COVID and the housing market

[mimico_polak]

I remember my buddy went to a property where a 100k+ kitchen was being installed. He was measuring the granite prior to cut/install....the video was awesome.

My cheapo cabinets had soft close hinges/rails while the very expensive one didn't. It looked worse than an IKEA (no offence) kitchen. If I was the homeowner I'd be livid. But a lot of people think 'I have a 100k kitchen, I'm special' without actually looking into the finer details of the work.

It's not the big splash that makes a kitchen worth 100k, as @GreyGhost says...it's the details in the finishes that make it expensive.

I love our kitchen. We didn't even update the boxes, just the doors/hardware and it looks brand new. Sure you can see the wood trim behind it...but I wasn't willing to spend $10k on new cabinets. Only gripe is that it's too damn small!

 

[Deleted member 50930]

Wtf is going on here in Waterloo? Is this town that desirable to live in? Average price of a home here is $900k now.

Tell me about it.

Bank logic is infuriating... OH you can't afford x mortgage but you can afford 2x rent

And the amount of crap landlords here in the past few years has also been a pain

edit - www.wowa.ca

 

[GreyGhost]

I remember my buddy went to a property where a 100k+ kitchen was being installed. He was measuring the granite prior to cut/install....the video was awesome.

My cheapo cabinets had soft close hinges/rails while the very expensive one didn't. It looked worse than an IKEA (no offence) kitchen. If I was the homeowner I'd be livid. But a lot of people think 'I have a 100k kitchen, I'm special' without actually looking into the finer details of the work.

It's not the big splash that makes a kitchen worth 100k, as @GreyGhost says...it's the details in the finishes that make it expensive.

I love our kitchen. We didn't even update the boxes, just the doors/hardware and it looks brand new. Sure you can see the wood trim behind it...but I wasn't willing to spend $10k on new cabinets. Only gripe is that it's too damn small!

Our house came with this crown. I would have lost it if I was paying the bill. Corner on crown doesnt line up with corner of cupboard, gaps between pieces at corners, etc. It would have been a pain to build so it cant have been cheap. I've seen worse, but if I am paying for something extra, I want extra awesomeness, not extra mistakes. No easy way for me to fix it without starting from scratch (and that would be a colour match nightmare).

 

[nobbie48]

That isn't even close to the top. The details can add up to make your head spin. Ten years ago, my bosses neighbours house sold and in week one, the entire kitchen was at the curb. It was 150K to put in the year before they bought the house. Some of it is size (both sq ft and high ceilings) but a lot is the fiddly details like complicated crown installed on cabinets, multi-layer finishes (remember the aged white look that was popular a few years ago?), etc. Fancy appliances can quickly get well up into five figures. Start bringing in fancy stone and watch the cost spiral. I've been in some kitchens where the backplash is stone slabs (8'x4' pieces covering the wall).

A condo at Bay / Davenport didn't even have kitchens. Prices started around 5 million. With that outlay the owner isn't going to live with some one else's colours. Even the rough ins were optional, as some people were into feng shui. If you pee in the wrong direction in the morning it can ruin your whole day.

 

[Deleted member 50930]

A condo at Bay / Davenport didn't even have kitchens. Prices started around 5 million. With that outlay the owner isn't going to live with some one else's colours. Even the rough ins were optional, as some people were into feng shui. If you pee in the wrong direction in the morning it can ruin your whole day.

How do you expect someone to live without a Kitchen -_-"

 

[shanekingsley]

When we did our reno and priced out kitchens we debated going with Ikea kitchens, other pre-fab ones and eventually decided to go with a custom made one. It's more expensive but exactly what we wanted with zero compromises. Agreed that $75k is normal and easy to exceed.

 

[GreyGhost]

How do you expect someone to live without a Kitchen -_-"

Some condos are minimizing the space dedicated to cooking (often bar fridge, two burner stove, no oven). They figure the occupants will eat out most of the time anyway and would prefer the additional living space. You aren't having a big dinner party in your tiny unit so dedicating space to a full size stove and fridge may not make sense.

