The Vancouver bubble blog bubble is rapidly deflating. The latest casualty of this humour downturn is the witty and beloved condohype, who posted notice of closure this morning.
I hold out hope for a change of heart, afterall it wasn’t so long ago I posted about this blog closing for similar reasons.
Le hype est mort, vive le hype!
on Greetings from Ground ZeroOh man are small towns in BC ever going to take it up the chute or what. There's zilch for
on Friday Free-for-all![...] house – you can click on the image below to enlarge it. (hat tip to Patiently Waiting on Vancouver Condo on Greetings from Ground ZeroWhat the hell is that Regal Ridge sculpture? Is that supposed to be Bigfoot or the swamp thing, and how
on Friday Free-for-all!@Patiently Waiting: That ad is all kinds of stupid. - Since the "new luxury house just completed", why does it on Greetings from Ground ZeroEveryone wants to pretend they are too popular, busy or partying to post on a blog over a long weekend.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
patriotz: Very true. But I would consider a change of ownership to be a point of maximum risk for this type of problem.
I remember looking at a nice condo someone was trying to rent out a few years back. She said she was moving in with her boyfriend and therefore wouldn't need the place for a while. A couple people viewing the condo were still trying to woo her into renting to them, but I was gone immediately; like I want to have my tenancy depend on how she gets on with her boyfriend? Things go too well, you're facing new ownership. Too poorly, she's moving back. Not for me, thanks.
Yes, a lease is helpful, but it takes me a year just to get my boxes unpacked. I've moved once in the last decade, and that's about as often as I want.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:37 pm
MrBear:
And you can get evicted from a forced sale, because you have no guarantee that the buyer won’t be moving in.
You have no guarantee that the buyer won't be moving in if the property isn't sold either. Unless you have a lease of course.
The point is that change of ownership does not affect terms of tenancy.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Dave:
#50 Dave, a lot of the 'new immigrants ' are family members who live with extended family already here. I know a lot of new immigrants and they pack them in tight sometimes 4 to a bedroom , sleeping on the floors in the living room with grandma and pa sleeping in a purpose built garage suite. Multi families living together with brothers and sisters with families all under one roof. I have personally seen 10 to 20 individuals bedding down in one resideance. This is to refer to all races and ethnicities of new immigrants. It is simplistic to assume that 'all new immigrants buy houses/condos.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
NET HOUSEHOLD CREATION IN VANCOUVER FALLS
The amount of households in Vancouver fell by 49,000 last year as Chinese, Korean and Japanese families and ESL students returned to their countries of origin to join the income earning head of the household, more memberes of the elderly demographic died or moved into care facilities and construction workers from Quebec and Atlantic Canada returned home upon completing projects.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
patriotz: I also detect a bit of “straw bear” in your posting. I don’t see anyone on this board claiming that purpose built rentals are going to get cheaper. It’s the rental condos which are already getting cheaper.
I can assure you I am not trying to create "straw bear" arguments regarding Vancouver real estate. I just wanted to clearly separate Hollyburn & friends from Joe Trapped Flipper in the rental market.
Hollyburn, for instance, is definitely facing higher vacancy now than they had a year ago, and my wife says she has seen a lot of Hollyburn vacancies advertised in places they never bothered with even six months ago. So they're working hard to fill rentals, and it is conceivable this could lead to a drop in purpose-built rental prices at some point. I agree with you that they probably won't drop, but I still think the question is reasonable.
On rental condos, I think it is clear that bargains are there to be had. Will that result in lower average prices in CMHC reports? That depends on a whole bunch of methodology issues as well as the performance of the market. Also, I'd bet most tenants won't bargain with their landlords, so there's a whole lot of potential condo rent slippage that won't happen.
I guess I just don't see the overall rental market dropping like the real estate market. Rents will be soft, but they aren't anywhere near as ridiculous in Vancouver as prices are.
And you can get evicted from a forced sale, because you have no guarantee that the buyer won't be moving in.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Foreclosure hot potato: banks refusing to take possession of foreclosed properties because it would cost more than the property is worth.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Dave: "Using 2.5 people per household, that translates to an increased demand of approximately 3,200 units just in the 4th quarter alone."
Not so fast. BC Stats (pdf) shows increase in Vancouver CMA population of 130K from 2001-2006. That is an average of 26K per year. Using 2.5 people per household that is 10K new dwellings per year. Completions will be approaching 18K for 2009 and 2010 (link). I'm sure readers can work out how many years of new supply that is.
Here is a look at new persons per start data, which you are effectively calculating, for historical perspective.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
NET IMMIGRATION TO VANCOUVER-UP
Vancouver received 37,000 net new immigrants last year and is expected to see the same this year.Immigration from UK is up 38% and the numbers from USA and France are also up.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Dave, 9,200 people in BC died, moved or married, merging housholds in Q4 of 2008. That's a deline in demand of over 9000 units of housing.
Oh, wait. In Dave's world, no one ever moves.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
Dave, its income and rents that drive values. Do you know that California, Florida, London, Hong Kong, have very good rates of population growth and we all know what happened/happening to their real estate market. But hang on, its different here, silly me.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:41 am
The number of bear blogs still active vs previous active bear blog ratio is a measure of demand for moldy basement suites and that is all. You can't read anything else into it.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:38 am
So now the bulls are bullish on purpose built rental apartment rents! This is too funny. I am too bullish on purpose built apartment rents, they wont decline but will remain relativley stable although vacancy rates may edge up slightly. See a pattern here bulls, something to do with affordability! Residential real estate currently unaffordable by at least 50%!