Real Estate

Vancouver housing bubble?

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  • Mar 26th, 2024 5:10 pm
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Deal Addict
Feb 14, 2003
1991 posts
67 upvotes
GTA
BTW, do you mind telling us where your family came from? HK in 1980s?
zilber wrote: Although I can't say the Chinese are the ones who fuel this bubble, but when our family move to Canada my parent flip their house back home and can buy 2 in here.
Deal Addict
Feb 14, 2003
1991 posts
67 upvotes
GTA
further to my previous post.

Beijing's average salary in 2011 is 56,061 Yuan per year, which is about $8000.

Beijing's average slary is less than half of minimum wager who works full time in Ontario ($10.25 per hour).

Beijing's salary is (much) higher than other chinese cities. And Chinese cities salary is much higher than the countrysides.

http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2012 ... -base.html
zilber wrote: Chinese borrow against their their properties back home? They just need to flip 1 of their property back home and can buy 2 single detach in Canada.
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2011
1731 posts
227 upvotes
RMB
elmst200 wrote: BTW, do you mind telling us where your family came from? HK in 1980?
Does it really matter where I came from? I don't see the need to categorize mainland, HK and Taiwan.
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Jan 2, 2012
4596 posts
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Toronto
elmst200 wrote: further to my previous post.

Beijing's average salary....
I'm pretty sure when people talk about foreign investors from China... they are referring to Hong Kong. Would be good to post the same stats/housing prices from there.
Newbie
User avatar
Oct 5, 2008
29 posts
5 upvotes
Richmond
I cannot raise kids with current job options (Job market has changed dramatically and not in positive direction less jobs here in Canada!)
I cannot buy enough square footage with current salary range (150K for 2 working with 2 kids)
I assume all pay taxes and earn legally, not by drug or human trade, with this assumption who is able to buy at the present level and see that as sound investment (rent to buy ratio)?
I see more senior people around me who used to see the RE as a bullet proof retirement account who infected their siblings with that way of thinking!
Cost of leaving went up
Social and other Benefits deteriorated.
What other "POSITIVE" factors do you have that will support RE prices to go UP?

I only think that two major factors FEAR and GREED will drive current RE market. Both factors are predictable the only challenge is to find the catalyst......

PS: Sorry for unconventional writing due to ESL
Deal Fanatic
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Apr 20, 2011
5310 posts
484 upvotes
Vancouver
V954641 looks quite detached and affordable. furthermore, a family earning $68,000 a year can easily afford to buy unless they're aiming for something inane like a high ratio mortgage.
Deal Fanatic
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Apr 20, 2011
5310 posts
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Vancouver
V954641 is a pretty average amount for an average income, i see no problem with it.
Deal Fanatic
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Apr 20, 2011
5310 posts
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Vancouver
$500,000 is a decent price for a detached house
Deal Addict
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Jun 20, 2010
2219 posts
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Anyone else getting tired of popbottle derailing the thread and posting junk info? We're trying to have an adult conversation here popbottle, come back when you've graduated from school, get a job and understand how the world works a little better. This is why kids should be working in the mines in the summer, or crated like dogs in a storage facility until the new semester begins, they have too much time to troll internet forums.
Deal Addict
Jul 9, 2004
1572 posts
173 upvotes
Delta
popbottle wrote: $500,000 is a decent price for a detached house
half a mil for that. lol. this RE market is ridiculous.
Deal Expert
Jan 27, 2006
21844 posts
15620 upvotes
Vancouver, BC
adamtheman wrote: Sorry Craftsman but I disagree. The last bubble was entirely fueled by chinese speculation. I grew up in Vancouver and I clearly remember the chinese invasion into Richmond in 1994. If you will look at the first page of this thread, it clearly shows the bubble went from around 1988 to 1996. And the internet is a wonderful thing. Just a few quick searches turned up the following article, from Canadian Business Magazine in June 1, 1994:

Red-hot risk-takers of Richmond, BC. (Asian entrepreneurs)(



The article requires a subscription which I don't have, but you can imagine where it's headed. Look at those words. "Tidal wave" "aggressive" "boomtown". People forget the 1994 "asian invasion" in Richmond BC, which pumped up real estate. It was even worse than now. So to suggest that historical booms had no correlation to the Chinese economy is simply not true.
Don't get me wrong Adamtheman. I'm not debating the cause of the last bubble. I'm debating how someone can say that something is historic when the number of data points are so low or that other points were completely ignored. For something to be a historic correlation, multiple points over a long period of time needs to correlate. Just saying that it's a historic correlation doesn't make it so.
Deal Expert
Jan 27, 2006
21844 posts
15620 upvotes
Vancouver, BC
rob444 wrote: Something doesnt always need to have happened in the past... for it to happen now. We live in an era today that is non-comparable to previous eras in many segments. New precedents can be started at any time to reflect the realities of today.
I'm not debating that something new can happen BUT if you want to call it an historic correlation, then it needs to have an element of time. Otherwise you can call it a freak occurrence or the occasional alignment or even future trending.
Deal Expert
Jan 27, 2006
21844 posts
15620 upvotes
Vancouver, BC
danibelo wrote: It seems to be a consensus on the forum that during last ~decade the investment category immigrants (plus non-residents) from China bought on the order of magnitude of 10k RE units in GVR (a few per cent of the total GVR RE units). You define it as one data point. Fine, it is your right. However, it does not prove that it had only a minor effect on the Vancouver RE bubble. Similarly, if a brick falls from a roof on your head and kills you (=just ONE data point over a relatively short period of time), absence of the historic correlation would not allow to conclude that the brick caused your death (it is possible that you had a heart attack a millisecond before falling of the brick).
Seriously speaking, this 'one data point' suggests that only the last Vancouver RE bubble had a non-minor contribution of the Hot Asian Money (which coincides with a very fast growth in China during last 2 decades).
Absence of the corellation over a wider time range suggests that the previous Vancouver RE bubbles had other reasons.[/quote]

