Friday Free for All!
It’s Friday and you know what that means… It’s open topic time! Here’s a few stories I’ve noticed this week:
-Top 15 real estate myths
-Bequeathing mortgage debt to your kids
-Want a house bargain? Try Kitimat
-Century Point New West in receivership?
-Sometimes hard work is not enough
-New condos for open air drug & sex market
-The Abbotsford earthquake zone
-Offer $2 for the one dollar Toronto house
-New US home sales slowest since 1991
-Global financial crisis is getting worse
What are you all seeing out there these days? Post your news, links, ideas, and anecdotes here and have a great weekend!
note: any conversation on real estate or economics is allowed, please keep it civilized. when posting articles please only quote pertinent points and link to the original instead of pasting the entire article here. Thanks!
“Anyone have relatives in Alberta that want a downtown condo?” « Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive Says:
April 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am
[...] the links at RE Talks, condohype, vancouvercondoinfo & the Sun itself for this [...]
April 28th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
arrrrr
April 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am
It seems average sale price continues to fall along with list. Rob Chipman just posted the latest numbers.
Granted, average sales depends on the sales mix, and the benchmark data will hopefully be out later this week for April to get a better read on things. I used his Feb 23 numbers to see the change over two months:
EndDate Feb-23 Apr-26
ListPri 577,303 534,726 -7.4%
AvSales 567,296 525,618 -7.3%
April 28th, 2008 at 3:35 am
"That’s a multiple of 80 times rent" — not really!?
4 * $900 * 12 = $43,200 rent per year
$290,000 / $43,200 = 6.71 Gross Rent Multiplier
That is a good deal, one I have never seen before. Downtown Vancouvers GRM is round about 19.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:07 am
..if the building has four units renting for $900 a month each, expenses that eat up 50% of your gross income, and a cap rate of 7.5%, you can quickly calculate that you should pay about $290,000 for the building, tops
That's a multiple of 80 times rent, and the bulls think you're nuts to suggest it might go down to 100. Also a four-plex has better fundamentals than a condo (no management ripoff, more land value) so the condo would need to have a lower multiple for the same total return.
On media, myths and realities « condohype Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
[...] in the market. Already, the local blogosphere is buzzing with reaction. Over at the lively Vancouver Condo blog, some commenters were so furious they demanded the article be attributed as a paid [...]
April 27th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
can't happen here!
http://tinyurl.com/3qumq5
unh unh! nah! no way! never!
April 27th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
This months issue of 'moneysense' magazine is all about real estate as well. There are some interesting articles in there – the one about how to get rich on real estate goes over cap rates and touches on the issue of rental income and maintenance costs. For anyone in Vancouver the numbers on what it takes to make an investment worthwhile is mindblowing:
April 27th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Yeah, I really meant potential buyers. You're right, there are no deals right now or for the next couple years.
Anyone here have any good information on the Mosiac townhouse developers? They are building a new project in Coquitlam apparently on spec. I drove by it and the completed pretty on the surface, but the half-built ones seemed like the typical crappy materials.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
They must think buyers are idiots. Well OK, some are.
No, all are. The smart money isn't buying.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I'm getting sick of people pricing higher than comps and declaring "seller motivated" or "priced to sell". They must think buyers are idiots. Well OK, some are.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
"Comment by Drachen
“They come in three waves,” Balfour told the Georgia Straight in an interview at his home.
I didn’t say that. Please don’t attribute things to me that I didn’t say, I get in enough trouble for the things I DO say"
Sorry Drachen, For the record, it was not Drachen.
It should have read:
Comment by Patiently Waiting
2008-04-27 10:46:26
April 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Comment by Drachen
“They come in three waves,” Balfour told the Georgia Straight in an interview at his home.
I didn't say that. Please don't attribute things to me that I didn't say, I get in enough trouble for the things I DO say.
April 27th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Yeah, I suspected a hidden agenda.
Later in the article, Balfour says,
"Canada will undoubtedly be asked to take on millions of people as a result of climate change"
Who will "ask" us? Oh, wait a second, I think he might be saying the Americans will head North. Arnie leading a caravan of SUVs from California. Yikes!!!
April 27th, 2008 at 11:26 am
.
.
.
Comment by Drachen
“They come in three waves,” Balfour told the Georgia Straight in an interview at his home.
Please tell me this is not the same Balfour as:
http://www.balfourproperties.com/