Vancouver Real Estate: bubble or no bubble?

[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!