TOTALLY GEEKED!

I love it. The whole world is going nuts while everything is going downhill. Just have to sit back and enjoy it...

Ever wonder how much it costs to buy a driveway? Seriously. Just a driveway. No house included. 108K. Or, you could buy just a parking spot for $50K.

Oh. And you can't build on them. Not even a tiny house.

bc.ctvnews.ca/this-9-foot-wide-lot-in-vancouver-is-for-sale-for-108k-but-you-can-t-build-a-home-on-it-1.4661137%3FclipId%3D89563%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D104070

Well, that fully beats a driveway! Omg - I would totally park my bus-house. That would be way cheaper than buying an actual house!

*impossible attempt to post cute video of halloween trick or treaters under a tent being carried down the street by parents so that they could t&t in terrible rain.   I tried*

-- Edited by Tignanello on Saturday 2nd of November 2019 11:00:13 AM

I really like the avatar and keep trying to figure out who it is. Right on the tip of my tongue..... The eyes and expression seem to be a trademark for some actress that I cannot name.

I saw the video of the kids walking
under the moving canopy - great
idea from the parents ! ! !

Didn't have any TorTs at the house
this year - DH (and I) ate all the
mini Snickers ! ! ! ! !

Brrrrr! Hope they are making
provisions for the homeless.
Temps that low can be deadly.

Rent & property taxes here are within the highest in the world. Rents have been rising and rising and availability is nearly 0%. We've reached the point where not only is it too high for many renters, but it is now too high for the actual building owners. I think we've finally hit a tipping point.

www.vancouverisawesome.com/2019/09/25/apartment-buildings-for-sale-metro-vancouver-bc/

Avalanche of apartment buildings hitting Metro Vancouver market

Business In Vancouver

By Frank O'Brien -September 25, 2019
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Apartments/Shutterstock
In the past few weeks, landlords have besieged Mark Goodman, a multi-family specialist with Vancouver’s Goodman Commercial Inc., wanting to list their properties for sale, including rare portfolios in Vancouver’s hottest rental neighbourhoods.

“This is unprecedented,” said Goodman, who has been selling rental apartment buildings for 18 years.

He said most of the potential sellers are local families that have held rental property for years. Now, he said, many want to get out of the market, even with Vancouver rents at historic highs and the city’s vacancy rate the lowest in Canada.

“We have 18 active listings now worth more than $250 million,” he said.


Goodman expects to have two dozen within weeks. Current listings include a four-building portfolio in the South Granville area, totalling 114 suites that the longtime owners have listed for the first time.

Each sale is individual, but Goodman contends they are fuelled by an underlying frustration with provincial legislation that caps rent increases at 2.5% this year, combined with soaring property taxes, based on assessments that are now often higher than the buildings could sell for.

For example, BC Assessment has valued an aging 16-suite, walk-up apartment building on Bute Street in Vancouver at more than $10.9 million, with the land alone assessed at $10.3 million.

Goodman has it listed at a discounted price of $9.25 million.

The owner of a 44-suite building on Balmoral Street put it up for sale this month after annual property taxes hit $50,000, based on a spike in its assessed value to just under $19 million resulting from an $850,000 increase in assessed land value from a year earlier.

Because BC Assessment values land at its highest possible use, property taxes for Metro Vancouver landlords have increased as much as 25% in the past year. But Goodman said landlords are restricted in how much they can raise rents and even in how extensively they can renovate their buildings.

He added that some of the older rental apartment buildings – the average age in Vancouver is 61 years – have a majority of long-term tenants who are paying rates well below market value.

Under Vancouver’s new Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy, if a landlord evicts a tenant to make way for substantial renovations, a person who has lived in the apartment for more than 20 years is entitled to a full year of rent, paid for by the landlord. Someone who has rented an apartment for between one and five years is now entitled to four months’ rent.

Goodman said some of the older buildings are “falling apart and unsafe,” but landlords can’t afford to fix them because of the penalties for “renovictions.”

The recent spike in apartment listings marks a sharp reversal from earlier this year.

In 2019’s second quarter, Metro Vancouver rental apartment building sales fell 66.7% to just 13 compared with the same period a year earlier. The dollar value of sales was $152 million, down a staggering 73.9% from 2018’s second quarter, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s commercial division.

Goodman said the current rush of listings, which other agents are also experiencing, represents a “changing of the guard” in the Metro rental market.

“We are seeing more institutional buyers like REITs [real estate investment trusts] and pension funds.”

But Goodman added that they are looking mostly at new buildings or large portfolios. There is still a local appetite for one-off, older buildings, but he said sellers might have to discount prices.

Goodman added that foreign buyers have expressed interest in Vancouver buildings but are put off by B.C.’s 20% foreign-homebuyer tax, which applies to rental apartment buildings.

“The taxes are just crazy. Some owners have simply had enough

Anyone would steal that coat if they saw one. $$$$$$

Blundstone 510 & MEC Tremblant (or some version of the Tremblant) If your set goes missing you can be out $500+.

Not a lot of Canadians wear CGE. We mostly see that around people from other countries or wealthy tourists. It's too overpriced for general use or riding our gross transit. Nor is it very helpful when you're out in the back country. You want something a little sturdier.

Tignanello wrote:

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Not a lot of Canadians wear CGE. We mostly see that around people from other countries or wealthy tourists. It's too overpriced for general use or riding our gross transit. Nor is it very helpful when you're out in the back country. You want something a little sturdier.

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I'd buy one but would get mugged!  Stick with the Northface. 

TrudyML wrote:

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Tignanello wrote:

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Not a lot of Canadians wear CGE. We mostly see that around people from other countries or wealthy tourists. It's too overpriced for general use or riding our gross transit. Nor is it very helpful when you're out in the back country. You want something a little sturdier.

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I'd buy one but would get mugged!  Stick with the Northface. 

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 Patagonia and Arcteryx are the go-tos mostly, and then MEC.  Their stuff stands up to pretty much anything the back country or peaks can throw at it.  It used to be all MEC all the time, but they've deviated into other brands and have let their own quality fall.  It's too bad.  The stuff I got back in the late 80s and early 90s held up great in the mountains.  The stuff I get now lasts, but only in the city.  I wouldn't do much else wtih it.

This was filmed in -50*C.  Props.

 

www.straight.com/news/1345946/10-citizens-reports-social-media-make-painfully-clear-vancouver-does-not-know-how

Yup. Dusting of snow with ice. Shuts down our transit system. Glad I don't work these two days. Such a pain getting where I need to go.

Tig, that’s an amazing story! Good for him!

Tignanello wrote:

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Toronto Leafs players are taking a huge razzing on this!

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 They need to grow a pair..🤣