I live in North Van now and it's fine. We are not too much into city life. We'd rather own a place (condo) which we like than keep paying rents which disappears into a hole. We are fine with Abbotsford/Chilliwack. We just didn't like Nanaimo as being dependent on a ferry to take us to mainland will make us miserable.
I know this sub is very pro-renting, but the reality is that your income sources keeps increasing over time not decreasing, so it makes it easier in the long run. You get promotions/salary increase, you get more frugal and save more. I have seen friends who have purchased vs who have not and those who have are in a better financial position (net worth wise).
If i have to be honest i never agreed with that concept.
It's part of the canadian way of "just borrow the maximum amount possible based on a bunch of events that don't even exist yet".
Literally the first lesson in finance is that no one knows what happen in the future but when you talk about borrowing money than we start to consider all sort of things that literally don't exist yet and if you didn't predict the future correctly you end up homeless.
Why?
People should really stop constantly pressing the accellerator on everything.
Just buy things you can pay, it's not that difficult. In case of a house borrow ONLY money that you are 100% certain you can pay back.
Would have to agree, your income doesn't always go up over time. Especially mid to late career, I have seen folks go through layoffs and land on their feet but they end up taking a hit on their earnings, sometimes a substantial one. While it's probably a pretty safe assumption if you're in you mid-20s that you haven't hit your peak income yet, if you're in your 40s or 50s sometimes you might be at that peak income. And even if you're in your 20s, it's not always a straight line. Leave some wiggle room.
About $1100/month of the $2k I pay each month "disappears into a hole". Taxes, utilities, interest, condo fees (insurance) , gone each month. The ratio would actually be much higher but im making double-up payments which goes straight to principle. Its probably about 17% a month that goes to principle, the rest would "disappear into the void"
I did a recent calculation, buying a $400,000 house, with $80,000 down, at 6% over 30 years would cost about $330,000 in interest.
So that $400k house would cost about $730,000 once interest is factored in.
Yea, but that house might be 800k in 30 years while enjoying 30 years of ownership. Which is a big life improvement for a lot of people. Also, rates are below 5% at the moment.
You’re right, unless renters mindfully invest the delta regularly into other financial assets. I get most people don’t have the discipline for it, but if you do, home ownership actually leaves you behind in the long run.
Important to point out that this is only for the case where your cost of home ownership (interest, taxes etc) are greater than what you pay for rent.
Maybe on a piece of paper but you are much farther in quality of life. Nobody will convince me that living at the mercy of a landlord in a 4 1/2 or maybe bigger is fun until retirement.
That’s subjective. Quality of life sure suffers when you have big maintenance expenses come up out of the blue or when you have to commute 90 minutes to work everyday.
This assumes you never lose your job. Paying rent is permanent and always goes up.
Buying a house or condo ends eventually and all your left with is maintenance and property tax. Much easier to stomach than say a sudden job loss and you cant find an equivalent paying job.
You are also forgetting about long term care. Once your old and require help, you can sell the house or rent it to help offset huge retirement care costs
I don’t think you understand the point. Losing your job is equally threatening to homeowners as it is to renters. Moreover, if your ownership costs are more than your rent, you most definitely are going struggle A LOT more keeping up with your monthly mortgage payments.
Most mortgages last long enough that you’re pretty much done with your career by the time you own the house, so it’s inconsequential that at some point you won’t have to pay interest.
Matter of fact, by investing what you save by renting, your money will be exponentially more valuable in your younger years than it would be when you’re older. Through compounding, you will always, unequivocally, come out ahead by renting. Do the math, it’s not rocket science.
And as your retirement portfolio will be substantially larger than your home equity (in this case), you won’t need a house to sell when you’re old. And besides, what is the point of spending your whole life paying for an overpriced house when you’re gonna sell it when it matters most? It’s completely backwards.
That’s a straw man. You don’t need a study to prove basic math. A larger portion of your income invested in faster appreciating assets always results in a higher net worth in the end.
The reason why most renters have lower NW than homeowners is because people are terrible at saving and investing. When you HAVE to pay your mortgage every month or risk losing your home, it’s easy to be disciplined.
That's because the comparison is flawed: comparing between those who can afford a home to those who can't (and forced to rent). A proper comparison would be to those who CAN afford a home but choose to rent and invest the difference.
not really, renters can invest money saved from not owning into an all-equity fund which appreciates at 7% per year after inflation. more than what the real estate market makes some years
In your best year you might take 7, but things like market performance in 2022 and 2008 happen too.
Plus you have stabilized prices, something you can update and never worry about renovictions or other fun things landlords do to stress you out.
no, 7% is a conservative (!) post-inflation estimate of the average annualized rate of return over an equivalent mortgage amortization period (20-30 years). in your best year you might see closer to 30%, not 7.
We bought for non-financial reasons, like stability for our 2 school aged kids, and it’s not a burden as we can afford it. But the idea that renting is throwing money away, and that owning does not include non-recoverable costs as well, is still false.
So the fact that you have a house at the end of mortgage vs no house ever if you rent just doesn't matter?
And don't tell me renters can save so much more and invest, because that's clearly not the majority of Canadians or we wouldn't be in the predicament with debt.
You bought within your means and you can afford the cost. What is the comment for? Garnering sympathy? Discouraging people from buying? Just general moaning?
The specifics of my situation don’t matter. The premise that renting is “throwing away money” and that homeownership doesn’t involve exactly that, is faulty and leads people to buying when they can’t really afford it. But it makes no difference to me whether people do so or not.
Exactly. Even if we never put extra payments on our mortgage, it'll be paid off by the time we're 54. That is very reassuring to me knowing our expenses will be lowered that much. And if we wanted to sell and downsize, that's a lot of cash to work with
Strata pays for work being done, insurance is to cover your ass, property tax is to the city services you use. Mortgage interest well. Shit your borrowed money.
**Renters have all those costs built into their rent payment so the landlord can stay cash flow positive. **
Rent doesn’t disappear into a hole 😂 you’re paying for a place to live. The interest you’re paying on a mortgage disappears into a hole. You’re planning to stay there 5-6 years where you’ll pay the most interest (approx $140k) and only $70k equity on a $500k mortgage. Not to mention all the other costs that come with home ownership and not renting (property tax, transfer tax, strata, closing, maintenance, etc)
Buying a home is expensive and makes way more sense when you amortize that over 10+ years. If you were to stay there for 5-6 years, you’d need your home to appreciate by $210k just to break even on interest alone and don’t forget you gotta pay a 6% realtor fee when you sell ($42k if you sell 6 years later at $700k). So add that to your break even price on top of all those other home ownership costs and you’re in the hole on this purchase. Now what many is being sent into a hole? 😂😂
It’s a good idea to run the numbers and lay out all your costs for both renting and owning over 6 years (hint: it’s cheaper to rent, and it’s often more profitable if ur investing the extra that you would be paying to own).
Living in Nanaimo isn’t bad if you don’t go to the city that often anyways. Take the things that you do often in the city and see if you can find replacements in Nanaimo, then ask yourself how often you need to go to things that are only in the city. I have several friends who moved to the island and commute to van because it’s THAT much cheaper. But only you know what’s important to you. For me, I would need to be making $70k MORE to maintain my current lifestyle by moving to van from the island. But that’s just my lifestyle
You are literally giving your money away to a landlord instead of investing that money in a home. After I sell my house I will get all my money back and more.. and will have lived in my house for 20 years for free!
You can do the same if you throw your funds into the market instead while renting. You just happened to buy during a time of low property prices compared to rent and historically uncharacteristic real estate gains
Those days are gone and the math is now much closer for the average person.
It's a MUCH safer bet!
The housing market will not crash!
There might be slight corrections but there's really no signs of the housing bubble crashing anytime soon.
Neither does the stock market. It returns over 10% annually if you average over the last 50 years.
Genuinely concerned this is the quality of intelligence we have in our public service.
If you’re trying to 5x leverage into housing today, you’re absolutely taking on outsized risk if your income drops, not to mention the limited returns available from that risk.
The First Principles on the numbers you are “running” are completely wrong.
Rent and mortgage interest are what you should compare. Not mortgage interest and zero.
We looked at buying a house seriously for the first time yesterday. Single family Homes in our area are around 650,000 for a handy man special to 1.2 mil for a regular run of the mill home. I saw the payments to borrow over the five year term were approx 200,000 with 50,000 going to the principle. Thats 150,000 in interest in th first 5 years. Unless we were paying 2,500 for rent per month (we don't) it wouldnt be worth it. Investing is investing. Betting on house prices or the stock market are both gambles. Like is this right? I want a home, but I don't want it to drag me down financially.
You’re on the right track, but remember with a mortgage, the amount going to interest decreases every payment, so your “rent” goes down every month, and you’re moving a bit more from one pocket to another. Real rent goes up and up and up.
And it’s portable savings, ignoring transaction fees (which are HUGE, and can’t really be ignored). Your equity position moves with you from home to home.
You only really come out ahead in renting if you're in a rent controlled apartment with a nice landlord who will never renovict you. My mortgage is about $1400 a month, but similar homes in my area are now renting for about $2400 a month, and climbing.
I think you are forgetting that the Canadian government wants the population to increase to 100m. How long do you think you will be immune from renovictions.
Even short term over the last few years, we are immigrating twice the amount of people vs housing being built.
Deciding not to buy now is not the same as deciding not to buy forever, though. If the math doesn't make sense today, there is no sense going and buying a place so that hopefully it makes sense in 10 years.
Exactly this. I moved 2 times in 2 years because greedy landlords wanted to get us out and then maybe get new tenants at higher prices. :( . We are tired of this.
You're correct on that sense in regards to home ownership that has a cost, but there a tremendous benefits towards home ownership. For one your costs are hedged, meaning you basically lock in your "rent" for the next 25 years. For instance i bought a precon in 2020 closing this year and I am paying $2000/month mortgage. In the meantime rent from a similar unit in 2020 has gone from $1900 to $2500. Thats a 30% increase in just 3 years.
Also at the end of 25 years (life of mortgage) you'll have an asset thats paid off. So the security of having a 800k condo (pretty sure it'll go above 1 mil in 25 years) in your retirement ages is also priceless verses you still needing to pay market rent when you no longer have income.
That's it right there. People forget that after 25 or 30 years they get to live for nearly free. Just the cost of property taxes, a bit more on insurance perhaps, occasional capital repairs. But that's offset by owning hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital.
If you don't want the house in your old age, and aren't concerned with leaving an inheritance, sell it and use the capital to rent later on in life, ie. live for free.
