don't be offended or take this the wrong way, but based on your last few posts, you should NOT be buying a house anytime soon.

You seem so very uneducated on the whole house buying experience. what websites to look at? WTF? are you serious? Your questions are soo newb, bank rates for mortgages are indicative of what we are going to actually get?

you seem to have no clue on the REAL costs of home ownership at all. you really seem like those typical house horny people I often see in Real estate that just want to buy without knowing enough about the market.

you'r getting your BASIC real estate info on a car forum?

maybe you should re-read this thread or do some google research.

to help you out, you should really consider your employment stability, long term goals, real costs of ownership (property taxes, maintenance, utilities etc). how about if say you are on dual income, what happens if one of you gets laid off? or what happens if real estate goes down 10%? there's lots of factors to consider. if you get laid off, would you be okay if sell your house for a 10% lost? have you considered the cost of that child you want to have?

for example, lets say you work in the oil rigs in AB and now work is not as consistent as in the last 5 years. would you still be able to make those mortgage payments? what if the same thing happened at your company that you didnt see coming.

you should spend a lot time researching before buying a house. most prudent people, including myself, look at the market for awhile before finding the right house. it takes months and even years in my case.

there are people on here saying you gotta act quick before it gets snatched up, but for all we know they have vested interests. I see lots of properties sitting on the market for months on MLS. (realtor.ca). 2014 was a hot year, but whose to say 2015 will continue? theres always good deals out there if you are patient and look. if you buy on emotion it could prove costly. make sure you analyze your scenarios before you jump into any major decisions in your life.

House buying is going to be a huge decision, you are signing away an obligation to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the next 25 years +.

Why dont you go around and look at open houses just to see what you can afford in your price range. go talk to a loan officer or mortgage broker to see what you can afford. Do some research. look at mortgage calculators online. Talk to realtors to let you know how the buying process works.

however, one thing to keep in mind is these people in the industry have a vested interest, which is for you to BUY, so please keep that in mind.

Seriously you sound so uneducated on all these topics that I really suggest you not buy anything anytime soon.

Also, buy what u can afford, not what a mortgage idiot says u are approved for!

This. Banks will over-approve, mercilessly leading many people into the trap of getting in way over their head.

When the bank told me how much I was approved for I just about shit myself, and then bought something for about 1/3 that amount.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/va...130418917.html

The highest housing and everyday living costs combined with the lowest median income in Canada is a deadly combination. There is nothing auspicious about the state of RE in Vancouver. With the provincial and municipal governments desperately needing more money for everything as many critical governmental agencies are running deficits, the cost of living are surely only going to go up in Vancouver.

At the end of the day, you need good jobs with good income to support the gargantuan housing costs; and Vancouver just isn't a fertile ground that attract a lot of innovative business. The plethora of businesses we have are mostly centered around resources extraction which are is in a major slump given how far commodity prices have dropped this year, and it doesn't appear these companies will get any respite due the structural slowdown in China which is their biggest customer for the past decade.

Moving to burbs doesn't get to the root of the problem as you have to contend with the extra travel time and stress. Allan Pulga made the right decision and that is to: Move.

I have compiled some data from the real estate board for detached house and apartment units of the major region in GVRD.

In general for 2014, listings to sold ratio are apparently getting higher which i believe transaction has been slowing down, and some places on the MLS I have been speculating were dropped by $5,000 to $10,000 and were still on the market for more than 100 days. AND some properties were even re-listed with another MLS number to reset the "list on market day" back to zero (Correct me if realtors are able to do this ?)

However, if you pay attention to Port Coquitlam detached house graph. The ratio is high throughout the year. Homeowner were forced to move to the east for more affordable detached properties.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ps73120f2c.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...pse2ceb2dd.jpg

Please take your time to visit below URL for more other resourceful data:
Listed vs Sold | Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

:)

Lol! The author moved to Regina for Lower cost of living? How about lower desirable living? I would live in a 500sq ft apt in van all day long before living in a 4000sq ft house in Regina.

Again, as I and many others have said, people need to stop defining themselves by their home ownership. Live where you want to live, being a homeowner is not the be all and end all measure of success in the world as we were brought up to believe.

then what is? being happy? hahahaha

This comes down to the basis of capitalism. Those who own properties and who doesn't.

