Warning for Vancouver real estate as 2,500 condos sit unsold
So prices will go down, right?
…Prices will go down, right?
Economics is only a pseudo-science for the rich. For the poor, it’s always an ineffable mystery.
Where is your source for this statement?
Cool thanks for the source clown.
I really don’t understand, how do people have the gaul to make such an outlandish comment and publish onto the internet? At least try to prove such an outlandish statement with something.
You’re asking for a source for a snide comment “published” on lemmy.
Get a clue.
Maybe for a bit as those companies go out of business. Then they go way up because there’s no new houses. Or we could solve whatever the underlying problems are.
The absolute gall of you, talking about solving problems. Are you even thinking about those poor rich folks out there?
Actually no. This one might not have anything to do with them; few people benefit from homelessness, and the article itself mentions some nebulous thing about the laws governing developments in Vancouver.
The underlying problem is houses are priced to high. There is no such thing as an “unsold home” - they are overpriced. Mystery solved.
The thing we’re worried about here is unbuilt homes. I think I actually laid it out pretty clearly.
Overpriced homes will go unbuilt, as will homes for foreign investors and homes for short term rentals. That’s all good news so far. Demand for affordable homes for Canadians homes will continue, and so will supply. Supply of those homes will increase as supply of the overpriced decreases - ie when the real estate industry starts building what people want and no what they want to sell.
“homes will go Unbuilt if we don’t bend over for the real estate industry” is exactly the same lie as “if we tax Job Creators the jobs will go away”.
The homes in the article were the affordable kind.
there are over 100,000 empty in Ontario.
These idiots who keep telling us housing is priced by supply and demand need to fuck off.
The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Like. Since all these Ricky dinky pieces of shit started being out I’ve firmly believed they were a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. I feel like the whole fucking real estate market is.
Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost.
Bkawwwwww
Industry professionals say unbought condos could lead to big layoffs
Everything is unaffordable, workers are all being laid off, AI is replacing people, minimum wage isn’t enough to support a living wage…
What’s the capitalist end-game here? A world full of poor, unemployed, desperate people likely won’t make shareholders any richer, will it?
Nobody is at the wheel. Nobody ever was.
“I guess we’ll see what happens.”
~ Billionaire CEO who can support his family for the next 1,000 generations.
Historically big business wealth only lasts a few, actually. Nepobabies spend big, and each can have several children of their own to which the wealth has to be divided.
How dare you use facts and logic! This is whining sublemmy and I find it appalling that you don’t just whine like everyone else!
Yeah, they all seem to gravitate towards that. Hopefully I’m helping.
Since I’ve been white knighting for developers and investors up and down this thread, I should probably mention that I still am team eat the rich, or at least team we shouldn’t have any rich. The funny thing is that they wish they were evil geniuses, like their opposite number around here seems to want to think.
Incorrect. Governments and corporation all have leaders who have steered us here, deliberately.
You can decide to make a left turn without knowing whether you’re going to end up in Kamloops or Kapuskasing by doing so. That’s the level of steering that’s going on: no one is looking past, at most, the next couple of intersections, and the GPS is on the fritz.
Deliberately, definitely not. Like OP said, why would anyone want this?
There’s leaders, but there’s a lot of leaders, they have interests at odds with each other, and none of them have a position that can’t be lost one way or the other (even dictators fear a coup). In the end, they end up part of the system, not controlling it.
that’s not right someone is at the wheel, he’s got his parachute already
It’s right. Sure, some people have parachutes. Some people have things that look like parachutes but aren’t, or parachutes that don’t steer properly. Doesn’t mean the plane is crashing on purpose, and not because we’re just dumb, even if that’s a more comforting possibility.
maybe you are right, seems i got lost, this is canada’s space.
in america we do have someone at the wheel actively crashing the plane.
sorry for butting in though
That guy is a moron. I’m not sure he’d know a wheel from his foot. He’s just the symptom of a system that’s in a death spiral.
Which I’m sorry about. Hopefully we’re there as a place to go when things get really bad.
Thank you! I’ve heard so many Canadians on subreddits want collective punishment and don’t want American victims of Trump to come to Canada even though they can be a massive help to both our economy and our weight in the world through higher numbers of educated people (brain gain instead of drain)! Lets not forget 49.9% voted for trump, the rest are fine imo.