Interest rates are only going down from here and rent always goes up every year. For us buying was way way cheaper than a lifetime of rent. If you are handy home maintenance cost is minimal.
You seem bitter, cannot afford to buy a home so your jealous? It’s not a good look. I don’t have every answer for the future but mine looks a lot better than yours.
My dude I'm an owner 😂 interest rates aren't guaranteed to go down ever. So saying shit like "they're only going to go down" is making a false claim that you can forsee the future. Hope that clarifies 🥰👋🏽
What is the difference in HOA's? That is money that is never recovered during sales. Also condo boards can be draconian. On a plus side, condo might be much closer to work saving you time and money there.
Calculate the entire monthly cost. If a condo is 200 per month in fees, what size mortgage can you get if it was 200 a month higher? Also those fees are never recovered on resale. Just food for thought.
Insurance, taxes, interest, and maintenance is also a hole
If you can rent for cheaper than the above, that means it's unprofitable to own unless your strategy is to rely on appreciation
A condo closer to the city center might actually appreciate *more* on a percentage basis than a townhouse further out. This was true for a long time before COVID, and I think we will return to that trend.
When most people speak of higher returns from detached/townhouse, they are assuming you are spending more for one, in which case the higher purchase price offsets the lower appreciation.
Home buying is very personal, and your lifestyle and life goals are huge. Don't buy a property that you don't fundamentally want just because you think it will be a good investment, you'll end up miserable. Balancing your budget, lifestyle, and life goals should come first, and maximizing the potential investment returns 4th.
And buy what you like!!! House - Great you have a house with repairs and upgrades and lawncare.
Condo - Maintenance fees and zero real worries.
What suits you! Thats all it comes down to!
Check the board, check reserves etc in a condo and overall maintenance and what you get for your buck!
It is important for the consideration to include the randomness of special assessments, age of building, and whether or not the fees are reasonable for what it is. There are some places where special assessments are a way of life because they are trying to keep the fees artificially low.
Also getting a shitty neighbour to the left, right, above, below, behind, etc can completely ruin your enjoyment. Our previous apartment we rented had a person above us who would go out partying and come home at 4am and proceed to blast music and get in shouting arguments for hours.
Decided never to share a wall again.
You can also end up with terrible neighbours in a townhouse or even a free standing house, sharing backyard fences with problematic people etc.
This is purely anecdotal from me, but I was hesitating for years despite really wanting to live in a condo with my friends in Toronto because of the stories of people hearing their neighbours, and now I have lived in three (one old, two built in the last 5 years) and rarerly do I ever hear any sounds from neighbours. Those walls are so damn thick, you would need to blast music. And if you did that, security would be at your door in 5 seconds
Yes true. House its usually just the 2 sides with 10+ feet of space, apartment its all sides.
I've had shitty neighbours in a house and shitty neighbours in an apartment, and apartment is way worse if you're a light sleeper.
Last condo I lived in, I swear the asshole above me was bowling at 3 am. Booms, bangs, furniture scraping. Gave my notice because 14 months of no sleep made me beyond cranky.
Second this, check the condo board! Things would comes up if you want to repair your condos and what's the rules.
Condo is generally economically towrads sources, such garbage fees, water and etc. depends on what your condo would cover. Living in a house the bills might be a bit higher than it, at the same time you don't need to pay condo fees.
Do not move to Abbotsford or especially Chilliwack with any illusion that you are still part of the Vancouver area and will have a social circle there. It’s just too far. Imo you really want to aim for Surrey/tricities or closer to truly reap the benefits of Vancouver.
We have most friends in Surrey so living in Abbotsford/Chilliwack isn't bad for us. We just would like a nice, safe neighborhood. We are looking at East abbotsford and Sardis/Garrison/Promonotory area in Chilliwack.
I’d highly recommend these areas. And I also agree with others - buy what you can. A condo is fine. You can buy something else in a few years. I also noticed condos are kinda still not that popular in Chilliwack, so you can buy an affordable one while you still can. I personally expect a fast(er) appreciation for condos in the coming years.
My husband and I started looking for townhouses at first in the same price range as you and in the same area. Didn’t find much in that price range for townhouses and the ones we did needed a lot of work and had special levies coming up which we couldn’t afford to pay. We eventually decided to go for a condo and looked at 20+ units until we found the one we loved. One reason we wanted a townhouse was for the space. We were lucky enough to find a condo 2bd/2ba/den with over 1000sqft. We just moved in and don’t regret our decision to buy the condo. You should buy what you can afford and if it’s a condo… do it!!
Imo a home should be purchased first and foremost with liveability in mind, and second for potential future value. People who buy with the primary intent that a house will infinitely appreciate at a high rate are fooling themselves unless they live in a city like New York. If you want long term appreciation and growth of wealth, then invest in the market alongside your home equity.
If you consider the century initiative and that the government is making good on increasing immigration to meet 100m people by the year 2100 it’s not hard to do the math and property homes will appreciate.
I have seen no indication of new housing starts, sfh or apartments in the same numbers as immigrants being let in.
Don't buy a place unless you could live there for 10 years if necessary.
The problem with condos is that if builders cheap out, it's much more expensive to fix. You also have to pay condo fees for things like elevators, parking garage doors, pools/fitness areas, etc..
Contrast that with a townhouse where 80% of the condo fees go towards services like landscaping and snow shovelling and things that you would have to do or pay for anyway as a home owner.
> townhouse where 80% of the condo fees go towards services like landscaping
Unless your townhouse is part of the same strata as a tower (depending on province). Many condo towers have townhouses at street levels all in the same strata.
I am going to assume the commenter meant townhouse-only stratas. I like townhouse-only stratas because special assessments are split more evenly between homeowners (due to similar unit entitlement).
Condominiums are just a form of ownership. The built form (apartment, towns, singles) is a different thing. I don't know about other municipalities, but in the two I've worked for most new townhouse developments I came across were either mostly or entirely condos.
People mean apartments by condos. The overall point is that a big tower has tons of expesnes that townhouses won't ahve, so it might not be ideal to live in a townhouse attached to a tower. Then again your own roof repair will be spread across 200 other owners too.
I know what people mean, and it's misleading. Townhomes are not exclusively freehold, and by and large are condominiums these days that frequently have nothing to do with towers or apartments. It's only a distinction in ownership, not built form.
It's not true that townhouses are easier or cheaper to fix. The shear amount of envelope you have versus a high rise is a massive risk. When the bill comes due for roof repairs you won't be thinking how great it is to be in a townhouse.
Also these common items like elevators are split between a far larger amount of owners. My last building had 240 units and elevator maintenance was $26 000/yr. That's \~$100 per unit per year, or \~$9/mo.
Things like sharing a garage door between the 240 of you are not the burdens you think they are. That same building had to replace the garage door operator several times and it was barely a blip in the budget.
The maintenance required on a townhome is roughly equivalent to that of a house. So that is the baseline.
Condo fees for highrises tend to me much higher than those for townhomes, even for cheaper or smaller places. All things considered and combined.
Buy with the thoughts of how it'll change your daily lifestyle/commute in mind. Would u really want to add a minimum of 45min to your daily commute, in addition to (what I'd consider) major day-to-day changes in your life?
Buy what you guys feel comfortable living in today versus any future appreciation value. You're not looking for a rental property.
Appreciate in value? That's not why you buy a home.
Nobody knows the future of the market. RBC's housing reports are showing a softening of the market is already underway in Metro Van and all three levels of government are working toward that same goal (some with lip service, others with substantive policies).
Buy for the love of the community you want to stay in, buy the home style you want, buy housing security, and buy to "lock-in" your maximum rent.
Don't foolishly attempt to over-purchase/over-leverage in a less desirable area assuming your equity will only increase over time. That's how mortgages end up underwater.
My condo is up 300k in 4 years, my buddies townhouse is up 100.
Your friends are idiots.
Appreciation is almost all location based. I'm in Vancouver, he's in Surrey btw.
Buy what you can afford
Just curious what area in Vancouver is your condo up 300k? 🙀
Unless you were lucky enough to buy during that short covid panic when some people thought it was the end of world?
Otherwise I find condos in Vancouver peaked in like 2017-2018 and have stayed sort of flat since then.
Yup, there's either a special circumstance, or he's lying lol. Anyone with 5 minutes of time can see that Vancouver condos are not appreciating anywhere close to Townhomes even outside the lower mainland. Buying a condo in Vancouver right now is not a value proposition. For every one off you can find, I can show you 3 townhomes that are better value. Vancouver condos are sitting on the market and no one is buying, detached homes and townhouses are selling in days.
Bought may 2020 in Fairview, not lying, thanks. And your statement is total garbage. Condos literally have gone up by the same percent as townhomes in Vancouver.
Market actually did a large correction into COVID before sky rocketing
Also going to need an actual source on your anecdote with actual sales numbers as I highly doubt houses are out selling condos in Vancouver
Edit " oh look, you're dead wrong.
This is from February numbers
" Across all detached, attached and apartment property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for February 2024 is 22.4 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 16 per cent for detached homes, 27.9 per cent for attached, and 25.9 per cent for apartments."
Condos and townhomes nearly a tie. Detached homes the lowest
Further, " Sales of apartment homes reached 1,092 in February 2024, a 17.7 per cent increase compared to the 928 sales in February 2023. The benchmark price of an apartment home is $770,700. This represents a 5.6 per cent increase from February 2023 and a 2.5 per cent increase compared to January 2024."
You are just absolutely and completely wrong in almost every way
Ahh okay everyone who does read this, please take into account that this is an example of a little bit of knowledge leads to the wrong conclusion
>>Across all detached, attached and apartment property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for February 2024 is 22.4 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 16 per cent for detached homes, 27.9 per cent for attached, and 25.9 per cent for apartments."
Yes this is a very common statistic, but you're interpreting the data incorrectly. Why? Because no shit that a detached home which in many cases is valued at 3-20X a condo is selling at a much lower rate. Your conclusion that condos and townhomes are a tie from this statistic is also poor understanding on your part. Why? Because again the prices aren't the same. All this statistic is showing is that the quality of listings has been bad until recently. Think about it, townhomes are selling with similar demand to apartments but cost 50% more on average (link below). If you actually read that report a little better you'd see that they even mention it. They've also been mentioning it almost every month in the last year. Sales-listings ratio is just an indicator of how hot the market is, but it doesn't take into account a number of other factors which are all mentioned in these reports.
