Thought GTA housing prices where high .. this is NUTS

GunZ McGraw said:
How does a working family ever get into the market in Vancouver? Wow! Good for the seller mind you.

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion...oid+topic/11435155/story.html?__lsa=4213-0d37
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A working family does NOT get into that market. I've been following it closely and there's reports that the money is coming in from overseas where the clients are from China, or other countries and are bringing their cash here to hide it from the Chinese govt. Not all instances mind you, but there is plenty of evidence to that effect going on. I don't think the TO market is that bad for it, but it'll get there as Vancouver just becomes ridiculous.

I've been looking recently and frankly it's scary, but I'm sticking to a budget and that's that. No point blowing my brains out just to have a house.
 
Vancouver is closer to Hong Kong, but there's also overseas money going into the Toronto market.

I've heard of grandparents buying their grandkids a house as a wedding present.
 
Baggsy said:
Vancouver is closer to Hong Kong, but there's also overseas money going into the Toronto market.

I've heard of grandparents buying their grandkids a house as a wedding present.
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My previous agent buys houses for his nieces and nephews to live in...cash...I'm sure they live in it rent free and he just flips it a year or two later to avoid capital gains tax.

As my recent experience has shown...this market is crazy. So long as people will continue paying these prices, then the price will just continue to go up.
 
mimico_polak said:
So long as people will continue paying these prices, then the price will just continue to go up.
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That pretty much sums it up. Cash or mortgage. Easy to carry over inflated price via low interest. If it ever jumps like it did in the early 80's people will walk away. I would imagine a rate going from 3 points to 5 or 6 would really eat up disposable income if one was carrying 200,000 plus?
 
GunZ McGraw said:
That pretty much sums it up. Cash or mortgage. Easy to carry over inflated price via low interest. If it ever jumps like it did in the early 80's people will walk away. I would imagine a rate going from 3 points to 5 or 6 would really eat up disposable income if one was carrying 200,000 plus?
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I read an article somewhere that MANY people are 1% rate hike away from bankruptcy just because they wouldn't be able to handle the payments.

I'm not sure where you get the 200k as the baseline, but with house pricing in the GTA...it's more like 500k mortgage as a minimum (assuming a 10% down).
 
People are flipping houses.
There's an agent or probably more now, who were buying up small bungalow's off of old people,
and their estates near us, and then putting up monster houses.

The price jump seemed ridiculous at the time, but then they started selling them.
Our market value has gone up, just by being nearby.

We kept our house in Toronto, because we were afraid if we needed to move back,
that we wouldn't be able to get back into the market.

The good news, is that its mortgage is paid off.
 
Seem like a good bottom end stating point? Guess I'm a little out of touch. Just did a search for my neck of the woods and the average price here is now 433,000 with the biggest bump. Damn ..and I though I overpaid 15 years ago....


housing-stats-hamilton-august-2015.png
 
Hamilton had the biggest gain thank you, thank you very much.
 
It may seem crazy, but prices here are competitive compared to other countries. Just take a look at LA, London, Paris, or Rome. Prime real estate carries a premium. Vancouver is a nice place to live and real estate in Vancouver proper is in high demand internationally.
It's all relative. If you want to buy, you curse these rich foreigners for driving up prices. But if you're selling, you're happy that some FOB is going to pay you big bucks.
 
TO Bandit said:
It may seem crazy, but prices here are competitive compared to other countries. Just take a look at LA, London, Paris, or Rome. Prime real estate carries a premium. Vancouver is a nice place to live and real estate in Vancouver proper is in high demand internationally.
It's all relative. If you want to buy, you curse these rich foreigners for driving up prices. But if you're selling, you're happy that some FOB is going to pay you big bucks.
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Exactly. Canadian house pricing is a steal in comparison to other areas. My buddy has a tiny 1 bedroom condo in Shanghai....said its worth about $1M right now. Doesn't want to give up his citizenship so stays as a PR here so he keeps his property there....and has 3 residences here as well...

wish shy I had that type of $ but I'm just a regular schmo...
 
