Recipes Make Magic
Senior Cook
One of my huge pet peeves, and I'd like to vent about it:
You folks may not know this, but the prices of housing here in Vancouver are the highest in Canada - higher even on average than in our major city of Toronto, Ont., and on a par with R/E costs in most areas of, would you believe, like L.A., San Fran., and even NYC. They've more than doubled over just the past 5-6 years !
The average price of a single family detached home anywhere near the greater downtown Vancouver area is over $1.2 million, and in my area of suburban Surrey, B.C. (Pop. at least 500,000 persons), there is little choice in the detached home bracket much under 1 $million.
Even townhomes and condos are in the half million $ bracket or more.
General affordability for first time buyers is almost nil.
My wife and I had a custom-built 1,630 sq. ft .rancher constructed here in Surrey in 2010, which was recently value assessed @ over $1 million when it cost a little more than half that amount when built. Our annual property taxes have risen by more than 100% since then.
We don't know when this price rise bubble is going to burst.
My main point in writing this is to say that I have actually dreamed of being able to secure the services of Chip & Jo Gaines of Waco, Texas, ( you know, of the TV show, "Fixer Upper") and have them totally redo an older property there to produce their usual 2,500/3,000 sq. ft. palatial home on 2 acres of land somewhere there for well under $300,000. USD cost.
Now, that would really be something to experience !
What is a huge question mark for me is the seemingly extremely low price of land there, as well as the low cost of labour & materials that it takes to do that so reasonably priced. What's the secret ?
Up here, housing costs are $400. per sq. ft.at best, rising to over $1,000. in downtown Vancouver !
I'd sure like to hear any of your comments regarding real estate costs in your areas of North America.
You folks may not know this, but the prices of housing here in Vancouver are the highest in Canada - higher even on average than in our major city of Toronto, Ont., and on a par with R/E costs in most areas of, would you believe, like L.A., San Fran., and even NYC. They've more than doubled over just the past 5-6 years !
The average price of a single family detached home anywhere near the greater downtown Vancouver area is over $1.2 million, and in my area of suburban Surrey, B.C. (Pop. at least 500,000 persons), there is little choice in the detached home bracket much under 1 $million.
Even townhomes and condos are in the half million $ bracket or more.
General affordability for first time buyers is almost nil.
My wife and I had a custom-built 1,630 sq. ft .rancher constructed here in Surrey in 2010, which was recently value assessed @ over $1 million when it cost a little more than half that amount when built. Our annual property taxes have risen by more than 100% since then.
We don't know when this price rise bubble is going to burst.
My main point in writing this is to say that I have actually dreamed of being able to secure the services of Chip & Jo Gaines of Waco, Texas, ( you know, of the TV show, "Fixer Upper") and have them totally redo an older property there to produce their usual 2,500/3,000 sq. ft. palatial home on 2 acres of land somewhere there for well under $300,000. USD cost.
Now, that would really be something to experience !
What is a huge question mark for me is the seemingly extremely low price of land there, as well as the low cost of labour & materials that it takes to do that so reasonably priced. What's the secret ?
Up here, housing costs are $400. per sq. ft.at best, rising to over $1,000. in downtown Vancouver !
I'd sure like to hear any of your comments regarding real estate costs in your areas of North America.
We took a bath on selling our home in OH when we had to move here (Himself's job was relocated and we ended up having to move during a poor sellers' market), but I'm hoping we can correct that and get a very good return on our investment here and end up with money in the bank after buying a home in OH.
