Vancouver realestate
 

I don't understand something, so I am turnning to all knowing GFY :)

Driving around in West Vancouver area, there are no houses under $4 million, yet about 1/4 of the houses seem to be for sale (signs outside).

Also in Kelowna, nice houses on the hill with lake view, again no house under $1 million, yet 1/3 seem to be for sale.

With such a high number of houses for sale, one would expect the market to crash, but it hasn't. Any explanation? This was around one year ago when I was there the last time.

Real Estate is slow. And houses with high values are slower yet. Those people don't use as much leverage so they are less likely to get underwater on the mortgage. I always thought this meant they would be more market sensitive and just discount and move but turns out they are stubborn. Your lower priced neighborhoods will show a crash sooner.

Edit - you dropped 15% year over year Canada wide. Pretty big drop.

http://business.financialpost.com/20...ousing-prices/

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. Why are there so many houses on the market? These are really expensive houses with great locaiton.

15% drop was in sales, not actual prices.

taxes; property value

West Van will always be pricey.

Try North Van instead.

I bet some of them are selling just because prices are high and hoping to win that lottery. I mean wouldn't you sell if you were able to get 4mil for your house? Then you could buy property in another city and still have millions left for something like investment or whatever.
What I am saying is that maybe some portion of those sales are not that kind of sales when you are actually selling and "need" or "want" to sell.

Also check out the blog http://www.greaterfool.ca/ by Garth Turner. He has some interesting ideas about real estate.

Vancouver is propped up by Asian investors, Kelowna is propped up by Alberta investors.

In Vancouver there is such and influx of affluent Asian immigrants that it has driven the home prices way up. Not to mention Citizenship is awarded for immigrants investing over 1 million dollars into a Canadian business and they have changed the laws to include owning real estate a business.

In Kelowna (where I live) its all about Alberta oil men and other outside investors buying summer homes. Albertans love Kelowna because its hot, a good party city, and its not Vancouver.

Because these are investment properties there are lots of reasons to list them. In Vancouver it has a lot to do with trying to sell these homes to people trying to get into the country. And in a lot of cases its just an investment and people want to move on or put their money in something else

the best is the neighbourhoods in point grey that are.. empty for 11 months outta the year

blocks and blocks of it

This sort of speculation went on in the US for a while before their crash.
Maybe once people cant get the mortgages it will cause a crash?

It might effect the average person trying to buy a home but not the foreign investors.

Vancouver is very welcoming to Asian / Indian immigrants and there is millions of them dying to leave their country for something better. Canada has clean air, clean water, lots of green space, universal healthcare, stable government and especially in Vancouver there is already a very strong immigrant community.

I understand that.
I would assume since you see people from these countries buying half million dollar+ homes and driving around in $50k vehicles and then going to $15/hr jobs at some point this is gonna collapse?

Most of the people that have lived in this country for their whole lives have small homes, rent and or take transit or have conservative vehicles.
Something doesnt make sense at all.

Some towns are still booming. However i think many people over price their homes and put it on the market just in hopes of selling it. My neighbour has moved five times in the last seven years to get his current house. He almost as no mortgage now.
I should have done the same thing..haha

lol isn't 5 mortgages when the CRA starts paying close attention?