Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[geotag277]

If affordable housing is such a concern why aren't people like whatnext advocating to rezone these expensive single family detached home lots into multi family?

Bueller... Bueller?

(Hint: He wants to return to the glory days of the 90s, when his rich buddies could afford to play in the Vancouver housing market, and if they felt like it give some crumbs of bread to lower income people to live in their basement suites)

Single family detached lots are toxic to the Vancouver housing market, and affordability in general. Run these antiquated and inefficient uses of land out of town.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Single family detached lots are toxic to the Vancouver housing market, and affordability in general. Run these antiquated and inefficient uses of land out of town.

This post has some nice maps: https://twitter.com/gridsvancouver/status/692549603342835713

Multi-unit banned in most of the city, including within a short walk of many rapid transit stations:


1963, metropolitan population approximately 800,000, urban core zoning covers approximately the same area:

[geotag277]

In any other 2 million + city, an area like Mt Pleasent for example would be 100% town homes, apartments, multifamily.

Given Vancouver's particular boundary constraints and lack of development potential for sprawl and adding single family housing stock, it is inexcusable.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by casper

That is only positive if the suites are legal and meet all safety standards.

They will likely be replaced by a house that can more easily accommodate a legal basement suite (that the old housing stock) and can accommodate a lane-way house in the backyard.

No, it's always positive because people get places to live.

[logan5]

Mt. Pleasant does alright with density. Most of the detached homes have been sub-divided into 4 to 6 unit buildings. The rest of the area is mid-rise and walk-ups.

Roughly, the dividing line between old Vancouver and new Vancouver is 16th Ave. to the south ans Nanaimo St. to the east. Preserve the character of old Vancouver, but rezone the rest. Not only Vancouver, but rezone Burnaby and Richmond, where the average price of a detached home now exceeds 1 million dollars. Even in surrey and Langley the average price for a detached home is now over 800k. And that puts you 30 to 40 km's from the city centre.

[geotag277]

In any other city it would not just do "ok" for density, it would be density, period.

[casper]

Originally Posted by geotag277

If affordable housing is such a concern why aren't people like whatnext advocating to rezone these expensive single family detached home lots into multi family?

Bueller... Bueller?

(Hint: He wants to return to the glory days of the 90s, when his rich buddies could afford to play in the Vancouver housing market, and if they felt like it give some crumbs of bread to lower income people to live in their basement suites)

Single family detached lots are toxic to the Vancouver housing market, and affordability in general. Run these antiquated and inefficient uses of land out of town.

Rezoning is needed. I would go as far as requiring on the major arterials that no new building be built less that three stores. Do something similar around the skytrain stations but perhaps even more demanding in height.

The other zoning change that is needed is requiring that at least 25% of suites in any development have at least three bed rooms.

The city needs to do something about illegal suites. If they are illegal because of zoning rules, then the rules may need to change. If they are illegal because of safety rules, then the suites need to go or be fixed.

[casper]

Originally Posted by biguc

No, it's always positive because people get places to live.

I don't know. These homes are not being removed from the market. They are being replaced with more homes. Many with added laneway suites. I think overall the city is ahead in number of units available for rental.

[Pinion]

.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by logan5

Despite your expert analysis, it's still crap.

Well, correct us, then.

You buy a "lot value" house in Van. You apply for a demolition permit. 1) What are the possible reasons the City would not grant it? and 2) if the City invokes one of those and refuses to grant it, and you still demolish it or have someone set it on fire, what steps will the City take to prevent you from going forward with the McMansion project you had for the lot in the first place?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by geotag277

In any other 2 million + city, an area like Mt Pleasent for example would be 100% town homes, apartments, multifamily.

Given Vancouver's particular boundary constraints and lack of development potential for sprawl and adding single family housing stock, it is inexcusable.

As Logan5 points out, you're commenting on something you obviously know nothing about, as Mt. Pleasant has few true SFHs. But feel free to tell us how well Calgary is doing with densification and banishing the evil single family home.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by geotag277

If affordable housing is such a concern why aren't people like whatnext advocating to rezone these expensive single family detached home lots into multi family?

