more people are moving out of BC if you go by Atlas which is a transnational moving company.
http://i60.tinypic.com/2akibcx.png

I don't think that paints a very accurate picture. I am quite confident that the majority of people that move in and out of BC is by air, and even if you are moving out-of-province, to Alberta, for example. Most people wouldn't use freight as it's costly. It's far more economical to sell and buy again.

Exactly!
HGTV was a good source to see the real estate in the state.
Too bad this is Vancouver. $250K territory can only get us a shoebox condo
not even a townhouse :(

Yes but 2k a month gets you a pretty sweet place downtown!!!

Ross Kay, a real estate consultant, is doing a week-long 'expose' on the national mis-reporting of home sales from the CREA, first article went up this morning:

Exposure of National Misreporting - RossKay.com

Actually, most relocations are done by freight on the ground. I also figure most of the relocations that Atlas does is handled by the company who hires people from out of province/state. They were the ones who moved our stuff from BC -> QC.

However, if you were to pay for it yourself, then yes, it is more economical to sell some of your easily replaceable items than to move it.

Are you new here? Bc that was the stupidest post for a while.

If renting makes sense from a financial standpoint it is because:

1) over the long term, real estate goes up with inflation. This short term Vancouver effect is just that, short term. Leverage, if rates are low, is a beneficial part of inflation pacing growth

2) financial assets (diversified portfolio of equities and fixed incomes) way outperform inflation, and thus way outperform, dollar for dollar, real estate.

If you can get positive cash flow, it's a different story, but to blankly say 'would you be ok renting in 50 years' well, if I were sitting on $5M in liquid investments, I'd be fucking stoked to rent, especially if mr. Homeowner had less than half my liquid portfolio... But a house... That they're stuck in... That they can't sell within a matter of seconds...

This isn't a house buy vs rent issue, it's a financial investment issue

Fucking hell, some of you guys are just clueless

If you aren't confident about investing - get a fixed fee financial advisor that works for a big name IA firm, they'll charge 1% NAV per year, and will have your money invested in a diversified portfolio, rebalancing regularity, and potentially helping you structure your financial life better than it currently is.

Life is hard if you make it hard - you come across as though you want to make life harder than it really is

Sorry for all these replies, but I've not read the thread for a while,

Good for you, you pay $600 a month in mortgage (plus all the other ownership costs).

But you also share your house and common outdoor property with strangers, ergo, you get little privacy.

If you're fine with that, good for you, but I'd rather live in a more modest place and have my privacy, peace, and ability to do what I want in my house when I want, you can claim you have all these things, but I don't see it this way.

What ur really doing is financing a multiple family unit, not a single family house. This is one thing I hated about Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, all the basement suites - it's grim, it's trashy, it makes a neighbourhood undesirable to higher net worth individuals, this you property value is restricted

Fuck, more stupidity.

Last place i rented, 4 yrs, no problems, not a penny of raised rent (im a fucking good tenant). Current place (in Europe), in a super high end neighbourhood in the downtown core (think coal harbour, but more exclusive), I was a desired tenant, so I got what I wanted in my contract.

If ur a shit tenant, then u won't get good treatment, but why would u.

I know a guy, makes millions every year (he's a one in a million for what he does), rented for years and years with wife and kids, because he made tonnes more investing elsewhere

I think ur past sentence shows that ur a fucking retard. I'd say people who own, in our age group are way, way worse off than a "poor renter"

Fucking idiots

1 house, damn, that means all of Vancouver and every kind of property, no matter the circumstances...

Strong post

Perfectly on point. In Vancouver, I could have bought a nice place, but I wanted and needed freedom. Then when I got offered a huge windfall to move to Europe, I said fuck you to my apartment and job in Vancouver.

Owning a place, I'd either rent for negative cash flow, or be forced to sell at a loss (if bought in last 3-5 years after costs), paid to break the mortgage...

Owning in Vancouver is a bad idea if you have dreams and aspirations (which will likely result in u leaving Vancouver)

I've been both a renter and home owner and there are a lot of wrong information here. If you are planning to buy a home and hoping it increases in value 10-20% in a short period of time, good luck with that. There probably are a few areas in the lower mainland that could possibly get those returns but the home prices are already so high that there isn't much room to gain anymore.

For those who think renting are for those who can't afford a home, you are sorely wrong. Anyone can buy a home if you have money and good credit. Instead of tying up all your money into a property, smart renters actually have their money invested gaining 10-15% rates of return a year which like 4444 has reiterated, is way higher than what your home would gain in a year. You aren't wasting money paying rent if you are making more in your investments.

