BristolUK

I bought my rental duplex in 2005 for $99k and had it for 11 years, the last few years of which were much worse - problems and irregular income - than the first few with the last couple of years being particular stressful. Mostly because a bunch of new apartments had gone up and put vacancy rates high. I was unable to get the reliable tenants I was originally getting. There were even disputes between the tenants I had to resolve.

Rental property values dropped and in 2016 I sold it for a mere $69k. I wasn't that bothered as the income generated after the expenses more than made up the loss - it was still a better return than if I'd just had the money in the bank - but mainly I had removed major stress in my life.

The guy who bought it tarted up the outside with new siding and I saw that he was renting out one floor for $50 a month more than I was charging but he had heating included so his return on it was less than mine. I saw photos and there were no internal changes.

The property was sold the following year. The government website only shows that it was part of several sales at that time so I don't have an individual price on it.

In the last couple of years vacancy rates have reduced to lower than when things were going well for me. I keep hearing of big rent increases - like people paying $800 a month and a new owner bumping it up to $1200. I can certainly see that rents are much higher than when I was renting the units in my duplex. A lot of people are obviously able to afford these increased rents - they are still less than other places - but obviously some can't.

It would seem the rental market has recovered and today I found out the duplex I sold for $69k in 2016 was sold in May.
For $172k.

On the plus side, at home we have a lovely new roof, a new shower in the bathroom and I've had a stress free 4 years with no financial worries. None of which would have been possible had I kept the place.

But $100k more...

scrubbedexpat091

Moncton, I read an article a month or so back about the rent issues back there, it's a national problem, and a domino effect and why the advice of just move doesn't help, it just spreads the problem around until there isn't really anywhere left affordable unless making good income.

I don't think Moncton for us would actually be anymore affordable once reduction in income is accounted for, which also plays a role, if ones income is going to drop or expenses go up, moving may save nothing in the end.

Chilliwack for example, rent 1,000 a month, but now the person needs a car and is commuting, we will assume no car payment, but $200 per month for insurance, $300 for gas, so now we are up to 1,500 a month.

Now rents were lower almost 4 years ago in both Chilliwack and Vancouver, but in 2017 you could get a studio in our building for $1,460 per month, so if single, and using transit living in Vancouver would actually be about the same cost as living in Chilliwack and commuting.

If buying, houses in Chilliwack are still a good chunk cheaper than Vancouver, but for renting often makes no sense to rent in the burbs, just to commute, and Vancouver living + transit can be cheaper, just gotta run all the numbers not just compare rent to rent.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...ease-1.5773243


For all rental market to be healthy, it needs to offer rents for all income spectrums, and much of Canada this is no longer the case.

Looking at old apartment ads from the late 70's in Vancouver vs today, a min wage worker in Vancouver then could rent a 1 bedroom apartment, a min wage worker today, would be hard pressed to rent anything but a single room in a shared place.

And BC gov't still thinks $375 housing amount for disability or assistance is enough for someone to get housing with.

scrubbedexpat091

Article is 2 years old, but housing related and much of the issues in it pertain to Canada as well.

"urban Boomer homeowners, in their quest to fend off “density” (and apartment renters) in their neighborhoods, have consistently—and incredibly successfully—blocked the construction of affordable housing. Such NIMBYism has hindered the building of more housing in areas desirable to Millennials, keeping stock low, prices high, and younger, less-affluent residents—as well as the working and middle classes more broadly—out."

BristolUK

House in our street - over the years been rented out. Not much kerbside appeal, looked a bit tatty but possibly more to do with the stuff left outside making it look a bit untidy.

Sold earlier this year - listed as 5 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Went for $58k (assessed value consistently around $98k).

We've seen lots of people coming and going to do stuff inside, but no changes to roof or siding. New door/steps and new windows on one side are the only noticeable changes outside.

Property now listed as "gutted to the studs" and "you name it, it's been done" 3 (or 4) bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.