Eh, assholes are born everywhere.
Beyond the collective punishment thing, there’s also the concern about the effect on housing, which is more reasonable. Either BCH needs to be absolutely roaring by the time a big migration happens, or they’re going to have to stay in refugee camps until things slow down. When one of them asks specifically about leaving, I always say bring an RV.
What’s the capitalist end-game here?
That capitalists maximumize their wealth.
And ultimately that there can be only one, and they all believe that it’ll be them
The capitalists’ game is to pivot their wealth and influence to becoming the dictators of countries. It’s world domination.
I’m not kidding.
Dumbing down the population. Remove critical thinking. Reinstate the harshest of religious beliefs. Feudalism.
What’s the yeast’s end-game here?
THEY’RE GONNA TURN US INTO MEAD AND DRINK US???
I think there was a movie about this
Bold of you to assume any of them are looking past the next quarter or two. Long term survival is secondary to immediate profits, line must go up.
Who could have guessed? The super tiny, yet still branded “luxury” condos, listed at nearly the same as a townhouse, are having troubles selling???
In Burnaby, they’re building super high density 400sqft micro apartments as if land is super scarce, while next door are 6000sqft lots of single family houses. Of course older condos are selling better because they’re nearly double the size and often low-rises that sit with a community, not among wannabe-downtown skyscrapers.
Oleg Galyuk, real estate agent with Royal Pacific Realty, said in his experience older condos tend to sell better than pre-sale condos.
“The new inventory tends to sit on the market,” he said.
He said the layouts of some of the new homes are one reason for lack of buyer interest, as well as a lack of parking spaces that are harder to sell and rent.
Galyuk said developers are throwing out a variety of incentives to get people to buy built units.
“They’re throwing in parking stalls. They’re throwing in storage lockers. They’re giving cash-back on completion.”
He said he thinks some developers have put too many eggs into the “investor basket.”
“Right now, a lot of condos [are] coming online that people don’t really want to live in.”
Says it all really
The reason older condos/townhouses sell is because they were built when there were inspectors actually doing their jobs. Step-daughter moved into a new teeny-tiny condo, and shower door fell off after 4 months. Gaps developing in the “luxury” vinyl plank flooring. Cupboard doors coming off because screws aren’t long enough. They’re garbage homes.
Doug got rid of all trades inspectors from 2018, so any asshole with a home Depot credit card is now doing plumbing and electrical.
These are Ontario Tofu Dreg projects, years from now they will cost us a fortune to demolish.
“The new inventory tends to sit on the market,” he said.
Because they are too small, and poorly built, a huge liability waiting to happen with no reserve funds to deal with it. Never, ever, buy a new or preconstruction condo, they are basically kickstarter housing.
Another reason why this may be the case is that there are a lot of new condos in sprawl-y suburbs. Not everyone wants to live on the outskirts of a city and need to rely on driving for everything.
There’s no way around that particular issue, though. As it is high rises are already the best way to develop urban areas in a way that’s eco and micro mobility friendly.
I have nothing against high rises. My city is trying to increase density by changing zoning laws around bus routes, clearing some properties for hi rise development.
When I was looking for places to live, I would rule out places that were too far from where I work/where my friends live because I travel by bicycle.
The way around it is transit-oriented development.
You can replace Vancouver for Montreal and you’d have the same thing.
In Montreal we laughed for years at the 1M$ shack or mansions in Vancouver, but now in Montreal an average house is also 1M, it was like 500k 5 years ago. There is something like 3000 empties condos too in Montreal, maybe 10000-12000 airbnb too, and 25-34yo people especially those with spouse/children are leaving Montreal en masse.
It is completely fucked up right now. Rent also doubled. People on minimum wage are making ~2k$/month, an average rent is 2k$/month.
Let’s not talk about an average new car at 65k$ and an average used car at 36k$
“The cost that is associated with policies at all three levels of government has made it that we can no longer build what people can afford,” she said.
I’m curious what she means by this exactly. Non-market housing and art is mentioned later on. Are they expected to pay for that themselves?
It’s not like they physically can’t build condos people can afford. With no regulations they could build South Korea-style coffin apartments. Nor are they making money from this situation.
What the developer is saying is that their private industry can’t function anymore and it needs to be nationalized and social housing made a right.
