Property assessment

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by bc-chris

our place went up about 30% - it's just ridiculous! i'm not a huge 'conspiracy theory' guy, but i'm sure city hall is salivating seeing property values going up so much every year. i honestly don't know how my kids will be able to live in the okanagan when they are adults... becuz i want my house house back! (they won't be living their parents basement!) ha! ha!

How does property values going up help city hall though? They're still mandated to collect their total property tax goal. Home values just determine how much of the pie you're paying relative to the rest of the city.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

How does property values going up help city hall though? They're still mandated to collect their total property tax goal. Home values just determine how much of the pie you're paying relative to the rest of the city.

Indeed. With revenue neutral calculation for budgeting, rising property values aren't a "benefit" to City hall per se. If all property values went up, the calcuation would simply adjust the mill-rate down (this has happened in hot economic times) to collect the same amount of money as the previous year. Then the budgeting process determines whether more money is needed to fulfill budget needs to cover new programs, inflation, growth, etc.

Generally speaking rising property values are a good thing for a place, it can signal some measure of economic health. Certainly better than the alternative (like in downtown) which as lost $17b in assessed value. With revenue neutral calculations that ends up causing redistribution to properties maintaining or losing less value that's problematic.

[CaptainCrunch]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...airs-1.6323195

The enormous beige and brown slab condominium building Wendy Thomas has called home in the northwest corner of Toronto for 42 years is crumbling.
She sees the warning signs in the rivulets of water that streak the hallway walls, bubbling behind yellow paint and pooling on worn carpet. Exposed wires hang from broken light fixtures in dark stairwells and cracked lobby windows are held together with duct tape.
In her own second-floor unit, a main pipe burst behind the shower nearly a year ago. The gushing water disintegrated sections of drywall and destroyed the parquet flooring throughout the unit.
The 72-year-old spent days mopping up water and months coping with mould and mice until she could afford basic repairs, although the holes in her bathroom wall remain.

As much as $9 million of debt plus a rapidly deteriorating structure have caught up to York Condominium Corporation No. 82, which runs the 321-unit building in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood. And last week, an Ontario Superior Court judge cited an engineering report that found repairs needed in the 10-storey building over the next year would cost more than $14 million.
Like all condominium corporations, this one is overseen by a small group of owners elected to a board of directors. They have the power under Ontario's Condominium Act to require all owners to pay for common expenses, no matter the price tag.
So that's what they did.
On Sept. 2, the corporation sent letters to all owners informing them they had 15 days to pay a special assessment ranging from $30,000 to $42,500 per unit depending on its size — on top of monthly maintenance fees of about $800.
The total $11.2 million raised would be used to repay loans and chip away at a list of 70 repairs ranging from replacing plumbing to upgrading elevators to restoring the party room that's been shuttered for the past 15 years, the letter said.
If residents weren't able to pay, a lien was slapped on their unit, which under Ontario's Condominiums Act allows the condo corporation to sell the unit to recover the amount owing. It also means those residents can't vote in future board elections.

[Fuzz]

Building sounds like it has reached EOL. So what do you do? Sell the land to a developer, split it 321 ways, and find somewhere new to live? Never really understood if condos had a way to unwind at the end...

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Building sounds like it has reached EOL. So what do you do? Sell the land to a developer, split it 321 ways, and find somewhere new to live? Never really understood if condos had a way to unwind at the end...

That’s a really good question Fuzz, never have given thought to how they might unwind at EOL.

[Slava]

A reserve "fund" of $1.75?!

[topfiverecords]

Someone has been skimming.

[Fuzz]

Reserve fund: ☑

[Firebot]

Jane and Finch is one of Toronto's worst slums, and that reserve fund being non existent with 800$ in fees, most definitely someone skimmed pretty hard over the years.

Condo owners often pay little attention to the condo board and who's running the finances, and in this case came back to bite them in the ass.

"It seems to me that the problems arise from being penny wise and pound foolish — or not carrying out diligent and proper maintenance, repair and replacement," he said. "Someone ignored what they had to do over time."

Owners need to take responsibility especially as condo owners and take a more active role in the building they are part owner of. Too often condo owners won't go to meetings, or pay attention to any issues, and if you don't have a responsible condo board things can deteriorate fast.

[Locke]

Yikes. Thats a hefty Assessment.

Not to mention, $800/mo in Condo fees for 321 Units should be able to cover most repairs.

Those people are screwed. Thats a 'No Win' Scenario.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yikes. Thats a hefty Assessment.

Not to mention, $800/mo in Condo fees for 321 Units should be able to cover most repairs.

Those people are screwed. Thats a 'No Win' Scenario.

$3,000,000 a year in condo fees, and they're at 9 million of debt? Something's not adding up.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

$3,000,000 a year in condo fees, and they're at 9 million of debt? Something's not adding up.

Oh yeah, either embezzlement or incompetence.

