Posted by: Endur-Bro
BC is only a step above Mexico in squashing money laundering. Here in BC one needs to walk a hockey bag full of cash into a casino. In Mexico HSBC would build teller windows to fit cartel money boxes.
my now retired sister was in the legal dept at HSBC, she was telling me about the money coming in from china 10-15 yrs ago, the hawala banking, she could pull up a report showing all this stuff pretty easily ... the banks know everything
Posted by: XXX_er
Posted by: Endur-Bro
BC is only a step above Mexico in squashing money laundering. Here in BC one needs to walk a hockey bag full of cash into a casino. In Mexico HSBC would build teller windows to fit cartel money boxes.
my now retired sister was in the legal dept at HSBC, she was telling me about the money coming in from china 10-15 yrs ago, the hawala banking, she could pull up a report showing all this stuff pretty easily ... the banks know everything
The fox watching the henhouse. No different that the BC government oversight of casinos. Those small businesses in construction and catering to the tar sands are also ideal laundering opportunities.
The money laundering issue is important, but there is a lot more going on with Canadian real estate than that.
2 bed strata rancher in Langley sells for $500K over asking
Freedom of contract. We sell them guns that kill them; they sell us drugs that kill us.
So when is Pedro going to get his comeuppance? I feel like around 2000 Vancouver's R/E market went public. There seems to be cities that are on the open market for investment just like stocks and once they go public there is no going back because the owners of these investment properties changed the entire market by their presence. As long as there are wealthy people looking at Vancouver real estate like a stock ticker the cost to buy will never be steered by local incomes. If the prices do drop it will just provide opportunity to buy in. This is permanent.
Man, the insanity is spreading all over the province, like there's no way a house in Port Alice should be selling for 450.
I bought my place in CR 4 years ago and it pretty much doubled in value.. I feel like the island especially will always be it's own insulated market since pretty much everyone and their dog wants to come here to escape the winter weather.
Posted by: chupacabra
So when is Pedro going to get his comeuppance? I feel like around 2000 Vancouver's R/E market went public. There seems to be cities that are on the open market for investment just like stocks and once they go public there is no going back because the owners of these investment properties changed the entire market by their presence. As long as there are wealthy people looking at Vancouver real estate like a stock ticker the cost to buy will never be steered by local incomes. If the prices do drop it will just provide opportunity to buy in. This is permanent.
Prices would need to collapse over 50% before Pedro gets his comeuppance. Even at a 50% drop from today's prices, things are still too expensive. Like Adam West points out, prices everywhere are fucking stupid. A shitbox in Hedley is over $270K. There's a place in Lytton you can get for $230K, and while the structure looks sound it needs around $70K in interior work unless you're ok with living in something that resembles a garden shed. Another example is a shitbox 30 minutes outside of Nelson for $290K. It's had a little bit of work done, but is asking over $100K more that what it sold for in 2019. Does a small house that needs work in that part of the province have any justification for going up $100K in price in two years? You start looking around the province for cheap single family homes and find out pretty quick that it doesn't exist anymore unless you're buying in the middle of nowhere that is a hike from any sort of ammenities. Tin can mobiles don't count either, I'm talking real houses. Your best best anywhere close to the lower mainland right now is this shitbox in Boston Bar for $199K. If you want really cheap you're going to places like Hixon, Houston or Quesnel to get around the $150K or less mark. Or you're moving outside of BC to Alberta - just look at the difference in available homes under the $200K price mark.
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23306134/48200-cottonwood-road-boston-bar-lytton
While foreign money has played a big role imho, local sellers and buyers have helped move the frenzy along as well due to low interest rates. Add in the unscrupulousness of the banks too, making loans they shouldn't. And of course government and the real estate industry shares part of the blame to due to easy loopholes that offer tax free profits and shady players interested in making as much money as possible. Houses on the east side are starting to catch up in value to some on the west side - it's not uncommon to see east side homes sell for $2 mil or more. It's completely fucked. Unless someone in their 30's has parents with a house that are about to croak, the chances of young people buying a home in Metro Van are over. The odd person can do it if maybe the win the lottery on something like GME or BTC, but otherwise the avg working stiff can look forward to a life of renting in Metro Van.
