Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[westopher]

Time>space, by an absolute long shot for me.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Traum

I don't get why people would want to live in these new duplexes either. For the same money, you can get a single detached home in Delta / Tsawwassen / Coquitlam. The house is gonna be much larger, and can be as new as ~30 yrs only.

Yeah, you aren't living in Van / Richmond / Burnaby. So what? You get to live in a giant house with a proper 2 - 3 car garage instead. Total win in my book.

Those commutes can be brutal though if you work downtown - 90 mins each way depending on the timing. I'm probably spoiled but I've had commutes as short as a 12-15 min walk (when I was in Victoria) and anything more than 45 min just feels super painful (even worse now that I'm a parent). I've mostly worked jobs that had long hours so tacking on a 90 min commute each way would awful - I'd basically be out the door at 7a and not be back home till 7-8p. For me, there's no joy in being stuck in traffic (or being traffic) either - I just turn into an angry maniac versus the person I am when I just hop on and off skytrain (relaxed).

[6793026]

Originally Posted by Gumby

I know this doesn’t apply to most of you, but there are some people that do have to commute to work. Living in a smaller more expensive place might be worth it if it means they spend less time on the road.

I grew up in Richmond and totally enjoyed the bigger houses/properties but moved to Vancouver as an adult to be closer to work. Every time I encounter a plugged-up bridge going in/out of Richmond, I’m glad I made the choice. But I wish my place was bigger!

the bridge is a pain and the tunnel as well.
You can live in abbotsford but u can't do that when u have to work at downtown.

Yes, richmond does suck at 8 am trying to cross over.. gosh..
I also do not like falling asleep trying to get thru the tunnel on a dark rainy day.. .at 5 PM being stuck.

[Hondaracer]

My neighbour works at UBC and typically commutes by Bike. He had to sell his house because he was spending 3 hours+ commuting from east van to UBC. He figured he would spend about the same every day if he drove a car. From east van

Try coming from Langley. The time it takes to go from like the highway to main and broadway will eat up your life.

[Badhobz]

i get it if you compare, say langley or abbotsford for a commute but then why would you do such a thing? just find a job closer to home.

but moving to east van instead of richmond!? da fuck? how much time do you save there? takes me 30 minutes to get from steveston to canada place at 6am. about 40ish coming home at 2pm.

Easier way is to get a cushy ass quasi government job and make your own hours. Screw this 9-5 shit. I arrive at the office at 6am and typically leave by 2pm, therefore bypassing all the heavy traffic.

[Hondaracer]

Bra.. Richmond is Richmond

I ain’t living in Richmond.

[Badhobz]

well you dont sound happy in east van either. you might as well join us ching chongs and have better food, less crime, and wayyyy more people yelling SAY GEWILO ! at you.

[supafamous]

I think all of Richmond is listed as an extreme hazard zone if an earthquake hits. That was always a total non starter to me, it's like living in a hurricane zone (New Orleans or Miami).

[Badhobz]

thats stupid. then you should tell all the nips in japan to move the fuck out cuz that entire country is a huge disaster zone.

you cant choose where to live by the possibility of natural disasters. if its decided by fate that you'll die, you'll die.

p.s. thats the most chinesey thing to say. all the old school chinese (taishan, zhongsan, fushan, one of those old school ass shan regions) refused to move to richmond for that exact reason.

p.p.s. thats why honda we are your chosen people.

you hate liberals? us too! we refuse to give anyone a handout.

you dislike junkies? no problem friend, none of us do drugs, we are wayyy too cheap to buy some mind-altering substance. we rather go spend it on food and luxury items.

dont like talking to weirdos? no problem, all our people do is just stare at you uncomfortably while nonverbally judging you. Nobody will ever say shit to your face. You can pour motor oil down fish manholes (to make them more delicious duh) and your friendly neighbourhood chingchong will continue to ignore you like nothing ever happened.

dont like to take out green can? dump everything in the trash like me, its been 18 years since i moved to richmond and ive never recycled or used the green bin for anything other than grass clippings. I dont even know where my blue can is... i think i used it to hoard some guangdong shit in my shed with it.