I think Nobbie was referring to bare concrete suites. For the upper end of the market, it happens often. The buyers are picky and anything the builder put in would probably just get torn out anyway. By selling it bare concrete, the owners can pick their own design team (and often construction team for the interior). They can then import marble from Italy and if they have to wait six months, so be it. The builder of the base building needs to get out and can't put up with a project with that timeline and constant revisions. The more money people have, the less vision they seem to have. They install what they think they wanted and then walk in and want to move a wall over 6", throw out the backsplash for one that is a shade different, etc. Normal people don't have the relatively unlimited funds to light that much money on fire.

 

[油井緋色]

How do you expect someone to live without a Kitchen -_-"

You'd be surprised lol

When I was shopping around, it was with 2 other friends that wanted to buy (separately.) I know in Eastern culture it is very common for the woman to cook all meals (my fiancee does this and I clean.) To my surprise, my Caucasian buddy told us we are lucky af because apparently cooking is not really a thing in their culture.

While the above is full of generalizations and I'm sure exceptions occur, it does explain why all the Asians (including South Asians) at work always brought home lunches and all the Caucasians were buying food <_<

 

[Baggsy]

You'd be surprised lol

When I was shopping around, it was with 2 other friends that wanted to buy (separately.) I know in Eastern culture it is very common for the woman to cook all meals (my fiancee does this and I clean.) To my surprise, my Caucasian buddy told us we are lucky af because apparently cooking is not really a thing in their culture.

While the above is full of generalizations and I'm sure exceptions occur, it does explain why all the Asians (including South Asians) at work always brought home lunches and all the Caucasians were buying food <_<

Who crawled out of bed to make the home lunches?

 

[油井緋色]

Who crawled out of bed to make the home lunches?

Meal prepping is a thing a lot of my friends do; bulk cook everything Sunday so there's no "crawling out of bed." It might taste like **** by Wed. Eat it anyway though lol

 

[bigpoppa]

anywho bringing the thread back on track, for anyone who wants to learn more about where the circus real estate market is at right now, a good read:

Analysis: Excessive exuberance: Canada home prices boil over as policymakers sit back

Canada's red-hot housing market has become a bonfire, spurring comparisons to earlier bubbles and prompting calls for cooling measures. But policymakers are standing back, unwilling to intervene for fear of undermining Canada's still-fragile economic recovery from the COVID...

www.reuters.com

 

[GreyGhost]

anywho bringing the thread back on track, for anyone who wants to learn more about where the circus real estate market is at right now, a good read:

Analysis: Excessive exuberance: Canada home prices boil over as policymakers sit back

Canada's red-hot housing market has become a bonfire, spurring comparisons to earlier bubbles and prompting calls for cooling measures. But policymakers are standing back, unwilling to intervene for fear of undermining Canada's still-fragile economic recovery from the COVID...

www.reuters.com

It's interesting how the media deals with this. They are still beating the "first-time home buyer" difficulties but spend very little time addressing condo prices sliding down. First-time home buyer getting detached in toronto hasn't been possible for a long time, the rest of the GTA is quickly getting to the same position. Drop in condo price can give them an opportunity to start hopping up the ladder. Yes, you either need to live in or rent out your tiny box for years which isn't ideal, but that may be the only option. It's not a guaranteed winner though as I think detached prices will increase at a higher percentage from a higher starting price so they may still run away.

 

[mimico_polak]

They can’t put the titles of condos dropping. Recessions are easily begun by people repeating the word ‘recession’ in media. Some people start listening, spreading the bad R word and things start cooling...and the snowball effect takes place. who wants that pile on their plate?

if you keep hyping the market and prices keep rising....we’re all good. Things are tip top. Don’t worry about the condos....you’re rich bro! The detached is where it’s at!

Remember....RE never goes down...until it does. Then you’re at fault for risking everything.