This article is from 2016, but really goes back to 2015, and shows just how bad things were/are. What I find surprising is that the R/E industry has don't more to stand up for itself and expose the shady shit. By letting a lot of this crap go on the entire industry is tarnished. The average person seems to have no trust in R/E agents anymore and thinks the entire industry is shit. There are of course still good realtors out there, but I think their image is damaged beyond repair and people simply look at them as a necessary evil.
Posted by: syncro
Posted by: chupacabra
So when is Pedro going to get his comeuppance? I feel like around 2000 Vancouver's R/E market went public. There seems to be cities that are on the open market for investment just like stocks and once they go public there is no going back because the owners of these investment properties changed the entire market by their presence. As long as there are wealthy people looking at Vancouver real estate like a stock ticker the cost to buy will never be steered by local incomes. If the prices do drop it will just provide opportunity to buy in. This is permanent.
Prices would need to collapse over 50% before Pedro gets his comeuppance. Even at a 50% drop from today's prices, things are still too expensive. Like Adam West points out, prices everywhere are fucking stupid. A shitbox in Hedley is over $270K. There's a place in Lytton you can get for $230K, and while the structure looks sound it needs around $70K in interior work unless you're ok with living in something that resembles a garden shed. Another example is a shitbox 30 minutes outside of Nelson for $290K. It's had a little bit of work done, but is asking over $100K more that what it sold for in 2019. Does a small house that needs work in that part of the province have any justification for going up $100K in price in two years? You start looking around the province for cheap single family homes and find out pretty quick that it doesn't exist anymore unless you're buying in the middle of nowhere that is a hike from any sort of ammenities. Tin can mobiles don't count either, I'm talking real houses. Your best best anywhere close to the lower mainland right now is this shitbox in Boston Bar for $199K. If you want really cheap you're going to places like Hixon, Houston or Quesnel to get around the $150K or less mark. Or you're moving outside of BC to Alberta - just look at the difference in available homes under the $200K price mark.
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23306134/48200-cottonwood-road-boston-bar-lytton
While foreign money has played a big role imho, local sellers and buyers have helped move the frenzy along as well due to low interest rates. Add in the unscrupulousness of the banks too, making loans they shouldn't. And of course government and the real estate industry shares part of the blame to due to easy loopholes that offer tax free profits and shady players interested in making as much money as possible. Houses on the east side are starting to catch up in value to some on the west side - it's not uncommon to see east side homes sell for $2 mil or more. It's completely fucked. Unless someone in their 30's has parents with a house that are about to croak, the chances of young people buying a home in Metro Van are over. The odd person can do it if maybe the win the lottery on something like GME or BTC, but otherwise the avg working stiff can look forward to a life of renting in Metro Van.
This article is from 2016, but really goes back to 2015, and shows just how bad things were/are. What I find surprising is that the R/E industry has don't more to stand up for itself and expose the shady shit. By letting a lot of this crap go on the entire industry is tarnished. The average person seems to have no trust in R/E agents anymore and thinks the entire industry is shit. There are of course still good realtors out there, but I think their image is damaged beyond repair and people simply look at them as a necessary evil.
You forgot the part about how everything is being bought up now by property management companies for rental stock and they're often paying 100-150k over asking price.
2015/16 was nuts but nearly as nuts as what's been happening in the last year.
We're either moving back to China or looking into immigration options for New Zealand. Canada's government has abandoned everyone without generational wealth and the future looks even darker than it is now.
Posted by: Fast-Orange
We're either moving back to China or looking into immigration options for New Zealand. Canada's government has abandoned everyone without generational wealth and the future looks even darker than it is now.
I would decide fast.
Posted by: chupacabra
So when is Pedro going to get his comeuppance?
Rural Teacher Pedro Castillo Poised to Write a New Chapter in Peru’s History - CounterPunch.org
the avg working stiff can look forward to a life of renting where ever
It's the new feudalism.
Posted by: chupacabra
Posted by: XXX_er
Posted by: Endur-Bro
BC is only a step above Mexico in squashing money laundering. Here in BC one needs to walk a hockey bag full of cash into a casino. In Mexico HSBC would build teller windows to fit cartel money boxes.
my now retired sister was in the legal dept at HSBC, she was telling me about the money coming in from china 10-15 yrs ago, the hawala banking, she could pull up a report showing all this stuff pretty easily ... the banks know everything
The fox watching the henhouse. No different that the BC government oversight of casinos. Those small businesses in construction and catering to the tar sands are also ideal laundering opportunities.
