Vancouver Condo Info

Every friday we do an open-topic post for weekend. This is a chance to post stories, news and interesting links we’ve noticed throughout the week. Heres a few to get you started:

-Everybody wants to move here
-Lets blow up BC place
-More Canadian women buying
-Olsen: Will Vancouver’s market cool?
-Landlords, check your property every month
-Canadian economic growth slows
-Selling Vancouver, investing in US
-Foreclosure Pets

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

The fairview slopes has its fair share of leaky condos judging by the number of photos sent in. This shot from the batch that kingleaky sent in a few weeks ago is located at 948 West 7th Avenue, right in the heart of Fairview.

Send your tarp and scaffolding covered condo repair photos in to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com for inclusion in the photo gallery.

update: here’s an additional close-up shot sent in by Doug R:

Interesting commentary in MSN’s money central site:

With the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yielding below 4% and 30-year mortgages available at 5.1%, there isnt a housing bubble

Mind you, I’m not saying that U.S. consumers don’t have too much debt, or that the U.S. economy isn’t dangerously dependent on the housing sector for growth, or that all the money sloshing around the globe isn’t encouraging dangerous speculation.

But those are different problems from the one getting all the headline attention at the moment.

It’s just that, for all the teeth-gnashing and pundit-moralizing, we really don’t have a housing bubble that’s anywhere near bursting. Current 10-year interest rates are just too low. And I certainly don’t see interest rates rising enough in the next year or so to burst a bubble, either.

..Interesting because it was published in June of 2005, right about the peak of the US market. Since that time prices and sales have dropped by record amounts and foreclosures have gone up 79%.

To make that monthly debt burden onerous enough to trigger a burst in a housing bubble, you have to look for a big drop in family income so that while monthly debt payments remain the same, they take up a bigger chunk of a diminished family income.

Huh. And yet mysteriously prices peaked in 2005 and started falling without a big drop in family income. Very strange!

The other trigger would be a big increase in interest rates that would push the monthly debt burden up on average and would strike especially hard at those home buyers who used an adjustable or no-interest mortgage to buy more house than they could really afford.

This trigger was also a no-show. There was no big increase in interest rates, but for some reason the buyers stopped showing up. Can housing markets collapse under their own weight? And if there is no housing bubble what happened in the USA?

Well, as the saying goes, prediction is hard, especially when its about the future!

update: On the local market front, Ella points out this article in 24hours that shows buying in Vancouver may make more sense than renting as long as you use some very questionable math, disregard half the numbers and base the rest of the figures on silly assumptions.

With the site switched over to wordpress I figure its time to update the comment posting tip-sheet. Click below to view these tips.

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Strataman pointed out this thread on real estate talks where some new owners are expressing frustration with a few aspects of the new King Edward Village development at King Edward and Kingsway. Most of the complaints have to do with floor leveling, a few finishing touches and dry wall dust in the carpets.

What level of polish do you expect when you buy a new condo- Is it reasonable to expect that you may have to do a few finishing touch ups and fixes to make the condo your own or should everything be perfect and clean the moment you take possession? Has the high price of condos in Vancouver led to higher than normal expectations for fit and finish, or are these reasonable complaints?

Its open topic time – here’s a few stories I’ve noticed this week:

-RBC: Vancouver prices at record unaffordability
-Metro Vancouver housing starts at highest level since 1993
-Vancouver house sales predicted to dip in 2008
-Affordability predicted to improve in Vancouver
-Victoria to grant individual realtors corporate status
-Calgary vacancies rise as housing market softens
-Canadians less confident about the economy
-Credit crunch dries up lending pool
-The bank most likely to walk into a sharp object
-US median house prices fall through 2007, first time in 40 years

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

The Canadian Real Estate Association is predicting the Canada resale housing market will remain ‘at or near record levels’ this year.

“The statistics again show just how different the housing markets are in Canada and the United States. Canadian realtors know that Canadian mortgage lenders correctly see that home prices will continue rising.”

The association sees three factors that it believes will save Canada’s housing markets from the woes engulfing the sector in the United States: consumer confidence, employment and affordable interest rates.

CREA economist Gregory Klump said the market will pull back from the “breakneck pace” of 2007, but this is still forecast to be the second-busiest year on record in almost all provinces.

Average prices are forecast to continue rising in record territory, but the increase is likely to become slower, to 5.5 per cent nationwide.

“Slower job growth, not massive layoffs, are forecast for Canada in 2008,” Klump said.

What I’d like to know is which parts of canada will rise as forecast? Are there any overpriced Canadian markets that risk a drop in prices or will we see a steady rise across the board?

note: For a comprehensive look at why all might not go perfectly for the Vancouver market check out Mohicans Bubble Uberpost over at Financial Planning and Personal Sanity.

The site was down for most of the day, perhaps in sympathy with world markets. I’ve got it mostly restored, but lost a fair amount of comments and a few posts. Let me know if you find anything not working, other than that its back to normal.

I’ll try restoring the market prediction thread comments soon, but they come from individual email backups so its a time consuming hassle. I’m working on a more consistent automated backup system. Just goes to show, the crash can come out of nowhere!

Here’s a interesting tidbit: looking at craigslist you might get the impression rent in Vancouver has doubled over the last year or two with asking rents of $3400 for a one bedroom suite downtown. CMHC stats sees things differently with the average 2 bedroom rent going up over the year from $1045 to $1086 with the vacancy rate edging up .1 percent in that time.

I was at a party recently where the subject came up and was a bit staggered by some of the numbers thrown around – they were far lower than I expected. One couple was paying $850 for a 3 year old townhouse near Main street, another was paying $550 for a bachelor suite in Kits. I’m assuming these are better than average deals, but what are apartments and houses renting for in Vancouver? What is the expectation and what is the reality?

Friday is open topic time here at Vancouver Condo Info. Whats happening around town and around the globe?

-Banks consider defying rate cut
-Banks angry about reports of collusion
-Lower Mainland transit line investing
-Surrey out-builds Vancouver
-Toronto condo fraud
-Rents flattening in US housing slump
-Fed sees ‘pronounced weakness‘ in housing
-Buy your way out of a recession

What are you seeing? Post your news, links and anecdotes here!