November 4th, 2008, 6 Comments »
I’m certainly no expert in real estate marketing. However, if I’m identifying the six bullet points I want to put on my new building’s sign, should ‘fully sprinklered’ really make the list?
Let’s ignore, for the moment, that ’sprinkler’ is not a verb. Does this really matter to their buyers? I’d imagine that their target demographic would be empty-nesters and young professionals, most of whom have lived their entire lives in ‘unsprinklered’ accommodation. Is the omnipresence of sprinklers going to convert them to buyers?
Maybe I’m just biased. In our Yaletown apartment, a neighbour’s sprinkler-related mishap caused a flood.
6 Comments »
October 30th, 2007, 3 Comments »
One of the hot topics among locals here on Malta is the building boom. They often speak about how there’s too much supply for the current demand. And, indeed, there seem to be new houses and small apartment blocks going up at the edges of many villages, even on Gozo. Often the construction is happening next to a couple new but vacant buildings.
A recent article in The Malta Times describes the scope of the issue:
The census shows that the number of vacant dwellings now amount to about 53,000, an astonishing increase of 17,000 since 1995. In percentage terms, this means that 26 per cent of dwellings are vacant. Moreover, only 10,028 of these properties are holiday homes…
With a landmass almost eight times as large as Malta’s and about 100,000 more residents, Luxembourg has some 20,000 fewer dwellings. While there are 53,136 vacant properties in Malta, Luxembourg has only 4,000. Ireland, with a total stock of 1.4 million dwellings has only around 7,000 vacant dwellings or 0.5 per cent of the total stock.
That’s 53,000 empty residences on an island with about 400,000 people. The article goes on to say that Greece and Portugal are actually worse off.
What’s the cause? One reason, apparently, is that there’s no property tax in Malta. So it doesn’t cost owners anything to simply leave their properties alone. I suspect there are many cases of Maltese people living abroad whose parents have died and left them (often unwanted) property on the islands.
3 Comments »
October 26th, 2007, 9 Comments »
From my former apartment at Pacific and Thurlow, I could see an extraordinary penthouse near the Burrard Street Bridge. The building had a distinctive hexagonal mini-tower on its roof, and seemed to offer unparalleled views of the city. I often said that, if I had enough money, I’d live in that penthouse.
It turns out that all I’d need is $18 million. The Tyee has a profile of super-expensive penthouses in the city, and features unit #2601 at 1000 Beach:
With interior architecture by Omer Arbel, the 6,900-square-foot unit at 1000 Beach Avenue is the only one in the $18 million club that’s actually finished, and it is spectacular — in a very literal and public sense of the term. Rising out of the crotch of the Burrard St. Bridge, the building itself reads like our city’s version of the Statue of Liberty, except that the lantern that tops it off is not a spiked beret but a double-storey penthouse, aglow with a thousand points of halogen light.
Private four car garage, guest suite on the second floor, private elevator. Not too shabby. And it’s for sale. Visit the realtor’s website for a photo gallery. I gather the interior is about as fancy as one could make it with a limitless budget. It sure looks like it.
9 Comments »
October 23rd, 2007, 9 Comments »
Despite having bought and sold three properties, I know very little about real estate. I don’t watch the market, peruse MLS.ca and I’m at a loss three minutes into any conversation in Vancouver (because they’re all about real estate). So, take my trend-spotting with an ocean-load of salt (funny anecdote about salt).
As you know, house prices in Vancouver are pretty insane–the average is nearing CAN $600,000. I don’t know anybody under the age of 40 who’s recently bought a free-standing house in Vancouver without:
- Being rich
- Lots and lots of help from their parents
- Selling their children
I know two couples who continue to rent in Vancouver, but they’ve bought holiday homes in Point Roberts and on one of the Gulf Islands, respectively. These properties are more affordable because of their location, and because the houses are generally smaller than average.
How common is this approach? Do lots of people start with a holiday home, and then acquire their primary residence?
9 Comments »
August 27th, 2007, 8 Comments »
I grew up in West Vancouver. To most Vancouverites, that either implies that I was raised by my grandparents or in a Asian-owed, monolithic palace in the British Properties. In truth, I spent my youth in a wooded but very middle-class neighbourhood near the Cleveland Dam.
Yesterday my brother emailed me, because he noticed that our childhood home is up for sale. It’s an ordinary split-level, 2000 square-foot home and is now 51 years old. It’s got four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and is on a fairly large lot which backs onto the forest. It’s about ten or fifteen minutes north of Park Royal:
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I’ll have to double-check, but I think my parents paid $75,000 (apparently they paid $96,000) for that house back in 1979. I’m not sure how much they sold it for in about 1992. Today, how much is the sale price?
$969,000. Really? Is that what a million dollar home looks like in Vancouver?
It’s about two blocks away from Collingwood School, which is a ritzy private school that’s probably driven up local property values. Still, though, that seems like an absurd amount of money for such an ordinary house.
8 Comments »
April 28th, 2007, 4 Comments »
Back in 2001, we paid the equivalent of CAN $2700/month for a slightly shabby but spacious two bedroom flat in the centre of Dublin. That was considered a pretty good deal at the time.
I know rental rates and housing prices don’t necessarily run in parallel, but I just thought I’d mention that figure by way of introduction. I actually wanted to write about Dublin housing prices, which have soared since the Celtic Tiger phenomenon of the mid-nineties. Consider the facts that I read in today’s Irish Times:
- In 1991, the average price of a ’second-hand house’ (meaning not newly-built) was €76,075 (or CAN $115,935).
- In March, 2007, the average price of a second-hand house was €429,151 (or CAN $654,005).
Prices have increased over five-fold in a 16-year period! That’s just nuts. No wonder there’s extensive speculation about an Irish real estate bubble.
To compare with Vancouver:
- According to Stats Canada (via a PDF whose location I failed to note), in 1991, the average Vancouver home cost about CAN $200,000.
- In November, 2006, the average Vancouver home cost CAN $519,294.
Why that’s a measly increase of two and a half times.
I suppose to do a real analysis you’d have to compare GDP or average net income and these sorts of factors, but Lord knows I’m no economist. Apparently the US is undergoing a significant, uh, correction. Will Ireland and Canada follow?
4 Comments »
