Canada. Banks won't go under. If you don't have 5% down and can't afford a 30 year mortgage, you don't get a loan. The people who buy the $2M houses can afford the mortgages with some padding, or buy them outright.

That's not completely true for me, at least, the first part.

Some societies and cultures are easier to integrate with than others, and I'd say that Asian, particularly Chinese are one of the harder ones to integrate with.