So much wrong there. The building itself is ancient so you'd think it would have been paid for, the Condo Fees seem like more than enough for basic upkeep.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Building sounds like it has reached EOL. So what do you do? Sell the land to a developer, split it 321 ways, and find somewhere new to live? Never really understood if condos had a way to unwind at the end...

Most modern condo by-laws and Provincial Condo/Strata acts have a clause exactly for this situation. Basically, the entire complex is liquidated and owners get a proportionate share of the the proceeds (or debts....) - not unlike the windup of any corporation.

Section 64 of the AB Act governs this, but it's a little sparse. This lawyer's site covers the steps pretty well (link)

The people in Toronto should definitely be looking to do this by selling to a developer (as the last sentence of the article states). The way the Toronto market is - they've got to be getting way more by going this route.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Most modern condo by-laws and Provincial Condo/Strata acts have a clause exactly for this situation. Basically, the entire complex is liquidated and owners get a proportionate share of the the proceeds (or debts....) - not unlike the windup of any corporation.

Section 64 of the AB Act governs this, but it's a little sparse. This lawyer's site covers the steps pretty well (link)

The people in Toronto should definitely be looking to do this by selling to a developer (as the last sentence of the article states). The way the Toronto market is - they've got to be getting way more by going this route.

It's a decent size piece of land, but say each unit is $250k, that's $80 million, plus the 9 million in debt. Is the land worth $90 million? No idea. Sounds high though.



https://goo.gl/maps/8xeaUKta2LQqrFNW7

[flamesfever]

I can certainly see how anyone who purchased a condo 6 or 7 years ago, when the price of WTI dropped significantly, is disenchanted with condos, especially if there has been significant assessments along the way. However, for anyone who has lived in Calgary for a long time, they should know that when the oil industry and jobs are suffering, real estate tends to drop in value. It has been happening on a cyclic basis over the past 60 years.

However, with the recent rise in the price of WTI and rejuvenation of the oil industry, the real estate prices are rising along with it. Of course it has started with detached homes, and I believe it is only a matter of time before it happens to condos.

Are there risks in owning a condo? Sure...but there is risk in everything. I think if one does their due diligence, and decides that the risks are relatively low, they can live a heck a lot cheaper than if purchasing a house, and may even end up with a sizeable capital gain at the end of it.

just my opinion

[timun]

Originally Posted by RoadGame

This might be a helpful tool for people. Here's a house in my neighbourhood (not my house) that is broadly illustrative of what I'm seeing: very slight increase in market value over the past decade (depressing relative to the rest of Canada) and a slight drifting down in city hall assessments over the same period.

The assessment data for my own house is accurate, so I'm inclined to believe the history dataset here, which might be easier for people looking at their own home than digging through the filing cabinet.

https://www.honestdoor.com/property/...-nw-calgary-ab

I'd like a taste of this "speculative bubble" I keep hearing about. If getting to retirement is a marathon, my single largest asset has flipped open a lawnchair on the start line and tucked into a box of doughnuts.

Interesting website, but where are you seeing market value over the past decade? I'm only seeing monthly data going back to September 2019.

It's too bad that particular house doesn't have data from before 2013, as I think that would have painted a far more complimentary picture and more accurate representation of what "your single largest asset"'s appreciation is over a much longer period.

I fished through my house's assessment values, which I think are in retrospect a pretty accurate picture of the market value; from 2006 to 2007 the value went up 58.5%. From 2005 to 2008 the average annual rate of appreciation was 27.2%. EDIT: Overall the value was up 106% in three years.

However, taking into account the overall 2005-to-present time period it's a much more modest—and realistic—5.7%. That takes into account the aforementioned massive spike from 2005 to 2008, the sharp drop (-12.2% p.a., -22.9% ovr.) from 2008 to 2010, the climb back up from 2010 to 2016 (+8.2% p.a.), and the flat (+0.1% p.a., +0.5% ovr.) performance since 2016.

Knowing roughly what my house would have sold for in the first place in the late fifties, what it sold for in the mid-eighties, and what I bought it for seven years ago, the annual rate of appreciation is ~6.5% every thirty years or so. That seems perfectly healthy to me, and is still way, way higher than wage growth since the mid-seventies...

[Calgary14]

bode.ca has some really interesting sold data, you can even see when a house/condo has been bought and sold in the same year (with sales prices)

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

bode.ca has some really interesting sold data, you can even see when a house/condo has been bought and sold in the same year (with sales prices)

Nice, that's really thorough. Thanks for posting it. Surprised they're giving all that info for free.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Someone has been skimming.

It looks like the building is paying $80,000 / month in interest on loans alone. No wonder there isn’t much of a reserve fund.

[Hemi-Cuda]

We just got our assessment, almost a $120k increase from $588,000 to $707,000. Seems a little steep, anyone else in the NW get hit like that?