Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Hondaracer]

I think you vastly underestimate builders elsewhere building without endless issues etc.

Almost the entire US west coast is infinitely easier than Vancouver, which is a big reason leaky condos were even a thing

[westopher]

Oh I believe there are terrible builders everywhere. Like, at least we aren’t Florida with buildings collapsing for no reason and killing hundreds of people, but there needs to either be some accountability or some clarity at least about the shelf life of some of these places here. I’m sure if the inspections and laws were more lax here half of westbanks condo buildings would have fallen by now.
It’s funny. I often ask staff if they know how old the building is that we operate out of. Usually the guess is between 70-100 years. I love the look on their face when I tell them it’s 2009

[underscore]

-10 to +40 isn't that wild of a swing lol, I doubt there's anything about the Vancouver climate that's unique.

[Hondaracer]

Of course there is.. which is why leaky condos happened.

It’s constantly wet and cold with high humidity and it never dries out. It’s a pretty rare scenario in North America

In the southern states you may have high humidity, but it’s not cold. Etc.

Places like Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver have MUCH different climates than say, Kelowna, when it comes to building science.

That’s not the day window systems etc. should be failing, but most of these systems and windows are tested in a lab. It’s hard to recreate 20+ years of weather

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Of course there is.. which is why leaky condos happened.

It’s constantly wet and cold with high humidity and it never dries out. It’s a pretty rare scenario in North America

In the southern states you may have high humidity, but it’s not cold. Etc.

Places like Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver have MUCH different climates than say, Kelowna, when it comes to building science.

That’s not the day window systems etc. should be failing, but most of these systems and windows are tested in a lab. It’s hard to recreate 20+ years of weather

This convo sounds a bit like people making fun of people from Vancouver having a hard time driving after it snows due to our unique conditions.

[underscore]

That sounds more like lazy build quality. In this day and age it's not exactly complicated to see what is and isn't working in the rest of the world. The entire UK has always been soggy as hell and their temps are around the same.

[westopher]

They got shit built in the 1600s still standing lol.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by underscore

That sounds more like lazy build quality. In this day and age it's not exactly complicated to see what is and isn't working in the rest of the world. The entire UK has always been soggy as hell and their temps are around the same.

Again.. apples and oranges.

Those buildings from 1600’s aren’t rain screened stucco. They are all brick and concrete.

In England, Outside of London, as far as I remember there are aren’t that many residential high rises around,. And even less so as you get further out into the countryside. Same goes for much of the UK and Ireland.

If it was as easy as you think it is, there wouldn’t be issues. Do you think builders purposely build garbage? Lol.. the 2/5/10 year warantee doesn’t cover deficiencies willingly built by a builder nor will they cover defects from manufacturers. Many of the warantee providers do not accept window systems from China etc. and sure, maybe a builder under a separate LLC will build some cheap garbage, but if they are consistently bad/having huge claims, those builders won’t be able to build because they won’t be able to get new home warantee ecen from the lesser providers.

[Badhobz]

It seems most of these detached residential builders, and specifically Chinese and East Indian ones, do a few projects then close up shop to come back with another llc name to skirt around having to do any repair work. All shady as fuck for houses that are costing millions.

The regulatory bodies that oversee these constructions are skimpy at best and most of these dudes all know these inspectors/approvers personally. It was so blatant that they advertised that to us when we were interviewing builders. Ohhh yah I know the buddy buddy in city hall, we can push your house through in weeks! Ohh yah don’t worry about inspection, we’ve never failed one before because I know all the inspectors, etc etc etc. all this scamy shit scared us off and we rather stick our head in the sand and just buy outright instead of building. The less I know about this shit the better.

[carsncars]

Originally Posted by underscore

That sounds more like lazy build quality. In this day and age it's not exactly complicated to see what is and isn't working in the rest of the world. The entire UK has always been soggy as hell and their temps are around the same.

I don't know enough to comment about building quality in the UK but it always makes my parents chuckle when people compare London's weather to Vancouver's (they used to live there). They always say the rain here is on a different level.