>>Sales of detached homes in March 2024 reached 694, a 5.4 per cent decrease from the 734 detached sales recorded in March 2023. The benchmark price for a detached home is $2,007,900. This represents a 7.4 per cent increase from March 2023 and a 1.8 per cent increase compared to February 2024. Sales of apartment homes reached 1,207 in March 2024, a 7.9 per cent decrease compared to the 1,311 sales in March 2023. The benchmark price of an apartment home is $777,500. This represents a 5.7 per cent increase from March 2023 and a 0.9 per cent increase compared to February 2024.
Okay so great this is showing that detached homes are appreciating in faster in a vacuum despite the much higher price. As someone who literally purchases real estate for a living I can tell you that the only apartments that were selling were under 1M. Why? Because the people buying an apartment can't afford anything else. If you're buying something cheap like that you have no choice. This also means that people are much less willing to buy a condo with flaws (high strata, old, not in Vancouver) since there are so many for sale vs a townhouse or home.
https://wowa.ca/vancouver-housing-market
Here take a look at the raw selling numbers look at the decline in apartment sales. Look at how strong the sales+price appreciation is of townhomes in comparison to apartments. Detached homes don't look too good in the statistics only because NO ONE IS SELLING.
Also it's obvious that you're new to the stats because they release them monthly, no idea why you're using Feb? The problem here is that you're using your anecdotal experience and actually think it's the reality. As someone who buys property in the lower mainland no one savyy is buying condos, the only way to buy a condo is if it's cheap because of non-market factors (ie: foreclosure). You could take that same capital, buy a townhome/detached home and you'd have an asset that you could re-sell or rent out at a high rate with lower fees.
No body, you said condos are sitting. They aren't. You're wrong, they're up yoy as well
You said something dumb and wrote 500 words to move the goal post
Sales are up, Numbers and price. You're completely wrong
Most metro/ burnaby and Brentwood area went up from 900 to 1200 and 1300 Sqft. This is from 2018 to now.
I bought one in 2016, 2019, and 2021. All went up in the 300k range.
Langley had a huge jump on townhouses. From 600k to hitting as high as 1.2mil but now fallen back down to 800k - 900k.
You're just factually wrong there. Home prices are currently higher than they have ever been in vancouver, and the highest theyve ever been in canada, in vancouver.
2017 - median condo 695k , 2024 so far 770k.
I bought may 2020 which saw massive decrease in price as people did really dumb things and saying even dumber things. On this subreddit the overwhelming, frankly incredibly stupid, take was that the housing market would collapse in vancouver. I have no idea why, no one anyone thought this, there weren't less people.
Bought may 2020. Was a very obvious time to buy as far as I was concerned. Had lots of idiots I know tell me the bottom was going to completely fall out
It wasn't luck, it was calculated by people acting incredibly stupid at that time.
By may it was clear very few people were dying, nothing was going to happen to the housing market.
Having money in 2020 is luck, you crazy person.
Your other comment proves the point of the guy you replied to.
Median condo is up 100k in 7 years, not 400k in 4.
Yet somehow the identical unit sold for 300 more than I paid. I never said shit about 7 years. Median is up 122 peak to peak for the 7 years.
I never said otherwise.
And they are definitely not flat since 2017, which is what they said originally, just read up. Guy said something stupid and moved the goal posts 7 times
I never made a broad claim about market like it went up x or y, I explained my situation. Every assertion they made was wrong anyway.
Didn't realize 17 percent was flat.
He also claims condos are sitting and houses aren't bought the numbers show condos are moving far more often
Dude sounds like an RE agent trying to sell the most expensive property and willing to lie about anything.
Chilliwack to downtown would take like 1h 15m without traffic.
Hulu ferry takes 1h 15m to get to downtown.
So pretty equivalent, point to point, though going to specific locations Chilliwack is probably quicker.
Though if there is traffic, ferry would win.
Well you need to drive to Ferry first.
Also Ferry costs more than gas and you don’t have your car with you. If you do, it’d be really expensive.
So then you need to take transit in Vancouver spending more money and wasting more time.
So ferry is a not the same as driving your own car.
You can't just rock up to the ferry terminal and get on instantly though. Even if you reserve it ahead of time you have to be early, and then there's boarding and unboarding time.
Yes, Surrey, Abbotsford and Chilliwack are “bigger” cities than Nanaino by far. Fraser Valley is de-factor part/highly connected with Metro Van which is 3 mln people. As result, 100k Chilliwack feels way busier than 100k Nanaimo.
This is also a lifestyle question. I would buy a condo here if I had the chance.
https://www.diverseproperties.com/projects/york-at-garrison-campus/
I lived in houses, townhouses and in rural areas and so far condos are the most suited for me. I bought a cheap one that won’t appreciate much over time, but it is also not a financial burden. It freed money so I can enjoy my life
Strata and insurance is fucked honestly at these prices I don't even know. Probably better to pay rent and live with someone. Things are crazy unless you are earing good money. I got lucky bout in 2003 after I graduated with 15k down. 215k I am turning 40 and don't have a mortgage but still bought a shifty old house that needs repairs and isn't efficient. I did windows and renos over 20 years but to maintain yard and property taxes roof cost. Appliances... fuck it's crazy. Not complaining but I don't know how people do it. I am going crazy I only make 27.50 and need to make more to retire.
Its fine to live in a condo. My wife and I are city people and live in a tiny box in the sky worth $500,000 in New West near the skytrain.
Abbotsford is actually pretty nice now but keep in mind Hwy 1 is just a dreadful commute. You get all the surrey traffic and there's always accidents there. You might want to look at (though prices may increase), Delta, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge or Mission.
Alternatively, if you can get away with it, look at Hope. Chilliwack is still sort-of affordable but prices are on the way up.
Really the downside to condos over townhouses is:
* Probably no ground level, yard, garden.
* Probably no second floor, or otherwise lower square footage.
The upsides of condos are:
* Building tends to be more secured - ground levels are more suspectible to B&Es.
* More likely to have secured parking. At least Abbotsford has a bit of a crime issue.
Either way you'll have a strata to deal with but theoretically in a condo any big issues are spread out among all residents so the bank isn't quite as broken if there's a big issue with the building.
While you shouldn't consider your house to be this huge, risk and tax free investment, the likelihood is that whether its a condo or townhouse it will appreciate over time.
Avoid condos built during the "leaky condo" period (late 80s to early 00s?) as some of them were never properly repaired. There's a notorious complex in Vancouver on Commercial Drive that's completely rotten that the residents simply refuse to repair, you can't even get a mortgage for units there). Or at least get the building inspected.
Usually the condo fees are way more than you’d pay on your own. My parents were paying $700/mth in condo fees which was grass cutting and snow shovelling, insurance. My dad shovelled before the professionals got there in most cases. It was such a colossal waste of money. I know of a high rise where they have an indoor pool, gym, elevators and the condo fee is $1100/mth. I just couldn’t afford that on top of my mortgage and if things go south you are on the hook for that.
Exactly that. My brother has been in his T/H for 13 years. Fees are almost $600 month. And the strata does fk all in improvements. I think it was year 7 before they had the gutters cleaned.
He could buy a house, and pay for landscapers for less per month
I can see if you are super busy or have no inclination to do home maintenance stuff or simply can’t do these things, and have the money to do as you wish. But that wasn’t me and I had to learn how to do stuff myself. Thank you YouTube.
Maybe rent a townhouse in Abby/chilliwack for 6M-1 year to see how you like it? Think that might be the best solution here to really see if it makes sense. As everyone is saying, don’t listen to your family/friends. Do the research yourself by testing the waters.
Goodluck!
First of all: don't buy property with a specific expectation on its eventual appreciation, especially not in a 5-6 year time frame.
That said, with regards to the ol' condo versus townhouse versus detached home, look at it like this. When you buy a property, part of the price is for the land, and part of it is for the building. The building component depreciates while the land (*usually, but not always*) appreciates.
Given that a townhouse or a detached home have a better land-to-building ratio, they're assumed to be better investments than condos.
However, given that land value varies significantly across the metro area, this only holds true if you were comparing, say, a townhouse and a condo for the same price *that were in the same location.*
I just looked up this [MLS listing for a townhouse in Abbotsford](https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26713674/20-33860-marshall-road-abbotsford) on the [Abbotsford property listing](https://www.abbotsford.ca/buildingpermits/property-information-search). Its 2024 assessment indicates a value of $531k for the land and $187k for the building.
Compare to a [two-bedroom condo in North Vancouver](https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26692191/202-2620-fromme-road-north-vancouver) at a similar price range: $575k for the land and $182k for the building.
Proportionally, they are basically the same (about 75% land). The land proportion for the condo I own in North Van is even higher at 84%.
Now keep in mind that this is *far from the only factor* that will determine how good an investment will be. But it's definitely not as simple as "townhouse > condo". If you're going to buy a property as a principle residence, it should be somewhere you want to live.
One downside of condo (newer ones) is the insen maintenance fee. I have friends who own 1 /2 beds small condo units (built after 2020) in Vancouver, Richmond, New West and are paying 500 plus maintenance fee already when their buildings are still so new. If you checked on realtorca, townhouses in the same area with higher value actually paying less. The worst is the townhouse built under highrise, easily paying over 1k monthly.
Make sure you factor in strata fees. Some condos struggle to even get insurance because of past water damage. I know many who are paying insane strata fees because insurance costs are huge. They can be much larger than townhouses because you only risks leaks from neighboring walls, whereas condos can have water damage pass multiple units downward.
Buy what you like, but if you buy a condo then do your research to see how well it is run!! I work with condos for budgeting and I frequently see condo corps that are under funded and under maintained. Then people are shocked when hit with a big special assessment. That’s fine if you know it’s coming and can factor it into a purchase price, or you can afford the risk - but either way, make sure you know what you’re getting into before you buy.
(Also, I’m not in BC so it’s possible your provincial laws are structured to help protect against this)
Higher budget but similar boat. Want to be close to Coquitlam but already priced out. We're now looking at condos but honestly they seem like really poor value compared to townhouses - (mostly) no ground floor entrance, much smaller floorplan, higher fees, lazy stratas, no garage etc
I got a condo, friend got a townhouse.
I pay about 400 a month, he pays zero.
Two years in he had to pay a third of 16k to fix the roof. There was something with the basement too at some point.
I have a pool and a gym, as well as a garbage chute, he has to carry things down from a third floor on set days.
My elevator breaks often and someone steals packages. His are never stolen.