I think a lot of us have too much pride of home ownership. I am of Chinese background and I have been brainwashed that I need to own my own home. After owning a home and renting, both options are good as long as you are making the right financial choice that fits with your preference and lifestyle.

I don't understand why people are buying Canadian Real Estate. The CMHC subsidizes all mortgages with a down payment less than 19.99%. And I am guessing that the majority of Canadians have a down payment less that 19.99% of the mortgage value. Which also means that their payment CMHC's premium every month.

Which means:
1. Canadian banks win if Real Estate goes up.
2. Canadian banks win if Real Estate goes down.
3. Canadian banks win if interest rates go up and you are unable to make payments on your mortgage, then you sell at a loss. And your in debt for the value on the property vs the value left on the mortgage.
4. When interest rates move higher, your real estate is real valued at that current rate and your investment might be far less valuable than it will at a lower rate." Under water mortgage."
5.When interest rates move higher, there will be a small group of qualified buyer's to buy that investment at a higher rate.

The nature of Real Estate Investing in Canada is 100% of the risk on the Buyers. 0% risk for the bank to facilitate loans to you. Its a one sided game, majority of Canada will lose but Canadian banks will always win.

useless post.

this could mean a number of things.

- a lot of times the assessments are under assessed because they dont account for renovations that dont have permits taken out. assessments are just a general figure, do the assessment people look inside your house? no. there might even be an error on the assessment part, who knows.

- two, the home is probably renovated, plus, perhaps it was listed under market value to get a bidding war?
- what about zoning changes that may have affected the property?

just to give us numbers without providing any details is just stupid.

the owners must have baked cookies while showing the house for potential buyers

You forgot the worst part : Bankruptcy does not discharge mortgages.

Which is why I strongly believe CMHC needs major reforms from the way it has been run. The best option would be privatization so taxpayers are not at risk to bail out any financial insinuations if RE does take a stumble in the next few years.

That would never happen, Canadians are too passive and uniformed about their economy.

Canadian in general are clueless, it can't be helped. Protecting your family but paying off a mortgage early of selling and wait for a major correction and buy back when its stabilized.

Can say that I will be buying real estate when it corrects to 2/3rds of what it is today.

Your experience renting may have been good, but I could easily cite many people I know who have had shitty experiences renting basement suites with shitty landlords, renovictions, etc.

You know two people - your friend and yourself - who have told their spouses to basically shut up about "nesting" and have rented. Good for you - consider yourself lucky.

My point was that how many successful men who are married have had their spouses want to settle down and own a place? On an aggregate level, I would bet that many more have than people in yours and your friend's situation.

And my larger point was that buying real estate is sometimes an irrational decision, much like many other things in life like owning a sports car.

Fuck, is that ever true...it's was an experience, but in hindsight I wouldn't do it again.

The car or the house? Lol
Posted via RS Mobile

fair point, due diligence is always important, even when finding a landlord (though it can still go wrong).

if my partner said 'we must buy a place' - we'd have a sit down, simple as that, and we'd compromise.

never would I give in on this, unless there was an equally beneficial compromise on her side...

weak men allow women to make decisions - compromise is the only way

When spousal decisions are taken into consideration, everything changes. Especially when a couple is planning to build a family or already has family, the benefits of home ownership rockets right up. Studies have shown that generally speaking, relocating takes a harder toll on children as they have a far more difficult time adjusting to a new environment and getting comfortable with a new place again compared to adults. For children, stability and familiarity with their environment are important.

At the end of the day, you gotta remember that money and your own career are not everything.

I can relate to that, my parents moved us halfway across the Country the year I was to start high school. So here I went from heading into the most important part of my life up to that point with the people I had grown up with all my life to moving halfway across the Country not knowing anyone, having no family except my parents and my sister and having to start out from scratch.

To say it was hard is a fucking understatement. My dad was chasing his dream and it took him a long time to finally see it through. I don't know how much thought was put into my sister and myself. The irony, 20 some years later my parents and sister moved back to where I was born and here I remain. I actually don't have any ties here now but I do like it here a lot, I wouldn't leave unless it was to move somewhere warmer where it's summer all year round.

I like my cookie cutter house that I paid way to much monkey for in my cookie cutter neighborhood working my Mon-Fri job with my limited holidays and my monthly budget. Would I like more? Yeah I would. Am I willing to sacrifice what I have and take a chance to obtain it? Probably not. I'm not rich, I'll never be rich and I'm OK with that. The kids are the only thing that are really important to me, as long as they are taken care of, live in a safe environment is all that is really important.