Asking price now $210k

Looks very good inside but no better outside.

scrubbedexpat091

Guess they figure the work on the inside will help sell it? Could be a case of limited funds, choose the inside or outside to fix up, inside probably a better return on investment. I know if I were looking to buy, I'd rather have a nice fixed up modernized inside, over a nice looking outside as long as the roof is newish and doesn't need replacing and the stuff outside that matters is in good functional shape.

I guess time will tell if they actually get what they are asking.

I like this one, even with only 5% down still significantly cheaper than rent out my way, pretty sad in a way.

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...ey-ave-moncton

scrubbedexpat091

when small towns and big city's in a province are high rent, leaves nowhere for people to go.

Clearly something broken in society. High rents, lack of rentals don't lead to a stable society.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...ousing-crunch/

MillieF

Quite probably, but most of us have been reading this, a thousand times a week...for years...not news...not broken...

Siouxie

I disagree, there is definitely a lack of affordable rental accommodation in many parts of Canada these days (perhaps not where you live, particularly), in my area prices have almost doubled - yet income has not... too many people from Toronto and the GTA moving here because they are priced out of there.... making it more and more difficult for people in a 'blue collar worker' city to afford anything half decent. 4 years ago you could rent a 4-5 bedroom detached house with 3 car driveway and front and back gardens for around $1,500 a month - that same property will cost you nearere $3,000 now.

This has happened in the last 18 months or so around my parts.. so yes, fairly new... it does appear that the housing situation is becoming 'broken' or unsustainable, because it's causing people on lower incomes to struggle to find affordable housing and many end up living in sub-par accommodation, unsuited to their family size.

scrubbedexpat091

Hamilton seems to be where many BC city's were 5-10 years ago. Take Squamish for example, in 2011 a new apartment complex opened, 15 months later only 40 of the 54 were rented so they dropped the rent to $700, fast forward to now that building is renting for $1,400 a month, double the rent of 10 years ago, wages in that town certainly haven't gone up, what changed was people in Vancouver and surrounds being pushed out due to high housing costs there, which led higher income commuters to move to Squamish, then in under a year went from a town with affordable housing and a surplus to a major housing shortage, now they can't build fast enough, new apartment building going up are renting for high prices. If your a local working in town, your not likely to be able to afford said rent.

Every city within 90 minutes of Vancouver is now expensive.

It's a domino effect, and it just keeps going. The town in the article Nelson, its not some huge metropolis, its a small town of 10,000 some odd people.

Kelowna where we are, rents are climbing by the month, 1 bedroom unit between July and now in our building is up almost $300.

The tent city's showing up all over BC and other city's in Canada, along with more RV's and vans showing up on streets with people living in them show this.

It's very obvious Canada has a major housing problem especially with rentals, anyone who denies this is either blind, or have owned for decades and haven't rented in decades, even Moncton is making the news because of how fast rents are increasing.

Like I have said before in 15 years since I moved here, the rent today is roughly 350% higher, yet income today is only up about 40%, this isn't sustainable in any fashion, add in general inflation and all the other increases are factored in, even though income is higher vs 15 years for all intents I am worse off because housing has increases so substantially.

To keep up with the 350% increase in rent, income would based on a 40 hour week need to be $28 per hour and some change, jobs around my parts unless skilled are mostly $15/$16 per hour, and rents $1,500+ a month.

At $16 per hour, your looking at about $1,720 per month after taxes but before any deductions like union dues, extended health or such, so clearly even if above min wage ($14.60 currently) your still not likely able to rent housing in most city's in BC these days.


When the cheap places become expensive, there simply isn't anymore choice, and for those like us, we can't feasibly leave the province as the provinces we can afford have basically 0 support for persons with disability and the cost of living isn't significantly lower where quality of life would improve, I have done the math and it basically works out the same in Nova Scotia as it does in BC due to loss of income.

There are a lot of people in our boat, having a disability basically ties you to whatever province your in, very little movement potential to another province for those on provincial disability unless you have friends or family at the other end to help you.