Bueller... Bueller?

(Hint: He wants to return to the glory days of the 90s, when his rich buddies could afford to play in the Vancouver housing market, and if they felt like it give some crumbs of bread to lower income people to live in their basement suites)

Single family detached lots are toxic to the Vancouver housing market, and affordability in general. Run these antiquated and inefficient uses of land out of town.

Again, spoken as someone who truly doesn't know the Vancouver housing market. I'm not sure what you have aginst lower income people, and why youfeel they should be denied affordable housing in the form of basement suites. They certanly won't find affordable housing in the bland multiunit condos you advocate, which are likely as not sold to some Chinese investor who, if he even rents it at all, will ask a price that is far from affordable.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by whatnext

As Logan5 points out, you're commenting on something you obviously know nothing about, as Mt. Pleasant has few true SFHs. But feel free to tell us how well Calgary is doing with densification and banishing the evil single family home.

The fact that Mt Pleasent has any SFH at all is absolutely absurd. You are too obsessed with single family homes and jockeying for wealthy Vancouver residents to own them instead of the super wealthy - a situation that does nothing to help overall affordability.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Again, spoken as someone who truly doesn't know the Vancouver housing market. I'm not sure what you have aginst lower income people, and why youfeel they should be denied affordable housing in the form of basement suites. They certanly won't find affordable housing in the bland multiunit condos you advocate, which are likely as not sold to some Chinese investor who, if he even rents it at all, will ask a price that is far from affordable.

I feel lower income people should have the opportunity to buy housing, somewhere on the spectrum.

That is certainly a much higher accord to hold lower income people, as opposed to your plan, which is a return to the 90s, where instead of super wealthy housing single family detached housing owners who may through their kind and generous spirit choose to throw some crumbs of basement suites towards the lower income people - it was merely the wealthy.

Your understanding of the Vancouver housing market is disconnected from reality, and your obsession with single family detached housing does Vancouver residents, especially those who aren't wealthy - a severe disservice.

[WhipperSnapper]

You're look at this from a simplistic supply and demand perspective. Who exactly is going to pay to increase supply to the point that it significantly lowers market value? Developers? LOL. Maybe if they want the shirt repossessed off their backs. I've done the SFH teardown for semis and townhouses. Most of the profit came from market value increasing during the time of development. Probably would have made nearly the same just sitting on the SFH.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

You're look at this from a simplistic supply and demand perspective. Who exactly is going to pay to increase supply to the point that it significantly lowers market value? Developers? LOL. Maybe if they want the shirt repossessed off their backs. I've done the SFH teardown for semis and townhouses. Most of the profit came from market value increasing during the time of development. Probably would have made nearly the same just sitting on the SFH.

It makes sense that conversion from single family dwellings to townhouses would be marginal. You're tearing down and rebuilding for a small increase in density in areas where most of the cost of real estate is in the land itself (plus transactional costs). Single family to highrise (or even midrise) isn't like that though; the land cost of a 30-60 storey tower, even in suburban metro Vancouver, probably doesn't dominate the equation. I think that kind of zoning is what will make the difference, not townhouses.

If we imagine the city being 100% rezoned for highrises it is hard to see real estate developers somehow locking down the entire city to prevent falling prices, assuming the margins are there for new entrants to come in and develop profitably. I think they would be, because all the money that is currently being handed over to land owners with hard-to-come-by high density lots would be freed up.

With the current restrictive zoning there's more room for specific developers to game the system by lobbying municipal politicians so that their parcels of land get special zoning. So there's probably tons of that going on, and I'm guessing the densely-zoned-property owners are more or less aligned with the NIMBYs. The holdup is with the zoning itself.

[geotag277]

The fact is it is supply and demand, and even with town houses you don't see the rocketing prices in Vancouver even though it is a marginal increase in density.

