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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
Totally. There are still some options in the 1.1-1.25 range if you aren't too picky about the neighborhood/street/curb appeal, don't mind 1500-1800sqft (2 beds up and 2 beds down max), and are okay dealing with a massive reno. However, you will still face a lot of competition from builders in this range. I've seen a lot of homes that sold last year back on the market after a quick & dirty reno, asking 300k+ more.
We spent 8 months looking for the ideal situation: 3 beds up + a 1-2 bed suite down, without "overpaying" and going subject free on a 40-50 year old house in a bidding war (in hindsight, maybe we should have... ). Now, that type of configuration in a decent neighborhood is easily going for 1.4 before reno.
Hence why we bought a house in a very nice neighborhood in West/Central Coquitlam. We are now able to reno the entire house for the same price as a non-reno'd house in Vancouver and we were also able to pick which neighborhood we wanted to live in.
I purchased in summer of 2018 and we were mainly looking for 3 bed up and 3/2 bed down mortgage helper van specials and bungalows with standard lot size of 4000+. Also only looking in north bby and east van. Found a decent 1960s bungalow at 1.3mil with good layout and threw 100k reno into it, total sq footage was 2000 with detached garage and carport. I would say the tail end of 2018 to beginning 2019 were some deals to be had for these homes. We probably saw 2 or 3 max that made our criteria up until now. Our realtor now tells us if we sold today, it'll go for 1.5-1.6 easily and more. Mind you we have no interest to sell but it's very interesting that even in entry level detached in e van, the appetite is so high for working class locals on these types of homes.
Since you chose Coquitlam, are you using a mortgage helper or not even bothering? In order for us to get financed, we had to show the suite was rentable.
I purchased in summer of 2018 and we were mainly looking for 3 bed up and 3/2 bed down mortgage helper van specials and bungalows with standard lot size of 4000+. Also only looking in north bby and east van. Found a decent 1960s bungalow at 1.3mil with good layout and threw 100k reno into it, total sq footage was 2000 with detached garage and carport. I would say the tail end of 2018 to beginning 2019 were some deals to be had for these homes. We probably saw 2 or 3 max that made our criteria up until now. Our realtor now tells us if we sold today, it'll go for 1.5-1.6 easily and more. Mind you we have no interest to sell but it's very interesting that even in entry level detached in e van, the appetite is so high for working class locals on these types of homes.
Since you chose Coquitlam, are you using a mortgage helper or not even bothering? In order for us to get financed, we had to show the suite was rentable.
Yeah that's exactly what we were looking for. We started our search in August 2019 and I think we were too late/we weren't prepared enough to go all-in right away and the market was already picking up at that time. Every house we bid on between August 2019 and March 2020 was under multiple offer situations. Lowest was 3 offers, highest was over 10.
We still went with the mortgage helper suite here in Coquitlam. It just makes sooooo much financial sense if one doesn't mind someone else living downstairs.
Qualifying for a mortgage is about to get harder for anyone who doesn’t have at least a 20 per cent down payment for a home, which is likely to have an outsized effect on first-time buyers.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is tightening its rules to qualify for an insured mortgage.
At least one applicant’s credit scores will need to be 680, up from the previous minimum of 600. To ensure borrowers can keep up with payments, maximum total debt service ratios will be lowered from 44 to 42. Gross debt service ratio drops from 39 to 35.
CMHC also says “non-traditional sources of down payment that increase indebtedness will no longer be treated as equity for insurance purposes.”
In other words, buyers will no longer be able to borrow money for a down payment, which follows a similar move by Bank of Nova Scotia.
CMHC is also suspending refinancing for multi-unit mortgage insurance, unless the money is being used for repairs or reinvestment in housing.
The changes are effective July 1, 2020.
“COVID-19 has exposed long-standing vulnerabilities in our financial markets, and we must act now to protect the economic futures of Canadians,” said Evan Siddall, CMHC’s President and CEO, in a release.
“These actions will protect home buyers, reduce government and taxpayer risk and support the stability of housing markets while curtailing excessive demand and unsustainable house price growth.”
CMHC stopped short of raising the minimum down payment from 5 per cent to 10 per cent after saying it was appropriate two weeks ago during testimony to the House of Commons finance committee. CMHC also said home prices could fall between 9 per cent to 18 per cent in the next 12 months.
