Vancouver Condo Info

A few weeks ago I linked to this BBC news story about a new Spanish law aimed at reducing speculation and corruption in their housing market. Unfortunately there are no solid statistics regarding the level of speculation in our local real estate market, but I would venture the following guess: whenever an asset increases in value there will be people willing to speculate on the chance that it will go higher.

So how much is too much speculation? And if our market has been knocked out of calibration by too much speculation is there a healthy and reasonable way to discourage it, or are we better off letting the market do what it will and waiting for excess speculation to be flushed out by a correction?

So it looks like its not just some buyers that have problems with basic math – Some developers run into issues as well. The sun has a story about CB developments $8.5 million dollar shortfall oat the Coquitlam Riverbend project.

The final phase of the financially troubled Riverbend condominium complex in Coquitlam would have lost its mortgage investors’ money even if its pre-sale contracts had been cancelled and units resold at current market prices, according to a receiver’s report.
…

In his conclusion, Bowra said the “best option in terms of maximizing recovery for the stakeholders” would be to sell the units at current market value and not the pre-sale prices.

However, someone would still need to pour $3.8 million into the project so subcontractors and suppliers could be paid and the project completed, which would still leave CareVest short $2.6 million.

Bowra, in his report, said other options to dispense with the project included selling the project “as is” to another developer, finishing the homes already under construction and selling off nine lots for which no construction has begun, or selling off the homes under construction and nine remaining lots separately.

All options would see CareVest lose $3 million to $4 million.

It doesn’t mention this in the linked story, and I haven’t been able to find this online, but a story on CTV news this weekend said that this mess isn’t just affecting pre-buyers that have yet to move into their homes. The liens filed against this project includes buyers that have lived in their completed homes for a couple of years and allready paid for all work done. For the time being those buyers will be unable to take out a loan on their property or attempt to sell. The CTV story mentioned the possibility of the total cost running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each home owner. Scary stuff!

There’s a tidbit in 24 about downtown residents irate about being trapped in their condos by the Vancouver International Triathalon.

Brandon Steele was ready to go on vacation yesterday morning until he tried to leave his condo at 1111 Beach Ave.

“I got outside and just saw a blue fence. It was like being under house arrest,” said Steele, who had planned to drive to the Interior.

Steele told 24 hours there has never been a problem getting out of his building during previous triathlons.

However, organizers explained, this was a world class event.

Here’s your open topic post for friday June 8th.

- Fearing the end of easy credit
- Posted 5 year mortgage rate goes up again
- Richmond prices up, condo sales drop 23%
- Disclosing landslide risk

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news, anecdotes and links here!

There have been some requests in previous posts for a new source of ‘the numbers’ – the day to day local sales stats around these parts. You can currently get numbers for Rob Chipmans area on his blog, but some of you are wanting them for the GVRD as a whole, or broken down more by category.

I’m not a realtor and don’t have access to these stats, but I do know that there are a few of you out there that are and you visit this blog with some regularity.

So.. Any of you feel like providing the numbers for this blog?

There are a few ways this could work, whether you want credit or would rather remain anonymous, I’d love to see those number and I know a lot of the regulars here would as well. I can give the right person full access to post on this blog, or simply take an email version of the stats and create the posts myself.

I don’t even feel that daily numbers are necessary, I think weekly stats would be fine, though I know some of the more data-addicted would dissagree.

So whats in it for you? A bit of extra fame would be about it, though you may get a certain vicarious thrill from the robin-hood-esque act of bringing these stats to the masses.

If you’re interested drop me a line at vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com

Congratulations Vancouver!

I wondered aloud on the previous post whether Vancouver had taken the crown of ‘least affordable’ in North America yet – Well I don’t know about the GVRD, but according to Century 21 our downtown peninsula now has the most expensive real estate of all downtown neighborhoods in North America.

Not only are we number one in North America according to this report, we’ve got the fourth most expensive downtown core in the world! Coming in at $577 per square foot Vancouver ranks only behind Paris, Moscow and Seol for the most expensive downtown real estate on the planet. We’ve got London beat and those sad little towns of Tokyo and New York City only come in as number 9 & 8 on the most expensive cities list.

Can we do better? Is there any reason that our thriving metropolis shouldn’t be number one on that list?

Here’s the story in the Calgary Sun and here’s a bullish version of the story on news blaze.

Wow. Just wow. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver just released their benchmark stats for May 2007 and prices are up again – a record price of $711,245 for the detached benchmark. Have we attained the least affordable city in North America status yet?

And Condos and Townhomes? Also up:

Now who says thats a bubble?

Stats from agentwill who adds “I have no idea when this will end. All I know is that despite so much logic against these rising prics, well, it ain’t ending.”

Freako added some quick numbers in a previous post that I’m going to repost here:

“Based on the latest ING rates and 20% down, that results in payments of $3,536.29 before taxes, maintenance or repairs.”

“How is this remotely possible? i punched the the mortgage amount into ING’s “how much can I borrow calculator”, and the required income is $143,000. What percentile of households earn that?”

..and to round this post up reductimat sends in this link to a scotiabank study that forsees a slowing in the Canadian Housing market, but ‘certainly not a bust’.

A partially completed housing development built on the flood plain in Fort Langley is now under threat of flooding from a rising Fraser River.

“We’re in the process of understanding what the implications are in relation to water rising,” said Randy Dick, manager of the Bedford Landing development for ParkLane Homes.

“We’re up high. That’s the good news.

“It’s too early to say what the solution is in the long term. For the short term, with the freshet coming, we’re going to keep the water table down with flap gates and pumps.”

The development bills itself as “waterfront living in the heart of Fort Langley.” The partly built subdivision sits on what was once the flood plain next to the Bedford Channel.