Hey Lister? Have you played Crack Shack or Mansion? Vancouver home prices have definitely been in a bubble recently. Not sure if they have come down recently.
13/16 Right. Admittedly I didn't give it much thought. The one that looked like a crack shack and was, I probably should have gotten right.
Vancouver home prices are YOUR fault you blasted Americans. All these Chinese and Indian families only wanted to be Americans but NO, you had to deny them their green cards. So they said “Screw you America, we’re bringing our millions to Canada” and then they saw Canada, realized the only nice places are Vancouver and the east coast (stereotypical view); the east coast was too far away so they all are moving to Vancouver.
We had a brand new condo development go up in New Westminster with over 100 condos. I drove past the sales office on the day they first opened and the lineup was around the block (lowest price was 360k for a tiny 1 bedroom). Turns out the first 10 or so in line bought the entire development. ALL of them were Chinese from mainland china or Hong Kong.
We had a dozen or so teenagers all get arrested because they were racing their brand new Ferrari’s, Lamborghinis, Maserati’s, Bentley’s, and Audi’s through Richmond (20 minutes from downtown Vancouver). My university was full of 18 year old Chinese kids driving 200k cars. It’s like Dubai is too hot and dry so they’re all flooding into Vancouver.
So really Vancouver’s real estate is artificially inflated by immigrants. I doubt that’s going to change any time soon. We had a slight correction (my mother’s home went from 800k to 725k) but prices are still well over the top and they’re going back up again.
I still think property is a better investment than stock. It’s more flexible, tangible, and predictable. I wouldn’t be surprised though if niner and I went our two separate investment paths and ended up with the same result. Ultimately we’re all at the mercy of the global market.