Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[st7860]

Originally Posted by Tourist9394

Stop installing barriers when it is not to your self-interest, Canada has always been an inclusive society from the days of first contact with the Europeans to the days of colonialism by European-Canadians. Globalization is a Westphalian concept, there are remnants of that today: the remnants of that in the senile community of Kerrisdale and West-end. New people will come, the old will die out. It has always been this way with this land here. Newcomers are always more wealthy due to heavy taxation.

PS: Our true intention is to create a new Sinosphere in the capital city of Richmond. We are going to put the Anglo-Canadians in residential schools and enforce head taxes to Irish, Scottish and Welsh background immigrants. Nope, we are not playing the victim card.

I tend to take a dim view of people that are racist, discriminatory, and use impolite icons. Its borderline hate speech to single out specific ethnic groups. I don't complain that people come to Canada, buy things, and don't otherwise disturb others.

Canada is a good value to people that come here.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by lio45

Probably... What exactly did you say you did?

Nothing in particular, except I probably pay more income and property taxes, and use less healthcare since I'm jacked and all

The big hit against my value-to-community score is that I bought a home with cash, and happen to be Chinese

[Spring2008]

Guess I'll put this here. Structural change in growth or bubble? Hope it's the former, but I agree Canadian real estate is overpriced in almost every major market.

Not bad for downtown ~5000 units u/c. The inner city neighbourhoods around the City Centre have almost all kept pace too on a relative basis. Lots of inner neighbourhoods with 5 - 10% per annum growth in recent years. Liking this trend. The inner city starting to feel like its own dense island.

Meredith said 13,675 residential highrise condos are proposed, under construction or in pre-construction in the city centre, which includes East Village, the Beltline and downtown. That’s up from 12,447 in May 2014.

According to data supplied by Meredith, 2,793 condo units (for sale) are under construction in addition to 2,093 rental units. Building permits are in place for these projects and site excavation has started.

There are 1,947 condos units in the pre-construction stage and 2,363 rental units for a total of 4,479. These are projects which have submitted development permits.

http://calgaryherald.com/business/real-e...r-bullish-on-calgary-luxury-condo-market

[mistercorporate]

These Vancouver real estate ethnic debates are so silly. On the one hand we have non-ethnic Canadians claiming (incorrectly) that poor ethnic immigrants use up disproportionately more social services (settlement costs are minor compared to savings on early schooling and medicare, not to mention the lower than average use of welfare/EI) and take away jobs. On the other hand, once we actually bring in high net worth immigrants it's all about how they're bringing in black money (give me a break, sounds like envy...because clearly gainfully wealthy people don't exist outside the West ) and jacking up housing costs.

The way I see it, if we're concerned about real estate values and integration then increase English or French language requirements and limit speculative investment (no 2nd/3rd homes, etc.). Race baiting isn't the way to go. If the laws aren't working, change the elected representatives and make it an election issue in your area by lobbying politicians and joining a political party. If you think well-off immigrants are a bad idea then try living in a country with no high quality immigration (negative population growth, see what that does to a non-oil-boosted budget) or where poor, uneducated, backward-🞵🞵🞵 immigrants flood in like what's happening now in Italy.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

The way I see it, if we're concerned about real estate values and integration then increase English or French language requirements and limit speculative investment (no 2nd/3rd homes, etc.). Race baiting isn't the way to go. If the laws aren't working, change the elected representatives and make it an election issue in your area by lobbying politicians and joining a political party. If you think well-off immigrants are a bad idea then try living in a country with no high quality immigration (negative population growth, see what that does to a non-oil-boosted budget) or where poor, uneducated, backward-🞵🞵🞵 immigrants flood in like what's happening now in Italy.

In fairness, the debate usually goes more or less like this:

Person A, B, C, D ... K: Housing in Vancouver is really unaffordable. Investment buyers are a big part of it, including international investors
Person L: <Irrelevant racist comment>
Person M: You must all secretly be racist! I bet you are all writing these posts from the same KKK rally! Head taxes! Lynch mobs! This is just like 1890's Alabama!
Person N, not from Vancouver: Yeah, all those racists. They must just be jealous! Why can't we all just put aside our petty differences and forget about this whole silly issue?

You can reconstruct this tired old exchange by scrolling back through this very thread. And in just about every discussion thread you can find examples of people cherry-picking weak posts to respond to rather than posting meaningfully about the meat of the issues that the threads are about.

Meanwhile, the Economist just warned that Canadian housing prices are heavily overvalued with respect to rental rates and incomes. I guess they are racist too.

[st7860]

Generally speaking, this board doesn't tolerate racism. However on places like the comments section of the vancouver sun, or van city buzz post on Facebook etc- there is a cesspool of racial and other hating style posts .

About the magazine well. I wouldn't place much weight in that- they don't realize things are different in canada.

Some basic food staples are price controlled in canada. In a big city in canada, mobile phone service is cheap. In bc, basic auto insurance for young people is at a low cost since age discrimination is prohibited. In the US, auto insurance for new drivers can be prohibitive.

Canadians can sell a home they live in without paying taxes. People that insist mortgage rates will shoot to the moon can easily get a ten year mortgage for around six percent . People without a large down payment can get an insured mortgage - there is little risk to taxpayers as those borrowers need a decent credit history to qualify

[Me&You]

Larry Fink knows a thing or two about investments and assets;

"“The two greatest stores of wealth internationally today is contemporary art….. and I don’t mean that as a joke, I mean that as a serious asset class,” said Fink. “And two, the other store of wealth today is apartments in Manhattan, apartments in Vancouver, in London.”

