When to buy real estate in Canada

Shaun @ Tru6 · 11-07-2007, 06:22 AM

When, and where, would be good to buy real estate in Canada.

With the oil sands of Alberta promising more oil than Saudi Arabia, the price of oil so high and don't think God is going to make any more oil, someday soon, if not today, it will be economically feasible to really dig into Alberta.

Don't think Canada will look like Dubai any time soon, but seems like now would be a good time to start planning for a future boom in Canada's economy.

Any thoughts? I love Toronto myself having visited many times.

stomachmonkey · 11-07-2007, 06:37 AM

It'll be like buying land in TX.

You can buy all you want cheap.

The harder part is negotiating the mineral rights under it.

Dottore · 11-07-2007, 06:39 AM

Future boom? Canada's been booming for a while.

The property market is no more uniform in Canada than it is in the US. Some corners are booming wildly while others are stagnant.

What are you after? Investment? Recreational? Residential? Commercial? Long term holding? Short term flip?

Location, location, location.

notfarnow · 11-07-2007, 07:30 AM

depends what you want & where.

Even here in the Maritimes, real estate values vary wildly. In St Andrews, just near the Maine border, many americans have snapped up real estate and waterfront is very expensive, if you can find it.

About 5km up the rd, you can get 10 acres of water front for 100k. You'd buy it and sit on it for 20 yrs before it's worth anything.

In my neck of the woods residential propoerty values have gone up 40% in about 2 years.

When I bought my house in 2004, there was a nice 20yr old bungalow for sale down the road for 110k. It was carpeted wall to wall and needed paint, but had a nice 2 car garage and a panoramic view of the river. It sat on the market for 9 months, and eventually sold for 95k. The same house went back on the market a month ago... my uncle just bought it for 260k. It's had maybe 25k of work done since I saw it 3.5 yrs ago.

Cdnone1 · 11-07-2007, 07:56 AM

Six years ago when the USD was worth $1.42 CDN
The USD closed yesterday at .90c CDN
Steve

TyFenn · 11-07-2007, 10:49 AM

I think you may have missed the boat, my fine furry friend.

I've got some clients in the Alberta area - they are KILLING it up there. This one guy forked over a 100k a day - three days straight to buy corn, back when that was just starting to run. He wasn't the only one kicking in big cash either.

I always liked Vancouver so let me know if you find anything up that area...

stealthn · 11-07-2007, 11:28 AM

I live in Alberta and let me tell you it's BOOMING, but with that come problems. People are actually leaving AB because they cannot afford a house. The average house price is about $400,000. Our house which we've had for 5 years (great timing) is now actually worth 3 times what we paid for it.

My issue is I cannot find any employees that are talented and wish to stay with and grow with the Company. Alberta has people flocking to it for work, and every job that pays close to minimum wage has a requirement for people. This issue is kids these days know they can walk across the street and get another job right away that pays .50 to $1 more per hour.

Service now sucks in this city as people have no investment in their jobs (the lower paying ones) because they can always get another one, and employers are just happy to have staff so they don't care what the people do.

I must say I have never seen so many Ferrari's, Porsches, and Bentley's in Calgary in my life. There was a new Bentley dealership that opened this year and I think they said they hoped to sell 20 units for the year, and I think they sold those in the first month.

As far a land goes it depends what you want to spend, the maritimes I think is still the best investment, you can get huge acres and a good house for reasonable dollars. You could build a nice golf resort, vacation destination, etc. for fair dollars.

Other than that everything is great, and the dollar's at $1.10 US....what Pelican parts do I need again?

Christien · Christien's Garage

Yep, a few years ago when our dollar was at $0.60 US would've been a good time to invest. That said, I wouldn't expect our dollar to stay at $1.10 US for long:
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/11/07/ont-dollar.html

I'd say don't buy in Toronto - there's a lot of speculation that values are overinflated. Not quite a bubble, but they're not really likely to go higher. Similar to what Bob said about Calgary, a lot of people are getting priced out of the market. We sure were.

911Rob · 911Rob's Garage

Hey Shaun,
Thanks for your post; good luck with your search!

One other thing that they're not making anymore of is "Waterfront!"
The waterfront markets have continued to grow strong, even back in the slower years.

Shuswap, BC Waterfront Property

One challenge with it though is the history is always scary..... you look around and get your bearings, then decide to go ahead and purchase; but low and behold, the prices just went up by six figures! So you back down, look around again, and they just keep going up. By the time you decide to buy, 3 years have gone by........ happens all the time; I've been in that market for many years.

In BC, waterfront has skyrocketed in the Kelowna area; we're a few years behind in the Shuswap area, with our prices being about half of Kelowna and we're one hour North. The Kootenays are offering/developing some nice waterfront developments too; and the market there isn't as high.