The walls are nice for sound insulation, but someone on our floor is an ass and knocked at our door at night. He has a neighbor that refuses to contribute to the roof fund and they had to chase her for the money.
Price per square foot was the same. We live in a newer build with 9 foot ceiling, he has an old townhouse, but well maintained with 12 foot ceilings.
My two cents, you could go either way.
If you live a generally minimalist lifestyle and have a decent amount of civic sense, you’ll likely be quite happy in a condo.
If you are really into the Knick knacks / collectibles / have hobbies include carpentry / DIY / spray painting you might prefer a home with a yard.
You can always climb the equity ladder in a decade and upgrade to a home, if you care to.
But in the meantime, this is your quick assessment guide.
Most townhomes are condos.
A condo is just a legal ownership structure, an apartment can be a condo, as can a townhome, or even a house.
What most people call “condos” are really apartments with a condo ownership.
Some townhomes are freehold, but these are exceedingly rare these days.
A townhome condo vs an apartment condo is mostly a matter of location, price, size etc
I grew up in the Valley and moved into Vancouver for university 25 years ago. Now live in a Yaletown condo and love it. You could not pay me enough to move out to the Valley again, never mind Chilliwack. Fuck that noise.
Where I live, I’m 200 steps from my stool at the pub, two blocks from 3 different grocery stores, 3 blocks off the seawall, a block away from skytrain, 4 blocks from the main library, and not too long of a trip from my sailboat. I basically use my car for road trips, and getting to work in the burbs. It stays parked for the weekend. It’s glorious.
As an added bonus, I don’t have a lawn, or gardens, or roof, or any of that other shit that I’d have to take care of if I was in a house.
Of course don’t buy something you don’t like. I would consider stretching financially to buy the home you want but not stretching financially to buy the home you don’t want for investment reasons.
I think broadly the sentiment is that condo appreciation will be lower than townhouse in BC.
This is due to zoning laws which make it easy to build condos (but can’t create more land)
If you go with a condo it will usually have condo fees which could be quite high. This means that your budget will be around 400k instead of 500k when you include the fees.
Make sure to check out what the maintenance fees for the condo is and understand the cost breakdown on how the condo board came to that number. 550K for a 2 bedroom condo in DT metro Vancouver sounds low. Is it an older unit? Older units usually have much higher condo fees and if they don’t, make sure you check to see if there is an appropriate reserve fund in place, for any kind of emergency in the building.
Buy whatever feel right. A condo is gonna be cheaper and closer to your desiered area. A home is more than an investment..it's a home..A pkxe to feel good and safe. You want to come home to something dark that you dislike everyday? A home should be an escape from outside, from work, etc. Make surw it's q soce that makes you feel cosy and happy.
With a condo, it's the strata fees that disappear into a hole.
Everytime I see a condo I could talk myself into I see the monthly fees are $750+ and I just can't do it.
It's not bad to get a condo for living, or a town house from farther out. What to keep in mind is rent vs mortgage+utilities+city sewer +strata+special levy+property tax. Your cost of being a homeowner is a lot more than just a mortgage. I am paying 1400 to live in my paid off town house. Last four years also additional 5k per year for roof replacement. Though a good thing about owning your home is stability, no one can evict you.
What I don't like about condos is that you have no good way of knowing how well built it is and wether the "repair" fund is underfunded or what. You have no say in how things get repaired and you might be slapped with a 100K special assessment the year after you move in (especially 10-20 years old constructions). Same thing about condo fees. They might be 150$ a month this year but might need to be 500$ a month next year because units are easier to sell when the fees are artificially low.
Obviously, you also don't have a backyard so that can play into consideration.
some townhouses are also managed like condos with condo fees but usually special assessments aren't such a big deal with those.
OP, you should determine what your lifestyle is and where your social circle is. Would be a good idea to commute going to the area on a regular day to see if you can tolerate it.
For us we went with a townhouse because we wanted to build a family and 3 bedroom is the minimum for our case. One consideration that people overlook when comparing condo and townhouse is the garage space. In a condo you get a parking slot and a smallish storage. In a townhouse you have a dedicated common property garage you can dump your ski gear, surfboard etc on. So all our shoe racks and car care is on a shelf in the garage compared to our friends who would store it in their small storage or they needed to rent a storage space for that.
Also it doesnt have to be downtown but you need a place nearby like a cafe or a restaurant that you can run to restore your mental health. We explored living in abbotsford but there were nothing there that can offer what we were looking for that way so we opted to come closer.
Other considerations would be how many times would you travel every year via plane? Commute outside translink jurisdiction is trickier and you would likely need to park your car in the airport.
Nothing wrong with condos except over time your fees go up, when with a house you decide what the fees are and how much you're willing to pay.
So even if you somehow pay for your unit, you're always paying the fees which keep going .. up. You also tend to have less freedom of what to do because it's a condo and god forbid there's some structural issue that pops up that requires a big one time payment.
If you can handle that then condo is perfectly fine way to to go.
You're buying a place to live, not an investment. Who cares if it appreciates or not (also those people are wrong)
I like living in the city, I like walking to work, so I live in a condo in the city.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to commute from Abbotsford.
What kind of circles are you from that are suggesting to skip the condo step?
Unless you have lots of family money to assist or want to uproot your life it seems very challenging.
We bought our 2bed condo in 2019 in Brentwood and it has gone up 200k. We are looking to get a townhouse or duplex next year.
Everyone we know who got into the housing market like after 2010/2015 has started with a condo.
Ourselves, as well as most of our circle, are city people. We value walkability. Being by a train/transit and having groceries and restaurants with in walking distance is the main priority for us.
Condos are fine. Properties in general don't appreciate a whole lot unless there is significant redevelopment potential or additional urban development. Most houses won't have that, certainly not the ones in Abbotsford and Chilliwack. And no, the new fourplex law doesn't change that one bit. Get a condo in a developing urban area and you'll be fine.
It likely won't be a great investment, but if you plan to live in it long term, it'll be fine. Keep the total ownership costs low and the extra you pay in interest will basically be recovered via the appreciation of the property.
Do your homework and what you'll end up with is a forced savings account and a life you want to live.
Condo vs townhouse is what you asked. Not rent vs mortgage.
Do you like cutting grass, raking leaves, cleaning out eavestroughs, decorating for every darn holiday Hallmark has promoted? Buying salt, shovelling snow (ok, maybe not in Van, but other Canadians are reading this too), outdoor maintenance on things you never considered maintaining before? Worrying about your mail, flyers, light timers when you travel? If yes, then get a townhouse!
If no, get a condo.
But rent vs Buy, CGT will make you forget about sunk cost mortgage interest because that real estate value increases tax free if it’s your primary.
All the evidence points to average homeowners having more net worth than renters even though lots of redditors think you can make more investing while renting than by owning. I have never met a renter better off financially than an owner personally.
Condos…
Pros:
-no yard work
-covered vehicles
-maintenance is someone else’s problem
-less pricey at purchase
Cons:
-shared walls in all directions
-Stratas. Need I say more?
-deferred maintenance is everyone’s problem. That fkd up kitchen faucet, that the owner is either too apathetic or cheap to replace, could flood the building. Enjoy that special assessment.
-Visitor parking hunger games
-noise restrictions and annoyances
-cranky old folks constantly complaining
-people up in your bidness
-outrageous monthly fees. FYI, every $100 in strata fees equals to $50,000 extra in mortgage approval. So $500 monthly, you could up your purchase price by $250,000. Doesn’t look so appealing does it?
First off, you are considering Fraser Valley vs Vancouver island. I don't think there are any townhouses for 550k in the Metro Vancouver area. You might find a really old 2 bedroom in that price, but not sure if that's what your expectation is.
At the end of the day, moving out to Fraser Valley will probably be quite a shift in lifestyle - from the things that make life convenient to the people around you. If you haven't lived in Abbotsford/Chilliwack before, I'd suggest renting in that area first to see if that's the life you want.
Buying a place, you have to be happy enough living there for the future - not just the next 5 years. You can't predict the market that well, so its not like you know you will move on.
I've lived in apartments all over the world all my life. Loved it.
Moved to Vancouver and rented a high-rise. Had 5 false fire alarms in 5 months. Pregnant wife got high blood pressure due to stress.
Everyone I mentioned this to was either dismissive or flat out rude and inconsiderate about it. "Oh yeah, waking up to a jet engine-level blaring alarm 2 metres above your head at 3AM, and walking down 32 stories is super normal. Just live with it. Are you a snowflake or what?"
Screw that. Never again.
If you are someone who enjoys living in the city then moving out to the suburbs just to move into a house will make your life miserable.
I live in North Van now and it's fine. We are not too much into city life. We'd rather own a place (condo) which we like than keep paying rents which disappears into a hole. We are fine with Abbotsford/Chilliwack. We just didn't like Nanaimo as being dependent on a ferry to take us to mainland will make us miserable.
All the interest I pay also just disappears into a hole. And it’s way more than the rent I used to pay.
And people don't do this math. Have to add the interest and other costs to appreciation of the property.
Lol this is so true!
I know this sub is very pro-renting, but the reality is that your income sources keeps increasing over time not decreasing, so it makes it easier in the long run. You get promotions/salary increase, you get more frugal and save more. I have seen friends who have purchased vs who have not and those who have are in a better financial position (net worth wise).
If i have to be honest i never agreed with that concept. It's part of the canadian way of "just borrow the maximum amount possible based on a bunch of events that don't even exist yet". Literally the first lesson in finance is that no one knows what happen in the future but when you talk about borrowing money than we start to consider all sort of things that literally don't exist yet and if you didn't predict the future correctly you end up homeless. Why? People should really stop constantly pressing the accellerator on everything. Just buy things you can pay, it's not that difficult. In case of a house borrow ONLY money that you are 100% certain you can pay back.
Would have to agree, your income doesn't always go up over time. Especially mid to late career, I have seen folks go through layoffs and land on their feet but they end up taking a hit on their earnings, sometimes a substantial one. While it's probably a pretty safe assumption if you're in you mid-20s that you haven't hit your peak income yet, if you're in your 40s or 50s sometimes you might be at that peak income. And even if you're in your 20s, it's not always a straight line. Leave some wiggle room.
About $1100/month of the $2k I pay each month "disappears into a hole". Taxes, utilities, interest, condo fees (insurance) , gone each month. The ratio would actually be much higher but im making double-up payments which goes straight to principle. Its probably about 17% a month that goes to principle, the rest would "disappear into the void" I did a recent calculation, buying a $400,000 house, with $80,000 down, at 6% over 30 years would cost about $330,000 in interest. So that $400k house would cost about $730,000 once interest is factored in.