Vancouver isn't in the same league as London or Paris though.....what's happening is a widespread misuse of tax laws by offshore investors that prevents the local population from ever being able to even step on the bottom rung of the house market. Latest I read was that you have Chinese businessmen buying 2-4 million $ homes, gifting them to wives or children then declaring income of $19k (recent story in Globe and Mail) to the tax authorities to escape any other taxes. Basically they are ignoring CRA letters to provide any more income details and generally flipping the bird at everyone. End result...locals pay the taxes for Vancouver...rich offshore business men hide their wealth and contribute next to nothing to the city except from preventing the same locals paying that are paying for infrastructure from getting a fair chance at getting on a property ladder. Apparently a lot of these mansions are laying uninhabited in Vancouver too plus lots of reports of students living in multi million dollar homes again declaring little to no income.

Here's what should happen....turn a blind eye to squatters for a while, that should flush the owners of uninhabited mansions out into the open...when they do come out have a really in depth look at their finances and if they can't be proven to a satisfactory degree then confiscate the property to pay for back taxes if the owner is a non-resident. If the owners and neighbours don't complain about the squatters then you solve a small housing issue.

Only semi serious...but I would confiscate properties though.
 
Doesn't New Zealand have laws to prevent this from happening? It's outrages. Everything's messed up, we have to bring in temp. labour to harvest the food we eat and then we can't afford a place to live. Canada's really taking up thee arsehole but best country to live.
 
10 years ago a friend bought a 4 bdrm townhouse in Van. $800,000. When I asked how the heck they afford it she indicated that her daughter may inherit the mortgage! I think she was joking....

Two story home in Richmond Hill is close to a million. Just reading a article on it. (cbc.ca)
 
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TO Bandit said:
It may seem crazy, but prices here are competitive compared to other countries. Just take a look at LA, London, Paris, or Rome. Prime real estate carries a premium. Vancouver is a nice place to live and real estate in Vancouver proper is in high demand internationally.
It's all relative. If you want to buy, you curse these rich foreigners for driving up prices. But if you're selling, you're happy that some FOB is going to pay you big bucks.
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I just returned from some time in London, UK. I was flabbergasted to see condo's exchanging hands at $60M - $100M. We are in a new norm... me thinks the ones who are being left behind are the ones complaining/speculating about a complete collapse.

Some perspective on my above thoughts:
- Toronto is a relatively safe city with no real terror threat on the horizon in a broader sense (in comparison to Paris, London, NYC).
- The city is becoming more and more friendly to tourists and outsiders. The pain we feel about infrastructure development (Gardiner, LRT etc.) is welcomed by someone who owns an investment property and visits just a few times a year.
- The Harbour Front will be excellent when complete in a few years and will change the shape of the city.

I think we will continue to see a rise in surrounding neighbourhoods as people become 1) priced out of the market and 2) the value of the current average homes in the city become high enough to entice people take their profits and get away from the congestion.. that's usually how it goes.
 
mimico_polak said:
Exactly. Canadian house pricing is a steal in comparison to other areas. My buddy has a tiny 1 bedroom condo in Shanghai....said its worth about $1M right now. Doesn't want to give up his citizenship so stays as a PR here so he keeps his property there....and has 3 residences here as well...

wish shy I had that type of $ but I'm just a regular schmo...
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Agreed. The appeal of China as a safe haven is also because they do not have extradition treaties with most European and North American Countries.

Shanghai/Hong Kong/Tokyo have always been historically high. People consider 500 sf. to be a huge living space. It's also worth noting that Hong Kong / Seoul / Shanghai have a HUGE number of expatriates from the UK and US working in the Financial sectors, even more so than ever before... Lots of Hedge Fund Co's and Money Management Co's set up branches to manage the Chinese money abroad. The well paid employees are keeping the local economies rolling...

A family member is looking to buy a house in San Fran. $1 million dollars to spend and they are being beat out on bidding wars for shitbox homes... scary times indeed.
 
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Dresden said:
Some perspective on my above thoughts:
- Toronto is a relatively safe city with no real terror threat on the horizon in a broader sense (in comparison to Paris, London, NYC).
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A friend living in NYC says the crime rate is down because the punks can't afford to live there anymore. Due to rent control he's paying about $800 a month in rent for an apartment that should fetch $20,000 a month. Insane.

The price to buy a person out of that type of situation would typically be close to a million bucks. The entire real estate world is loco.
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