Vancouver Condo Info

ReadytoPop posted a link to this Financial Post article that portrays what it looks like when a real estate bet turns bad:

Erica and Jeff Manger never thought the price of their house could drop.

The Alberta couple bought a condominium in the Rockies resort town of Canmore three years ago and when they decided to move in 2008 to Sylvan Lake in Alberta, where they could afford a detached home, they kept the condo as an investment.

“It never occurred to us that we wouldn’t be able to sell for what we paid,” says Ms. Manger. “People were making $100,000 [on paper] a year on their condos.”

Now they’d be lucky to get the $315,000 they paid for their condo, even though it may have fetched $345,000 in 2008 when they were thinking about selling it to help pay for their new home. Instead, they’re getting $1,100 a month in rent for an investment that costs them $1,800 a month to carry and isn’t going up in value.

It gets worse. They have to sell the house in Sylvan Lake because Jeff, who is a helicopter pilot, is looking for a better location for work. They paid $375,000 for the house and fixed it up. Not even counting Jeff’s labour, the couple spent another $30,000 on supplies.

“We tried to sell it and put it up for $409,000. We lowered it to $385,000 when we hired a realtor, but that didn’t work,” says Ms. Manger.

Read the full article over at the Financial Post

The hot summer is not so hot for the Vancouver real estate market which seems to be withering on the vine. July saw the third month of price declines that started at the April peak. If this keeps up how much longer will we be able to hold on to our coveted ‘most overpriced real estate in North America’ status?

Here’s the story in the Sun: Sales plummet in July

Lower Mainland real estate markets saw their slowest or near slowest July in a decade, the region’s real estate boards reported Wednesday, with sales down by almost half from July 2009’s red-hot markets and prices slipping from the previous month’s levels.

Here’s the Globe and Mail: Vancouver Homes Market goes cold

And there’s a lot of supply on the market, threatening to pull prices lower, with inventory levels 33 per cent higher than this time last year, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

“With the pace of home sales and listings easing off in our market, we’ve begun to see a levelling of home prices from the record highs seen in the spring, creating greater affordability,” said Jake Moldowan, the board’s president. “Activity in today’s marketplace is clearly trending in favour of buyers.”

Here’s the PDF stats package and Crashcow rounded up the following list of benchmark price slippage since April:

Residential (GVRD)
Greater Vancouver: -3%

DETACHED
Greater Vancouver: -3%
Burnaby: -2%
Coquitlam: -5%
Maple Ridge: -3%
New Westminster: 3%
North Vancouver: -3%
Pitt Meadows: -7%
Port Coquitlam: -7%
Port Moody: -3%
Richmond: -3%
South Delta: -5%
Vancouver East: -3%
Vancouver West: -4%
West Vancouver: -3%

ATTACHED
Greater Vancouver: -2%
Burnaby: 0%
Coquitlam: -5%
Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows: -2%
North Vancouver: -4%
Port Coquitlam: 0%
Port Moody: -6%
Richmond: 1%
South Delta: -1%
Vancouver East: -8%
Vancouver West: -4%

APARTMENT
Greater Vancouver: -2%
Burnaby: -2%
Coquitlam: 0%
Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows: -2%
New Westminster: -3%
North Vancouver: -2%
Port Coquitlam: -1%
Port Moody: 0%
Richmond: 0%
South Delta: -2%
Vancouver East: -5%
Vancouver West: -3%
West Vancouver: -12%

Last month we showed you what kind of car you could get for the monthly drop in benchmark house prices in some Vancouver neighborhoods.  Along a similar theme, reader Avatar points out this round up of 8 condos in the US that cost less than a new car. This one bedroom 770 sq foot condo in Florida is going for $25k:

The condo is spacious and has a half bath, a screened porch, wood floors and is in move-in condition, according to agent Jana Brittenum of Keyes Real Estate. The corner location in the complex gives it nice garden views.

The condo community has good recreational facilities with a swimming pool, clubhouse and exercise area, but maintenance charges are a modest $180 a month.

The last time the unit sold was in 2005 when it went for $115,000. Why so inexpensive now? For one thing, it’s a short sale, which the lender will have to approve. Also, the condo association’s bylaws prohibit renters, so any buyers would have to want to live there.

See the Full article at CNN.com

Here’s an interesting comparison that came up in in the discussion earlier comparing a couple of North American property markets. First off space889 pointed out this nice large lot on the west side of Vancouver that is up for sale asking $3,280,000 – the oil tank has been removed and this property could be used to build your dream home near Oak street, or you could just hold onto it and wait for it to appreciate.

Crabman then pointed out this property in a place called Beverly Hills on a slightly larger lot asking $3,200,000.

Here they are side by side for comparison:

Local developer Ian Gillespie is experimenting with the idea of building a downtown condo that is affordable to a couple making minimum wage. The tower would be located on Cordova between Gastown and the Downtown Eastside. To keep costs down it will feature simple finishes, no parking, and owners would do their own maintenance instead of paying strata fees to cover repairs. To try to keep out speculators and flippers they will require the units to be owner occupied.

The 108-unit project is a collaboration involving Vancity credit union, Habitat for Humanity and a Downtown Eastside housing group. Habitat will get four condos suitable for families in the building and will choose who gets them. Another eight units, to be managed by the PHS housing society, will go to local community workers.

