Real Estate

Vancouver housing bubble?

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Western Canada: A heartbreaking discovery in an empty Vancouver mansion exposes the city’s stark inequality
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/ ... r-mansion/
Wendy Cox and James Keller Vancouver and calgary Published 9 hours ago

Good morning. Wendy Cox here this morning in Vancouver.

Chelsea Poorman’s remains were found 592 days and a world away from the Granville Strip nightlife area where she was last seen.

The Saskatchewan Indigenous woman had moved to Vancouver in 2020 and had been living in Burnaby with her boyfriend when she texted her sister in the early hours of Sept. 7 that year to say that she had met a “new bae.” Her family reported her missing the next day and spent months canvassing the city and putting up “missing posters.”

Ms. Poorman’s remains were discovered last month under a blanket in the backyard of a decaying mansion in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood, a home neighbours say hasn’t been lived in regularly for five years. They were found because contractors had begun work to have the nine-bedroom house expanded to make it more suitable living quarters for the wealthy, absent off-shore owner.

As Mike Hager writes today, the news that a vacant mansion had become a crime scene in an Indigenous woman’s death, even as its offshore owners pondered making their investment more lavish still, has highlighted the divide between haves and have-nots in a city where many locals can no longer afford to rent homes, let alone buy them.

It has also touched off a torrent of criticism of the police investigation, prompting the force to walk back its assertion that the death was not suspicious.

Ms. Poorman’s relatives, who are members of the Kawacatoose First Nation, have been critical of police. So have Indigenous leaders from British Columbia and Saskatchewan, the Poormans’ home province.

Police investigators met with Sheila Poorman, Chelsea’s mother, and her two other daughters on May 9 to answer questions and apologize for initially telling the public Ms. Poorman’s death was not suspicious. Sheila told Mike the investigators could not explain why part of her daughter’s skull and some fingers are still missing. And police did not tell the family whether a toxicology report had been conducted. Instead, they said the coroner could not determine a cause of death, added Sheila, who works at a Vancouver homeless shelter.

“I want to try and get it reinvestigated, because it seems like there’s something missing,” she said.

Constable Tania Visintin, a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, said the force should have clarified to the family and the public that “not suspicious” meant only that investigators had not found enough evidence of foul play.

“There’s no evidence to believe that her death was the result of a crime,” Constable Visintin said.

Victor Chow, the developer in charge of the property’s renovation, said squatters began living in the home at least two years ago. He had them kicked out when he was hired to gut and rebuild it in 2020. Afterward, the front gates and front door of the home were padlocked, and its large ground-floor windows boarded up from the inside with plywood.

In 2021, a city inspector visited the backyard as part of the process to get a permit for the massive renovation. The owners, a couple who bought the property for $7.3-million in 2014 and now live in China, had proposed adding some 3,000 square feet of new space to the home, and the city needed to verify some aspects of the application. The city inspector noticed nothing amiss.

It wasn’t until a rubbish-removal company went into the backyard last month to clear piles of garbage and overgrown vegetation as the renovation work finally began that the remains of the 24-year-old Cree woman were found.

From the time Ms. Poorman died to the day her body was found there, the home’s assessed value increased by nearly half a million dollars, to $7.1-million.

Mr. Chow said the owner had previously lived in Vancouver, but moved back to China several months before the pandemic.

“They wanted to live in the Shaughnessy area, but then the house was too old, or whatever, and – according to their standard of living – it was substandard,” Mr. Chow told The Globe.

Like everyone else, Mr. Chow said, the owners want to find out how Ms. Poorman died. Mr. Chow, who has been building homes for four decades, said he can’t help but feel sorry that the work didn’t begin sooner so she was found earlier.

“Nobody wants that thing to happen,” he said.

Standing outside the property for the first time earlier this week after flying in from Saskatoon, Ms. Poorman’s stepfather, Mike Kiernan, was as stunned by the public outpouring of grief for his stepdaughter as he was by the wealth the vacant home represents.

“This guy is not even in the country?” said Mr. Kiernan, who had campaigned for months to find Ms. Poorman. “You could put a lot of people in a good shelter here while he’s gone.”

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
lol this is so stupid, I don't even know what to say. EVERYTHING can be linked to Chinese homeowners 🤪. That idiot just ignored the part where the house was being redeveloped. I bet David Eby, Ian Young and Andy Yan sprained their necks from nodding too hard when reading this article.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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I remember the same kind of article 5 years ago but price was 1M instead of 1.5M. In the next 5 years it will be 2M for the lot.

There is still money to be made. 1.5 plus 800K to build a new one. Sell it for 3M after. Profit after taxes and fees 500K.
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Piklishi wrote: I remember the same kind of article 5 years ago but price was 1M instead of 1.5M. In the next 5 years it will be 2M for the lot.

There is still money to be made. 1.5 plus 800K to build a new one. Sell it for 3M after. Profit after taxes and fees 500K.
I think the city's full. Sooner or later someone's going to get killed over something trivial like street parking.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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Jan 25, 2021
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1515 Renfrew sold for 2.95M, 34 x 120.

Is it just me or does this house look like 10 years old when in reality it was built in 2019. Horrible layout inside too. Tiny kitchen, ugly yard, ugly neighbouring house.

