Your outlook on current Vancouver Real Estate Prices?

[stephen_c]

A lot of negative financial news lately, much of it is a result of the U.S subprime mess.

With that in mind, what is your outlook on current Vancouver Real Estate Prices?

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The Canadian Press: Merrill challenges view that Canada is immune to U.S. style housing downturn

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Canada may face housing bust: Shiller

Canada risks becoming more entangled in housing crisis, says Yale economist

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[wishbone]

FNK is hardly the intellectual hive mind you give it credit for.

[SEAN!]

98% of the general population is financially illiterate, id suspect that figure to be much higher on this board.


You really have to follow this stuff as a career to have a clue.

Imma do a McCain here and say the fundamentals are still quite strong, but your definitely going to see a moderation in prices. Long term, prices are likely to continue to increase but you can't have price growth that is a multiple of GDP and population growth forever barring a financial 'innovation' like subprime lending which increases the rate of homeownership. fortunately canadian lenders didn't really get into that so that downside risk really isn't present.

whats most interesting is the demographic shift thats occurring. you're liekly to see the value of vacation and resort properties increase and a lower demand for single family homes as the baby boomers retire.

ML is also a company that is dead right now, so id challenge their judgement/risk management processes

[rawb]

we've ridden out the bubble and prices should fall 10-20%
the us downturn was based upon the idea of subprime lending, which blew up in the mortgage firm's faces

in canada there is no subprime lending, so i would say the downturn is for a couple of factors, namely the fact the north american economy is tanking and fuel and gas prices.

depending on where you live you will feel the effect more or less, i'd hate to have bought out in the suburbs if i was looking for housing resale value before the next bubble.

[Goodfellow]

Originally Posted by rawb

we've ridden out the bubble and prices should fall 10-20%
the us downturn was based upon the idea of subprime lending, which blew up in the mortgage firm's faces

in canada there is no subprime lending, so i would say the downturn is for a couple of factors, namely the fact the north american economy is tanking and fuel and gas prices.

depending on where you live you will feel the effect more or less, i'd hate to have bought out in the suburbs if i was looking for housing resale value before the next bubble.

you're right the market will top out within the next year and prices will start to fall. i have lots of family in real estate and that's what they say anyway.

but why would you say it sucks that we don't have subprime lending? subprime lending is essentially to blame for the US housing market crashing imo.

[lildonkey]

^ he didn't say it sucks that there is no subprime lending... he was saying that since that can't be blamed for the downturn in the market here, is the economy etc...

when you give a person making 28k a year a 500,000 dollar house... what do you really expect to happen?

[Courtney]

i think people should be more focused on loving and less focused on buying
fuck it

[cubed]

courts will now only be referred to as Moonbeam.

that is all.

[Courtney]

^actually it's coral jade reef :)

[cubed]

I actually knew a Moonbeam and a Star Shadow growing up.

That was a weird family.

[Courtney]

no you were the weird one

[Bevvy Swift]

^^yea what was it like being a kid named jim?

[cubed]

It's tough being a James.

:(

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by Courtney

i think people should be more focused on loving and less focused on buying
fuck it

i love things i buy

[Bevvy Swift]

Originally Posted by cubed

It's tough being a James.

:(

so you were a james eh? at what point does a james become a jim?
or a robert a bob? hmm...

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by cubed

It's tough being a James.

:(

It's hard out here for a Jim.

[tiedye]

Fuck North American real estate. My eyes are looking south.

[rawb]

Originally Posted by Bevvy Swift

so you were a james eh? at what point does a james become a jim?
or a robert a bob? hmm...

AS A ROBERT JAMES THERE ISNT A QUESTION I AM MORE QUALIFIED TO ANSWER

[cubed]

James, Jim, Jamie, Jimmy, it's all the same; just different circles.

[Bevvy Swift]

^ookay i get it..i think. so dyou prefer jim or james? or jimmy? or jimbo?

^^and hey mr qualified you failed to actually answer the question lol

[cubed]

In school and college I went by james.

Close friends outside of that have always been jim.

Ball team was always jimbo.

Family has been jim, jimmy, or jamie, depending on who's around.

[ppcock]

I have a large chunk saved for a down payment (yeah... me saving! i know!)
but I'm so waiting for a crash to buy a place and I've been saying it since the olympic bid, the market is going to crash hard after the olympics.

But at this rate, it looks like before the olympics!

[diva]

The housing boom is over. I feel bad for people who invested in the Infinity Towers (surrey) and Woodwards projects. So many people are trying to offload their assignments right now. I'm hoping to have 40k saved up to buy a place in 2011 if i'm still living in Vancouver.

I like this graph. It shows how cyclical real estate booms are. It will be interesting to see how things work out this time around.

http://cuer.sauder.ubc.ca/cma/data/H...-vancouver.pdf

This is my favourite local real estate blog. Not so much for the articles, but the discussions that ensue in the comments section are usually really stimulating.

Vancouver Condo Info
links to other local and international housing bubble/crash blogs: links | Vancouver Condo Info

This site is good too.
http://www.greaterfool.ca/

some links for rent vs buy calculators on this financial blog (the NY Times one is especially good)
Buy vs. Rent Calculators (for a Home) | Investing Intelligently

[rawb]

a place in woodwards is still worth more than the initial offering. why would you feel sorry for them?

[diva]

It's worth more now, but completion is probably closer to the end of 2009. A lot of people think the market peaked about six months ago. People who are planning on flipping for huge profits are going to be in trouble. And even if they break even or make a bit of profit, the money they had tied up in the project could have been used elsewhere. And anyone who thinks most of the people who bought into the project have bought with the intention of actually living there is nuts. Who would pay those prices ($800-$1000/sq.ft) to live near the DTES when they could live in much nicer neighbourhoods for the same price or less? Especially since there are about six to ten downtown projects set for completion around the same time.

Speculators bought on the belief that the city and developers would make good on their promise of gentrifying the area. That hasn't happened yet, and it's not going to happen before 2009. People were saying the same thing about the area when Tinseltown was being developed ten years ago.

"woodwards is to downtown, what whalley is to surrey"--some blogger

Who knows, though. Maybe people will engage in bidding wars to live there and all the investors will make out like bandits. Or maybe everyone who bought those pre-sale assignments really intend to live there. I was under the impression that if you wanted to make smart decisions with real estate, you were supposed to buy the shittiest place in the best neighbourhood (with the money you had); not the nicest place in the shittiest neighbourhood.