Absurd Vancouver Property of the Week (April 24, 2012)
This week’s Absurd Property is truly a steal by Vancouver standards. Described on Realtor.ca as an “Old Timer” this house “needs renovation.” Seriously? Is someone really going to renovate this? Who are we kidding? It’s a tear down. The “motivated overseas seller” is getting $1430/month rent for this beauty, but wants to cash in…
Listing price $1.68 million. Located about 20 minutes outside of downtown in prestigious Kerrisdale (home to “the creme de la creme in Vancouver” – sorry, Pamela Sauder, you are never living that one down), the house is right on busy West 41st Avenue. Transit is super accessible; the bus stop is right outside your front door! The home is a few blocks away from the property I featured a few weeks ago…and is $1 million dollars less. Hooray!!!
Or…for $1.6 Million you could purchase this 8 Bedroom 4 Bathroom home in Brooklyn, NY (20 minutes outside Manhattan):
Or this seaside home in Dublin, Ireland (Howth is 15 Km outside of Dublin’s City Centre) – you can be certain this low price is the result of Ireland’s own recent real estate bubble burst.
Or, finally, you could have owned a piece of cinematic history. The home used in the famous John Hughes’ film “Home Alone”, located in the Chicago North Shore suburb of Winnetka, was recently sold for $1.6 million:
Vancouver…are you f*%#ing kidding me!!???
once again…OUCH. How depressing it is to think of the kind of money one has to spend for a home in Vancouver. I’m not even thinking Kerrisdale…I want a place in Burnaby, where I grew up, but there isn’t anything there for a *reasonable* price either. My question is how do people afford this kind of mortgage? Are people renting? Most of my childhood friends who live there bought their homes a while back, so maybe it was a little cheaper then. My own brother, a physician, works at 5 different places to afford a mortgage a fraction of that 1.68 million (he purchased in 2005) so that his wife can stay home with his 3 kids.
I just don’t want an absurd Vancouver property!!
I still think the work life balance in Vancouver/Canada is pretty good compared to the rat race I’m surrounded by here in Houston. Canadians may argue with me, but I’ve lived in both places and I sure miss the Canadian mentality.
So once I’ve paid off my Canadian student loans with my less valued American dollars, I’m hoping the bubble will burst so I can start shopping there too
It’s just rediculous. How has it gotten to this point? If things continue the way they are going now, no matter how successful my children may end up being, they will have to win the lottery to be able to afford a house in their home town…
I am looking forward to reading the following news story, sometime in 2022:
Vancouver Couple Buys House, Moves In “As-Is”
Each time I see these, I think when are Vancouverites going to make that easterly or southerly migration…
For God’s sake, it’s not the house , it’s the land! More to the point , it’s off-shore speculation on the land, which CLEARLY SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!
Wake up all silly liberals- end foreign ownership of the economy and the land!!! As it is already, no working-class person can afford shit!
Pissed-off MacKay
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really like this blog – appreciate you doing the research – shooting my lifestyle in the foot, but– folks should make a serious effort to make their life outside the lower mainland, all of BC north and east of Hope offers so much.
Thank you!!!