Vancouver Condo Info

You know what day it is and what that means .. Here’s your open topic for Friday March 30th. Whats going on out there?

- March numbers due out soon
- US Mortgage fraud investigation
- ARM fallout sad stories in Newsweek
- Purchase + improvement mortgages.
- Canadian 1st quarter sales still going strong.
- Bank of Canada concerned about US housing troubles

What are you seeing? Post your links, news & Anectdotes here!

There’s an interesting article in the Financial Post about a recent survey of Condo buyers in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal Calgary and Halifax. Amongst other things, the TD Canada Trust survey found that an increasing number of buyers are willing to raise a family in a condo:

The proportion who would consider raising a family in a condominium has increased significantly to 30 per cent from 20 per cent a year ago, TD Canada Trust said in releasing the results Wednesday.

However, it noted that 46 per cent also said too many children in a building would cause them not to buy a condo unit in it, while just five per cent said not enough children would be a reason not to buy.

While the vast majority of potential buyers also said living in an environmentally friendly building is an important factor, the results suggest having parking is even more important.

I think it’s been fairly common for people to raise families in the downtown core here for a while – perhaps those other cities are just catching up? Are you raising a family in a condo? What are some of the pros and cons of living with children in a condo?

It looks like we may not be totally immune to the housing market woes in the US – In the previous thread Freako posted this link: Lumber prices are down almost 25% from a year ago. How much of the BC economy is based on wood trade with the US?

..So who wants to live in luxury?

Everyone apparently. Just take a look around Vancouver at the thousands of new condo units currently under construction – its getting harder and harder to find housing that isn’t marketed as
‘luxurious’. From ‘luxury’ basement suites to 400 square foot ‘luxury’ condos in the downtown core, we must live in the most luxurious city on earth!

Here’s the open topic for Friday March 23rd. Some recent links of interest:

-First time buyers refuse to get priced out
-Maybe they’re buying flipped houses
-Some realtors change the asking price after closing
-Sales up prices down in the USA

What are you seeing in your neighborhood / city / country? This is the place to post ideas, opinions, and links.

I’ve been thinking recently about how boom-times affect the ‘personality’ of a city. It seems to me that Vancouver is a very ‘eighties’ style city, likely due in part to the Expo 86 construction boom. All over this city you see eighties style glass roofs held up with powder coat trusses, lots of white and turquoise, and stylistic renovations that combine the architectural styles of multiple eras.

A couple of specific examples of this amalgam can be found at city square mall (12 & cambie) or Sinclair Center at Waterfront center. Both of these examples combine old stone architecture from the early twentieth century with the ‘modern’ style of the eighties.

I wonder about the long term mark that a boom puts on a city. I’m sure we all have our favorite type of architecture and can’t agree on whats ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aesthetically, but what about construction standards? There are a large number of condominiums built in the eighties that had water ingress issues leading to the ‘leaky condo crisis’ of the nineties. Have we got that problem solved? Are the huge number of condo towers currently under construction being built to a solid reliable standard, or are we cutting corners and setting ourselves up for another construction quality crisis?

And when it comes to aesthetics, which new buildings will we look back on in twenty years and be proud of, and which ones will be the equivalent of blue eyeshadow, parachute pants and super high wall-o-bangs?

According to this article in friday’s Province, housing affordability just improved across canada, even right here in the GVRD! Won’t this be good news for first time buyers!

In Greater Vancouver, the percentage of household income needed to service mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes actually improved in the fourth quarter of 2006. For a detached two-storey home, the measure dipped slightly from 74.9 per cent of median family income of about $58,000 in the third quarter to 73.5 in the fourth.

Vancouver’s affordability metrics are in a sharp contrast to other Canadian cities. That same two-storey home requires 48.8 per cent in Toronto, 43.1 per cent in Calgary and 35.2 per cent in Ottawa.

The down-tick in Vancouver is hardly going to trigger a stampede of buyers to the detached-home market, said RBC assistant chief economists Derek Holt.

“In terms of one quarter’s worth of evidence, this isn’t going to make any material difference [in sales],” said Holt. “You almost have to get out the microscope to see the affordability improvements. But our view is this is the start of a trend that will unfold throughout the course of the year and will start to attract first-time buyers.”

The condo and townhouse markets are still looking attractive to Vancouver first-time buyers. A townhouse required 51.6 per cent of household income, while a condo demanded 35.4 per cent.

The end of the week is here again! Congratulations! You made it! Here’s your open topic post to discuss whatever’s on your mind. Here’s a few things I noticed this week:

-Vancouver police want easier access to Condo buildings
-Scotiabank: Canadian economy will slow for 3rd year in a row.
-BC government wants expats to return.
-RBC says BC housing getting more affordable.
-US subprime mess keeps getting messier.

Whats the word on the street? The nitty-gritty? Post your links, news and anectdotes here!

Looking for a nice hill-top home? How about this one that stands alone in the middle of a 30 foot deep pit in Chongqing City China? The owner wants the equivalent of just under 3 million dollars CAD$ or he’ll ‘stay until the end of the world’.

The developer is using the time-tested ‘dig a giant hole around your house’ bargaining technique to encourage the owner to accept a lower price.

In the spirit of ‘ask VHB’ I’m posting an open question received via email regarding what realtors are saying to potential sellers in Vancouver these days:

We’ve all heard the realtor mantra ‘Buy now or be priced out forever’ but what are realtors saying to those that are on the fence about selling?Is there anyone out there that has sold recently that can enlighten us on what the sales pitch is on the other side of the market? The upsurge in listings recently in conjunction with the now obvious bad news in the United States suggests that they might be pushing for sellers to enter the market now in an effort to maximize revenue and commissions before the bottom falls out of the market.

I don’t know if ‘buy now or be priced out’ is a realtor mantra, I think its more of a general fear amongst potential first time buyers, but I’d be interested in all angles of this question: if you’re a realtor are you finding it easier or harder to find sellers? If you’re looking to buy or sell what are you hearing from realtors? Is there any discussion about the US market popping up amongst local realtors?