Vancouver Real Estate: bubble or no bubble?

[Willow]

Actually, I think there is no shortage of such people.
- Xtasia.

[StirCrazy]

I have 3 Friends that are in the real estate business here, and my mom manages two offices in Alberta, they have all been looking at this and they say the bubble will not pop, you might see a plateau in about 4 to 6 years but not a drop, now like anything there are things that could happen that would change this so like the stock market it is always a gamble. one thing going for us is the government knows the average Canadian family has 60 to 80% of there after tax income tied up in there house so they will not let interest rates go to high like in the late 70's.

Steve

[wetcoast]

I am in the process of getting ready to move back to the West Coast from Winnipeg Manitoba. I left in 2001 for a job out here, and the winters have started to get to me. Since then I have been able to purchase a house (100k) and live very comfortably in a mid 80s job. I have just started to look and find that housing is 3-4x the amount I Currently pay and wonder how are everyone else doing it and getting by? I am out of debt, with the exception of the mortgage, and don't understand people are to keep ends meet, let alone purchase aquarium related stuff, let alone raise a child like I am thinking about in the near future..

If I was to purchase a house at $300,000 (it would be something meager and a fixer upper no doubt I would assume) - at a 25 year term, that would equal out to about 1850 as a mortgage payment at current 5% rates. Thats 500 dollars per month towards my principal and 1250 on interest alone!

While I do not want to rent, I see no other choice - I will be throwing my money away at interest all together, when I could potentially invest that money and hope to get a return on it.

What is the average income that someone requires to actually live now?

Confused, about trying to make potential ends meet.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by daveatwinterpegca

If I was to purchase a house at $300,000 (it would be something meager and a fixer upper no doubt I would assume) - at a 25 year term, that would equal out to about 1850 as a mortgage payment at current 5% rates. Thats 500 dollars per month towards my principal and 1250 on interest alone!

While I do not want to rent, I see no other choice - I will be throwing my money away at interest all together, when I could potentially invest that money and hope to get a return on it.

My brother just got moved by his company to Calgary from just outside London Ont. He was looking at moving from a nice $145k house to a $300k crack den. I drove around with him for days, it was just depressing but we got really lucky and found a nice place that just went on the market and hadn't recived much attenton yet.

He's a very well paid engineer type, it was just the timing that left him with out any money to make a large down payment so he would have been looking at a silly mortgage payment like you describe.

I don't have any real estate experience to speak of but I think any time you get in a situation where real estate is all anyone talks about anymore leads to bubble behavior. It might be a protracted bubble but you can't make money out of thin air like that without there being concequences.

[Invigor]

..SASKATCHEWAN RULES!



however, I don't see housing prices going down anytime soon. the average house since last summer has increased about $40000 in...10 months...and that's here!