The money laundering issue is important, but there is a lot more going on with Canadian real estate than that.
Side note: Rumor is Blackrock is buying up properties south of the border well over asking prices and possibly our side.
I also recently read China bought 1/6th of all real estate sales in the US either last year or for the past few.
From the Globe and Mail
Wealth a bigger factor than income in Vancouver home sales, new study suggests
Rachelle Younglai
Published 1 day ago
Updated October 10, 2021Wealth, not annual income, is driving purchases of costly homes by some of the lowest-paid workers in British Columbia, a new study suggests.
The gap between home prices and local wages is stark in the province, where houses have been selling for well above $1-million in the Vancouver region for years.
Now, new data show that a typical buyer in the lowest income quintile, with a median annual income of $29,800, spent a median of $499,000 on a home in 2018, according to the report from Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP).
In comparison, someone in the middle quintile with a median income of $97,600 spent a median of $490,000 on a home, according to the study, which analyzed property assessments, land-registry data and tax filings.
“The divergence between property prices and incomes in some areas demonstrated that sources other than income can play an important role in homeownership,” the report said. Annik Gougeon, a CHSP senior analyst, said the data suggest many home buyers are either taking out very large mortgages or using savings and wealth to make purchases.
The study attempts to provide a measure of housing affordability by analyzing the purchase price of a property against the buyer’s income. The higher the price-to-income ratio, the greater the financial burden the buyer takes on.
As the CHSP relies on co-operation from the provinces for the data, it analyzed just three provincial real estate markets: B.C., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The study is not a comprehensive look at the country, especially as it does not include the two largest markets: Ontario and Quebec.
The study found that B.C.’s median price-to-income ratio of 5.4 was more than double the ratios in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The highest median price-to-income ratio was found in West Vancouver, followed by Richmond. There, buyers spent 17 times and 12 times their incomes, respectively.
What is surprising about the CHSP data is what buyers in the lowest income quintiles were able to afford in B.C. In the second-lowest quintile, a buyer with a median income of $65,500 spent a median $450,000 on a property. In contrast, in the top quintile, a buyer with a median income of $223,000 spent a median $673,000 on a home.
Story continues below advertisement
For the bottom quintile, Elan Weintraub, a mortgage broker based in the Toronto area, said a buyer with a median income couldn’t afford a home unless they had a very large down payment. But he said people who earn $30,000 a year typically do not have significant savings.
“Even if they could borrow $300,000, how could they make their monthly payments plus food, utilities, given their income is $2,500 per month gross?” said Mr. Weintraub, director of the Mortgage Outlet Inc.
The CHSP study said its income measurement didn’t capture wealth accumulated through previous home ownership, savings or financial support from people not on a property’s title, such as a parent.
Laura Martin, chief operating officer of mortgage brokerage Matrix Mortgage Global, said often the largest barrier to entry for hopeful home buyers is having enough wealth accumulated to afford the down payment.
Holy smokes, this guy tells it like it is! Gotta hand it to him for being honest & speaking his mind. He tried to run a legit business & got shit on (literally).
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-349038-3-.htm#349038
Posted by: Stuminator
Holy smokes, this guy tells it like it is! Gotta hand it to him for being honest & speaking his mind. He tried to run a legit business & got shit on (literally).
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-349038-3-.htm#349038
He's a character for sure, funny backstory if you read about his video game adaptation movies (which are truly awful). I actually met him when we ate at Bauhaus, he came around to each table to chat with guests and was a nice warm dude. Great food as well but that was in the first couple years before the main chef left.
He's not wrong either. Everyone knows it, patience wears thin as time goes on and the situation gets worse. It's obviously very complex to solve the problem requiring local, provincial and federal coordination. Then there is the legal issues with what can actually be done with current legislation. It's NIMBYism but I am definitely look at where "temporary modular housing" is located and any city owned vacant land/planned sites exist as we are looking to move in the next year or two.
Forum jump:
