Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by 6793026

There was an article in Van Sun - developer paying city back for not being able to build social housing... so good luck with that.


65 cents 2 bedroom 700sq for $500 is not bad.
You have to build contingency .. so I sucked it up before.
Now if you have a pool + gym + basketball court / golf stimulation machine + concierge well that's what's you / owners are paying for.

Can't complain on that. You get what you pay for.
If you don't use it.. well then that's ur problem.

You think you have it bad? You know the burrard location? Sen̓áḵw band is building 4 stories and because they are 1st nations, they don't have to abide to nothing. I was told there are limited parking spaces (to be confirmed) - as in 3 units to 1 spot.. HOLY F.

I don't remember if River district had amenities. I was under the assumption that they don't.

When you say Burrard do you mean Burrard on Van West side or Burrard in DT? If you are in the middle of DT it's not terrible to not have a car. Burrard west side Vancouver is pretty abysmal for transportation though until the subway opens.

Originally Posted by supafamous

I generally hate the idea that the River District exists for all the reasons stated - super car centric, no transit, no schools, lack of parking, out of the way etc but I will admit that the core of it has turned out pretty decent. It's got a solid offering of restaurants, a Save-On, a great liquor store, Shoppers etc and it's quite walkable (could use more tree cover though) and does have decent views.

If they ever add a proper bus line (the 30 and 80 are kinda useless) through there and get a school in place I think it'll actually turn out to be a decent neighbourhood.

FWIW, the Joyce/Collingwood area has turned out to be a pretty good neighbourhood minus the lack of street level retail along Vaness. Nice big park space in the middle, decent amenities, and great transit. Everything up to Kingsway should have been rezoned though to allow for at least low rises.

I go to River District as it's the closest TD branch to me. The plaza is busy when the weather is good, lots of little kids running around on the weekend. It's a nice secluded area but the fact that it's at the bottom of a big hill is a killer. Cars are mandatory, and the parents I talk to who are my son's classmates, they are all like yeah need to drive. At Champlain Heights, half the kids are from River District, and almost everyone gets driven to school because it's too far for a 5 year old to walk even if you take away the steep hill from Marine to 49th.

The alternative is getting an ebike. But that brings it's own challenges as you'll need to still find a place to park it and charge it. Some people are up for riding through all weather, most aren't.

Originally Posted by carsncars

Schools are one (of several) reasons we started looking in North Burnaby/Willingdon Heights but then ended up in Marpole. Alpha Secondary/Burnaby North are already over capacity and there does not appear to be any sort of plan to increase capacity, despite the huge increases in density in the area. I'm sure Churchill will face the same with the Marine Gateway and Oakridge density but to a lesser extent as Vancouver has more numerous secondary schools to spread the load.

Other reasons we decided against North Burnaby: you get the suburb style need to drive everywhere but still have a Vancouver style lot/house, relatively poorer transit once you're away from the Skytrain line, and the SFH values were only slightly more affordable than e.g. Marpole.

I thought Marpole was around the 3 million+ mark, whereas North Burnaby is around 2-2.5m. 500k is a lot of monies man, I can go buy a GT3 and still have monies leftover.

Is South Cambie part of Marpole? I temporarily lived with my parents around the Winona Park area while my house was being rennovated and I did not like the demographics there.

Though I didn't know Alpha/North are over capacity. North JUST got a new building too.

[bcrdukes]

Given how baller you guys are, I just assumed you all sent your kids to private school.

[Great68]

My wife lived at the top end of Salisbury, near highgate (was still middlegate when I first started seeing her). I liked the bit of naturalish parks and ravines around that area

We'd take walks around the neighbourhood, through Malvern down Buckingham to Deer lake.
Or the other direction Byrne Creek and down to their allotment gardens on Meadow Ave.
And if we had lots of time, over to Robert Burnaby, Cariboo.

If I had to live in Metro Van, that area would probably be my choice.

[Ding]

Originally Posted by supafamous

All the town centres in Burnaby are interesting in theory - the architect drawings made it seem so nice - but in reality they are super shitty places to be around. While Vancouver city planners are super anal about things their Burnaby counterparts are just lazy - Vancouver creates walkable, people sized neighbourhoods while Burnaby just creates what will become ghettos in 50 years (the same could be said for Coquitlam's town centre - it's also terrible).

Highgate/Edmonds is the only one that's sorta ok - they put a community centre near the centre and there's lots of small ethnic businesses that still exist along Edmonds that give it some character.

I for one think these areas have vastly improved. All of these areas used to be nothing. River district was a swamp. Station Square/Metrotown was save ons or really old run down apartments. Brentwood was a parking lot and the old mall had shitty foot traffic anyways. Lougheed was a parking lot too. Edmonds was Middlegate or industrial complexes.