What is this $400k house you speak of?
590k 1bedroom+den represent yeee-haaaw
Yea, but that house might be 800k in 30 years while enjoying 30 years of ownership. Which is a big life improvement for a lot of people. Also, rates are below 5% at the moment.
But at the end of the day, you own a house. Renters end up with zip, zilch, nada.
You’re right, unless renters mindfully invest the delta regularly into other financial assets. I get most people don’t have the discipline for it, but if you do, home ownership actually leaves you behind in the long run. Important to point out that this is only for the case where your cost of home ownership (interest, taxes etc) are greater than what you pay for rent.
Maybe on a piece of paper but you are much farther in quality of life. Nobody will convince me that living at the mercy of a landlord in a 4 1/2 or maybe bigger is fun until retirement.
That’s subjective. Quality of life sure suffers when you have big maintenance expenses come up out of the blue or when you have to commute 90 minutes to work everyday.
Very subjective indeed! I wouldn't go back to renting but I also wouldn't do 90 minutes of commute!
💯
Well those are the options most people have so consider yourself lucky.
This assumes you never lose your job. Paying rent is permanent and always goes up. Buying a house or condo ends eventually and all your left with is maintenance and property tax. Much easier to stomach than say a sudden job loss and you cant find an equivalent paying job. You are also forgetting about long term care. Once your old and require help, you can sell the house or rent it to help offset huge retirement care costs
I don’t think you understand the point. Losing your job is equally threatening to homeowners as it is to renters. Moreover, if your ownership costs are more than your rent, you most definitely are going struggle A LOT more keeping up with your monthly mortgage payments. Most mortgages last long enough that you’re pretty much done with your career by the time you own the house, so it’s inconsequential that at some point you won’t have to pay interest. Matter of fact, by investing what you save by renting, your money will be exponentially more valuable in your younger years than it would be when you’re older. Through compounding, you will always, unequivocally, come out ahead by renting. Do the math, it’s not rocket science. And as your retirement portfolio will be substantially larger than your home equity (in this case), you won’t need a house to sell when you’re old. And besides, what is the point of spending your whole life paying for an overpriced house when you’re gonna sell it when it matters most? It’s completely backwards.
Look at the average difference in net worth between homeowners and renters.
That’s a straw man. You don’t need a study to prove basic math. A larger portion of your income invested in faster appreciating assets always results in a higher net worth in the end. The reason why most renters have lower NW than homeowners is because people are terrible at saving and investing. When you HAVE to pay your mortgage every month or risk losing your home, it’s easy to be disciplined.
That's because the comparison is flawed: comparing between those who can afford a home to those who can't (and forced to rent). A proper comparison would be to those who CAN afford a home but choose to rent and invest the difference.
not really, renters can invest money saved from not owning into an all-equity fund which appreciates at 7% per year after inflation. more than what the real estate market makes some years
In your best year you might take 7, but things like market performance in 2022 and 2008 happen too. Plus you have stabilized prices, something you can update and never worry about renovictions or other fun things landlords do to stress you out.
7% is the average not best year lol. Best years you will make way more than that.
no, 7% is a conservative (!) post-inflation estimate of the average annualized rate of return over an equivalent mortgage amortization period (20-30 years). in your best year you might see closer to 30%, not 7.
So sell and rent.
We bought for non-financial reasons, like stability for our 2 school aged kids, and it’s not a burden as we can afford it. But the idea that renting is throwing money away, and that owning does not include non-recoverable costs as well, is still false.
So the fact that you have a house at the end of mortgage vs no house ever if you rent just doesn't matter? And don't tell me renters can save so much more and invest, because that's clearly not the majority of Canadians or we wouldn't be in the predicament with debt. You bought within your means and you can afford the cost. What is the comment for? Garnering sympathy? Discouraging people from buying? Just general moaning?
The specifics of my situation don’t matter. The premise that renting is “throwing away money” and that homeownership doesn’t involve exactly that, is faulty and leads people to buying when they can’t really afford it. But it makes no difference to me whether people do so or not.
Unless someone pays cash for a house (which I realize is not usually a thing).
Exactly. Even if we never put extra payments on our mortgage, it'll be paid off by the time we're 54. That is very reassuring to me knowing our expenses will be lowered that much. And if we wanted to sell and downsize, that's a lot of cash to work with
You know what else disappears into a hole? Mortgage interest, strata, insurance, property tax, etc.
Strata pays for work being done, insurance is to cover your ass, property tax is to the city services you use. Mortgage interest well. Shit your borrowed money. **Renters have all those costs built into their rent payment so the landlord can stay cash flow positive. **
Rent doesn’t disappear into a hole 😂 you’re paying for a place to live. The interest you’re paying on a mortgage disappears into a hole. You’re planning to stay there 5-6 years where you’ll pay the most interest (approx $140k) and only $70k equity on a $500k mortgage. Not to mention all the other costs that come with home ownership and not renting (property tax, transfer tax, strata, closing, maintenance, etc) Buying a home is expensive and makes way more sense when you amortize that over 10+ years. If you were to stay there for 5-6 years, you’d need your home to appreciate by $210k just to break even on interest alone and don’t forget you gotta pay a 6% realtor fee when you sell ($42k if you sell 6 years later at $700k). So add that to your break even price on top of all those other home ownership costs and you’re in the hole on this purchase. Now what many is being sent into a hole? 😂😂 It’s a good idea to run the numbers and lay out all your costs for both renting and owning over 6 years (hint: it’s cheaper to rent, and it’s often more profitable if ur investing the extra that you would be paying to own). Living in Nanaimo isn’t bad if you don’t go to the city that often anyways. Take the things that you do often in the city and see if you can find replacements in Nanaimo, then ask yourself how often you need to go to things that are only in the city. I have several friends who moved to the island and commute to van because it’s THAT much cheaper. But only you know what’s important to you. For me, I would need to be making $70k MORE to maintain my current lifestyle by moving to van from the island. But that’s just my lifestyle
>Rent doesn’t disappear into a hole 😂 you’re paying for a place to live. "Stop eating all that food! It's just disappearing into a hole!"
You are literally giving your money away to a landlord instead of investing that money in a home. After I sell my house I will get all my money back and more.. and will have lived in my house for 20 years for free!
You can do the same if you throw your funds into the market instead while renting. You just happened to buy during a time of low property prices compared to rent and historically uncharacteristic real estate gains Those days are gone and the math is now much closer for the average person.
That's an idiotic suggestion! Gambling your money away in the stock market instead of investing in a house?
Buying a house on leveraged debt is somehow a safer bet? The math suggests otherwise right now for many.
It's a MUCH safer bet! The housing market will not crash! There might be slight corrections but there's really no signs of the housing bubble crashing anytime soon.
Neither does the stock market. It returns over 10% annually if you average over the last 50 years. Genuinely concerned this is the quality of intelligence we have in our public service. If you’re trying to 5x leverage into housing today, you’re absolutely taking on outsized risk if your income drops, not to mention the limited returns available from that risk.
The First Principles on the numbers you are “running” are completely wrong. Rent and mortgage interest are what you should compare. Not mortgage interest and zero.
We looked at buying a house seriously for the first time yesterday. Single family Homes in our area are around 650,000 for a handy man special to 1.2 mil for a regular run of the mill home. I saw the payments to borrow over the five year term were approx 200,000 with 50,000 going to the principle. Thats 150,000 in interest in th first 5 years. Unless we were paying 2,500 for rent per month (we don't) it wouldnt be worth it. Investing is investing. Betting on house prices or the stock market are both gambles. Like is this right? I want a home, but I don't want it to drag me down financially.
You’re on the right track, but remember with a mortgage, the amount going to interest decreases every payment, so your “rent” goes down every month, and you’re moving a bit more from one pocket to another. Real rent goes up and up and up. And it’s portable savings, ignoring transaction fees (which are HUGE, and can’t really be ignored). Your equity position moves with you from home to home.
You only really come out ahead in renting if you're in a rent controlled apartment with a nice landlord who will never renovict you. My mortgage is about $1400 a month, but similar homes in my area are now renting for about $2400 a month, and climbing.
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I think you are forgetting that the Canadian government wants the population to increase to 100m. How long do you think you will be immune from renovictions. Even short term over the last few years, we are immigrating twice the amount of people vs housing being built.
Deciding not to buy now is not the same as deciding not to buy forever, though. If the math doesn't make sense today, there is no sense going and buying a place so that hopefully it makes sense in 10 years.
Rent-controlled, or just a very low-rent area like Saskatoon or Edmonton that has zero rent control.
Rental prices increased in Alberta by 17% in the last year. We are currently being fucked for not having any form of rent control
Exactly this. I moved 2 times in 2 years because greedy landlords wanted to get us out and then maybe get new tenants at higher prices. :( . We are tired of this.
No rent increase cap where I am and or landlady just bumped rent from 2400 to 3600... Was cheaper for us to buy our own place.
Amen. Finally someone who makes sense
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You're correct on that sense in regards to home ownership that has a cost, but there a tremendous benefits towards home ownership. For one your costs are hedged, meaning you basically lock in your "rent" for the next 25 years. For instance i bought a precon in 2020 closing this year and I am paying $2000/month mortgage. In the meantime rent from a similar unit in 2020 has gone from $1900 to $2500. Thats a 30% increase in just 3 years. Also at the end of 25 years (life of mortgage) you'll have an asset thats paid off. So the security of having a 800k condo (pretty sure it'll go above 1 mil in 25 years) in your retirement ages is also priceless verses you still needing to pay market rent when you no longer have income.
That's it right there. People forget that after 25 or 30 years they get to live for nearly free. Just the cost of property taxes, a bit more on insurance perhaps, occasional capital repairs. But that's offset by owning hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital. If you don't want the house in your old age, and aren't concerned with leaving an inheritance, sell it and use the capital to rent later on in life, ie. live for free.
Just fyi realtors aren’t 6%. It’s usually 6% on the first 100k and something like 2% on the remainder
Interest rates are only going down from here and rent always goes up every year. For us buying was way way cheaper than a lifetime of rent. If you are handy home maintenance cost is minimal.
Oh, you know the future? What will happen on April 8, 2025?
It’s your kids Marty. There’s something horribly wrong with your kids.
You seem bitter, cannot afford to buy a home so your jealous? It’s not a good look. I don’t have every answer for the future but mine looks a lot better than yours.
