BC, opinion, prices, west side

West Van debates pros and cons of Monster Homes

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96 Comments

West Vancouver is considering limiting the size of ‘Monster Homes‘ and that’s got both sides of the issue up in arms. The primary concern from some residents is that a proposed size limit would bring down property values:

“At first glance, this is flawed, to say the least,” said Russell Lane, who said he and his wife were “one of the owners of one of the larger properties and our house is on it. It’s not a ‘monster property,’ or whatever the description is, but a house that was built appropriate to current regulations.”

He said it would be unfortunate if the municipal government created, in effect, two classes of properties, where older houses that were built to code would be more attractive to buyers than homes built after a policy change.

Meanwhile North Delta brought in similar limits several years ago:

Delta Mayor Lois Jackson said her community limited the size of new North Delta homes to 3,552 square feet several years ago and feels the policy has worked well, with few complaints from builders or owners of would-be monster homes.

“We were having problems with some very large homes being built, some as large as 9,000 square feet or bigger,” she said. “Allowing an unlimited amount of square feet in new homes was not taking the community in the direction it wanted to go.”

Read the full article in the Vancouver Sun.

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[…] -What size house are you happy with? -CMHC no longer loans for condo dev -Bidding wars spread to suburbs -Minimum loan payment reduced -Low rates to save housing market? -Shiller worried about canada prices – […]

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realist

@91 patriotz “The BC government has rigged the game so that they win and local taxpayers lose whichever way the vote goes.”

Quite so – and in a larger sense, they always do, as no government has its own money. Some have argued that a “Yes” victory will ultimately be less costly to some local taxpayers, as sales tax is easier to avoid and to evade, and more regressive, than others e.g. property tax, that would eventuate after a “No” victory to fund Translink’s expenditure pit. I meant only that a “No” victory would be an opportunity for us plebs to register our contempt for the Establishment’s grand plans and their grand incompetence as currently incarnated as Translink.

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Bernanke, Ben

The banking crises of the 1930s, both in the United States and abroad, were a significant source of output declines, both through their effects on money supplies and on credit supplies. Finally, perhaps the most important lesson of all is that price stability should be a key objective of monetary policy.

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southseacompany

“Shiller worried about Canada’s home prices” BNN with video. Feb 26/15.

http://www.bnn.ca/Video/player.aspx?vid=559499

“Robert Shiller, Co-founder of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index joins Business Day for a special half-hour discussion on all things housing, markets and psychology behind investing. The Nobel-prize winning economist and professor of economics at Yale University says asset bubbles have accelerated since the financial crisis. In part 1 of 3, we get his views on the U.S. housing market and how it compares to Canada. He says he sees reason for concern.”

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oneangryslav2

@84:

So, as of 2009, Canada had 33.63 million of the world’s 6.8 billion souls, or about 0.49%. Yet, we emitted 2% of the world’s GHGs that year.

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patriotz

@88:

The BC government has rigged the game so that they win and local taxpayers lose whichever way the vote goes. Vote yes and you pay more taxes, vote no and the BC government (and the half of BC taxpayers who don’t live in metro Vancouver) pay less towards metro Vancouver transit.

The real plebiscite on Translink was the last BC election. And don’t tell me that the NDP “created Translink”, the body they created and what exists now share little more than the name.

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patriotz

@75: “The only surprising thing is that people would make a choice to be on the losing team.”

You have it backwards. It’s the owners of overvalued assets that are on the losing team, and their customers who are the winners, because the former are selling goods or services to the latter at a loss.

The only way the owner of an overvalued asset can come out ahead is by selling it to a new owner at a higher price, i.e. getting out of the losing team and getting someone else to get in. Doesn’t change the equation that owners are losing.

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Camel Knowledge

This transit tax plebiscite thing; I just wish the options were:

a)..Yes
b)..NO
c)..Hey Gregor, take a long hard suck on my arse

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realist

@ 44 VT
“Gordon Clark: Yes-vote war chest is another reason to vote No in TransLink tax plebiscite”

I’d expect the interested private parties and their dogs and ponies to spend their money to persuade me to vote Yes on the Translink plebiscite; that is only the expected “public funds to fund private profits” meme. But the municipalities’ use of our tax money to persuade us to give them more of our tax money for them to spend is an insult. But it’s a rare guv that doesn’t love a tax, any tax. We plebs will have our say in the pleb-iscite.

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realist

@ 74 Softy
“Must (Much) of economic policy of the last 30 years has been focused on increasing the prices obtained for Canadian assets owned by Canadian asset owners…Basically, it is a rigged game if you want to look at it that way. All the tools of the state are geared to pumping prices.”

You’ve got it, but to be accurate, should read “of the last 43 years”. Canada introduced capital gains tax in 1972, but exempted gains on “the family home”, as it still does. Vancouver’s first housing bubble of the modern era began 7 years later, in 1979; over the subsequent 2 years, average price increased 119%. But perhaps it’s just a coincidence!

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Egg Hunt

Do anyone appear in this West Van article think about community?
What I can see is “It’s not fair, we want more money when we sell our home!!”

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ostritch

Patritotz is in Ottawa. Outskirts. Probably multi-family. His product will not increase in value. He should have stayed here, admitted he was a hair-splitter, listened to his wife, and picked up a dump off Main a decade ago.

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88

Green house gas emissions by country.

http://www.capp.ca/PublishingImages/Global%20Energy%20Related%20Emissions.jpg

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Best place on meth

@80

Fittingly, this prostitute is well represented by Christy Cleavage.

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88

Metro Vancouver real estate bidding wars spreading to suburbs

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/metro-vancouver-real-estate-bidding-wars-spreading-to-suburbs-1.2973215

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paulb

New Listings 185
Price Changes 55
Sold Listings 140

TI:12869

http://www.paulboenisch.com

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Yunak

@64 The only thing worst than our corporations selling out to communist China is when our government does it.

From the perspective of human evolution the most unfortunate thing is that Chinese happened to have money at this point in time when BC happened to be one of only few available hookers in this part of the world.

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Softy

” is now still a good time to buy?”

You have been asking that for the last 14 years. The answer is still “yes” for houses (which is all I care about).

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StupidityCheck

Softskull, how would you have done in the US, Ireland, Spain, etc if you followed that strategy?

I also see you’re “revising” your argument. Under your famous soft-landing scenario, renting would have been better than buying a slowly depreciating asset. Now you say we’re wrong for not assuming never-ending appreciation?

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Best place on meth

#75

Regardless of the last 14 years, is now still a good time to buy?

Even Dave has switched teams.

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Bull! Bull! Bull!

@75

patriotz has decided to be on the winning team.

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Softy

The only surprising thing is that people would make a choice to be on the losing team.

And it is shocking but perhaps understandable, given human nature, that those people would provide countless explanations which have proven wrong for a decade and half rather than admit the error.

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Softy

They do represent our people. It happens to be our asset owning people.

Must of economic policy of the last 30 years has been focused on increasing the prices obtained for Canadian assets owned by Canadian asset owners. All the efforts to increase the sacred “foreign direct investment” is an effort to increase the market for and sale price of Canadian assets: stocks, corporations, land, real estate, you name it.

Basically, it is a rigged game if you want to look at it that way. All the tools of the state are geared to pumping prices.

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Best place on meth

A little something from Martin Armstrong, who studies economic cycles that go back centuries:

http://i2.wp.com/armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/realestate-cycle.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=584%2C344

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history

BPOM, Let me know how this deal works out. Our people will call your people

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