Data backs it up:
- London (LHR), avg. annual precipitation, 1991-2020: 615.0 mm
- Vancouver (YVR), avg. annual precipitation, 1981-2010: 1,189.0 mm

That's almost double the precipitation over an average year.

True that the temp ranges are around the same, but Vancouver's is shifted a couple degrees colder (YVR avg. low 0.8, 1.4, 1.6 respectively in Dec/Jan/Feb vs. 3.1, 2.7, 2.7 at LHR) which would see Vancouver getting freezing temperatures more often as well.

[Hondaracer]

Warranty companies know who those builders are, they eventually get black listed by all providers. And even when they get their sons etc. to try and build under them, it doesn’t fly

[Badhobz]

Yeah but by then how many people are living in these garbage homes. this shit is everywhere, and it goes even further to say alot of these home "inspectors" are turning a blind eye to shotty workmanship/materials because they know the realtors/builders are going to give them something something to wrap up the deal

Perfect example. Me and the wife had an accepted offer on this house in seafair richmond a while ago. 3500sqft, seems nicely built, and pretty much was perfect for our needs. We picked our own house inspector guy and paid over 1000 bucks to get a drainage tile inspection w/ video. Low and behold the drainage tiles on this brand new house was clogged. We asked the owner/builder for compensation (80k, as they needed to redo the entire drainge tile system and it'll even ruin the brand new paved driveway) but he refused, he rather just sell it to the next chump who wont do a drainage tile inspection and instead just do one of these bullshit home inspections recommended from their realtor.

a few months later, that house was sold no problem to some dumb fob who FOR SURE didnt do a drainage tile inspection. I drive by sometimes and i see so much water pooling on his driveway its not even funny.

yeah we lost 1500 bucks, but im so glad we didnt buy the damn house. It even had some surface corrosion on some of the pipes (leading to the hot water heater) underneath the stairs. I was also worried about water penetration and the membrane of the house being poorly built as richmond is susceptible to flooding more than any other place. For 3.4 million bucks and you only get this kind of trash. its so disheartening.

I actually really liked the house. it had this big gorgeous door

But the craftsmenship was crap. look at this lazy routing of the ac

[Hondaracer]

Yea, typical

That house will be in shambles in 15 years after the little to no upkeep it receives on top of the poor build

[EvoFire]

That's one of things that we are happy about in our house.

It's a 30 something yr old house yes, and some of the cosmetic workmanship is a little shoddy, but the overall build quality is good. I have a friend who is in the wood industry and he walked in while we were reno'ing the place. He said, wow, full cedar framing and build, you don't get this kind of material nowadays.

There was no water leakage except a little bit on the upstairs balcony door. I found that they got the fundamentals with the house right, but back in the day they just didn't care about the cosmetic quality as much. Compared to nowadays it seems like they just don't care, make it look good, make it sell, who cares if you come up with 100k of damage in 5 years.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

[EvoFire]

^ That's a great laugh hahahaha

[underscore]

It sure seems like they're intentionally building garbage with how often you hear about companies being formed, building something, and then bouncing.

Originally Posted by carsncars

I don't know enough to comment about building quality in the UK but it always makes my parents chuckle when people compare London's weather to Vancouver's (they used to live there). They always say the rain here is on a different level.

Data backs it up:
- London (LHR), avg. annual precipitation, 1991-2020: 615.0 mm
- Vancouver (YVR), avg. annual precipitation, 1981-2010: 1,189.0 mm

That's almost double the precipitation over an average year.

True that the temp ranges are around the same, but Vancouver's is shifted a couple degrees colder (YVR avg. low 0.8, 1.4, 1.6 respectively in Dec/Jan/Feb vs. 3.1, 2.7, 2.7 at LHR) which would see Vancouver getting freezing temperatures more often as well.

UK average precipitation per year: 1,220mm.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._precipitation

My point was a general one. There are cities that get hit by monsoons and hurricanes. There are cities with massively larger temperature swings than the mild range Vancouver has. Even within Vancouver I would assume there are some older buildings that have or haven't had issues to use as a reference point. So I have a very hard time believing that the companies who spec these things couldn't possibly have known ahead of time they weren't the correct choice. The manufacturer must do some kind of product testing when developing them.