[CivicBlues]

Been saying this for months now...Honda is literally a Chinese Auntie in a middle aged white guy's body.

[unit]

i value my space, but i wouldnt want a super long commute either...
30m is the max i'd ever drive to a job, and 20m or less is the best if you want to stay sane.
a long time ago i used to drive from coquitlam to richmond and it took 45m.. sometimes an hour on the way back home. those were honestly the most depressing years of my life.
eventually i moved to richmond literally an 8m walk from work... such a gamechanger.

the only thing about moving near your workplace is that your work situation can change and you don't want to move every time it does.
find a home you actually like and will want to stay in for a long time, not just because it's close to work.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Been saying this for months now...Honda is literally a Chinese Auntie in a middle aged white guy's body.

Maybe I’ve got a Chinese aunties body

Honestly like outside of going to the airport or the Vancouver gun club nothing brings me to Richmond.

East van, for all its shortcomings I can walk to restaurants most people can’t get to with a 15-30 minute drive. Growing up in Fraser heights you’re kinda just used to driving everywhere especially when I grew up because even transit would take like an hour and half to get to Metrotown

Being able to walk places is a hugely underrated value in regards to where you live imo.

[SSM_DC5]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

i get it if you compare, say langley or abbotsford for a commute but then why would you do such a thing? just find a job closer to home.
.. .

One of your peons works at the port for years, has built up seniority, it's probably not financially smart to just find a job closer to home after they move to Abbotsford because it's an affordable detached. More practical decision would be to live in a smaller place closer to work.

[Great68]

People are still scared of living in Richmond over "earthquakes"?

Sounds like my 80yr old aunt and uncle. They had a 1/2 acre lot on Ash St in Richmond, which they built a beautiful high end (for the time) custom home in the late 70's, with a huge shop in the back, a pool, a blueberry grove.

They gave it all up in the late 90's to move to a buddy guy special (which had significant build issues that my uncle had to fix) in that armpit of Burnaby between Kingsway & Canada Way, all for fear of "The coming big earthquake"

The kicker is that both my aunt and uncle still worked in Southwest Richmond at the time, to which they had to commute. Just blows my mind.

They moved from the buddy guy house to an older duplex property with 4 suites in the Griffiths area. They rent out the one half, and live in the other with their 48 year old sponge of a son, my cousin in the basement.

Coincidentally, they are the stereotypical type to watch and get all their info and "outrage" from fox news. Really ironic to hear them complain about immagrants in their polish accents. Or complain about government "stealing their money" when they're literal millionaires, two steps from death's door, with no grandkids to worry about leaving it to.

[yray]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Maybe I’ve got a Chinese aunties body

.

richmond Chinese is perfect for you

TCM crack remedies, no homeless people, no drugs, fuck the new comers, loves PP

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by SSM_DC5

One of your peons works at the port for years, has built up seniority, it's probably not financially smart to just find a job closer to home after they move to Abbotsford because it's an affordable detached. More practical decision would be to live in a smaller place closer to work.

Agreed. If he wants to move to Abbotsford and commute that’s his decision but we pay them enough that most of these guys have a single detached house relatively close to the ports. None of them SHOULD have a housing crisis but of course a lot of these guys are dealing with other issues.

The ports a funny place. Not comparable to normal society.

[RevYouUp]

I had my boomer boss at my old job doubt me when I said I’m quitting because of the commute everyday (East Van/Burnaby to Richmond). Knight bridge always seems to be under construction or some idiot always crashes. Now I’m fully remote and couldn’t be happier

[Badhobz]

Knight st does blow. Thank god I take Arthur lang or oak.

When are they gonna add native names to these bridges so I can keep calling them their old school gewilo names ?

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

Knight st does blow. Thank god I take Arthur lang or oak.

When are they gonna add native names to these bridges so I can keep calling them their old school gewilo names ?

Knight and Oak should get Chinese names since you're going into China on them.

