Vancouver Condo Info

From the gosh-what-a-suprise department: the Sun has an article about Northern BC having the most affordable real estate.

The survey found that despite average house price increases of 30 per cent across northern B.C. in 2006, owning a home in the region consumes less than half the household income of a homeowner in Vancouver.

According to the BCNREB report, which was commissioned after RBC Financial Group released the results of a cross-Canada housing affordability study showing that B.C. was the least affordable place to buy a house, the Housing Affordability Index (HAI) for northern B.C. was 28.9 per cent compared to 68.5 per cent for Vancouver and 62.5 per cent for B.C. as a whole.

I wonder if anyone in Vancouver actually does spend 68.5 percent of their pre-tax income on housing.. Is that even physically possible?

Here’s an excellent Buy/Rent comparison calculator on the New York Times site. It lets you enter rent value / purchase value, interest rate, property taxes and then adjust sliders for house appreciation and rent increases.

What with recent complaints about ‘affordability’ in the lower mainland I was curious about how some local real estate would compare, so I entered some number for this house I found on craigslist since it listed a selling price and current leased rental income.

With rental income of $1170 and an asking price of $419,800 you get some interesting results by playing with sliders on that calculator. for instance: 25% down payment at 6.25% interest rate - if the house appreciates by 10% a year over 30 years you’re better off buying after just one year, but if the house appreciates an average of 5% a year over 30 years you’re better off renting.

There are a lot of variable there - if you have some numbers from the local market its worth plugging them in and checking out the results.

Note: Since this is a US site I assume they are taking into account the mortgage tax write off, which we don’t have here in Canada.

UPDATE: dingus points out this Canadian buy/rent calculator.

Some enterprising fellows are now offering to put a short-range radio transmitter in your ‘for sale’ sign to broadcast a commercial to anyone on the block interested in your house or condo.. Its an interesting idea, but most people don’t bother to put a price on their sign, so what (besides music and sound effects) are they going to put in their custom commercial? And would this marketing system have any advantages over the good ol’ world wide web?

I’m still cringing from the last Rennie Condo ad I saw in a theatre, I wonder if these audio commercials feature soft jazz and lots of talk about ‘lifestyle’.

There’s an article in the sun about the large number of houses in the lower mainland with sub-par or dangerous electrical wiring that often requires work to be insurable.

Dangerous electrical wiring exists in the majority of pre-1950 homes in B.C., especially those with secondary suites, according to preliminary findings by a Vancouver company.

Of 104 older homes inspected by last year by PowerSafe Inc., 60 per cent had electrical problems requiring immediate attention.

Hazards that could lead to a fire zoomed to 84 per cent in 30 homes with secondary suites, said Brian Cook, co-founder of the firm.

I know a couple of people who bought houses in the last year that required re-wiring before they could be insured - depending on the size of the house this can run from around $15,000 and up - a good thing to be aware of and budget for when shopping for an older house.