The remaining 96 condos will go to buyers who will have to prove that they plan to live in the units and who agree to do some maintenance themselves instead of just paying standard condo-maintenance fees. According to the material submitted to the city, nearly three-quarters of the condos will sell for less than $300,000, and more than half will be affordable to people making between $29,000 and $36,000 a year. That’s the income of an individual earning $15-$19 an hour, or a couple in which each partner makes the $8-an-hour minimum wage.

One interesting point: one of the reasons they can build this condo development for cheaper is because the land got cheaper:

The land, previously owned by developer Robert Wilson, was repossessed by Vancity last year. He had purchased it for $7.9-million in July, 2007, shortly before the city’s real-estate market deflated. It’s now assessed at $5.4-million.

Read the full article in the Globe and Mail.

The boom has gone bust inland and we’re starting to see more and more of these news stories about it.  Jimmy pointed out this link to some coverage over at news 1330:

Advertised prices on many new developments are down between 20 and 30 per cent, six-figure savings in some cases. And if you really hunt, developer Matthew Hay says deeper discounts can be had.

He says too much inventory was built up before the recession hit, and the newly imposed Harmonized Sales Tax is not helping the market either. “So now not only is there a surplus of product on the market, but you’ve got a whole buyer demographic that is nervous, cautious, sitting on their wallets, waiting to see how things shake out.”

Some of the developers are offering incentives on top of the discounts like covering the HST, or the GST. Hay says some developers are desperate to sell and that is putting downward pressure on the Okanagan market.

Jonathon sent in a link to this great ‘blast from the past’ interview with developer Sam Zell about whether there was a real estate bubble in Miami.  He makes some very compelling arguments about why there is no real estate bubble, and some of them sound remarkably familiar somehow.

Q But U.S. home prices are up about 40% in three years. How can this not be a bubble?

A Econ 1001: Prices have gone up because the demand has been much greater than the supply. The country is producing all it can in terms of supply, but what you see is more demand. Over the next 10 years we’re going to add a million new household, much of that’s due to immigration.

Econ 1001 is very advanced, so you may not understand that.  Here’s something you will understand:

Q How bad could it get?

A Worst-case scenario? A flat housing market. Look, all I can tell you is we’re the largest owner of apartments in the U.S. and among the largest converters of apartments to condos. If there was a danger of a bubble, would we be in this business? I’ve never been accused of being a Pollyanna, I’m the Gravedancer. Americans don’t understand that we have the cheapest housing in the world. London and Tokyo are more expensive than New York. Why do you think everyone is going to South Florida from Europe? It’s because prices here are cheap compared with there.

Understand?  South Florida is cheaper than other places, and everyone wants to live there.  Ergo, there is no housing bubble in Miami condos.  All of those arguments just happen to be applicable to Vancouver BC as well.

Here’s the ‘flat market’ in Miami since that argument was made, but always remember: ‘it’s different here’.

What a difference a few months can make in the Vancouver real estate market. Inventory is high and prices are falling, no longer are we seeing the bidding wars of the past. In fact, it’s starting to look like reverse bidding wars as sellers compete for sharper pricing to snag the last of the boom-buyers.  We’re starting to see some big asking price discrepancies on similar units in the same building.

Girlbear pointed out this first example in Arbutus walk:

MLS V837889 vs MLS V839019 – both penthouse units.

847 sq feet asking $494,900 vs. 950 sq feet asking $439,000.

Anonymous pointed out this second example down near gastown:

MLS V831995 vs. MLS V831904 – both 5th floor townhouse units.

1,236 sq feet asking $548,000 vs. 1,202 sq feet asking $649,000.

Buyers who bought before the big run up in prices can afford to sell at a much lower price and still make money compared to those who bought more recently.  I guess this is what they mean when they say ‘buy low, sell high’.

realpaul pointed out this Vancouver Sun article. The day after we got the news that house prices are falling in Vancouver, Royal LePage has released a market survey predicting house prices and sales will ‘decline towards the end of the year’.

However, he pointed out, “This should not be interpreted as a severe correction but rather a natural reaction to the market having peaked quite early this year.”

This outlook is at odds with the BCREA and CREA market surveys released a few weeks ago that predict flat or rising prices for 2010 and then falling prices in 2011.

The REBGV stats for June 2010 are now available. If a month ago was a good time to buy some Vancouver real estate, than right now is an even gooderer time! If you were shopping for the benchmark home a month ago, you can now buy that same house and get a FREE CAR with it! Best Place on Meth pointed out some of the more dramatic drops and we’ve put together this handy guide for suggested cars you can get with the price difference.

The overall REBGV benchmark price for all housing in all areas is down just over 1 percent which is a little over $10k. You’re not going to get a brand new car for that much, but you could get this sweeeet 1992 Toyota Supra replete with go-fast fin and still have enough left over for a great little road trip:

The big drop for the month was in the benchmark house price on the west side. You’re not going to want to drive that supra up to your west side bungalow, but with about $90k extra to spend you can arrive in style with this 2005 Aston Martin DB9:

The dramatic percentage drop prize goes to West Vancouver Apartments, where the one month drop saw a loss of $77,664 or 11.5%! Go pick yourself up an apartment and a 2007 Maserati:

Crashcow pointed out that there’s even more drama in the West Van Apartment benchmark if you go back another month to the April Peak.