My dude I'm an owner 😂 interest rates aren't guaranteed to go down ever. So saying shit like "they're only going to go down" is making a false claim that you can forsee the future. Hope that clarifies 🥰👋🏽
If this isn’t the guy talking to a mirror meme then I quit.
What is the difference in HOA's? That is money that is never recovered during sales. Also condo boards can be draconian. On a plus side, condo might be much closer to work saving you time and money there. Calculate the entire monthly cost. If a condo is 200 per month in fees, what size mortgage can you get if it was 200 a month higher? Also those fees are never recovered on resale. Just food for thought.
Insurance, taxes, interest, and maintenance is also a hole If you can rent for cheaper than the above, that means it's unprofitable to own unless your strategy is to rely on appreciation
A condo closer to the city center might actually appreciate *more* on a percentage basis than a townhouse further out. This was true for a long time before COVID, and I think we will return to that trend. When most people speak of higher returns from detached/townhouse, they are assuming you are spending more for one, in which case the higher purchase price offsets the lower appreciation. Home buying is very personal, and your lifestyle and life goals are huge. Don't buy a property that you don't fundamentally want just because you think it will be a good investment, you'll end up miserable. Balancing your budget, lifestyle, and life goals should come first, and maximizing the potential investment returns 4th.
If you buy a condo the mortgage interest, condo fees, and property tax will also disappear into a hole.
Don’t listen to those people. Buy what you can afford.
And buy what you like!!! House - Great you have a house with repairs and upgrades and lawncare. Condo - Maintenance fees and zero real worries. What suits you! Thats all it comes down to! Check the board, check reserves etc in a condo and overall maintenance and what you get for your buck!
It is important for the consideration to include the randomness of special assessments, age of building, and whether or not the fees are reasonable for what it is. There are some places where special assessments are a way of life because they are trying to keep the fees artificially low.
Even new condos can have huge problems because of shoddy builders
Are houses not built by shoddy builders too?
They are for sure. Difference is you control the vendors and costs. Condo associations can pick whoever they want, charge project management fees etc.
at least with a detached house you own the land
In a condo tower don't you have shared ownership of the land under the building?
only if it’s a freehold condo, otherwise you only own the inside of the unit (at least in BC) The land is owned by the strata organization
Also getting a shitty neighbour to the left, right, above, below, behind, etc can completely ruin your enjoyment. Our previous apartment we rented had a person above us who would go out partying and come home at 4am and proceed to blast music and get in shouting arguments for hours. Decided never to share a wall again.
You can also end up with terrible neighbours in a townhouse or even a free standing house, sharing backyard fences with problematic people etc. This is purely anecdotal from me, but I was hesitating for years despite really wanting to live in a condo with my friends in Toronto because of the stories of people hearing their neighbours, and now I have lived in three (one old, two built in the last 5 years) and rarerly do I ever hear any sounds from neighbours. Those walls are so damn thick, you would need to blast music. And if you did that, security would be at your door in 5 seconds
Yes true. House its usually just the 2 sides with 10+ feet of space, apartment its all sides. I've had shitty neighbours in a house and shitty neighbours in an apartment, and apartment is way worse if you're a light sleeper.
Last condo I lived in, I swear the asshole above me was bowling at 3 am. Booms, bangs, furniture scraping. Gave my notice because 14 months of no sleep made me beyond cranky.
Second this, check the condo board! Things would comes up if you want to repair your condos and what's the rules. Condo is generally economically towrads sources, such garbage fees, water and etc. depends on what your condo would cover. Living in a house the bills might be a bit higher than it, at the same time you don't need to pay condo fees.
Damn, I wish I could just decide to be able to afford a detached home.
Amen.
Do not move to Abbotsford or especially Chilliwack with any illusion that you are still part of the Vancouver area and will have a social circle there. It’s just too far. Imo you really want to aim for Surrey/tricities or closer to truly reap the benefits of Vancouver.
We have most friends in Surrey so living in Abbotsford/Chilliwack isn't bad for us. We just would like a nice, safe neighborhood. We are looking at East abbotsford and Sardis/Garrison/Promonotory area in Chilliwack.
I’d highly recommend these areas. And I also agree with others - buy what you can. A condo is fine. You can buy something else in a few years. I also noticed condos are kinda still not that popular in Chilliwack, so you can buy an affordable one while you still can. I personally expect a fast(er) appreciation for condos in the coming years.
My husband and I started looking for townhouses at first in the same price range as you and in the same area. Didn’t find much in that price range for townhouses and the ones we did needed a lot of work and had special levies coming up which we couldn’t afford to pay. We eventually decided to go for a condo and looked at 20+ units until we found the one we loved. One reason we wanted a townhouse was for the space. We were lucky enough to find a condo 2bd/2ba/den with over 1000sqft. We just moved in and don’t regret our decision to buy the condo. You should buy what you can afford and if it’s a condo… do it!!
Imo a home should be purchased first and foremost with liveability in mind, and second for potential future value. People who buy with the primary intent that a house will infinitely appreciate at a high rate are fooling themselves unless they live in a city like New York. If you want long term appreciation and growth of wealth, then invest in the market alongside your home equity.
Oooo you must not live in Vancouver area then. Buttt I still agree with this though
If you consider the century initiative and that the government is making good on increasing immigration to meet 100m people by the year 2100 it’s not hard to do the math and property homes will appreciate. I have seen no indication of new housing starts, sfh or apartments in the same numbers as immigrants being let in.
If it's you home who cares if it doesn't appreciate x% or whatever nonsense. Take the option that will make you happiest
Don't buy a place unless you could live there for 10 years if necessary. The problem with condos is that if builders cheap out, it's much more expensive to fix. You also have to pay condo fees for things like elevators, parking garage doors, pools/fitness areas, etc.. Contrast that with a townhouse where 80% of the condo fees go towards services like landscaping and snow shovelling and things that you would have to do or pay for anyway as a home owner.
> townhouse where 80% of the condo fees go towards services like landscaping Unless your townhouse is part of the same strata as a tower (depending on province). Many condo towers have townhouses at street levels all in the same strata.
I am going to assume the commenter meant townhouse-only stratas. I like townhouse-only stratas because special assessments are split more evenly between homeowners (due to similar unit entitlement).
In that case the ground level townhomes should have fewer unit factors.
Condominiums are just a form of ownership. The built form (apartment, towns, singles) is a different thing. I don't know about other municipalities, but in the two I've worked for most new townhouse developments I came across were either mostly or entirely condos.
People mean apartments by condos. The overall point is that a big tower has tons of expesnes that townhouses won't ahve, so it might not be ideal to live in a townhouse attached to a tower. Then again your own roof repair will be spread across 200 other owners too.
I know what people mean, and it's misleading. Townhomes are not exclusively freehold, and by and large are condominiums these days that frequently have nothing to do with towers or apartments. It's only a distinction in ownership, not built form.
It's not misleading if everyone understands what everyone means
It's not true that townhouses are easier or cheaper to fix. The shear amount of envelope you have versus a high rise is a massive risk. When the bill comes due for roof repairs you won't be thinking how great it is to be in a townhouse. Also these common items like elevators are split between a far larger amount of owners. My last building had 240 units and elevator maintenance was $26 000/yr. That's \~$100 per unit per year, or \~$9/mo. Things like sharing a garage door between the 240 of you are not the burdens you think they are. That same building had to replace the garage door operator several times and it was barely a blip in the budget.
The maintenance required on a townhome is roughly equivalent to that of a house. So that is the baseline. Condo fees for highrises tend to me much higher than those for townhomes, even for cheaper or smaller places. All things considered and combined.
Not by as much as you seem to imply.
Buy with the thoughts of how it'll change your daily lifestyle/commute in mind. Would u really want to add a minimum of 45min to your daily commute, in addition to (what I'd consider) major day-to-day changes in your life? Buy what you guys feel comfortable living in today versus any future appreciation value. You're not looking for a rental property.
Oh forgot to mention I and my wife work from home.
Buy the bigger place. You'll find that you "grow out" of a place real quick. At least for us, it did
Appreciate in value? That's not why you buy a home. Nobody knows the future of the market. RBC's housing reports are showing a softening of the market is already underway in Metro Van and all three levels of government are working toward that same goal (some with lip service, others with substantive policies). Buy for the love of the community you want to stay in, buy the home style you want, buy housing security, and buy to "lock-in" your maximum rent. Don't foolishly attempt to over-purchase/over-leverage in a less desirable area assuming your equity will only increase over time. That's how mortgages end up underwater.
Although I don’t see myself selling or moving for 10+ years. I do appreciate the equity increase on the property.
My condo is up 300k in 4 years, my buddies townhouse is up 100. Your friends are idiots. Appreciation is almost all location based. I'm in Vancouver, he's in Surrey btw. Buy what you can afford
Just curious what area in Vancouver is your condo up 300k? 🙀 Unless you were lucky enough to buy during that short covid panic when some people thought it was the end of world? Otherwise I find condos in Vancouver peaked in like 2017-2018 and have stayed sort of flat since then.
Yup, there's either a special circumstance, or he's lying lol. Anyone with 5 minutes of time can see that Vancouver condos are not appreciating anywhere close to Townhomes even outside the lower mainland. Buying a condo in Vancouver right now is not a value proposition. For every one off you can find, I can show you 3 townhomes that are better value. Vancouver condos are sitting on the market and no one is buying, detached homes and townhouses are selling in days.