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by underscore

It sure seems like they're intentionally building garbage with how often you hear about companies being formed, building something, and then bouncing.



UK average precipitation per year: 1,220mm.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._precipitation

My point was a general one. There are cities that get hit by monsoons and hurricanes. There are cities with massively larger temperature swings than the mild range Vancouver has. Even within Vancouver I would assume there are some older buildings that have or haven't had issues to use as a reference point. So I have a very hard time believing that the companies who spec these things couldn't possibly have known ahead of time they weren't the correct choice. The manufacturer must do some kind of product testing when developing them.

I think you're right on this one.

I doubt it's an issue of ability to build within this climate effectively, but rather, inherent practices and lack of oversight (which has long been an issue in this province).

This kind of shit happens when there are massive construction booms with properties built in an expedited manner.

One has to wonder if we'll have a similar condo scandal in the next decade or so with a lot of these rushed developments popping up over the last number of years.

[donk.]

These aren't tofu buildings like China
You think BC regulation for build quality is bad? Go look at Evergrande in China

There's how many different contractors on each condo build?
If one or two contractors mess up, and your windows last 20 years instead of 50, and the roof lasts 8 instead of 16, that's not a big deal

It's part of being a homeowner....
Not everything is going to be perfect, and within specification for x decades

Strata fees are there for a reason

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

I think you're right on this one.

I doubt it's an issue of ability to build within this climate effectively, but rather, inherent practices and lack of oversight (which has long been an issue in this province).

This kind of shit happens when there are massive construction booms with properties built in an expedited manner.

One has to wonder if we'll have a similar condo scandal in the next decade or so with a lot of these rushed developments popping up over the last number of years.

Up until recently Alberta

A) did not have a building code

B) did not require new home warranty

They must just be filled with master builders!

[JDMDreams]

I wonder what happens to countries that needs to often rebuild? Philippines? Mexico? Texas? Japan? Hurricane, tornado, earthquake

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by donk.

You think BC regulation for build quality is bad? Go look at Evergrande in China

yeah but why am i comparing it to china? why not compare it to sweden or denmark or germany where the regulations are so fucking tight, you cant get away with any of this shit. This IS the biggest purchase of ones life, and there are 10x more regulations relating to the already ass fucked environment than protecting consumers from these predatory builders/contractors.

The whole industry needs to be overhauled in canada. If some buttfuck politician would purpose this, he/she/it would have my vote.

[Hondaracer]

If everyone just built brick houses with metal roofs there probably wouldn’t be too many problems

But then you get a buddy guy house like badhobz posted where for the price, you sure as hell should be able to afford somewhat respectable finishings and construction, but it seems like even ar that price point a builder can’t make a profit to “do things right” which is pretty fucked up

Seems like to build a top quality house in both construction and finishing you basically have to be building it yourself at a loss

[donk.]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

yeah but why am i comparing it to china? why not compare it to sweden or denmark or germany where the regulations are so fucking tight, you cant get away with any of this shit.

They ain't airtight, we just don't hear about it

Because noone in Canada cares to listen on CNN about how some German condo had leaky windows or parkade has structural cracks

Too busy watching Trump talking about grab em by the pussy, and how Musk is a little insecure girl on the inside

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

If everyone just built brick houses with metal roofs there probably wouldn’t be too many problems

But then you get a buddy guy house like badhobz posted where for the price, you sure as hell should be able to afford somewhat respectable finishings and construction, but it seems like even ar that price point a builder can’t make a profit to “do things right” which is pretty fucked up

Seems like to build a top quality house in both construction and finishing you basically have to be building it yourself at a loss

buddy guy bought this land for 1.7 million bucks. i figure at his shitty work, he was in for less than a million into the 3500sqft, lets say 800k. . soo roughly all in at 2.5 and selling for 3.4mil.

He wouldn't even fucking budge on price, we gave him 3.2 and he accepted. this shit brick pockets ~700k and leaves the new owner another 100k-300k worth of problems within 3-5 years. while shutting down durka durka construction inc and restarting it burka burka construction inc next year.

what a shit show industry.