All the restaurants in the vicinity around these town center seem to be bumping.

Metrotown mall won't even be demolished until after 2054. Everybody here will probably be either dead or in a nursing home. They're developing the underutilized areas first which will be the outdoor parking lots.

Lack of schools is because of the long bureaucratic process between the provincial government, school districts and the municipal government.

[Mikoyan]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

I don't remember if River district had amenities. I was under the assumption that they don't.

There's a pool/gym/ 2x squash court/ half court basketball/multiuse court, + 3 amenity rooms, that 4 or 5 RD stratas are communally responsible for. One of the buildings has 2-3 amenity rooms on top of that.

SIL was living in RD for a few years.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Ding

I for one think these areas have vastly improved. All of these areas used to be nothing. River district was a swamp. Station Square/Metrotown was save ons or really old run down apartments. Brentwood was a parking lot and the old mall had shitty foot traffic anyways. Lougheed was a parking lot too. Edmonds was Middlegate or industrial complexes.

All the restaurants in the vicinity around these town center seem to be bumping.

I'd agree with the fact that all these areas have gotten much better than what was there before. To me, it's about the missed opportunity and poor planning of how to re-develop these areas for Burnaby. They literally could have asked Vancouver for advice on how to make liveable neighbourhoods and instead made shitty unwalkable concrete jungles that lack green space, amenities or character.

I'd read the backstory of the town centre concept for Burnaby (it started in the 60s) and they've basically taken all the wrong lessons from city planners to build them. They ignored all the good stuff that was supposed to be done and did only the really shitty stuff.

[Hondaracer]

I think the concept of Brentwood and the reimagining of the mall turned out pretty well

It’s just the housing around there that kinda fucked it. I don’t think you needed those 5+ spires to be right at Willingdon and Lougheed

[unit]

Originally Posted by supafamous

I generally hate the idea that the River District exists for all the reasons stated - super car centric, no transit, no schools, lack of parking, out of the way etc but I will admit that the core of it has turned out pretty decent. It's got a solid offering of restaurants, a Save-On, a great liquor store, Shoppers etc and it's quite walkable (could use more tree cover though) and does have decent views.

If they ever add a proper bus line (the 30 and 80 are kinda useless) through there and get a school in place I think it'll actually turn out to be a decent neighbourhood.

FWIW, the Joyce/Collingwood area has turned out to be a pretty good neighbourhood minus the lack of street level retail along Vaness. Nice big park space in the middle, decent amenities, and great transit. Everything up to Kingsway should have been rezoned though to allow for at least low rises.

i lived here for a few years and overall i liked it. the BC Parkway runs right through it too so its pretty awesome for biking especially if you're going towards vancouver. grocery and stuff not the greatest though. they have a kinda dirty filipino grocery store that has no prices on anything, or you have to drive up to safeway which nobody should do most of their shopping at.

[bcrdukes]

Originally Posted by unit

i lived here for a few years and overall i liked it. the BC Parkway runs right through it too so its pretty awesome for biking especially if you're going towards vancouver. grocery and stuff not the greatest though. they have a kinda dirty filipino grocery store that has no prices on anything, or you have to drive up to safeway which nobody should do most of their shopping at.

Tell us more about this dirty filipino grocery store

[6thGear.]

As someone who's lived at River District since the beginning (2013) I will wholeheartedly say it's not for everyone. IF you have your own parking spot (minimum 2) and don't rely on public transit, it's imo quite enjoyable. Personally I will never live close to bus hub or SkyTrain stations as I've lived at Joyce and commercial/Broadway. Nothing but property crime and homeless people all around, and this was in the 90's and 2000's. As for the comments on discarded needles, I've never came across any but definitely more dog shit due to irresponsible pet owners, but Ive noticed it's not as rampant this year.

However the biggest issues at the moment for this area is
-constant street closures
-parking is a nightmare
-Marine Drive traffic is much noisier these days
-lots of drivers trying to speed through the neighborhood to bypass Marine traffic
-Energy building being built took away half of ground level parking
-poor signage directing vehicles to free underground parking

As for the potential schools in the area, nothing will be built for the foreseeable future until the catchment schools are over capacity (Killarney, James Cook, Champlain Heights).

As for the high Strata fees, I only know of the 4 buildings surrounding Town Center thats paying the premium, due to their Club Central amenity building (pool, hot tub, b-ball / squash courts gym, etc). 1 of those 4 buildings has already gone through 2 special levies.

