Vancouver real estate market is a giant soap bubble floating around in a field of cactus. Monthly rents are half of monthly mortgage payments (even after down payment). The people that are now selling for less than they paid are the smart ones. It is going to get worse… we have all-time high home prices mixed with all-time low interest rates and near all-time low $Can exchange rates… and everything in the lower mainland is cash-flow negative by a very wide margin.

The Gov’t is now taking 15% off the top for foreign buyers, which is really 15% out of the seller’s pocket. When the full story about assignments, fake owners, fake offers, fake residents are fully understood – folks are going to realize that much of the hefty prices were to line the pockets of the sleazy agents, brokers, flippers and developers. So don’t confuse all the money flying around with prosperity, or rising home values… it is simply rising greed and grift in the very late stages of a psychotic housing mania where the average participant is hideously unsophisticated – and has no clue about the documents they’ve signed, or the true extent of the risks and liabilities they have incurred. The new mortgage rules for buyers – and stress tests for lenders and insurers… should be a wake up call.

If you bought in Vancouver in the last 5 years and don’t sell soon, you are likely going to lose your entire downpayment before this correction is over. In order to return to the historical mean in terms of valuations… home prices in Vancouver need to come down by minimum 42% before rents vs mortgage payments come back into alignment. Take foreign money out of the equation and you are left with a local population with average annual income of less than $50,000 p/yr.

This market is a bright flashing red light to anyone with even a modicum of common sense. Buyer and Seller beware!!

you win the internet!

Ha, ha, ha…

a) Commission math isn’t exact, but in terms of the ballpark costs the author actually underestimated them at just 5%. The original buyer’s cost would have included transfer and luxury taxes that would have impacted their profit margin too.

b) No, it’s not in Vancouver. Vancouver real estate encompasses all of these regions too. Any Realtor worth their salt knows that they averaged these regions in on the way up, and they’ll be averaged in on the way down.

c) Amen.

d) It’s actually a more accurate method to compare seasonal demand year over year than monthly demand. Spring/Summer almost always skews high because larger, nicer properties often show best during this time.

e) Intentional losses are a big money game. Unless these properties are being held by big a massive developer that changed their mind and need to dump by end of fiscal, this would be a very strange way to lower capital gains. In this short of a time, it’s likely someone that can’t afford the payments, but no one is going to know that but the owner.

What’s sad is most Realtor’s in the GVR don’t understand the commission split’s impact on final profits of the seller.

@Turdeau Moroneau Great nick!