Real estate in Calgary - another bubble?

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by jwslam

I doubt there are very many Canadians that want to raise their kids with little Mexican kids...

Hahaha! What?! Please elaborate.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by jwslam

I doubt there are very many Canadians that want to raise their kids with little Mexican kids...

We've actually contemplated spending a year or two living in Mexico.

My kids already speak Spanish, and I can work from anywhere. Lower cost of living/getting a different cultural exposure/weather would be the big positives.

My wife needing to quit her job and leaving family behind would be the big negatives.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Hahaha! What?! Please elaborate.

Aside from the fact that most people are incredibly bias towards giving their children cultural influences similar to theirs, one of the biggest reasons people have children is to raise someone in their image.

Canadians very comfortably live in the 24th richest country in the world, with a level of opportunity and respect for the education and careers that affords. For most parents thinking about what the best life would be for their children to gorw up, they are not going to aspire to move them to the 92nd wealthiest richest place to live in the world, with almost exactly 1/5 of the economic opportunity.

Add to that the sense of security people feel with our systems of governance, health systems, and security infrastructure. Which for lack of a better term just isn't the same in Mexico.

What are you trying to say by reacting so harshly to the idea that many parents would find Canada a better place to raise children than Mexico?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by #-3

Aside from the fact that most people are incredibly bias towards giving their children cultural influences similar to theirs, one of the biggest reasons people have children is to raise someone in their image.

Canadians very comfortably live in the 24th richest country in the world, with a level of opportunity and respect for the education and careers that affords. For most parents thinking about what the best life would be for their children to gorw up, they are not going to aspire to move them to the 92nd wealthiest richest place to live in the world, with almost exactly 1/5 of the economic opportunity.

Add to that the sense of security people feel with our systems of governance, health systems, and security infrastructure. Which for lack of a better term just isn't the same in Mexico.

What are you trying to say by reacting so harshly to the idea that many parents would find Canada a better place to raise children than Mexico?

They didn’t say Mexico, they said with little Mexican kids.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

They didn’t say Mexico, they said with little Mexican kids.

I did miss read his quote a bit, I do that at times.

I do think you would be approaching 100% if you were to ask Canadian parents if they preferred Canada or Mexico to raise their children. But I agree, the way he said it was no good.

[Calgary14]

One house I was interested in viewing had an open house this weekend and was sold hours before the open house, and it was only on the market for a week. Another one I was planning to look at sold in 3 days. I didn’t think the market was that crazy here (Calgary) but I guess it is now. Mind you these are single detached houses in mature neighborhoods. It may be a different story for duplexes, condos etc.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

One house I was interested in viewing had an open house this weekend and was sold hours before the open house, and it was only on the market for a week. Another one I was planning to look at sold in 3 days. I didn’t think the market was that crazy here (Calgary) but I guess it is now. Mind you these are single detached houses in mature neighborhoods. It may be a different story for duplexes, condos etc.

With the incredibly low supply right now, anything decent goes has multiple offers in 12-24 hours. It's been pretty frustrating to try to look at places.

[81MC]

It’s gotta be so tough competing with some of these developers. I remember when I was looking, it was like negotiating over 20K, and now these ####ers can just make stupid unconditional offers because their profit margin on infills is ridiculous enough it doesn’t matter to them.

Places in my neighbourhood are selling in days, consistently over asking. If you’re an actual person looking to buy a home for your family, I have no idea how you can compete with that.

[topfiverecords]

Tried to put an offer on a teardown on a 30 foot lot and it sold minutes after listing for $150k over list. It's crazy out there.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

One house I was interested in viewing had an open house this weekend and was sold hours before the open house, and it was only on the market for a week. Another one I was planning to look at sold in 3 days. I didn’t think the market was that crazy here (Calgary) but I guess it is now. Mind you these are single detached houses in mature neighborhoods. It may be a different story for duplexes, condos etc.

Well the Chestermere condo market is way hotter right now, not sure about Calgary. We tried to sell our condo there in 2019, had it on the market for months and through repeated price drops went from an initial listing of $250k to $210k without a single offer. Finally took it off the market in Aug 2020 when we bought our house and rented it out. We listed it again last Friday at $249,000, had 3 showings booked for Saturday, then Sunday evening we finalized an offer for $240k. Such a vastly different experience than last time, and I'm quite glad we didn't end up selling it before buying the house

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Great! Thinking of selling my bungalow in Altadore.

[Tron_fdc]

What the heck man. I'm trying to sell a 1BR condo in Seton (furnished) I bought from a builder at the end of 2020. The builder is supposedly trying to sell it for me, but it sure doesn't seem like they're doing a good job based on this thread.

Paid $175, $5k in furnishing, selling for $185 if anyone wants an immediate possession condo!?!?!

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

One house I was interested in viewing had an open house this weekend and was sold hours before the open house, and it was only on the market for a week. Another one I was planning to look at sold in 3 days. I didn’t think the market was that crazy here (Calgary) but I guess it is now. Mind you these are single detached houses in mature neighborhoods. It may be a different story for duplexes, condos etc.