The city has a role to play too, in encouraging and offering incentives to developers to increase the density to help citizens, and they win too with multi-family by increasing their tax base.

The fact that developers can't make money supplying multifamily units to a market like Vancouver just tells you that these variables are out of balance with where they need to be. In truth, this should have been considered twenty years ago when the writing was on the wall when Vancouver housing passed Toronto. Clearly at that point something was wrong.

[casper]

Originally Posted by geotag277

The fact is it is supply and demand, and even with town houses you don't see the rocketing prices in Vancouver even though it is a marginal increase in density.

The city has a role to play too, in encouraging and offering incentives to developers to increase the density to help citizens, and they win too with multi-family by increasing their tax base.

The fact that developers can't make money supplying multifamily units to a market like Vancouver just tells you that these variables are out of balance with where they need to be. In truth, this should have been considered twenty years ago when the writing was on the wall when Vancouver housing passed Toronto. Clearly at that point something was wrong.

Who says developers can't make money building multi-family in Vancouver. When I drive around Vancouver I see a lot of multi-family and mixed used being built replacing single family housing.

I don't think the city needs to provide much incentive. It just need to reduce some of the single family home restrictions.

The growth will be slow and random. Not a bad thing per say. Take laneway homes, the city changed zoning rules to permit these to come in. Now, we have to popping up here and there in traditional single family zoned areas.

As for affordability. New buildings are more expensive than old buildings. That applies to condo's even more than houses. In Victoria, I live in a 1970s high-rise, well maintained building, renovated unit, great view etc. It probably costs $100k less than an equivalent new condo.

Same thing is happening in Vancouver. Compare the costs of a condo in an older high rise around Oakridge vrs and a brand new one.

The same will continue to happen. Single family homes are not going up in price all that quickly it is the underlying land. A condo has a much better ratio of land to building value from an affordability perspective.

[geotag277]

Lane way housing are like basement suites. It's a band aid to housing demand, and has more to do with low vacancy rates in general than affordability. Both of these options don't really give non-wealthy individuals a path to home ownership and just exacerbate the housing supply issues, while in turn making existing housing even more desirable, valuable, and expensive.

I can appreciate municipal rules such as in Burnaby where developers are forced to build three bedroom "family appropriate" units to balance the one bedroom profit margin feeding frenzy. I can see the basic principle applied more generally to the market, where, perhaps through tax incentives or otherwise, developers are encouraged through some means to put multi-family housing stock on the market at lower profit margins which pass savings directly onto the customer. Yes, the Trumps and Shangri-las will continue to be generally unaffordable, but I don't see why multi-family extending out in a radius around sky train stations from Burnaby to New West can't be responsibly affordable, through a constant stream of supply, with the right developer rules/encouragement/incentives.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Lane way housing are like basement suites. It's a band aid to housing demand, and has more to do with low vacancy rates in general than affordability. Both of these options don't really give non-wealthy individuals a path to home ownership and just exacerbate the housing supply issues, while in turn making existing housing even more desirable, valuable, and expensive.

Agreed. Laneway homes are a sop to single family homeowners - a way for them to pay for their mortgage, thus driving up demand, thus driving up prices. It's a carrot approach, and an affordability problem requires sticks. There's also no tenure security for laneway home tenants. If the homeowner wants to sell their home and you're a secondary suite occupant, you're out on your ass.

I think that the city should've permitted homeowners to sell and strata-fy laneway homes they built. This would have killed two birds with one stone by improving the stock of ground-oriented owner-occupied housing and also reducing lot sizes, curtailing the ability for people to build monster homes.

Of course, since most of the value of a property is in the size of land, it's unclear how many people would have taken the city up if this offer was on the table. You would probably be worse off if you sold half of your 33' X 120' lot for $600k and then sold the remainder of your property for $600k than if you would have held out, and sold your lot in its entirety to a prospective monster house builder. I think the city has to come in and ease height and setback restrictions for people who are willing to sell and strata-fy their SFH lots.