Full article -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...t-top-gold-as-stores-of-wealth-says-fink

[lio45]

Originally Posted by dleung

Nothing in particular, except I probably pay more income and property taxes, and use less healthcare since I'm jacked and all

The big hit against my value-to-community score is that I bought a home with cash, and happen to be Chinese

Seems a poor use of capital at first sight... (to buy a home with cash)

I must say that even being as open-minded as I am I always find it a bit worthy of suspicion at first sight (i.e. that it tends to hint at a possible dirty money origin) that someone will buy a property in an expensive market cash only. If that person is running a business, surely they have better things to do with that liquidity than to make sure a SFR to someone's individual name -- read: an easy source of sub-3% financing -- remains free and clear?

And if that person isn't running a business... then it raises the good question of how they ever managed to gather that pile of cash.

If you don't mind, I'd be curious to hear a bit more details about you, just out of curiosity, as a case study.

I am sure it makes sense in some particular situations to keep holding onto a residential Toronto property free and clear (assuming the location from your profile) but at first sight in most situations it doesn't.

[st7860]

Originally Posted by lio45

Seems a poor use of capital at first sight... (to buy a home with cash)

I must say that even being as open-minded as I am I always find it a bit worthy of suspicion at first sight (i.e. that it tends to hint at a possible dirty money origin) that someone will buy an expensive-ish property cash only. If that person is running a business, surely they have better things to do with that liquidity than to make sure a SFH to someone's individual name -- read: an easy source of sub-3% financing -- remains free and clear?

And if that person isn't running a business... then it raises the good question of how they ever managed to gather that pile of cash.

If you don't mind, I'd be curious to hear a bit more details about you, just out of curiosity, as a case study.

I am sure it makes sense in some particular situations to keep holding onto a residential Toronto property free and clear (assuming the location from your profile) but at first sight in most situations it doesn't.

Buying Lego(and yes some people do buy that much of it) is as low risk over the long term as buying a house. However, why does someone need a business to be able to afford a home without a mortgage? Some people save money well, get assistance from relatives, etc.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by st7860

However, why does someone need a business to be able to afford a home without a mortgage?

How do you possibly explain a person who never won the lottery, never did anything illegal, and never had a business being able to buy a normal, average Vancouver house without a mortgage?

[cornholio]

You will never get the truth. Trust me. All just hard working middle class folk.

[st7860]

Originally Posted by lio45

How do you possibly explain a person who never won the lottery, never did anything illegal, and never had a business being able to buy a normal, average Vancouver house without a mortgage?

I know a guy that just bought a brand new Toyota van. I didn't be like holy mother of god. It also cost as much as a mid level BMW. In Canada, having no mortgage is not an indicator of criminality nor of a home businessperson.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by lio45

How do you possibly explain a person who never won the lottery, never did anything illegal, and never had a business being able to buy a normal, average Vancouver house without a mortgage?

Inheritance?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by esquire

Inheritance?

It would have to be a pretty rich inheritance to buy you this small bungalow on the West Side of Vancouver. In any other city this would be considered a charming character home, in Vancouver its being marketed as a $1.675 million building lot. So in addition to the purchase price you have to cough up at minimum another $500k to build. There aren't that many homegrown millionaires.

[IMG][/IMG]

http://www.realtylink.org/prop_search/De...TID=5&MNPRC=200000&MXPRC=9000000&SCTP=RS

[st7860]

Originally Posted by esquire

Inheritance?

Its considered surprising by some that others have more resources than them

[st7860]

Originally Posted by whatnext

It would have to be a pretty rich inheritance to buy you this small bungalow on the West Side of Vancouver.

That is by no means an average house. Its a premium priced lot near the University of British Columbia

[lio45]

Originally Posted by st7860

I know a guy that just bought a brand new Toyota van. I didn't be like holy mother of god. It also cost as much as a mid level BMW. In Canada, having no mortgage is not an indicator of criminality nor of a home businessperson.

A Toyota van? Try (in 2015) something more like a 4-speed '71 Hemicuda convertible. That would be a car cash purchase of the same order of magnitude as a Vancouver bungalow.

And there aren't many salaried people who can hope to amass enough post-tax savings to ever buy one of those cash...

[1overcosc]

Some people might get enough inheritance. In my parents will, they dictated all their assets to split between myself and my sister... if only one of us is alive, all goes to the other. If my mom, dad, and sister all died tomorrow morning, I would inherit their entire estate, which includes their $300K exurban home, their $400K RRSP, my mom's antique collection worth maybe $50K, and a payout of about $700K from my dad's life insurance. They're debt free, so there's no liabilities. I'd be capable of buying a pretty nice home with cash.

My parents are fairly unremarkable upper-middle class people, so there's got to be examples of it happening to people.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by whatnext

It would have to be a pretty rich inheritance to buy you this small bungalow on the West Side of Vancouver. In any other city this would be considered a charming character home, in Vancouver its being marketed as a $1.675 million building lot. So in addition to the purchase price you have to cough up at minimum another $500k to build. There aren't that many homegrown millionaires.

[IMG][/IMG]

http://www.realtylink.org/prop_search/De...TID=5&MNPRC=200000&MXPRC=9000000&SCTP=RS

To be fair, in inner city Calgary I don't think something like that would be a whole lot cheaper. Plenty of million dollar+ teardown and rebuilds around here.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by st7860

That is by no means an average house. Its a premium priced lot near the University of British Columbia

Here's the thing some new arrivals to Vancouver might not get: many of those neighbourhoods in Point Grey near the University were not the preserve of the wealthy. Look at the modest bungalows on their 33x120 lots. They were middle or slightly upper middle class homes. Only the recent migration of those who desperately want to be near "that initial high school" (PW) or mistakenly believe UBC is some incredibly world class institution are driving up those prices. In the process they are forcing those who actually work at those institutions out into the 'burbs, thereby causing more pollution, more congestion etc.