So is it fair to attribute some of the responsibility to the tenants that these SRO's are in such decrepit conditions? Owner should take some responsibility as well to do a reasonable upkeep buty some of these folks just doesn't have the mental capacity to take care of their own unit.

Of course, it's 'PC' incorrect to say that ^ but true.

Because you're going to rent and live there forever, so might as well take care of it. When I sometimes see friends not caring about their walls or floors cause they're renting, it blows my mind. You've been living there for 1 to 3+ years and you're likely going to be there another 5 years.

Only the top 5 - 8% of income are able to buy in the current market and if you're in an SRO the odds of you joining this club is probably < 0.01% lol

There's no recourse if you damage it, some SRO's are cheap it's pretty much free. They're treating it closer to a lime scooter than a rental car lol.

How do you even deal with these people, basically everyone is gonna be a nightmare tenant, late or no money for rent, what's the damage deposit like $600? That's not enough to fix the damage. And impossible to kick them out. It's like owning an old BMW, is it finally gonna catch on fire today every time you start it

Most people who live in COOPs were also sponsored by someone else already living there, or have lived there so long you’ve basically inherited a spot within the coop, so as JDM said above, this isn’t like renting a $2500 a month 1br at Brentwood, these are places people live their entire lives at and they are treated terriblyyyyyyy

Just filth everywhere stains everywhere, 20 year old carpet hasn’t seen a vacuum in years etc.

A lot of these places are in a general state of disrepair because it’s a snowball effect, if your neighbour has a bunch of garbage outside and junk overflowing from their unit what’s the incentive to clean yours up. I think the general public would be appalled at the state of the majority of these subsidized units

So my wife's former workplace manufactured heritage correct wood windows and doors. Because of the heritage designation of a bunch of these SRO's they supplied the new window assemblies to a number of these places. As you can imagine with any specialty custom thing, they're not cheap, upwards of $1500-$2500 per window.

Within weeks of people moving in, the brass hardware would be stripped off the windows.

It's fair to attribute 99% to the tenant

city won't allow anything that isn't heritage wood as well, even if you can custom make a vinyl one with that 'look'... so these wood ones don't last as they're not as durable.

Wood windows are very durable, provided you do the nessary maintenance (IE Paint & cleaning). There's plenty of 100+ year old character homes with their original windows with owners that took care of them. They're still considered very much a premium product

Vinyl windows are just popular because they're cheap to produce and maintenance free, but they have a finite lifespan (20-40years).
Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing a nice character home with vinyl windows, they look so out of place, but I understand why people do, because the cost premium for the wood is just too high.

And that's the thing, we shouldn't be spending premium bucks on things like this for places that will actively destroy them, or never perform the proper maintenance. Cheap, maintenance free is what we should be doing, fuck desginating SRO's "heritage"

Come on, that's not entirely true man, you come off sounding like an elitist ass a bit there.

Some coops are well-run with residents that take pride in the upkeep of the property, tenants generally have to dedicate a designated number of hours per month for maintenance and jobs throughout the coop's property.

I have some family members that live in coops, and their places are definitely not in a state of disarray in which you describe there.

I’m not just exaggerating when I say that, I’ve been in what’s gotta be 15-20 different coops between Vancouver and new west and at least half of the units I’ve gone into are in a state as described.

Just checked out some surrey condos at king george and they're 2 to 6 years old now. Not sure if it's a tenant or build quality issue but you can tell that the condo are used and worn down.

Reminds me of older worn clothes, the cabinets + floors are noticebly faded. $520-570k 1BR for surrey!

There's a few sides of to the coin. Like you said 1) the ppl that are living there, 2) the build quality - the workmanship, and also 3) the material quality.

The best flooring is not gonna last if the floor wasn't level to begin with.

Most shitty condo's or houses i've seen would look 10x better with a good cleaning and some fresh new paint. If I was in the market to buy or rent, I would prefer a dirty looking unit as that can work in your favour if you can see the vision.

Most things you see can be fixed pretty easily. It's the stuff you can't see (behind walls) that keep me up at night...

Considering how fast these buildings go up, I'd say 'all of the above'.

Buy fast, build fast, rent fast.

My building is 5 years old and all the windows are leaking in a minor capacity. It's fine during the epic heatwaves though so I'm not really complaining. Nice draft without bugs.

what do you guys think about the new duplex+ legislation from the bc gov?
are we going to see empty lots and teardowns getting snatched up more aggressively now to build duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes?
i guess eventually if it works as planned then it would take a little bit of pressure off the middle-lower end of the market but it would only push the detached market up?

^^ well a new duplex is already the price of a old detached and yes it will push up detached price and demand and you will now have no parking in Vancouver

I don't think it will make a big impact. You'll probably see prices for SFH go up more now because realtors will try to market these homes as investment opportunities. But in reality, the cost and time to construct a new infill will still be unaffordable to most and take at least 1.5 years.

Portland had a similar policy and I think they said only 100 or so homes have been converted to infill since 2020.

Their rezoning plan for that along Oak.. lol

Yea cause adding 2.5 mill townhomes is the solution

The devil will be in the details and the results will vary by city.

3 key details:
- How much more floor space will they force cities to allow? There has to be enough to justify tearing down a decent house (there aren't enough tear downs). Right now Vancouver and Burnaby mostly allow ~3400sf on a standard lot either as 2 or 3 suites and a typical 50 year old house is around 2000-2500sf. You need to allow around 5000sf to make it worthwhile to tear down a decent house.
- Will parking minimums be changed? Some cities will use parking minimums to make it nearly impossible to build a fourplex.
- The plan says that areas near transit will have more aggressive zoning - possibly stuff like 6 or even 12 story buildings. If the distance is 500m from transit then almost all of Vancouver qualifies and about half of Burnaby does. If the distance is 1000m then it'll be seriously transformative.

Detached homes will definitely go up in price but this is a good thing - restrictive zoning has depressed the price of them. If the policy is aggressive enough you'll start to see housing prices get "better" (it may not go down but rather just flatten).

New Zealand has gone down this path with zoning and seen prices stabilize both for renters and buyers. It takes a LONG time to shake out though - can't just magically construct all the housing that's needed in a couple years.

Just wondering if anyone has any referrals to a cctv/security cam residential install?

Home we are looking at only has a ring doorbell cam =\
I can go ghetto and just put up eufy cams but rather not unless it really is cost prohibitive.

I didn't shop around for quotes, but 7 camera hikvison setup cost me 3k for parts and labour installed by a pro. Eufy and DIY install is probably way cheaper. The pro's didn't hide all the wiring either unless it was inside a soffit.

when I moved into my 99 year old home, only 1 window opened because everyone kept painting over the last layer of paint over the years

3/16" thick paint all over... tried cracking one open and the wood started splitting :lol

anyone know what they're building by QE park on Ontario st?

is it a senior centre as extension of hillcrest?

surprised to see homes of only ~25 years old under land assembly on quebec st there, hope they got a killer offer

Costco has like 6 camera 4K systems for under $500

The issue is you generally have to install the brain somewhere with power and ease of access to run exterior wires

As mentioned above tgough if it’s not in a soffit then it’s not going to be hidden

Yeah it might get messy just surprised this home we are closing on doesnt have any at all. I paid about 3k for 8 hikvisions when we built our home but this was all prewired already.

Thanks guys atleast id i want i can ghetto it and do the eufy types.