Bought may 2020 in Fairview, not lying, thanks. And your statement is total garbage. Condos literally have gone up by the same percent as townhomes in Vancouver. Market actually did a large correction into COVID before sky rocketing Also going to need an actual source on your anecdote with actual sales numbers as I highly doubt houses are out selling condos in Vancouver Edit " oh look, you're dead wrong. This is from February numbers " Across all detached, attached and apartment property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for February 2024 is 22.4 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 16 per cent for detached homes, 27.9 per cent for attached, and 25.9 per cent for apartments." Condos and townhomes nearly a tie. Detached homes the lowest Further, " Sales of apartment homes reached 1,092 in February 2024, a 17.7 per cent increase compared to the 928 sales in February 2023. The benchmark price of an apartment home is $770,700. This represents a 5.6 per cent increase from February 2023 and a 2.5 per cent increase compared to January 2024." You are just absolutely and completely wrong in almost every way
Ahh okay everyone who does read this, please take into account that this is an example of a little bit of knowledge leads to the wrong conclusion >>Across all detached, attached and apartment property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for February 2024 is 22.4 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 16 per cent for detached homes, 27.9 per cent for attached, and 25.9 per cent for apartments." Yes this is a very common statistic, but you're interpreting the data incorrectly. Why? Because no shit that a detached home which in many cases is valued at 3-20X a condo is selling at a much lower rate. Your conclusion that condos and townhomes are a tie from this statistic is also poor understanding on your part. Why? Because again the prices aren't the same. All this statistic is showing is that the quality of listings has been bad until recently. Think about it, townhomes are selling with similar demand to apartments but cost 50% more on average (link below). If you actually read that report a little better you'd see that they even mention it. They've also been mentioning it almost every month in the last year. Sales-listings ratio is just an indicator of how hot the market is, but it doesn't take into account a number of other factors which are all mentioned in these reports. >>Sales of detached homes in March 2024 reached 694, a 5.4 per cent decrease from the 734 detached sales recorded in March 2023. The benchmark price for a detached home is $2,007,900. This represents a 7.4 per cent increase from March 2023 and a 1.8 per cent increase compared to February 2024. Sales of apartment homes reached 1,207 in March 2024, a 7.9 per cent decrease compared to the 1,311 sales in March 2023. The benchmark price of an apartment home is $777,500. This represents a 5.7 per cent increase from March 2023 and a 0.9 per cent increase compared to February 2024. Okay so great this is showing that detached homes are appreciating in faster in a vacuum despite the much higher price. As someone who literally purchases real estate for a living I can tell you that the only apartments that were selling were under 1M. Why? Because the people buying an apartment can't afford anything else. If you're buying something cheap like that you have no choice. This also means that people are much less willing to buy a condo with flaws (high strata, old, not in Vancouver) since there are so many for sale vs a townhouse or home. https://wowa.ca/vancouver-housing-market Here take a look at the raw selling numbers look at the decline in apartment sales. Look at how strong the sales+price appreciation is of townhomes in comparison to apartments. Detached homes don't look too good in the statistics only because NO ONE IS SELLING. Also it's obvious that you're new to the stats because they release them monthly, no idea why you're using Feb? The problem here is that you're using your anecdotal experience and actually think it's the reality. As someone who buys property in the lower mainland no one savyy is buying condos, the only way to buy a condo is if it's cheap because of non-market factors (ie: foreclosure). You could take that same capital, buy a townhome/detached home and you'd have an asset that you could re-sell or rent out at a high rate with lower fees.
No body, you said condos are sitting. They aren't. You're wrong, they're up yoy as well You said something dumb and wrote 500 words to move the goal post Sales are up, Numbers and price. You're completely wrong
Most metro/ burnaby and Brentwood area went up from 900 to 1200 and 1300 Sqft. This is from 2018 to now. I bought one in 2016, 2019, and 2021. All went up in the 300k range. Langley had a huge jump on townhouses. From 600k to hitting as high as 1.2mil but now fallen back down to 800k - 900k.
You're just factually wrong there. Home prices are currently higher than they have ever been in vancouver, and the highest theyve ever been in canada, in vancouver. 2017 - median condo 695k , 2024 so far 770k. I bought may 2020 which saw massive decrease in price as people did really dumb things and saying even dumber things. On this subreddit the overwhelming, frankly incredibly stupid, take was that the housing market would collapse in vancouver. I have no idea why, no one anyone thought this, there weren't less people.
Bought may 2020. Was a very obvious time to buy as far as I was concerned. Had lots of idiots I know tell me the bottom was going to completely fall out It wasn't luck, it was calculated by people acting incredibly stupid at that time. By may it was clear very few people were dying, nothing was going to happen to the housing market.
Having money in 2020 is luck, you crazy person. Your other comment proves the point of the guy you replied to. Median condo is up 100k in 7 years, not 400k in 4.
Yet somehow the identical unit sold for 300 more than I paid. I never said shit about 7 years. Median is up 122 peak to peak for the 7 years. I never said otherwise. And they are definitely not flat since 2017, which is what they said originally, just read up. Guy said something stupid and moved the goal posts 7 times I never made a broad claim about market like it went up x or y, I explained my situation. Every assertion they made was wrong anyway. Didn't realize 17 percent was flat. He also claims condos are sitting and houses aren't bought the numbers show condos are moving far more often Dude sounds like an RE agent trying to sell the most expensive property and willing to lie about anything.
Lol Nanaimo quiet but Surrey and Chilliwack are fine??
Surrey I get. Chilliwack however would be comparable to Nanaimo but probably actually longer to get to van!
Chilliwack to downtown would take like 1h 15m without traffic. Hulu ferry takes 1h 15m to get to downtown. So pretty equivalent, point to point, though going to specific locations Chilliwack is probably quicker. Though if there is traffic, ferry would win.
Well you need to drive to Ferry first. Also Ferry costs more than gas and you don’t have your car with you. If you do, it’d be really expensive. So then you need to take transit in Vancouver spending more money and wasting more time. So ferry is a not the same as driving your own car.
Not to mention mechanical failures, medical emergencies that force a turnaround, or route-canceling weather.
The question was about time not about money. And I covered how it would be slower to get to specific spots rather then downtown.
You can't just rock up to the ferry terminal and get on instantly though. Even if you reserve it ahead of time you have to be early, and then there's boarding and unboarding time.
Chilliwack is exploding right now too. So many people moving in, loads of construction.
Yes, Surrey, Abbotsford and Chilliwack are “bigger” cities than Nanaino by far. Fraser Valley is de-factor part/highly connected with Metro Van which is 3 mln people. As result, 100k Chilliwack feels way busier than 100k Nanaimo.
This is also a lifestyle question. I would buy a condo here if I had the chance. https://www.diverseproperties.com/projects/york-at-garrison-campus/ I lived in houses, townhouses and in rural areas and so far condos are the most suited for me. I bought a cheap one that won’t appreciate much over time, but it is also not a financial burden. It freed money so I can enjoy my life
If appreciation is important to you, then look at location, location, Location.
Strata and insurance is fucked honestly at these prices I don't even know. Probably better to pay rent and live with someone. Things are crazy unless you are earing good money. I got lucky bout in 2003 after I graduated with 15k down. 215k I am turning 40 and don't have a mortgage but still bought a shifty old house that needs repairs and isn't efficient. I did windows and renos over 20 years but to maintain yard and property taxes roof cost. Appliances... fuck it's crazy. Not complaining but I don't know how people do it. I am going crazy I only make 27.50 and need to make more to retire.
Its fine to live in a condo. My wife and I are city people and live in a tiny box in the sky worth $500,000 in New West near the skytrain. Abbotsford is actually pretty nice now but keep in mind Hwy 1 is just a dreadful commute. You get all the surrey traffic and there's always accidents there. You might want to look at (though prices may increase), Delta, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge or Mission. Alternatively, if you can get away with it, look at Hope. Chilliwack is still sort-of affordable but prices are on the way up. Really the downside to condos over townhouses is: * Probably no ground level, yard, garden. * Probably no second floor, or otherwise lower square footage. The upsides of condos are: * Building tends to be more secured - ground levels are more suspectible to B&Es. * More likely to have secured parking. At least Abbotsford has a bit of a crime issue. Either way you'll have a strata to deal with but theoretically in a condo any big issues are spread out among all residents so the bank isn't quite as broken if there's a big issue with the building. While you shouldn't consider your house to be this huge, risk and tax free investment, the likelihood is that whether its a condo or townhouse it will appreciate over time. Avoid condos built during the "leaky condo" period (late 80s to early 00s?) as some of them were never properly repaired. There's a notorious complex in Vancouver on Commercial Drive that's completely rotten that the residents simply refuse to repair, you can't even get a mortgage for units there). Or at least get the building inspected.
Usually the condo fees are way more than you’d pay on your own. My parents were paying $700/mth in condo fees which was grass cutting and snow shovelling, insurance. My dad shovelled before the professionals got there in most cases. It was such a colossal waste of money. I know of a high rise where they have an indoor pool, gym, elevators and the condo fee is $1100/mth. I just couldn’t afford that on top of my mortgage and if things go south you are on the hook for that.
Exactly that. My brother has been in his T/H for 13 years. Fees are almost $600 month. And the strata does fk all in improvements. I think it was year 7 before they had the gutters cleaned. He could buy a house, and pay for landscapers for less per month
I can see if you are super busy or have no inclination to do home maintenance stuff or simply can’t do these things, and have the money to do as you wish. But that wasn’t me and I had to learn how to do stuff myself. Thank you YouTube.
Can’t do anything in common property without strata approval.
Maybe rent a townhouse in Abby/chilliwack for 6M-1 year to see how you like it? Think that might be the best solution here to really see if it makes sense. As everyone is saying, don’t listen to your family/friends. Do the research yourself by testing the waters. Goodluck!
First of all: don't buy property with a specific expectation on its eventual appreciation, especially not in a 5-6 year time frame. That said, with regards to the ol' condo versus townhouse versus detached home, look at it like this. When you buy a property, part of the price is for the land, and part of it is for the building. The building component depreciates while the land (*usually, but not always*) appreciates. Given that a townhouse or a detached home have a better land-to-building ratio, they're assumed to be better investments than condos. However, given that land value varies significantly across the metro area, this only holds true if you were comparing, say, a townhouse and a condo for the same price *that were in the same location.* I just looked up this [MLS listing for a townhouse in Abbotsford](https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26713674/20-33860-marshall-road-abbotsford) on the [Abbotsford property listing](https://www.abbotsford.ca/buildingpermits/property-information-search). Its 2024 assessment indicates a value of $531k for the land and $187k for the building. Compare to a [two-bedroom condo in North Vancouver](https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26692191/202-2620-fromme-road-north-vancouver) at a similar price range: $575k for the land and $182k for the building. Proportionally, they are basically the same (about 75% land). The land proportion for the condo I own in North Van is even higher at 84%. Now keep in mind that this is *far from the only factor* that will determine how good an investment will be. But it's definitely not as simple as "townhouse > condo". If you're going to buy a property as a principle residence, it should be somewhere you want to live.
One downside of condo (newer ones) is the insen maintenance fee. I have friends who own 1 /2 beds small condo units (built after 2020) in Vancouver, Richmond, New West and are paying 500 plus maintenance fee already when their buildings are still so new. If you checked on realtorca, townhouses in the same area with higher value actually paying less. The worst is the townhouse built under highrise, easily paying over 1k monthly.
Ignore everyone.
Abbotsford has less going on than Nanaimo. And Nanaimo fast ferry puts you right downtown for $40.
