The Metro Vancouver Real Estate Thread

[Alex Mackinnon]

Perhaps this is the long discussed solution to homelessness that Gregor campaigned all those years ago.

[Pinion]

The area south of Capilano mall is getting really bad for permanent campers too. So glad we got rid of two lanes of first ave for that.

[whatnext]

Usually I just post certain listings because of ludicrous pricing, but the photos in this one are hilarious. It's like they're fleeing the country but decided to bring the realtor in anyway:

https://www.rew.ca/properties/R2214046/1...type=property_search&search_id=659759062

(Ouch, those maintenance fees tho!)

[Alex Mackinnon]

Does anyone have indications that the real estate market here is freezing up?

I've noticed the data on zolo is getting to be quite wildly variable as volumes has dropped. There have also been a few articles on Toronto starting to freeze.

Has anyone got first hand experience for our local market? I can't help but imagine the increasing cost of money is starting to kill our over-leveraged market.

[GenWhy?]

Real Estate for land development is doing well.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Does anyone have indications that the real estate market here is freezing up?

I've noticed the data on zolo is getting to be quite wildly variable as volumes has dropped. There have also been a few articles on Toronto starting to freeze.

Has anyone got first hand experience for our local market? I can't help but imagine the increasing cost of money is starting to kill our over-leveraged market.

Freezing yes - but I'm not sure that its because of credit cost or availability.

I think it has more to do with extremely low levels of inventory on the market.

You can count the amount of Strata units for sale on 2 hands. SFH listings above $2million are plentiful, but rather not helpful to 90% of buyers.

Using myself as an example - sitting on good chunk of equity in our condo plus cash set aside for down payment.

Looking to sell and increase square footage - but nothing on market to offer on, and we don't plan to list until we have an accepted offer in on a new unit.

In meanwhile we are not buyer or sellers, and remain another couple sitting out on sidelines.

I think this is multiplied across the region right now.

I do imagine this could lead to some wild price gyrations as outlier sales will affect the averages disproportionately in a low volume market.

But to say that price reductions are evident, would not be accurate, particularly in the Strata market.

SFH appears to be much softer, which is why we are debating stretching a little further into a SFH with suite. But that comes with sacrifices of its own.

[phesto]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Does anyone have indications that the real estate market here is freezing up?

I've noticed the data on zolo is getting to be quite wildly variable as volumes has dropped. There have also been a few articles on Toronto starting to freeze.

Has anyone got first hand experience for our local market? I can't help but imagine the increasing cost of money is starting to kill our over-leveraged market.

I track MLS quite closely. SFH sales are very slow, but new listings are very low for this time of year.

The condo resale market is still very active. In the City of Vancouver there have been 307 condo resales so far this year, with nearly half (44%) of those going for above the asking price. Sounds like open house traffic is down but multiple offers still happening in many areas.

For any meaningful price deceleration/correction in the condo market we're going to have to see a whole lot more inventory first.

[LeftCoaster]

Like Phesto said multifamily is still very very hot, SFH has been hurting for over a year now with accepted bids under asking (asking is still ridiculous) very common.

Expect multifamily to continue its scorching pace as the local economy stays strong and SFH to languish as many locals are priced out.

[whatnext]

The current issue of Macleans outlines how it is falling to David Eby to clean up the mess made of Vancouver and BC:

It was such a lovely picture that the City of Vancouver managed to paint of itself over the 10 years that Gregor “Happy Planet” Roberston was mayor that it’s no wonder so many people believed it. A thriving and happily multicultural Pacific metropolis of bike lanes and balmy weather. Diversity and eco-density and backyard chickens, high-tech startups, and the ski slopes on the mountains just across Burrard Inlet.

Now, with Robertson on his way out, and his Vision Vancouver party a ruined brand, whoever comes out on top in the October civic elections will be left to deal with what’s become of the place. Vancouver is now a kind of free trade zone for gangland money launderers, absentee offshore real-estate speculators, Chinese princelings on the lam and globe-trotting tax frauds. Metro Vancouver is an international housing-affordability basket case and the epicentre of Canada’s fentanyl overdose crisis...

..... “We knew there was something strange going on, but, my God, we had no idea it was this big,” Eby said. British Columbia had become reduced to “a jurisdiction where the rules do not apply to white collar crime, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, where even if the rules do apply, enforcement is absent.”