 

[bigpoppa]

It's interesting how the media deals with this. They are still beating the "first-time home buyer" difficulties but spend very little time addressing condo prices sliding down. First-time home buyer getting detached in toronto hasn't been possible for a long time, the rest of the GTA is quickly getting to the same position. Drop in condo price can give them an opportunity to start hopping up the ladder. Yes, you either need to live in or rent out your tiny box for years which isn't ideal, but that may be the only option. It's not a guaranteed winner though as I think detached prices will increase at a higher percentage from a higher starting price so they may still run away.

pretty interesting article, a few key take aways:
- House prices are surging while unemployment is really high
- A lot of city dwellers who are (for now) able to work from home, bought homes in the country/rural pushing their prices up..and condo prices are in the toilet.
-if they're not able to continue working from home post vaccine/pandemic, the market will be flooded with an oversupply and firesales of said homes in the country, and condo prices will go back up
-If they are able to continue working from home post pandemic, the condo market will remain where its at or go down even further.
Either way, it will be interesting, and there will be opportunity.


Gotta say, the banking/mortgage regulator guy is completely asleep at the wheel aint he?
Just pretending there's no problem at all, keep inflating the bubble

 

[Deleted member 50930]

^
How long can they keep this up?

The economy feels like it's built on a poor foundation right now

 

[GreyGhost]

^
How long can they keep this up?

The economy feels like it's built on a poor foundation right now

You aren't wrong but that is one of the foundations of the issue. They built the economy on vapour (expensive to extract oil, subsidized corn and soybeans and housing). Oil flamed out, gov't is doubling down on ethanol (net zero at best probably net loss) and we are left with housing. If you upset the cart you wipe out huge amounts of money and gov't debt to gdp looks even worse. Gov't is addicted to crazy house prices and the taxes they generate.

 

[油井緋色]

^
How long can they keep this up?

The economy feels like it's built on a poor foundation right now

I don't wanna be "that guy" but...

Look at Hong Kong lol. I got a feeling it's just not gonna drop. I don't know why though.

 

[Deleted member 50930]

You aren't wrong but that is one of the foundations of the issue. They built the economy on vapour (expensive to extract oil, subsidized corn and soybeans and housing). Oil flamed out, gov't is doubling down on ethanol (net zero at best probably net loss) and we are left with housing. If you upset the cart you wipe out huge amounts of money and gov't debt to gdp looks even worse. Gov't is addicted to crazy house prices and the taxes they generate.

Salaries aren't that great and it feels like the basic things you need to live on just keep going on

Like how do they expect Canadians to survive?

I wish we could get 10 trillionaires and build like 20 200+ level affordable multi-generational housing apartments

The place my grandparents live in S.K is like this and they have lived there for over 60+ years. And due to the layout and multiple bathrooms it's easy to live together

 

[Baggsy]

Our house came with this crown. I would have lost it if I was paying the bill. Corner on crown doesnt line up with corner of cupboard, gaps between pieces at corners, etc. It would have been a pain to build so it cant have been cheap. I've seen worse, but if I am paying for something extra, I want extra awesomeness, not extra mistakes. No easy way for me to fix it without starting from scratch (and that would be a colour match nightmare).

It already is a colour match nightmare. How can you **** that up that much? I could understand in the pre-war houses as some carpenters didn't own a tape measure, plum bob or level, but not in this day and age.

Then again, I'd heard of drywallers "booting the boxes" in the eighties, i.e. kicking a hole roughly where the electrical box goes, and hoping the taper fixes it.

 

[GreyGhost]

Salaries aren't that great and it feels like the basic things you need to live on just keep going on

Like how do they expect Canadians to survive?

I wish we could get 10 trillionaires and build like 20 200+ level affordable housing apartments

Surviving is possible. Getting ahead is hard. Normal people in London, New York or Hong Kong don't own detached houses. The majority of normal people in those locations probably don't even own flats. They are renters. I don't like it but that's reality in those markets.