^^ I just skimmed that, so the poor is gonna struggle cuz TDS is gonna be only 35%. This defeats all the cmhc borrowing down payment thing they just kicked in last year
Sorry, i don't agree on the "poor is gonna struggle", it's just the gov't / banking industry has to tighten up their rules and regulations to ensure people are not living / borrowing outside their means.
I think we have closed a blind eye on a lot of things and sometimes it's good to put it back into check.
the poor is not gonna struggle but the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to widen since the "poor" can not build equity
people might be holding a lot of debt due to bad financial decisions but there are others out there who also need a roof over their heads and they want to buy but they dont have the down payment or income to support their current requirements and the tightening of the rules just dont help them out..so they'll continue to rent and help contribute to their landlords capital
before some people "stretched" themselves just to buy a house and they dont regret it...but nowadays with the rules first time home buyers cant even do that for better or for worse
Most importantly, people don't prepare for the future.
1) job lost. The moment you lost your job (which I am), how long can you sustain on without income?
2) Divorce. Holy crap, don't even get me started on my buddy Rob who is still trying to find ways to buy out the house. On going separation calculation for 2 years.
3) Death in family. Extremely sensitive topic and when you get rain, it pours. Suddenly unexpected bills...
4) Having a kid. The moment you have a kid, child care + lost of income (earning only 50%) of your mat leave... it's something you can calculate and have to adapt.
I constantly educate young professionals to always be prepare for these 4 things BEFORE you buy a place. If you're can only save 10% of your paycheck... you're going to have a heck of a tough time paying 10% down and stretching yourself...
OH... and Vancouver Sun this morning... talking about insurance rates on apartments... so yeha.... ever budgeted for that? Or your building's contingency fund is in the red and a big reno is coming.....
The counter point to the above ^^ is -- how can anyone ever be adequately prepared for more than 1 of the aforementioned events? If people only buy a property when they are ready for more than 1 of those 4 things, nobody except for the filthy rich would be buying properties, but everyone would still need a place to live.
^Come on guys, young generations these days, they YOLO it right LOL. I mean look at the cars these young kids drive and the amount of traveling they do, no money no problem (let me call mom/dad).
The YOLO crowd reminds me of Aesop's Ant and the Grasshopper... except in Canada, when shit hits the fan, government takes from the Ant and gives Grasshopper $2k/month.
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The counter point to the above ^^ is -- how can anyone ever be adequately prepared for more than 1 of the aforementioned events? If people only buy a property when they are ready for more than 1 of those 4 things, nobody except for the filthy rich would be buying properties, but everyone would still need a place to live.
You are right, you can't prepare for all 4 at once hahahaha. There are a lot of people who are in their 40s who are still living pay checks to pay checks. That I don't understand.
This is what I teach kids at church.
1) save at least 10% for emergency fund.
2) save another 5% for yearly savings
All in all, if you can't freaking save 10% of your after tax income per year.. you seriously need a lesson on budgetting.
"Why do you need 18GB / month on your freaking cell phone?"
"cause i stream shit at work / pod cast etc and I hit 13Gb on average."
"it's covid, you're working from home.. there's wifi"
"if i go down on my plan, I might never get this deal back"......
"How much money do you spend on lunch & coffee JUST at work"
"maybe average 4 coffee / week + lunch 4-5 times a week"
"$12 dollar lunch (good luck but sure) on average + $4 coffee; That's $3,804 a year..... While you're having lunch each day, I pack my lunch & drink office drip but I get to head over to an exotic country a year.(Egypt + Bali + Italy)"
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I've been with a broker for as long as I could remember. I've been with Intact Insurance for a while now. This year was a toss up with another insurance company, but my broker leaned toward going with Intact, so I did. Insuring a house is a pretty important/complicated thing. I don't want to mess with it. My wife found a trustworthy lady who does the research and simplifies the process. Giving us the pros and cons, etc.
I know they get kickbacks and stuff, but they also get great rates.
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YODO = You Only Die Once.
Dirty look from MG1 can melt steel beams.
"There must be dissonance before resolution - MG1" a musical reference.
Be extra super careful about when buying home insurance because the thing that really matters isn't who is selling you the policy. Instead, it is who is underwriting that policy.
A friend who was underwritten by Canadian North Shield has an absolutely horrible experience when dealing CNS for a claim. The claim dragged on for years, and every exchange with the adjuster was stressful.
The policy at my old place was underwritten by Economical Insurance, and when I had a flood, the claim process was actually very reasonable. Perhaps I got lucky with a good adjuster, or maybe our case was pretty clear cut since something either had water damage or it didn't. They were more expensive, but at least the somewhat higher premium translated into something useful when we needed to use it.