The consensus in the forum is not backed by any hard statistics. No-one that I know of keeps statistics of the buyer's ethnic origin or if they recently immigrated (or where they immigrated from) or where the money came from. The numbers and the statements are based on so called "experts" who create links between unrelated data sets based on their assumptions. Those links and assumptions may or may not be valid in the grand scheme of things since no one keeps that data to verify the accuracy of those assumptions.
danibelo wrote: Absence of the corellation over a wider time range suggests that the previous Vancouver RE bubbles had other reasons.
Exactly. There is no historic correlation as the author of the original article claimed.
Newbie
Dec 11, 2008
68 posts
8 upvotes
Interesting Victoria data I came across in the 2012 Victoria Homes guide published by the Victoria Real Estate Board.

from 2009 - 2011 a drop of ~25% raw sales while the average price has gone up.

2011 had the lowest total $ volume of sales since 2004.

Regardless of what you think about the market those are some disconcerting stats.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/6GisY.jpg[/IMG]
Deal Addict
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Nov 3, 2002
1321 posts
68 upvotes
Ottawa
higher prices on low volume..not a good sign for any market.
Deal Addict
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Jan 2, 2012
4596 posts
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Toronto
Fox2k wrote: higher prices on low volume..not a good sign for any market.
I wouldnt say that. Lots of markets thrive on low volume/high prices... like antique cars, precious artwork, antiques and collectables etc etc.

What is more concerning is that housing is slowly turning into a commodity that is no longer available to everyone... but will soon only be available to the rich as the gap from home price to income continues to widen. I can see detached houses turning into collector items traded by the wealthy only, while condos become the new norm for families who want to live in a big city. No more backyard and picket fence.
Deal Addict
Nov 27, 2007
3678 posts
820 upvotes
CanadaEQ wrote: Interesting Victoria data I came across in the 2012 Victoria Homes guide published by the Victoria Real Estate Board.

from 2009 - 2011 a drop of ~25% raw sales while the average price has gone up.

2011 had the lowest total $ volume of sales since 2004.

Regardless of what you think about the market those are some disconcerting stats.

[IMG]
you have to wait for 2012 year end average price to look at the relationship of lower sales and average price. in 2011 u have crazy high prices and softening from there will take a while even at lower sales volume.
Deal Addict
May 30, 2012
4290 posts
2082 upvotes
BC
There might be a bubble, but I don't see it bursting any time soon... So I'd still buy if I need a place to live in Vancouver. Holding back and hoping to grab a nice piece once the market crashes will not be wise.
Deal Addict
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Jan 2, 2012
4596 posts
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Toronto
adamtheman wrote: but you must stop trying to come up with reasons why Toronto won't crash.
Sure... and i assume you'll have no problem stopping the posts about why there will be a crash :razz:
Every week I see you lowering your expectations a little bit. A couple of months ago you were convinced there was no bubble and Toronto was different than Vancouver... now, I hear you talking about how Toronto may correct, but it will be a very minor correction because of ___________ fill in the blank.
Not true at all. From my first ever post on RFD on the subject, i've fully expected a market correction sometime. And from day 1 i've fully expected the brunt of this correction to go against condos.

Even detached homes are not immune... never said they were. RE market goes up and down and has its dips and valleys like any other market.

What i've never agreed with is it will be a US style crash. And i probably wont believe this until if/when it actually happens.

And i think the detached home will still be the most desireable house for any family in the future as well as today. Its just they may become completely unaffordable for the average family as city populations increases and detached home supply stays the same or decreases to build more highrises. Like any market, it still comes down to supply and demand in the end.
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2011
1731 posts
227 upvotes
RMB
adamtheman wrote: ;)

You and I grew up in detached houses with backyards, which is what we crave. However, this new generation growing up now will be the first "condo generation", and much like how Hong Kong had adapted to smaller condos, I am thinking that maybe this new generation won't want these old detached maintenance hungry homes anymore, and will actually prefer their nice little safe boxes in the sky.
Yeah but the problem is one is fee-less and the other one is land-less. Chinese tradition love to pass down their properties to their kids, especially a single detach home.

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