Vancouver's most sensational homes up for grabs
 

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moar at: Bizarre and breathtaking: Vancouver's most sensational homes up for grabs

thats actually in Surrey

I remember in 2004, when my family was living in Kits (5th and Alma) and houses in the area were starting to hit the $1.5 million mark, I asked my dad why house prices were so high. And he told me "supply and demand". So many people want to live on the west side, but there isn't enough land; as a result for some properties the land is worth more than the house. We moved to Burnaby in November 2009, at that time the RE bubble was at its peak. I remember plots of land in Dunbar and Point Grey selling for $2-2.5 million. The bubble squeezed my family out of Vancouver and now we live in subsidized housing. (For the record,

And before anyone says Asians are buying up homes. people of all creed and colours do it, either for the lifestyle, to settle here or to get rich. It's people born and raised here, from the Interior, from the Island, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, the US, Europe, Australia...the demand to live here comes from people worldwide.

Now, I'm one of those curmudgeons who thinks that a house is a home-a place to help you raise a family, to plant roots, to develop a career-and less of an investment or status symbol. But my way of thinking is not the way of the future, at least in Vancouver. S'okay. I'm alive, I'm healthy, I have family. I'll survive.

wow where the hell is that richmond one lol...kinda random

And now you're suffering in the far-off burbs of Burnaby. Oh the horrors!

I hope I did not sound ungrateful. It's a 10 minute bus ride to SFU and I live in an area surrounded by greenery. And it's so quiet, we would always hear emergency vehicles screaming down 4th, and rip roaring Harleys in the summer. Burnaby is awesome.

Not sure why anyone would pay over $2M to live in White Rock or Surrey.

It's waterfront property with a nice view. For some, 2 million is just spare change.

i thought britsh properties would be on this list

pfft,7 million? :rukidding: Look what 3 million bought me :fullofwin:

http://i41.tinypic.com/652vk4.jpg

In the GVA, land is pretty much ALWAYS worth more than the house. You invest in the land, not the structure.

Ignorance is bliss.

That deep cove place is very nice you can see it from the water easy but no way I'm paying that price to have people walking around my place all day long, almost no privacy there
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Through friends I know that a few former CEO's of very large local companies live around the water front in between the strip and crescent beach, I'm assuming they choose to go there because you can actually purchase privacy as opposed to the north shore where your looking into your neighbors kitchen for 15m
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^^ Abit of an exaggeration, 15mil in North Shore could definitely get you privacy.

But regardless, there's tons of properties worth TONS of money in the GVRD that people probably don't know of. In my area of Central Burnaby, I know of afew houses that are worth about $7-10million for house & property. (And thats in Burnaby)

For reference, we sold my grandmas house in Vancouver about 5 years ago. It was on 8th Ave, just West of Vine. The house was bought in 1955 for $55,000. 5 years ago the property (old shitty house) sold for around $1.4million. The house was estimated at about $100,000. Thus the property alone was worth $1.3mil. Just to give an idea of the crazy RE market and inflation locally.

I don't look at those as all that extreme.

You are telling me that I'm entering a Vancouver mansion for 13 times the base price for a detached house on nowhere street in New West?

That doesn't describe real estate extremism to me. The fact that the crap shack on a postage stamp sized lot dwarfed by apartment buildings across the street from me is $450k...THAT's the problem in real estate.

And I don't understand why some people are willing to spend that much on a shoebox of an apartment to live in downtown Vancouver.


It's all about preferences. I would way rather live in White Rock/Crescent Beach than most other cities in the GVRD.

Yeah but you're out in the boonies. It's like an hour to the nearest Louis Vuitton store.

Are you serious? If you rather live in White Rock/Crescent Beach, you should also consider moving to Tofino. It's nice enough for a weekend, but anything longer and YAWN! Is there even a Whole Foods out there yet?

If you've made enough coin to own a property over >$2M, you probably want to be near nice dining, high-end shopping, entertainment, commercial offices and live in a neighbourhood with similar demographics.

BTW, 2M will get you a fairly nice apt downtown and nice home for a family in North Van, so there's absolutely no reason to live about 70 km from civilisation.

^ Unless, you need the space to store your stable of sports cars. There are not many mansions in Vancouver that have sufficient extra space for say 5-6 cars.

I know of a fairly rich person who chose to buy property in south Surrey. Rich people don't become rich by spending more money than necessary.
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Not every person wants to dress like your favorite rapper. There are lots of multi millionaires that shop at walmart and don't own a $200 pair of jeans.

I can confirm this, I went to high school with a guy whose dad is a very high profile doctor at VGH, and their family also has oil wealth. They are not the kind of family to be flashy or conspicuous, the guy's first car was a Taurus.

I might be wrong but that's about 6% per year return not including inflation, not too crazy. But when you see $55000-$1400000 it looks crazy without factoring 50+ years.
Inflation from 55-70's approx 2%
From 70's to mid 80's approx 6%
Mid 80's to early 90's approx 4%
90's to current approx 1-2%

If your grandma bought a brand new 1955 chevy nomad for $2500 and only drove it to church it would have the same rate of return as the house/property.

I live near white rock and I'm assuming you haven't been there lately. There has been massive development in the retail sector there. Big name stores have moved in. To say White Rock is in the boonies is a pretty stupid statement and one that has no factual basis.

No offense, but if I made enough money to drop $2MM plus on a property, I wouldn't buy it anywhere in the Lower Mainland.

Priorities. Most wealthy people value being near the core downtown area for the reasons I listed than far out from the city.