[Badhobz]

Say chun Q for oak
Dai fei Gei Q for Arthur lang

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by RevYouUp

I had my boomer boss at my old job doubt me when I said I’m quitting because of the commute everyday (East Van/Burnaby to Richmond). Knight bridge always seems to be under construction or some idiot always crashes. Now I’m fully remote and couldn’t be happier

i was in a similar scenario except i changed jobs for career purposes that happened to be closer to home. i did the math and i saved over 3 weeks of commuting time being angry in a car on knight st during rush hour. i couldn't believe the amount of free time saved

i'm sure subconsciously it was a stress reliever as well as when that bridge is a parking lot you can't help stew after a bad or stressful day of work.

now when i look for opportunities i look at the possible commute time as well. even if it pays more etc i have to step back and not just look at the salary. a lot of opportunities i see to advance in career have offices located 45 min to 1.5hrs away drive time, no thanks

[Presto]

The free time saved by living close to work is amazing. When I got my job in Langley, I bought a place close to work. I was 8 min from work for 17+ years. Now, I'm commuting to Chilliwack for more money where I spend 2 hours in traffic. I do get to work from home 2 days a week which helps with keeping the commuting stress down. I don't want to move to Chilliwack so I hope I can find something that pays the same, or even a bit less, close to home.

[EvoFire]

I feel like the topic of proximity vs space gets brought up here every couple of months.

It's ultimately much more than $/sqft of land of living space.

It doesn't matter how big your house or how nice it is, if you never get to enjoy it because you are stuck in traffic for 2 hours everyday, or it significantly hinders your ability to find a new job which to be brutally honest, is significant in dictating one's happiness. Case in point - look at Dark when he moved to becoming a car salesman, and BAWS when he ditched his POS previous employer.

There's also proximity to friends and family, and also things you need as a daily necessity.

For us, when we were looking to buy our house we basically drew out GVRD in to major sections.

Coquitlam and by extension Burke Mountain
Richmond
Vancouver
Burnaby
New West
Queensborough
North Shore

Anything beyond the Fraser River was too far for us. At the time we were both 100% WFH so commute wasn't a concern at all, but I looked at the trends and saw it wasn't going to stay that way. If I kept climbing the ladder I would have to head into the office and I still had 30 years of work ahead of me.

Potential future commute struck out Queensborough and Coquitlam immediately. A house isn't something you can change easily so we needed to be forward thinking about this.

We both don't like Richmond, too many Hobz around, so Richmond was out.

Being Chinese, proximity to food was important. I needed to be reliably within 10-15mins of a baked pork chops rice with lemon tea. That struck out North Shore and most of New West.

That really just left Vancouver and Burnaby. We liked Capitol Hill A LOT, but my parents had an issue with how far it is from them (they lived at Cambie and Marine at the time) and they strongly persuaded us to not move that far (not that we won any bids in that area).

And after buying in Van east, and by anecdotes from a lot of you here about distance from friends, I'm glad we did. We have friends who live nearby that we can see or run into regularly. Wife took a new job in Richmond which meant she no longer was WFH and had to commute. If we had chosen Coquitlam that would have been a non-starter. She is much more happy there and it's improved her life significantly. Most of our friends who have moved out to Burke Mountain has since complained how bad the commute is and wants to move back.

On a very similar note, my physiotherapist is pregnant, and they are moving. Moving from North Van to Van West. Her reason? They were way too far from friends and they didn't get to see anyone ever. With kids it's only going to get harder so they bought a place closer to where all their friends lived.

[badgerx3]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

My neighbour works at UBC and typically commutes by Bike. He had to sell his house because he was spending 3 hours+ commuting from east van to UBC. He figured he would spend about the same every day if he drove a car. From east van

Try coming from Langley. The time it takes to go from like the highway to main and broadway will eat up your life.

I commute to UBC from hastings sunrise area and a return trip even in rush hour (~3pm - 4pm) is not 3 hours per day. Are you referring to his weekly commute times???

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

Being Chinese, proximity to food was important. I needed to be reliably within 10-15mins of a baked pork chops rice with lemon tea. That struck out North Shore and most of New West.

LOL. True consideration - I'd hate it if I was too far away from BBQ Master or LA Chicken.

Is Happy Day your preferred source of baked pork chop? Van Tea on Main/41st is pretty good but my favourite is M Cafe in Coquitlam - tonnes of fatty meat done just right.