Is Vancouver's Housing Bubble Finally Popping?

[WarrenC12]

I hate it when the "cost of living" in Vancouver includes the price of real estate. Owning a piece of property is not a requirement to live.

Wages drive rents, rents should drive RE pricing, but sometimes it gets out of whack.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Looks like basically every type in Vancouver, with townhouses being the brightest of the dark spots.

Vancouverpricedrop has a scary comparison out today:
http://vancouverpricedrop.wordpress....te-price-drop/

Another scary comparison to the U.S. I guess this price correction is going to set us into a deep recession like the U.S. Although here in Canada we do things backwards, first housing prices fall, then we go into recession.

[phesto]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Looks like basically every type in Vancouver, with townhouses being the brightest of the dark spots.

Vancouverpricedrop has a scary comparison out today:
http://vancouverpricedrop.wordpress....te-price-drop/

It would be nice if he could have compared the overall Vancouver market, instead he chose to compare only Westside Vancouver detached, which everyone knows was the most absurdly inflated submarket in all of Vancouver (and the stats prove this).

I'm as much of a bull on the housing market as anyone, but it irks me when people use this kind of flawed analysis to make their point stronger. If he wanted to compare against much larger metro regions, then use Metro Vancouver! The comparison is still probably very compelling...but I digress, Vancouverpricedrop isn't exactly the best analytical source out there.

[s211]

Gotta love the assessment system.

My condo's assessed at $66K (7-8%) higher than it's asking/listing price at the effective date, and we bought it half a month later for $125K (13-15%) less than assessed value.

If this isn't going to be a short conversation with the assessor...

[leftside]

My Gastown apartment assessed value was up 4%.

[jlousa]

My assessed value also in Gastown was flat this year after a huge jump up last year.
I don't think the change in prices should come as a surprise to those that have been watching the market closely w/o biased eyes. I predict a similar 2013 before a flat market out to 2016/2017. We will see rents start to increase in the later part of 2014. No real money to be made by selling out and rebuying nor much savings by trying to time it, take your time and buy the right property when the time is right for you. Now that most investors are not buying there is less pressure on personal buyers.