Between desirability and affordability, I'd rather have smaller mortgage payments as I can save more and invest more, as well as a bigger accommodation for the children and their friends to come over. He went to Saskatchewan but that's his choice. He could've gone south of the boarder which would've been my first choice.

If I told you guys that I had a great investment where you would be guaranteed amazing returns and all you had to do was invite others to join the investment you would call me a ponzi fraud artist. This is Vancouver real estate at the moment. Price growth relies on hype, money from new buyers/foreign cash and is dramatically outpacing household income and other basic fundamentals. Highest housing prices with the lowest average household incomes in Canada. If that still adds up to you then something is wrong.

I'm currently living in Hong Kong right now and with President Xi cracking down on corruption, the Chinese money is going to stop flowing (they're even afraid to take vacations right now). The people who are gonna get left in tatters when the low interest rates end are the ones that bought into the realtor hype.

Fixed for you.
If u don't get it, those that own debt are the losers

A ponzi. Has been ever since prices decoupled from fundamentals.

-article that lists the top 500 most expensive homes in Vancouver (click on the PDF link in the article).

No surprise, many of the homes are in the west side, Point Grey area of Vancouver on Belmont Avenue. The Lululemon founder is ballin. :smug:

Top 10 most expensive homes in BC are located in Vancouver | News1130

And according to the PDF, the homes are listed by assessed value, which can differ significantly (usually higher for desirable properties) from selling value!

Guy in my building is only paying $2500 a month for the 1600+ sq foot penthouse at the Koret Lofts! What a steal!!!

Meanwhile I believe they sell for 1.6+ million on MLS.ca

The thing is Regina isn't that cheap either. I mean it's cheaper then Vancouver but if you're comparing it to the Lower Mainland suburbs you're looking close to the same price. It's not like you're going to move there and buy a decent house for $250,000, I mean yes you can find houses for that but they are in Indian Flats or the Hood.

I'm from there, I have an opportunity to go back and get a 60% wage increase to start the problem is I'll have to live there again. It's stupid cold in the winter and it's stupid hot in the summer. You have lots of areas that are a straight fucking ghetto, gangs are terrible there and the crime rate is pretty damm bad.

You got shit like this. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Tru...579/story.html

My parents moved back to Sask a few years ago (dad had a good opportunity) and they built a house about 20 minutes out of Regina and it was anything but cheap to build to there and that was with my dad doing a lot of it himself.

anyone checked their bc assessment property value?
they just updated their values for 2015 online

what's the purpose of having this info available to public?
If I had house on that list, I wouldn't want strangers to know how rich I am lol

how rich? Or how much debt you are able to rack up?

public information is public.

address, BC assessed value, no names.

It's also BC assessed value, which while good, isn't all that accurate, especially for niche products such as these.

In the US you can find out who lives in what house, all public record. that's why some ppl own RE in numbered companies.

We finally went out to see a house with a realtor. What would you pick? 1/2 duplex in Vancouver (West/East) or narrow lot house in Delta/Surrey/New West?

Assume similar price, brand new building, and no rental suite.

First hand experience would be helpful.

What does your wife think about it?

Where do you work and where does your wife work?
How far of a drive would it be for you guys?

How old is said duplex in Vancouver and is all maintenance up to date? When was the roof replaced and same with the hot water tank.

The neighbour is the biggest concern. To my understanding, the land and building is shared so anything related to it (e.g. insurance, maintenance) would be shared.

Downtown. Less than 1 hour drive.

We are mainly looking at brand new buildings.

The shocking thing with Xi's corruption crack down is there's no slow down in areas outside of Asia. The chinese don't dare invest in HK and Macau as the China government can easily get their hands on it. Outside of Asia, Canada & USA is fair game. They're washing dirty money and ill gotten gains. Canada and USA won't send the dirty officials back to China so once the money is out, it's gone. It's a different story in HK and Macau where once the money is out, the HK and Macau govt will do nothing to stop the China govt from knocking on your door repatriating you.

I'm watching China constantly to see what they do with John Jia as his ties go right to the top - Canada Resident Caught Up in China Corruption Probe - WSJ