The whole world is experiencing the same thing, it's not a Calgary thing only.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by blankall

The biggest advantage to Vancouver's real estate is that once you get in, you make a crap load of money. I bought a tiny condo in Vancouver 10 years ago, and it's already gained more equity than my parent's detached home that they purchased 30 years ago in Calgary.

Obviously, he big ups also make you more susceptible to the big downs. I'm clearly biased, but with inflation the way it is and the supply of detached housing rapidly decreasing in Vancouver, I cannot see houses there going down long term.

When real estate becomes a commodity, the way it has in Vancouver, it really starts to choke the life out of the city. Lots of great businesses closing down. Lots of great people forced to leave.

To nitpick a bit, I disagree with any home being a 40 minute commute from downtown. I can speak from experience that McLeod Trail during rush hour was not 45 minutes door to door. Also a lot of people aren't just going downtown. Also, the supply of large and newish homes at under $650k, even in Calgary, is starting to dwindle quickly.

Sorry, more context, but this was a conversation I had in before the summer of 2021. I agree with your points as of 2022, but the comments were accurate at the time of discussion.

I agree that typically the commute isn't 40 mins during rush hour, but the question was how far away it was. I said basically every home was 40 minutes away, but could potentially double or triple due to rush hour and/or weather. They were coming to Calgary with remote positions from Vancouver and basically had no requirement to commute regularly in rush hour traffic.

I have no clue what this family ended up deciding on. We had like 2-3 conversations with them and last I heard from the mutual friend, they debated purchasing in Royal Oak or ponying up to buying a mansion in Cochrane.

IIRC the $800K budget they had inquired about was the total equity (basically buy a house in cash) they had in their existing home. I remember asking whether they had ever looked at something like realtor.ca and just had a basic look at what options were available and they admitted they had never looked into it.

I was basically saying it was kinda hilarious yet bizarre in that sense where they were planning on relocating and dropping some serious coin to come here based on some passing comments from friends, but had completely no idea about anything Calgary except reputation and random anecdotes from friends.

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

What the heck man. I'm trying to sell a 1BR condo in Seton (furnished) I bought from a builder at the end of 2020. The builder is supposedly trying to sell it for me, but it sure doesn't seem like they're doing a good job based on this thread.

Paid $175, $5k in furnishing, selling for $185 if anyone wants an immediate possession condo!?!?!

Calgary is red hot for single detached homes. Condos and Townhouses are still not doing the greatest depending on how long you've been holding but there's been some steady increases in value which is encouraging.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

What the heck man. I'm trying to sell a 1BR condo in Seton (furnished) I bought from a builder at the end of 2020. The builder is supposedly trying to sell it for me, but it sure doesn't seem like they're doing a good job based on this thread.

Paid $175, $5k in furnishing, selling for $185 if anyone wants an immediate possession condo!?!?!

Unfortunately for you a 1BR as far away as possible from city center is not very attractive to most.

The average 3BR 2Bath is always high demand and is extremely high now. It's what condo dwellers want to move up to. It's what empty nesters want to move down to. It's what the $2million house but lost my income moves down to. It's what just-married folk want to start their family.

The 1BR units are usually fresh outta school/looking to move out for the first time, and that's about the limitation of who wants these... Location-wise there's 1BR older condos much closer to downtown which is more demographic appropriate respective to social life

Curious how you decided a 1BR way in the burbs was a good purchase, and what changed?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by jwslam

Unfortunately for you a 1BR as far away as possible from city center is not very attractive to most.

The average 3BR 2Bath is always high demand and is extremely high now. It's what condo dwellers want to move up to. It's what empty nesters want to move down to. It's what the $2million house but lost my income moves down to. It's what just-married folk want to start their family.

The 1BR units are usually fresh outta school/looking to move out for the first time, and that's about the limitation of who wants these... Location-wise there's 1BR older condos much closer to downtown which is more demographic appropriate respective to social life

Curious how you decided a 1BR way in the burbs was a good purchase, and what changed?

I suspect the demand is there(to an extent) for people who work at the hospital. No one is commuting to downtown daily form there(unless they are insane).

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

Great! Thinking of selling my bungalow in Altadore.

It'll sell and quick. Bet you the Green Group would snap it up so they can build 2 2000 sq ft duplexes. I swear they're infilling one per block right now.

My one story duplex in Altadore, probably less desirable to those guys...

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I suspect the demand is there(to an extent) for people who work at the hospital. No one is commuting to downtown daily form there(unless they are insane).

Can confirm that my mother does that commute every day and she is insane.

[Regular_John]

It was about this time last year we first started getting serious about selling our place & moving.

Looking at Realtor.ca today there's literally 5 townhome properties in the entire inner city that match the criteria we we were searching for last year. I don't remember the exact number last January, but anecdotally I felt there was way more options available. I'm not sure I'd have the stomach to list this year and get into the buying game again after knowing what we went through in 2021.

Spring is gonna be crazy, just in time to assist my mother in law with her family home in the burbs... I'm sure she'll make out fine on the sale, just not sure what madness she'll have to endure to secure a new place.

[photon]

Hoping that the hot house market starts to help out with condo sales, I'm open to selling my condo.