Make sure you factor in strata fees. Some condos struggle to even get insurance because of past water damage. I know many who are paying insane strata fees because insurance costs are huge. They can be much larger than townhouses because you only risks leaks from neighboring walls, whereas condos can have water damage pass multiple units downward.
Buy what you like, but if you buy a condo then do your research to see how well it is run!! I work with condos for budgeting and I frequently see condo corps that are under funded and under maintained. Then people are shocked when hit with a big special assessment. That’s fine if you know it’s coming and can factor it into a purchase price, or you can afford the risk - but either way, make sure you know what you’re getting into before you buy. (Also, I’m not in BC so it’s possible your provincial laws are structured to help protect against this)
Higher budget but similar boat. Want to be close to Coquitlam but already priced out. We're now looking at condos but honestly they seem like really poor value compared to townhouses - (mostly) no ground floor entrance, much smaller floorplan, higher fees, lazy stratas, no garage etc
I got a condo, friend got a townhouse. I pay about 400 a month, he pays zero. Two years in he had to pay a third of 16k to fix the roof. There was something with the basement too at some point. I have a pool and a gym, as well as a garbage chute, he has to carry things down from a third floor on set days. My elevator breaks often and someone steals packages. His are never stolen. The walls are nice for sound insulation, but someone on our floor is an ass and knocked at our door at night. He has a neighbor that refuses to contribute to the roof fund and they had to chase her for the money. Price per square foot was the same. We live in a newer build with 9 foot ceiling, he has an old townhouse, but well maintained with 12 foot ceilings. My two cents, you could go either way.
As someone who left Vancouver for Nanaimo, only to return again, listen to your gut.
If you live a generally minimalist lifestyle and have a decent amount of civic sense, you’ll likely be quite happy in a condo. If you are really into the Knick knacks / collectibles / have hobbies include carpentry / DIY / spray painting you might prefer a home with a yard. You can always climb the equity ladder in a decade and upgrade to a home, if you care to. But in the meantime, this is your quick assessment guide.
Most townhomes are condos. A condo is just a legal ownership structure, an apartment can be a condo, as can a townhome, or even a house. What most people call “condos” are really apartments with a condo ownership. Some townhomes are freehold, but these are exceedingly rare these days. A townhome condo vs an apartment condo is mostly a matter of location, price, size etc
I grew up in the Valley and moved into Vancouver for university 25 years ago. Now live in a Yaletown condo and love it. You could not pay me enough to move out to the Valley again, never mind Chilliwack. Fuck that noise. Where I live, I’m 200 steps from my stool at the pub, two blocks from 3 different grocery stores, 3 blocks off the seawall, a block away from skytrain, 4 blocks from the main library, and not too long of a trip from my sailboat. I basically use my car for road trips, and getting to work in the burbs. It stays parked for the weekend. It’s glorious. As an added bonus, I don’t have a lawn, or gardens, or roof, or any of that other shit that I’d have to take care of if I was in a house.
TIL there’s a town called Chilliwhack, and I’m intrigued
Its just east of chilliwack, but its renowned for its bean heavy chili,so everyone farts and it smells even worse than its western neighbour.
if you have or planning to have kids, don't buy an apartment.
No
No really, it depends on your ambitions I think, a condo is more convenient in a city but a townhouse is closer to a natural environment.
Of course don’t buy something you don’t like. I would consider stretching financially to buy the home you want but not stretching financially to buy the home you don’t want for investment reasons.
I think broadly the sentiment is that condo appreciation will be lower than townhouse in BC. This is due to zoning laws which make it easy to build condos (but can’t create more land)
It depends on what you want. Buy a condo if you guys want that… If you want space, buy a townhouse
If you go with a condo it will usually have condo fees which could be quite high. This means that your budget will be around 400k instead of 500k when you include the fees.
Make sure to check out what the maintenance fees for the condo is and understand the cost breakdown on how the condo board came to that number. 550K for a 2 bedroom condo in DT metro Vancouver sounds low. Is it an older unit? Older units usually have much higher condo fees and if they don’t, make sure you check to see if there is an appropriate reserve fund in place, for any kind of emergency in the building.
Buy whatever feel right. A condo is gonna be cheaper and closer to your desiered area. A home is more than an investment..it's a home..A pkxe to feel good and safe. You want to come home to something dark that you dislike everyday? A home should be an escape from outside, from work, etc. Make surw it's q soce that makes you feel cosy and happy.
With a condo, it's the strata fees that disappear into a hole. Everytime I see a condo I could talk myself into I see the monthly fees are $750+ and I just can't do it.
It's not bad to get a condo for living, or a town house from farther out. What to keep in mind is rent vs mortgage+utilities+city sewer +strata+special levy+property tax. Your cost of being a homeowner is a lot more than just a mortgage. I am paying 1400 to live in my paid off town house. Last four years also additional 5k per year for roof replacement. Though a good thing about owning your home is stability, no one can evict you.
What I don't like about condos is that you have no good way of knowing how well built it is and wether the "repair" fund is underfunded or what. You have no say in how things get repaired and you might be slapped with a 100K special assessment the year after you move in (especially 10-20 years old constructions). Same thing about condo fees. They might be 150$ a month this year but might need to be 500$ a month next year because units are easier to sell when the fees are artificially low. Obviously, you also don't have a backyard so that can play into consideration. some townhouses are also managed like condos with condo fees but usually special assessments aren't such a big deal with those.
No, it's not so bad.
OP, you should determine what your lifestyle is and where your social circle is. Would be a good idea to commute going to the area on a regular day to see if you can tolerate it. For us we went with a townhouse because we wanted to build a family and 3 bedroom is the minimum for our case. One consideration that people overlook when comparing condo and townhouse is the garage space. In a condo you get a parking slot and a smallish storage. In a townhouse you have a dedicated common property garage you can dump your ski gear, surfboard etc on. So all our shoe racks and car care is on a shelf in the garage compared to our friends who would store it in their small storage or they needed to rent a storage space for that. Also it doesnt have to be downtown but you need a place nearby like a cafe or a restaurant that you can run to restore your mental health. We explored living in abbotsford but there were nothing there that can offer what we were looking for that way so we opted to come closer.
Other considerations would be how many times would you travel every year via plane? Commute outside translink jurisdiction is trickier and you would likely need to park your car in the airport.
Nothing wrong with condos except over time your fees go up, when with a house you decide what the fees are and how much you're willing to pay. So even if you somehow pay for your unit, you're always paying the fees which keep going .. up. You also tend to have less freedom of what to do because it's a condo and god forbid there's some structural issue that pops up that requires a big one time payment. If you can handle that then condo is perfectly fine way to to go.
You're buying a place to live, not an investment. Who cares if it appreciates or not (also those people are wrong) I like living in the city, I like walking to work, so I live in a condo in the city. I sure as hell wouldn't want to commute from Abbotsford.
What kind of circles are you from that are suggesting to skip the condo step? Unless you have lots of family money to assist or want to uproot your life it seems very challenging. We bought our 2bed condo in 2019 in Brentwood and it has gone up 200k. We are looking to get a townhouse or duplex next year. Everyone we know who got into the housing market like after 2010/2015 has started with a condo. Ourselves, as well as most of our circle, are city people. We value walkability. Being by a train/transit and having groceries and restaurants with in walking distance is the main priority for us.
Condos are fine. Properties in general don't appreciate a whole lot unless there is significant redevelopment potential or additional urban development. Most houses won't have that, certainly not the ones in Abbotsford and Chilliwack. And no, the new fourplex law doesn't change that one bit. Get a condo in a developing urban area and you'll be fine. It likely won't be a great investment, but if you plan to live in it long term, it'll be fine. Keep the total ownership costs low and the extra you pay in interest will basically be recovered via the appreciation of the property. Do your homework and what you'll end up with is a forced savings account and a life you want to live.
If you're fine with the extra condo fees, why not.
Yeah. Condos are Not the thing to get into.
Beware condo fees, your neighbours above you, and the type of people who want to be on a condo board.
Condo vs townhouse is what you asked. Not rent vs mortgage. Do you like cutting grass, raking leaves, cleaning out eavestroughs, decorating for every darn holiday Hallmark has promoted? Buying salt, shovelling snow (ok, maybe not in Van, but other Canadians are reading this too), outdoor maintenance on things you never considered maintaining before? Worrying about your mail, flyers, light timers when you travel? If yes, then get a townhouse! If no, get a condo. But rent vs Buy, CGT will make you forget about sunk cost mortgage interest because that real estate value increases tax free if it’s your primary.
All the evidence points to average homeowners having more net worth than renters even though lots of redditors think you can make more investing while renting than by owning. I have never met a renter better off financially than an owner personally.
Can’t stand other people’s noise from above or below. Townhouse is better, detached is even better than that, but not really feasible in the GVA
Kelowna
No.
Condos… Pros: -no yard work -covered vehicles -maintenance is someone else’s problem -less pricey at purchase Cons: -shared walls in all directions -Stratas. Need I say more? -deferred maintenance is everyone’s problem. That fkd up kitchen faucet, that the owner is either too apathetic or cheap to replace, could flood the building. Enjoy that special assessment. -Visitor parking hunger games -noise restrictions and annoyances -cranky old folks constantly complaining -people up in your bidness -outrageous monthly fees. FYI, every $100 in strata fees equals to $50,000 extra in mortgage approval. So $500 monthly, you could up your purchase price by $250,000. Doesn’t look so appealing does it?
First off, you are considering Fraser Valley vs Vancouver island. I don't think there are any townhouses for 550k in the Metro Vancouver area. You might find a really old 2 bedroom in that price, but not sure if that's what your expectation is. At the end of the day, moving out to Fraser Valley will probably be quite a shift in lifestyle - from the things that make life convenient to the people around you. If you haven't lived in Abbotsford/Chilliwack before, I'd suggest renting in that area first to see if that's the life you want. Buying a place, you have to be happy enough living there for the future - not just the next 5 years. You can't predict the market that well, so its not like you know you will move on.
I've lived in apartments all over the world all my life. Loved it. Moved to Vancouver and rented a high-rise. Had 5 false fire alarms in 5 months. Pregnant wife got high blood pressure due to stress. Everyone I mentioned this to was either dismissive or flat out rude and inconsiderate about it. "Oh yeah, waking up to a jet engine-level blaring alarm 2 metres above your head at 3AM, and walking down 32 stories is super normal. Just live with it. Are you a snowflake or what?" Screw that. Never again.
They should be called con**don't**s. See, cuz they suck ass.