Absurd Vancouver Property of the Week (July 4th, 2012)
When you think of a millionaire’s home what comes to mind? For me, I hear Robin Leach’s voice from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous…”champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” baby! I imagine myself sipping a martini and sitting in a beautiful living room like the one in this 5 bedroom $3 Million dollar San Francisco home:
Or, I see myself reading a story to my children by the fire, after a long day of lunching with my friends, in this $2.8 Million home in Toronto’s Forrest Hill:
Perhaps, I would prefer to be the entertaining type of millionaire, and invite friends to come over for drinks in my “outdoor living room,” like the one in this $3 Million dollar home, formerly owned by both Ellen DeGeneres and Heath Ledger:
Or…what says millionaire more than a cozy living room, furnished with antique furniture, lamps as good as new (i.e. with the plastic still on) and lush brown carpet – like in this $3 Million dollar Vancouver home:
Seeing is believing…this home also has a “beautiful garden”, complete with a circular concrete pad (possibly a filled in pool), where you could entertain your other millionaire friends.
Vancouver…are you f*%#ing kidding me?
charming house
I would hope it has a nice tulip garden in the yard.
From what I’ve seen, Vancouver home prices are dropping and no one is buying. Look for a 15%-20% correction within 2-3 years.
There has already been about a 14% price correction in the last 4 months. I think we will see prices go far lower in the next 2-3 years.
Obviously the prices are way too high..Anyone with any sense knows that and didnt buy on their Realtors advice…If your realtor advised you to buy, they were just doing they’re job. Fire them. Wait till 2014 to buy…buy gold, or the Yuan.
This may be the most absurd yet!
…this is just too funny! Thanks for a great mid day laugh!
Stunning. NOT
I must say I’m somewhat partial to the pathetic wreath on the door of the Vancouver property. Was this taken in the summer? Even more pathetic. With prices and demand down on “Detached” in Vancouver, this $3 million prized abode is now only $2.65M. I wonder if there’s a dead oil tank seeping toxins in the back yard? Just askin’.
So here’s a quick poll:
How much do you think that house on 36th avenue is worth? What would you consider to be a reasonable price to pay considering the condition of the home, location, and size of the lot?
I’m very interested in finding out what kind of reality your all hoping for
Around 600,000-750,000…..not 3 million. That’s ludicrous and I think someone might’ve accidentally added one too many zeros or the sellers are being greedy or their realtor isn’t doing a good job. Unless it’s built on top of a small gold mine – Also, if it is set on top of a hill and has an unobstructed view that has no potential to be built up and blocked by yet another condo in the near future then and only then, just maybe 3million would start to make sense.
And so there’s the rub…..in essence this piece of land (I agree the house itself is worth little), is “valued” by people differently. $3 mill is rediculous, yes, but how about $1 mill? I can guarantee you there would be multiple offers on that place if it was priced at $1mill. Yet you can go to many other cities and get more house for less than $500k!
Can we/should we be comparing? So
Many different variables come in to play.
This might just be out there… but $200k would be realistic because of location. Otherwise, the house itself is worthless. It’s the lot I would want. I would renovate the whole place and not re-build. So another $100k. A lot of people might cringe because of prices….lol
This property is clearly land value and overpriced. I’m not an expert on that neighbourhood but I would think that the market is probably around $2M for that size lot in McKenzie Heights, and definitely lower today than it was a few months ago.
I think it would be more useful to post what places are actually selling for as these provide more insight into the West Side market. A crazy overpriced listing that probably won’t sell, from a realtor that is not active in the West Side market, only proves that some sellers and their realtors are clueless.
I enjoy your blog and think it is interesting and informative generally. It might be valuable/helpful however if you didn’t just focus on the West Side (which is only 5% of our region but for some reason always gets an inordinate amount of attention). Why not also post the “attainable home of the week”…for example what does $500k, $750k, $1M buy you…now that would actually be useful/helpful to your readers. Just a thought. All the best!
I think that some well meaning posters here may be very confused as to what is considered “achievable” for local buyers…
Without getting things overly complicated…
Average local household income – $67,000 – See StatsCan for reference.
Average local house price – $1,061,067 – See June RE stats.
That means the average Vancouver house is priced roughly 16 times the average Vancouver household income.
This ratio was around 4-5 in early 2000′s and it will return there once again.
At 5 times local income, Vancouver will remain expensive – at around 3X income do you begin to see true value. However, I don’t think Vancouver will quite achieve that discount, its a desirable city.
This market is not propped up by foreign money, lack of land, or any of the other scape goats. This city has been built on speculation, and continues to thrive on speculation.
Its as simple as looking at lax lending rules (now being wound back), cheap credit, and moral hazard via CMHC. These factors brought demand forward enabling owners to continually leverage up as first time buyers were entering the market due to lower, and lower lending criteria.
Whats often forgotten is that we started this cycle with 20% down and 25 max amortizations at 7%ish. We finished with 0 down and 40 years amortizations at 5%ish. This is what has enabled the locals to leverage up and drive housing to absurd highs.