Over the past 10 years, the B.C. Securities Commission had collected less than two per cent of more than a half a billion dollars in fines levied against a rogue’s gallery of fraudsters, swindlers and ripoff artists. Among the beneficiaries of the previous Liberal government’s opaque “Advantage B.C.” head-office tax shelter scheme: PacNet, a collection agency the U.S. Treasury Department had listed as a transnational criminal organization with a sordid track record in money laundering and mail fraud, and China Poly Group, a shady Chinese state-owned enterprise with a payroll of 76,000, intimate ties to the People’s Liberation Army, and a portfolio that ranges from real estate development to arms and explosives and art exhibits...

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-battle-to-clean-up-b-c/

[rofina]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The current issue of Macleans outlines how it is falling to David Eby to clean up the mess made of Vancouver and BC:

It was such a lovely picture that the City of Vancouver managed to paint of itself over the 10 years that Gregor “Happy Planet” Roberston was mayor that it’s no wonder so many people believed it. A thriving and happily multicultural Pacific metropolis of bike lanes and balmy weather. Diversity and eco-density and backyard chickens, high-tech startups, and the ski slopes on the mountains just across Burrard Inlet.

Now, with Robertson on his way out, and his Vision Vancouver party a ruined brand, whoever comes out on top in the October civic elections will be left to deal with what’s become of the place. Vancouver is now a kind of free trade zone for gangland money launderers, absentee offshore real-estate speculators, Chinese princelings on the lam and globe-trotting tax frauds. Metro Vancouver is an international housing-affordability basket case and the epicentre of Canada’s fentanyl overdose crisis...

..... “We knew there was something strange going on, but, my God, we had no idea it was this big,” Eby said. British Columbia had become reduced to “a jurisdiction where the rules do not apply to white collar crime, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, where even if the rules do apply, enforcement is absent.”

Over the past 10 years, the B.C. Securities Commission had collected less than two per cent of more than a half a billion dollars in fines levied against a rogue’s gallery of fraudsters, swindlers and ripoff artists. Among the beneficiaries of the previous Liberal government’s opaque “Advantage B.C.” head-office tax shelter scheme: PacNet, a collection agency the U.S. Treasury Department had listed as a transnational criminal organization with a sordid track record in money laundering and mail fraud, and China Poly Group, a shady Chinese state-owned enterprise with a payroll of 76,000, intimate ties to the People’s Liberation Army, and a portfolio that ranges from real estate development to arms and explosives and art exhibits...

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-battle-to-clean-up-b-c/

Appropriate the Liberals got Wilkinson for a new leader. At least he's already tied to shady Chinese deals - wouldn't want to upset status quo.

Even though it may not serve my purpose personally, BC Liberals will not get my vote for a long time.

[idunno]

^^ That's a great article. Really covers all the bases in terms of what has really been going on over the last decade in Vancouver's RE.

It's shocking how little of the info/data in that article was publicly known even one year ago. Just imagine if Christy was still our Premier!

[whatnext]

Is it any wonder realtors regard "penalties" for wrongdoing as a mere nuisance? $205k profit, with the $5 fine just a cost of doing business:

A Richmond, BC realtor who helped her daughter make a $205,000 profit flipping a house obtained while committing professional misconduct has been fined $5,000 and will face no licence suspension.

The Real Estate Council of BC found Angela Guo, also known as Xin Bo Guo, had failed to take reasonable steps to avoid a conflict of interest when she sold a Richmond property, for which she was the exclusive listing agent, to her daughter without disclosing to the client her relationship to the buyer[1].

While the list price for the property was $1,388,000, Guo sold the property on Shepherd Dr to her daughter for $1,285,000 in January 2016, which the daughter flipped in April 2017 for $1,490,000[2].

Guo, who is now with RE/MAX Crest Realty, was licensed with Metro Edge Realty at the time of the infraction...
https://thinkpol.ca/2018/02/15/richmond-...00-profit-misconduct-receives-5000-fine/

[rofina]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Is it any wonder realtors regard "penalties" for wrongdoing as a mere nuisance? $205k profit, with the $5 fine just a cost of doing business:

A Richmond, BC realtor who helped her daughter make a $205,000 profit flipping a house obtained while committing professional misconduct has been fined $5,000 and will face no licence suspension.

The Real Estate Council of BC found Angela Guo, also known as Xin Bo Guo, had failed to take reasonable steps to avoid a conflict of interest when she sold a Richmond property, for which she was the exclusive listing agent, to her daughter without disclosing to the client her relationship to the buyer[1].

While the list price for the property was $1,388,000, Guo sold the property on Shepherd Dr to her daughter for $1,285,000 in January 2016, which the daughter flipped in April 2017 for $1,490,000[2].

Guo, who is now with RE/MAX Crest Realty, was licensed with Metro Edge Realty at the time of the infraction...
https://thinkpol.ca/2018/02/15/richmond-...00-profit-misconduct-receives-5000-fine/

Right.