Not to mention how unstable renting is too, landlords know the in's and out's on how to evict, apartments get turned into condos etc etc, you never know when your going to have to move really, can't really even plan 1 year down the road because hell I don't know we will still have this rental a year from now, on average moved about every 20 months, the 3 years in Vancouver was the most stable housing I have had since I turned 18. back in 1997.



I'd venture a fair chunk of homeowners haven't seen their mortgages climb at the same rate renters have seen over the last decade,

Stumpylegs

Completely agree with the above post in its entirety (apart from the whole provincial disability as I thankfully know nothing about that). To give it some context - I've been planning my move for almost 2 years now, still not there, but rental prices at a rough guess are up 40% in them 2 years.

Where i am looking there has maybe been a 10% shift in housing costs, but in some instances its not even that much.

The awkward bit, which i don't fully understand is what the solution is, demand is there at them prices, so there is unlikely to be a drop. I would say mass house building, but think that will just get filled - unless it made low budget, large scale and cheap to rent, but then the problem with a lot of government funded housing the world over is it then leads to problem neighbourhoods where kids born into social housing, welfare etc, typically see little point chance to move on, so large numbers are in the same cycle their parents were (UK tower blocks are a prime example)

Build it in small numbers and stick it in existing developments in small numbers, which is the best thing to do from a society point of view(once you get past folk looking down on the lesser fortunate, society accepts them at least partially, they fit into decent local schools, and aspire to better the generation before) but doing it in small numbers doesn't move the needle, and within a few years the rent rises on those units is comparable to the wider neighbourhood.

scrubbedexpat091

It's a complex issue, and its a mix of poor planning on city's part, federal government cutting housing programs over the decades, provincial governments do very little, developers not building rental housing for many years, drive around the lower mainland, and you see lots of 1960's and 1970's era apartment buildings, a few 1980's era, by the 1990's seemed apartments were largely not being built at all, but condos were, into the 200's that continued, and while dedicated rental buildings are finally being built again, its not on a large enough scale to meet demand.

BC for example needs something like 80,000 units built just to fix the back log of people needing affordable housing, then something like 7,000 units a year need to be built with a mix of market and non-market rents for the next 10 years to meet demand, something like 118,000 households in BC can't actually afford their rent, with another 6,800+ people experiencing some level of homelessness.

It can't be fixed by the market alone, it can't be fixed with just one level of government, every level from federal to provincial to local level all need to work together.

scrubbedexpat091

One flaw in the if we build condos more will be rented out, is many strata's go on to ban or restrict rentals in their building, which is why more condos doesn't necessarily equal more rentals or rents going down.

There is a lot of hate for renters in BC, and a fair chunk of strata's hate renters and will ban units from being rented out.


Fixer upper in Armstrong, cheapest house currently listed, needs a wee bit of work though. 349,000. And it's only a town of 4,800 people. I swear there is no hope for BC at this point.

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...rmstrong-spall

scrubbedexpat091

The pandemic has brought tensions over the decades-long housing crisis in Canada’s cities to a boiling point

Maclean's Article.

A journalist should really do an article on the economic discrimination that takes place making it even harder for lower income renters to find housing. It's quite common, ask anyone on disability and they will likely have at least one story of their experience with being turned down for housing.

helcat12

House prices and vacant lots here are going like hot cakes and often for a lot more than the asking price.
Recent sale just round the corner from me - small-ish lot of 0.5ac with well and septic in place, plus a trailer for while you build was advertised at $169k and sold for $249k.

Lots of people are bringing retirement plans forward because of the C word and cashing in their chips on Vancouver properties while they can, I think.
Bidding wars with multiple offers are common now.
II am really thankful we managed to buy as a private sale here in summer 2019, as I know we just wouldn't get a look in now at our price point.

withabix

Now, due to Covid, people are trying to move out to the suburbs and the market in places like Maple Ridge (edge of the forest, access to golden ears park and mountains) is super hot. Houses selling in 3 or 4 days, multiple offers over list price and now back over their peak prices of a few years ago.

No sign of it slowing down, with the lowest mortgage interest rates in history.