admiral

Hi Richard, Vancouver is an anomaly but in general I think that your sentiment is right - I expect my house to do a "roundtrip" from the price we paid 5 years ago + reno costs. But I like living here and have no interest in moving in the next 10 to 15 years. Mortgage rates are not an issue unless I want to sell. We have a couple of small rental properties in Parksville - Price paid to annual gross revenue just over 10 - a lot better than Vancouver. I mention this because of comments made earlier about the possibility of rents going up in Vancouver - our experience is that the recession is pressuring rental rates. There may be more renters in the market but there are even more people who can afford less than they thought they could a year ago. We've maintained rates but gave incentives to sign one year leases - something we didn't have to do in the past. I also think that it will be increasingly difficult for Landlords to pass on municiopal tax and other rate increases. No idea how far we have to fall yet & I suspect that rising mortgage rates will have the biggest effect - bigger than unemployment anyway. This site tracks affordability and its graphs suggest that Vancouver is always significantly more "unaffordable" than Toronto or Montreal but at current levels is still within its historical range http://vancouvercrash.com/ Regards Philip