71% increase for me in cowichan. Lol. But it’s just a chunk of land. 25 in PoCO

Just because there was no transactions doesn't mean your values haven't gone up. As a whole the average has gone up about 20% from last year. It's an assessment, but average transaction price history.

Municipalities aren't jacking up assessments
Buyers are jacking up assessments

Everyone loves blaming others for their own self doing

I'm curious how much the accuracy of the specs listed for the house actually matter to the assessment. Mine are quite screwy, and I've seen a bunch of others that are incorrect as well.

The only time the structure value is even close to accurate is with new builds it seems

That's correct about property tax in relation to property value.
Each municipality has their own property tax rate aka Mill Rate that's then applied to each $1000 of net taxable value. The Mill Rate is set by Tax Authorities and if there's no Mill Rate increase property tax increase wouldn't be significant even if assessed value has a dramatic increase

Because land value technically never depreciates where structure (house/condo building) does due to wear and tear/aging/environmental damage/etc hence why there's 2 values.

Yes. Appraisal methods for new builds factor in current market construction costs and potential structure appreciation. It's called the cost method and usually is consulted with construction companies to come up with a number. Usually this is for property that has what's called Latent Value which means potential value and if the property is at its highest and best usage at its current stage. I'm sure previous construction companies you worked for had been consulted with appraisers

A good chart comparing current and historical inventory for sale numbers in the Greater Vancouver region (North of the Fraser):

https://twitter.com/eresc79/status/1...PsYeKWQJw&s=19

2008, 2012, and 2019 will go down as great years for buyers.

Good old supply and demand.

Record breaking prices, and record breaking low inventory. 2022 is going to turn out to be a doozy. It sucked to be a buyer in 2020, but I think I got off easy…

Looking at places right now is rough. Anything we want to move into in North Van is north of 900k. We love our place, but with a baby it's getting to feel quite small. We set up the den as her room, and it's going to be good for a bit, but it's not a long term solution. Our place is so nice, but to move laterally in quality and get an extra bedroom is 250k essentially. It's a tough pill to swallow. We are also looking for 1 bedrooms in the neighbourhood for my Mom potentially as she wants to move from edmonton, but her 4 bedroom house will buy her a shitty place here lol. I really feel for the people 5 years younger than us that are looking to get into the market. I know I am a broken record, but people of all socioeconomic classes are important for a city to function, and I just don't get how it's going to continue where you need to be the top 10% of income earners to ever own anything at all.

I feel like millennials finally made their mark on the real estate market in 2021. Everything is flying off the shelves, including condos and townhouses in the far flung suburbs.

When you bring someone else into the world, the decisions are never easy.

After our first kid, we moved from a condo in a concrete building that I owned since new to a small townhouse that was 15 years old and needed a lot of work about 30 minutes away. We had one car for a while. My wife commuted on public transit an hour each way while she was pregnant. Once we had our second kid, we decided to renovate the townhouse. Also, millennials who used to look down upon the suburbs finally started to take notice of our area and interest/hype increased significantly toward the end of 2019.

Once the pandemic hit, we finally said it was time to upgrade for more space. Unfortunately, the gap was too big between our townhouse and something more suitable for a growing family that pivoted to working from home in the same neighbourhood we were in. We found our "forever home" another 15 minutes away in a less prestigious neighbourhood. The house showed pretty poorly and needed some work, but it had good bones so we bought it. The gap that we had to jump was about $320K in the summer of 2020.

While we have had to put in some sweat equity to bring the house up to a standard that we are used to, we have no regrets. Unfortunately, life is full of compromises. Also, in my experience, bringing children in this world motivated me to do more professionally to provide for them.

Basically made our mark by saying, well fuck, at least the world will end before we retire so it doesn't matter to take this debt. At least I'll be able to decide the size of dog I can have.

At this point it's fuck it, might as well go all-in and borrow every single penny I can and let the kids inherit my debt.

As long as we have people immigrating and willing to live 10 to a house & work for min. wage there will be enough people to work the jobs that no one wants to work. I don't say that lightly because I think it's fucked up, but IMO that's the brutally honest truth.

Congrats on the little person coming soon! :thumbsup:

Don't look at getting the extra bedroom as a $250k thing, cuz as soon as you do that, you might as well factor in the income loss from parental leave along with a whole bunch of other newly added costs.