[EvoFire]

Killarney is likely under capacity right now until the new families that have moved in catches back up to the high school age. There's a bit of a gap in kids in the area as the condos are mostly young families, and the seniors haven't sold yet in the area. At it's peak Killarney was over 2000 students and the biggest enrollment school in VSB.

Oppenheimer is over capacity (our catchment, at the start of kindy last year after lottery, we were wait list 34. A Kindy class is 20 students)
Cook is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Kingsford Smith is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Champlain Heights Annex is over capacity (Kids who are supposed to go there are at Champlain Heights main school)
Champlain Heights is at capacity (2 kindy classes, both full.)

The street closures are going to be a part of your life until the area is fully built out, which probably is going to be another decade. I can't imagine bypassing Marine Way would be faster unless they've closed the curb lane again.

Agreed signage is poor. I didn't know there was underground parking until some one at TD told me.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by unit

or you have to drive up to safeway which nobody should do most of their shopping at.

killarney these days is at around 1500 students if i'm not mistaken which is still massive IMO

[Mikoyan]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Killarney is likely under capacity right now until the new families that have moved in catches back up to the high school age. There's a bit of a gap in kids in the area as the condos are mostly young families, and the seniors haven't sold yet in the area. At it's peak Killarney was over 2000 students and the biggest enrollment school in VSB.

Oppenheimer is over capacity (our catchment, at the start of kindy last year after lottery, we were wait list 34. A Kindy class is 20 students)
Cook is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Kingsford Smith is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Champlain Heights Annex is over capacity (Kids who are supposed to go there are at Champlain Heights main school)
Champlain Heights is at capacity (2 kindy classes, both full.)

The street closures are going to be a part of your life until the area is fully built out, which probably is going to be another decade. I can't imagine bypassing Marine Way would be faster unless they've closed the curb lane again.

Agreed signage is poor. I didn't know there was underground parking until some one at TD told me.

Kingsford Smith had 2 full Kindy classes this year.

I prefer to park underground on the Shopper's/Bosley's side. Less trafffic.

[unit]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

Tell us more about this dirty filipino grocery store

produce always looks bad, aisles are disorganized and cramped, and the back section has their meat freezers that have tons of mystery meat that looks like its been frozen for years.

i always thought that this area could use a much nicer independent supermarket. plenty of people around that would support it if it was clean and fairly priced.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by unit

produce always looks bad, aisles are disorganized and cramped, and the back section has their meat freezers that have tons of mystery meat that looks like its been frozen for years.

i always thought that this area could use a much nicer independent supermarket. plenty of people around that would support it if it was clean and fairly priced.

Ha, I know that grocer (I used to live around there too). The good news is that a real grocery store is coming in at the old Telus building as part of that development. I hated walking up the hill to the Safeway on a hot day to get groceries and this new one would have been so much more convenient for me. It does really surprise me that there still isn't a decent grocery store right at the station though - every (busy) Skytrain station should have at least a grocery store and a liquor store right there. It'd be easy money for whoever runs them.

[bcrdukes]

Sounds like a job for a product guy I know...

[6thGear.]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Killarney is likely under capacity right now until the new families that have moved in catches back up to the high school age. There's a bit of a gap in kids in the area as the condos are mostly young families, and the seniors haven't sold yet in the area. At it's peak Killarney was over 2000 students and the biggest enrollment school in VSB.

Oppenheimer is over capacity (our catchment, at the start of kindy last year after lottery, we were wait list 34. A Kindy class is 20 students)
Cook is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Kingsford Smith is at or over capacity (was not offered as an alternative)
Champlain Heights Annex is over capacity (Kids who are supposed to go there are at Champlain Heights main school)
Champlain Heights is at capacity (2 kindy classes, both full.)

The street closures are going to be a part of your life until the area is fully built out, which probably is going to be another decade. I can't imagine bypassing Marine Way would be faster unless they've closed the curb lane again.

Agreed signage is poor. I didn't know there was underground parking until some one at TD told me.

We were on a waitlist for CH Annex. We finally were accepted a month back. Thankfully it's a 5 min drive versus our current daycare which is behind Lougheed Mall. Also don't get me started on daycare around the area.

All 4 buildings at Town Center (under SOF, Shoppers, Everything Wine, Scotiabank have underground free parking)

Another thing I forgot to add, COV parking enforcement have been blitzing the area with parking ticket and tows, just last Monday night, COV order saw up to 10 Buster trucks doing a massive tow.

As for traffic cutting through RD, there has been quite a few. I usually turn behind the Shell station and sometimes will drive over to SOF or even to pick up dinner. Time and time again, a random car would follow my turn onto Boundary and tail me all the way then turn back onto Marine.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Ha, I know that grocer (I used to live around there too). The good news is that a real grocery store is coming in at the old Telus building as part of that development. I hated walking up the hill to the Safeway on a hot day to get groceries and this new one would have been so much more convenient for me. It does really surprise me that there still isn't a decent grocery store right at the station though - every (busy) Skytrain station should have at least a grocery store and a liquor store right there. It'd be easy money for whoever runs them.

