Vancouver Condo Info

From the Vancouver Condo Wiki - Expert Quote-tracker

There are a huge number of houses and condominiums for sale in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland with fewer and fewer buyers who have the desire and/or ability to buy.  Recently we got the alarming news that in the first 12 days of November not a single west side Vancouver house was sold out of 968 listing. 

So how can you make your house, townhome or condo stand out from the crowd and snag a buyer that still has access to credit?

There’s a saying: you can’t make money without spending money. So with that in mind we offer the following tips to increase foot traffic at your open house and sell your Vancouver property in a falling market:

1. Paint your roof gold.  This will really make your house stand out amongst your neighbors, particularly if you use real gold-leaf, not that cheap fake gold stuff.

2. Hire underwear models. Want foot traffic at your open house? Hire a few underwear models to lounge around the yard and entry way.

3. Offer free beer and weed. Or if you want to be family-friendly coffee and cookies, etc, but the underwear models will prefer the beer and weed.

If these techniques don’t work for you, the market may have gotten worse.  In that case you have two options that may still work as a last resort:

A. Pray to the money god for a buyer with great credit and a lousy eye for value
or
B. Lower your price.

Hey, it just might work!

Yep, Vancouver house prices are dropping.  The REBGV benchmark price is down about 4 percent since May 2008.  I guess that means we only need another few percent to meet ‘equilibrium’ according to this recent Sauder study on overpriced Canadian real estate.

Interestingly enough that Sauder study compares asking rents from Craigslist, so another option to reach ‘equilibrium’ would be just to post a bunch of much higher asking rents on Craigslist. That way we wouldn’t have to deal with the indignity of dropping house prices.

In the meanwhile, potential first time home buyers watch prices drop and hope for affordability.

Got a better idea of what you could buy with that money?  Leave a comment below!

May 15 2011 - Vancouver house prices have fallen for the 35th continuous month as the fallout from the global credit crisis continues to hit the metro area hard.  In April the benchmark price for a single family detached home dropped an additional 9% bringing the year over year losses to 74%.  The benchmark price for a detached home now stands at $47,034.

While prices have dropped dramatically across the entire spectrum of housing no market has been hit hard as downtown condos, where prices have dropped to zero and many speculators have simply walked away from their debt never to be heard from again.  Supply continues to increase as some condo towers started during the building boom are completed, but many others have been abandoned by bankrupt developers in a state of partial completion.

The sad state of the downtown core can be blamed on a confluence of factors: the credit crisis, the exodus of jobs and population, multiple bank collapses, oversupply and the discovery of the unique health hazards caused by granite and stainless steel.  The elimination of the CMHC and the requirement for 70% down payments certainly isn’t helping the local market.

While many speculators have been financially destroyed by this market, not everyone is unhappy with the collapse.  Local teacher Sandy Ursus just bought three homes in Vancouvers southlands neighborhood and is quite happy with the purchase.

“The minute I saw this house I fell in love.  We’ve been saving for years, but when this and the neighboring homes came on the market for a combined price under $200k I knew it was time to take my money out of the bank and buy” Ursus explains sipping champagne on her sunny deck. “Since we had the two neighboring homes torn down it’s almost like living in the country here.  Its funny thinking that just a few years ago people were fighting to pay more than the next guy for a house in Vancouver while these days the seller will throw in a new car and a years worth of gas just to get you to buy.”

Is she concerned about predictions of further depreciation and economic woe?

“Not at all, this is a place to live, a place to raise a family, not an investment. We’re debt free and maxing out our RSPs so the price of the house is really not a concern for me.”

Local economist Rusty Summervile disagrees “She should really get rid of that house as soon as possible. History has shown that real estate is a massive wealth destroyer.  The most sensible course of action is to rent and save as much as you possibly can, let someone else shoulder the depreciation.”