Private industry where it can, social industry where it must.
It wouldn’t be any cheaper for the government, and the government itself has a limited amount of funding. (And that would be true regardless of the tax rate)
“The cost that is associated with policies at all three levels of government has made it that we can no longer build what people can afford,” she said.
Ontario is rife with billionare developers in Vaughan.
But the real point is we cannot build housing relying on private industry any more.
It wouldn’t be any cheaper for the government, at least if the government is following the same rules.
Could they build houses? Sure. Will they? BCH is already starting up. Will it solve this particular problem? Not directly.
So stop building. Stop growing.
Degrowth is the way.
Of course, who needs a house? /s
What a disingenuous rhetoric. Degrowth is centered on meeting people’s needs. No one needs a house. Everyone needs a home. Not everyone needs a home in Vancouver.
One central tenet of degrowth is accepting that nearly everything, at some point, will have to stop growing. This includes Vancouver, and a reasonable person could conclude that this headline is an econonic signal that now is probably the time.
Until absolute population declines, It’s a big country, medium density development in other areas can accomodate everyone more cost effectively than more unaffordable skytowers in earthquake vulnerable Vancouver.
So you’re thinking everyone in low-density suburbs would be better for the climate? (Degrowth is usually a climate thing)
Are you misconstruing my comments on purpose? I said mid density. Also degrowth is not just a climate thing, it’s a sustainable everything thing.
Okay, sure. If you mean townhouses or something, lower density by urban standards, mid density when you consider the countryside exists too. I really, really don’t see how the sustainability of anything benefits from that. You need more roads, more cars, more land and more building materials to house the same number.
If you just mean building the same kind of apartments somewhere else, like in Kamloops or something, you haven’t actually changed anything except more roads and traffic again, because everyone is further from everyone else.
Mid density is mid density. No need to confuse thinking by averaging rural into the equation. We could average out across the universe and be at effective zero home per km2. It’s a ridiculous argument, so why bother.
By mid density, I like most urban planners include everything from townhouse and multiplexes all the way up to low rise appt buildings under 5 stories. It’s dense enough to enable urban transit and walkable neighbourhoods but efficient enough to not need elevators and supplementary water pumps to get water up to the top floor.
High rises have nice views when another one isn’t in front of you, but man is it crippled when the power goes out.
They’re also usually cheaper per unit than lowrises, where they’re built. The location is just great, and the savings on transport adds up to more than building upwards costs, which is why it’s economical for residents to buy them, even when there’s no view. (Once you looks at supertall and maybe superthin buildings that changes, though)
If disaster resilience is your concern, that’s fair, although it’s not really a degrowth thing.
I bought a condo that was part of an HOA. 5 year old construction. Purchased right before covid hit. Within the first year I had a chandelier fall out of the ceiling with no provocation, which I had to pay to fix. Then my 2nd bedroom started leaking from the roof and window during rain. A fucking 5 year old roof should not be leaking. The best part, I couldn’t pay to get the roof fixed because it was on the outside of the house and those repairs had to go through the HOA. During covid, I’d be in my garage making art, and people would drive through the cul-de-sac asking if any of the condos were for sale. It was my sign to get out. I hated it so much, still couldn’t get my roof fixed, and I still managed to sell it and make 20K profit. Much of the newer construction is absolute trash. Also, fuck HOAs.
You know how I know there’s nothing in this article that pertains to the best interests of Canadians? It’s sources are in the real estate industry, the least talented yet most entitled group of “entrepreneurs” the world has thus far produced.
Build something cheaper.
If you read the article, these are tiny Vancouver apartments already. It sounds like going even smaller and shittier would be illegal currently, which is what’s causing the problem.
Ahhh, so they’re just charging outrageous prices for already cheap housing.
Exactly. These condos are over $1000/sq ft. Completely out of reach unless you or your parents are already rich. I don’t get how this surprises anyone there.
And still not making a profit, apparently.
Enough profit* ftfy
To pay back creditors, sure.
Nobody has a magic money printer. Developers aren’t part of a conspiracy just holding back the good stuff from us, if that’s what you’re implying. Because I know that’s the jerk.
If they need ALL the excess value and leave nothing they will have nothing.
Negotiate harder with your suppliers?