When its this egregious - the penalty should be designed to dissuade.

In fact, this isn't even a penalty, its CODB.

Ridiculous, make it a high percentage of total commission.

Say 60% - it has to be an amount high enough to give someone serious pause.

Imagine if this happened in equities market? Mom's getting locked up for insider trading.

[whatnext]

Wow, the slime never ends in BC's real estate market. This from today's G&M:

It was dirty money – stuffed in the trunk of their Mercedes and behind a seat in their Range Rover. The rest was squirrelled away in a safe and a night table, at a condo they were using.

Small bills – $660,970 in all – covered with traces of deadly fentanyl and other street drugs. Police seized the cash in the spring of 2016, when they arrested Ying Zhang, Zhi Guang Zhang and Wei Zhang, after putting them under surveillance and watching them conduct business in parking lots in and around Vancouver...

...A Globe and Mail investigation has discovered that the Zhangs and other local residents associated with drug-related crime are effectively parking their riches in Vancouver-area real estate, where it is rendered clean and secure, without actually owning any of the properties. They call themselves private lenders – issuing millions of dollars in registered mortgages and short-term loans...

Their target customers are wealthy Chinese newcomers or tourists – and their grown children – who've bought property in Canada and who want to use it as leverage to borrow large amounts of cash, as they might with a home-equity line of credit, for gambling or other extravagances. Some borrowers appear to use the loans to pay down other debts.

Typically, their wealth is in China – money that can't easily be wired to B.C., because the Chinese government forbids its citizens from taking more than US$50,000 per year abroad. Most of the homeowners already have at least one mortgage with a Canadian bank, and may have maxed out their legitimate borrowing power in this country.
Enter the private lenders, offering quick, easy money – by word of mouth – through social and business circles.

One of the Zhangs' customers was a real-estate developer, based in China, who has a gambling habit. Jia Gui Gao borrowed tens of millions of dollars – more than his B.C. properties were worth – from several private lenders. Then he simply walked away from $58-million worth of empty Vancouver-area mansions and vacant land he owned, leaving it all to his creditors.

When one of the properties sold for $8.7-million in a foreclosure last year, mortgage holders and suspected drug dealers Ying Zhang and Wei Zhang received court-approved payouts totalling $2.18-million.

That money constitutes another source of credit churning through the real-estate market, that financial regulators aren't monitoring.


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/inv...ey-laundering-and-drugs/article38004840/

[whatnext]

BC government commits to investigate money laundering and real estate after Globe & Mail's revelations yesterday:
https://globalnews.ca/news/4031720/money-laundering-bc-real-estate-david-eby/

[csbvan]

That is one of the craziest stories that I have read in a long time. Canada, and Vancouver in particular, is becoming an international embarrassment. The Guardian wrote a big piece on Canada being a hot-bed for international money laundering on Wednesday:

How Canada became an offshore destination for 'snow washing'

...How Canada stacks up against other countries – including known tax havens – was suggested in a 2013 study by American researchers. After sending out thousands of queries about setting up anonymous shell companies, researchers ranked Canada among the easiest of 60 countries to set up an untraceable company, along with Kenya and a few US states.

This opacity – described in a recent Transparency International report as the “getaway car of financial crime” – has become the perfect vehicle for “snow washing”: the use of Canada’s positive image to tout the country as an offshore destination where suspect transactions can be legitimised...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/f...-washing-investigation-private-companies

[Pinion]

Let me sell my place before clamping down plz.

[whatnext]

Interesting, you can scroll through all the properties linked to the one money laundering operation tracked by the Globe & Mail here:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/inv...undering-and-drugs/article38004840/#list

Anybody recognize any of them? Certainly a high proportion seem to be in Richmond. And this is just one investigation. How many more are out there?

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Interesting, you can scroll through all the properties linked to the one money laundering operation tracked by the Globe & Mail here:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/inv...undering-and-drugs/article38004840/#list

Anybody recognize any of them? Certainly a high proportion seem to be in Richmond. And this is just one investigation. How many more are out there?

Richmond and Vancouver. I'm surprised it didn't list more Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey locations, what with Skytrain and a lot of new towers going up.

Richmond - 19
Vancouver - 16
West Van - 4
Surrey - 2
Anmore - 1
Burnaby - 1
Coquitlam - 1
Port Moody - 1

[whatnext]

Pre-sale buyers getting hosed again, this time on Jago Development's Westbourne project in New West. They're being asked to cough up an extra 15% if they want to keep their contracts going. This should be illegal!

http://vancouversun.com/business/real-es...t-offers-pre-sale-buyers-unusual-options