I want to know about this shady philipino place? I'm assuming it's close to Joyce?

Originally Posted by 6thGear.

We were on a waitlist for CH Annex. We finally were accepted a month back. Thankfully it's a 5 min drive versus our current daycare which is behind Lougheed Mall. Also don't get me started on daycare around the area.

All 4 buildings at Town Center (under SOF, Shoppers, Everything Wine, Scotiabank have underground free parking)

Another thing I forgot to add, COV parking enforcement have been blitzing the area with parking ticket and tows, just last Monday night, COV order saw up to 10 Buster trucks doing a massive tow.

As for traffic cutting through RD, there has been quite a few. I usually turn behind the Shell station and sometimes will drive over to SOF or even to pick up dinner. Time and time again, a random car would follow my turn onto Boundary and tail me all the way then turn back onto Marine.

Are you guys starting Kindergarten at CH Annex?

It's crazy some one is trying that with all the 4 way stops. I'm gonna assume those ppl are blitzing the stops as well then to make it out quicker than the main road.

[6thGear.]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

I want to know about this shady philipino place? I'm assuming it's close to Joyce?



Are you guys starting Kindergarten at CH Annex?

It's crazy some one is trying that with all the 4 way stops. I'm gonna assume those ppl are blitzing the stops as well then to make it out quicker than the main road.

Yes starting Annex this September. 5 years flew by just like that

Yeah these drivers do a rolling stop at that 4 way after gunning it down Sawmill.

[snowball]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Is South Cambie part of Marpole? I temporarily lived with my parents around the Winona Park area while my house was being rennovated and I did not like the demographics there.

The South Cambie hood isn't that south. It's just called South because it's south of downtown (similar to South Granville). It ends around QE park.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by snowball

The South Cambie hood isn't that south. It's just called South because it's south of downtown (similar to South Granville). It ends around QE park.

When I say South Cambie, like literally south Vancouver, around the 61st area.

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by 6thGear.

As someone who's lived at River District since the beginning (2013) I will wholeheartedly say it's not for everyone. IF you have your own parking spot (minimum 2) and don't rely on public transit, it's imo quite enjoyable. Personally I will never live close to bus hub or SkyTrain stations as I've lived at Joyce and commercial/Broadway. Nothing but property crime and homeless people all around, and this was in the 90's and 2000's. As for the comments on discarded needles, I've never came across any but definitely more dog shit due to irresponsible pet owners, but Ive noticed it's not as rampant this year.

However the biggest issues at the moment for this area is
-constant street closures
-parking is a nightmare
-Marine Drive traffic is much noisier these days
-lots of drivers trying to speed through the neighborhood to bypass Marine traffic
-Energy building being built took away half of ground level parking
-poor signage directing vehicles to free underground parking

As for the potential schools in the area, nothing will be built for the foreseeable future until the catchment schools are over capacity (Killarney, James Cook, Champlain Heights).

As for the high Strata fees, I only know of the 4 buildings surrounding Town Center thats paying the premium, due to their Club Central amenity building (pool, hot tub, b-ball / squash courts gym, etc). 1 of those 4 buildings has already gone through 2 special levies.

I am also guessing the high strata fees are related to the RD Energy rates for heat and water are much higher?

Plus with RD being on a floodplain, I would guess insurance rates are high, which is typically a large portion of a strata fee. Is that your experience as well?

[noclue]

From what I heard River district has a ton of bugs which of course brings lots of spiders, smell of compost depending on wind and the occasional freight train.

[Gerbs]

I don't think anyone lives at river district by choice, they went there because it's cheaper than anything else for something "new" at the time. Iirc Station Square / Burnaby / Marine Gateway / New West / Richmond were all more expensive for that time frame.

Some ppl maxed out at $450-550K 1BR and $720-800K 2BR for a new build

[winson604]

Originally Posted by Gerbs

I don't think anyone lives at river district by choice, they went there because it's cheaper than anything else for something "new" at the time. Iirc Station Square / Burnaby / Marine Gateway / New West / Richmond were all more expensive for that time frame.

Some ppl maxed out at $450-550K 1BR and $720-800K 2BR for a new build

It was definitely attractive in price when I looked at pre sales back in 2016 but being close to the River, close to Marine Drive, and everyone warning of mad bugs in the Summer drove me away. Eventually bought in the Killarney area some 20 blocks up from RD.