I still remember the first day when we moved into our new larger place, and our litter person finally had enough space to run around in circles in the living room, instead of the L-shaped 7 or 8m strip where his walking was limited to. The smile on his face was something that I will never forget, and the satisfaction I had knowing that it was the right move was something I would treasure for the rest of my life too.

Now, nevermind that my mortgage won't be paid off until I literally turn 70 years old LOL~

As daddies, we just do whatever we can within the limits of our capabilities to make this family thing work.

She’s here already! I’m not looking at it from a financial stress perspective though, don’t worry. Money comes and goes, it’s all good. I know we have options to move somewhere that isn’t as expensive as NV, but this is definitely a place I’d like to raise a child as I’m already looking at snowboard gear for her a month in haha.
It’s just a vent about the whole situation here. It’s so absurd what it takes to upgrade.

What Traum said about the house. He wasn't a huge fan of being home when we were in the townhouse, now he won't leave the house. Its the difference between having 10-15ft for him to run back and forth, and now he can run in a circle around the house (our main floor forms a circle with the stairs and laundry room in the middle.)

We think the house is too big because we actually need to clean it, but he can have his toys all over the place and can still run around; kids will always love a bigger place. We took on a ginormous mortgage, but it was a calculated bet that realistically was always going to be a win in Vancouver. And hey I have a 2 car garage.

Worse case scenario we sell the house in 5-10 years and live mortgage free at a smaller place because it's gone up so much in price. The first few years are going to be tough but I just need to suck it up. I managed to make it work without selling my car so it's a huge win for me already.

I echo this too. My new place has our primary living space all on one floor (about 1350sf) compared to splitting it over 2 floors and our kid loves it. We can chase each other around our kitchen island easily now and all her toys are on one floor now so it's easy for her to haul it around wherever she wants. Our yard is big enough that I was able to build a sled track in the back and go sledding with her every morning (my wife said it seemed like I was really building it for myself).

I pushed most of our chips in to make it happen but it's been worth it cause it's our forever home and I don't really care where the market goes now cause I'm out of it for the next 40 years.

The wealth gap is definitely going to show it's nasty little head in the years to come.

It's going to be really sad, but the variance of wealth between your friend group is going to be drastic in about 20 years.

I tell my wife this all the time, we save diligently and it still doesn't feel like it's enough. I don't know how people are going to live in 20 years if they don't have savings/investments. It's going to be a rude awakening for a lot of my friends and family.

You won't be haha. 10-15years I think, once the kid is in university/college/working you are gonna want to change it up.

I do believe there is a lot of generational wealth though. People in their 50's and 60's will help their kids get their foot in the market by helping out with $100-200K (or more) down payment.

At least that's how it works in the Asian culture.

Looking to upgrade to a newer townhouse in Coquitlam since November but I've seen prices go from 900k-ish to 1.2 in a month for a 2/3-bed. Meanwhile, my current older 3-bed th is stuck at the high 600k range. Fredericton, Nova Scotia is looking better by the day...

Imo and speaking from my personal experience, Asians that came here in the 70's/80's were dirt poor. My dad arrived in Canada with $10 in his pocket. Vacations / Family outings were PNE opening day's when it was free. Taking time off was only to work on things around the house. They don't want that hard work to go for nothing.

Asian culture doesn't understand the concept of blow it all before they go. Like the Patek Philippe slogan, "You never actually own a Patek, you merely just look after it for the next generation."

I grew up only slightly better off - our treat for dinner was when coupons came in for Church's or Arby's (my love for both remains deep) and we'd go there to eat. I don't think I stepped into a White Spot more than a few times as a kid cause that was too much money. Mom worked a couple waitressing jobs at Denny's and Bino's in the early days. Somehow my parents gave both my brother and I $25k each to buy a place 16 years ago which kicked off everything else for me financially.

My wife's family was even poorer - only her mom worked and she made lifejackets for minimum wage for 25+ years while raising 3 kids. I have no idea how they made it work.

BUT the mind blowing part for me is that both sets of parents paid off their East Van homes and are sitting on a couple million bucks now. Like WHAT? And both sets of parents are planning to give us (5 kids in total) the homes when they pass (or sooner). Both still live frugally - they buy the cheapest paper towels and the no name brands of everything. My MIL even gives us cash gifts - she gave us a grand as a gift when we moved into our house! I can't get her to stop either and she won't spend it on herself.