Best to talk to your home insurance broker to ask about the service quality and ease of claims from the policy underwriter. Annual premiums doesn't tell the whole story.
I use Intercon and the underwriter is Aviva. Never had to make a claim but I found their service is pretty good. When my strata deductible went from $50k-$150k they maxed out Aviva's coverage at $100k and found a 3rd party (Chutters) to cover the remainder $50k. However they did give me the option to shop around and even named other underwriters that will cover up to $200k deductible.
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Originally Posted by iwantaskyline
im with square one, was originally with bcaa but my condo deductible shot way up and bcca couldn't do it.
Square one, BFL, Capric, CWM and Sonnet.ca are underwriters that cover up to $200k.
From what I'm told BFL is the largest high rise condo provider in Metro Vancouver and they're the ones that started these huge increases
I'm using Aviva through a broker for my auto and home insurance. Hard to say how well Aviva is, but my broker is always on top of things and frequently reaches out to me with information from Aviva.
__________________ Posted from NE 1-J W Inglis Building
"How much money do you spend on lunch & coffee JUST at work"
"maybe average 4 coffee / week + lunch 4-5 times a week"
"$12 dollar lunch (good luck but sure) on average + $4 coffee; That's $3,804 a year..... While you're having lunch each day, I pack my lunch & drink office drip but I get to head over to an exotic country a year.(Egypt + Bali + Italy)"
well your packed lunch isn't exactly free, a lot of extra time goes into making it, as well as expense. you do save quite a bit though. i buy my mcdonalds coffee in the morning because i decided that buying coffee and making it in the morning wasn't worth it to save $1 or so for me. 1lb of half decent coffee is $10, making it in the morning takes about 10m, then i have to buy creamer, and wash my cup every day.. i'm much happier buying the coffee at mcds.
lunch is a no brainer though, if you make enough food for 3-4 lunches at a time, then the savings do add up. usually i'll prep for at least 3 lunches on sunday, and then do a small prep mid week with a different recipe. costs me no more than $5 per lunch, often less. much healthier too.
I use Intercon and the underwriter is Aviva. Never had to make a claim but I found their service is pretty good. When my strata deductible went from $50k-$150k they maxed out Aviva's coverage at $100k and found a 3rd party (Chutters) to cover the remainder $50k. However they did give me the option to shop around and even named other underwriters that will cover up to $200k deductible.
Not looking forward to my strata deductible price increases. We went from 10k, to 25k, I think we might just jump straight to 100k based on the amount of claims our buildings made this year. In the future, don't think I want to live in a building full of young people anymore - they really don't know how to take care of their houses properly.
well your packed lunch isn't exactly free, a lot of extra time goes into making it, as well as expense. you do save quite a bit though. i buy my mcdonalds coffee in the morning because i decided that buying coffee and making it in the morning wasn't worth it to save $1 or so for me. 1lb of half decent coffee is $10, making it in the morning takes about 10m, then i have to buy creamer, and wash my cup every day.. i'm much happier buying the coffee at mcds.
lunch is a no brainer though, if you make enough food for 3-4 lunches at a time, then the savings do add up. usually i'll prep for at least 3 lunches on sunday, and then do a small prep mid week with a different recipe. costs me no more than $5 per lunch, often less. much healthier too.
Lunch most times for me and my wife is leftovers, when we're cleaning up dinner we pack up lunches so time is pretty null as it it would have had to be cleaned up anyway. I try and bring lunch at least 4 days a week, usually on Friday's my boss buys me lunch.
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“The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place... and I don´t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life. But ain't about how hard you hit... It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward... how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That´s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you worth, go out and get what you worth.” - Rocky Balboa
I'm using Intact for home and auto (I'm in Toronto currently.) Shopped around and looked at other insurance providers but none would cover my condo's minimum requirement, and even if they did, there was a huge jump in cost. Intact provided the best rate and coverage for me, despite me shopping aggressively over the past four years. The auto insurance on the Porsche was hard to beat, and it outweighed the savings and usage rights over other providers. There were cheaper insurance companies, but I had never heard of who was underwriting them, so that was a determining factor for me.
No issues with the condo (so far, and knock on wood) but had a pizza delivery guy back into the Corolla while it was parked. Claims process was super easy and amazing from start to finish. No stress whatsoever.
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). Now, that type of configuration in a decent neighborhood is easily going for 1.4 before reno.