Sold for 2.045M in Oct 2020 so seller made quite a nice profit.
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Looksmooth wrote: 1515 Renfrew sold for 2.95M, 34 x 120.

Is it just me or does this house look like 10 years old when in reality it was built in 2019. Horrible layout inside too. Tiny kitchen, ugly yard, ugly neighbouring house.

Sold for 2.045M in Oct 2020 so seller made quite a nice profit.
Exactly lol! I was trying not to judge but since you started it, house looks like shit in and out

Might be a Chinese builder though.
Last edited by zakarydoks on May 16th, 2022 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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zakarydoks wrote: I think they got a pretty good price for standard lot and being right on Renfrew. Walking distance to BOTH PNE and T&T though.
https://www.zealty.ca/mls-R2674575/1515 ... couver-BC/
Actually….do you think the buyer is seeing something that we don’t? A winning Vancouver49 ticket in disguise? Thinking Face

It’s on a busy street and close to shopping, so the rezoning potential is there Smiling Face With Open Mouth And Smiling Eyes. Although personally I’d rather hold a Cambie area teardown for a little more $$…
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Angel Girl wrote: Actually….do you think the buyer is seeing something that we don’t? A winning Vancouver49 ticket in disguise? Thinking Face

It’s on a busy street and close to shopping, so the rezoning potential is there Smiling Face With Open Mouth And Smiling Eyes. Although personally I’d rather hold a Cambie area teardown for a little more $$…
There's potential for sure and I think that was priced in somewhat already. $3M for that house is high, like you said, west side seems like a better play.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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Could it be because of a good rental stream of $65k per year? That could help the mortgage by quite a bit, at least when mortgage rates were lower.
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mudd_stuffin wrote: Could it be because of a good rental stream of $65k per year? That could help the mortgage by quite a bit, at least when mortgage rates were lower.
Mortgage helpers is part of it. But I looked at similar houses on inside streets in the area and they sold for around $2.6M. Back in the old days, before the rezone frenzy, there's no way a house on Renfrew would sell for more than a similar house on an inside street. I think there is 300-500K lotto ticket premium paid on the Renfrew house.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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Looksmooth wrote: 1515 Renfrew sold for 2.95M, 34 x 120.

Is it just me or does this house look like 10 years old when in reality it was built in 2019. Horrible layout inside too. Tiny kitchen, ugly yard, ugly neighbouring house.

Sold for 2.045M in Oct 2020 so seller made quite a nice profit.
It's in Renfrew. If builders made it look better, it would be out of budget for the target buyers. The buyers who can afford a nicer house wouldn't be shopping in Renfrew.
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Spinner wrote: It's in Renfrew. If builders made it look better, it would be out of budget for the target buyers. The buyers who can afford a nicer house wouldn't be shopping in Renfrew.
Other $3M Renfrew houses look more modern though. I think the material is pretty standard for the east side, it just looks really dated. Like an old Chinese person picked the design and that's fine if that's what they like.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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datoprookie wrote: Vancouver real estate downturn has already started

https://biv.com/article/2022/05/vancouv ... tarted?amp
I wonder would mass immigration soften the blow in areas like Vancouver and Richmond Thinking Face. I think a 20% correction is possible but I'm hoping for a bit more lol.
Canada sees all-time record for immigration, blowing away historic flows
British Columbia was the destination of 17% of immigrants to Canada in 2021, with the province recording a total of 69,326 — entailing 10,280 in the first quarter, 12,717 in the second quarter, 23,048 in the third quarter, and 23,281 in the fourth quarter.

This was both an all-time quarterly and annual record for BC, exceeding previous quarterly high for BC set in 2019 when 15,900 immigrants were recorded in the third quarter. Prior to 2019, the previous quarterly and annual immigration records to BC were set in the early-to-mid 1990s from the spike in immigration from Hong Kong in reaction to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and in advance of Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China.
If you buy vgro for a thousand years Vancouver homes will still be out of reach.
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zakarydoks wrote: Other $3M Renfrew houses look more modern though. I think the material is pretty standard for the east side, it just looks really dated. Like an old Chinese person picked the design and that's fine if that's what they like.
I can totally imagine my parents saying this to the builder if they owned that land, in their ESL words. “I want cheapest, cheapest price. Your standard price, but cheaper. I want maximum rental units. I don’t care if ugly, it’s for rent anyway and it’s in a bad area. I just sell for little cheaper and people will still buy.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the previous owner had similar intentions, and lucked out with 2.9M! 🤪
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https://openhousing.ca/2022/05/17/vanco ... ght-price/

A townhouse in Vancouver’s rapidly changing Oakridge neighbourhood has sold for 38% below what the seller paid for it in 2015.

The seller bought 6022 Oak Street in July 2015 for $1,346,800.

The two-bedroom four-bathroom townhouse was put on the market in January of this year for $1,828,800.

The 1783-square-foot unit finally sold last week for just $840,000 in a court-ordered foreclosure sale by Capital Direct Lending Corp1.

The 2022 assessed value of the townhouse is $1,698,000, according to BC Assessment2.


I got a wicked deal. I'm listing it back for 1.5M

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