Also Invermere/Radium area offers a backyard playground for Calgarians and the prices are really reasonable. I think you'd be safe in any area for waterfront other than Vancouver or Kelowna.

I'd also agree with the Maritimes as an investment area; prices are really affordable; my oldest daughter just bailed out of Calgary for big bucks and moved to Saint John, NB. They bought a waterfront home on 1 acre and paid cash for it.

Daughters Property in Saint John, NB

Alot of my investor clients are looking South to the States right now to make investments; the market is falling in some of the areas that Canadian snow birds like to travel to. US travel will be very popular for Canadians with the strong dollar.

Myself, I want to pay prices that are 10 years old; so I'm looking/investing in 'bedroom communities' of already high priced regions and doing well with that. I cashed out of my waterfront investments over the past couple years with exception of two personal properties and two investment properties that are currently being built.

As for the economy; Albertans were flocking here with ridiculous amounts of money; stroking cheques for anything and everything; screwed up our market in a short period of time (interior of BC). Then about a month ago the Feds announced a tax grab strategy which basically turned off the tap. Upto 17% more tax depending on profits. Things are up in the air with the revisions and the Albertans have held back. My real estate company did about 150 sales this year upto Sept/07 and in October only processed 2. However, there will be no stopping it; there are contracts in place in Alberta for the next 5 to 10 years that will be producing some huge profits; and we're expecting things to carry on rising in the Spring/08.

Do some searching around the internet; let us know which areas might appeal to you and we'll give you some more feedback.

Here are some sites you can check out:

Real Estate Service: www.mls.ca
Waterfront Developer: http://www.newfuturebuilding.com/home.html
Invermere Developer: http://www.castlerockinvermere.com/home/index.php
Shuswap Developer: www.labaiabeach.com (will be live next week)
Kootenay Lake: http://www.kootenaylakevillage.com
My site: www.robmckibbon.com

(some affiliation with links)

rpollock · 11-07-2007, 01:15 PM

Shaun, I live in Calgary but also lived in Vancouver. It is very hard to read these markets out west these days. Vancouver seems to defy all logic when it comes to pricing. People have been calling for a correction there for at least 3 years, but it continues to go up. Calgary and Edmonton are both oil driven, surprisingly both are correcting right now, down about 10% over the last 6 months. I may buy in Calgary if prices continue to go down here. The real opportunity for Canadians is in California, Florida, NV, AZ where the prices are correcting and we can take advantage of the suddenly very strong CDN$ against the US$. This may be a once in alifetime opportunity for Canadians as our dollar is at historic highs.

stealthn · 11-07-2007, 01:58 PM

"Also Invermere/Radium area offers a backyard playground for Calgarians and the prices are really reasonable."

Sorry Rob, you my friend are smokin something...I have been going to Invermere since I was born, and my parents 20 years before that. It's nuts there now, lakefront (if you can find one) starts at 2 mill, and that could have an out-house on it and nothing else. My parents just sold (last year) our family cabin there that we built with our own hands, it over looks the lake and the lot price was a staggering $30K when my parents got it. The selling price was above 1.2 mil (and that's not on the lake)

My wife and I decided to go with a new holiday/investment property that I think suites us fine 1/4 ownership of a resort type condo (at Invermere) we can rent it out, rent part of it out, stay in it, and put it on the Registries for swapping.
If you are looking to invest, just do it as like Rob said it just keeps going up.

Just a thought I'm sure there's a good chunk of land left in Nunavut that could be had for cheap

notfarnow · 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stealthn

Just a thought I'm sure there's a good chunk of land left in Nunavut that could be had for cheap

Unless you're bidding against DeBeers!

As for big city real estate, Montreal is still undervalued... especially when compared to Toronto. After the last sovereingty referendum (95) property values in Montreal really dropped, but they're working their way back up again. When I lived there 6 years ago, you could still get a decent 5-6 unit on the "plateau" for 250k.

Not that I had the money to even consider it back then... I was drinking Wildcat beer and eating 99 cent pizza at "Double". Good times though

911Rob · 911Rob's Garage

Bobbie,

My buddies selling these for retail under $600K in Invermere;

LINK: http://www.castlerockinvermere.com/properties/featuresheet.php?id=P1B16&phase=1

I can get you a deal on one; my good buddy is part owner in the development. I thought he was selling too cheap.

"NOT" on the lake though; you are correct.

When I lived in Calgary I spent my winters at Panorama, but always did the extra drive to Shuswap for summer vacations!

Cheers,

Shaun @ Tru6 · 03:21 PM

thanks everyone for the great information!

OK, so I've clearly missed the best time to buy, but like people who bought Google months after the IPO, even if Canada has been booming for some time, it's still going to grow a lot more once the economics on the oil sands are figured out.

I spent a lot of my youth (76-82) in MN in places like those beautiful pictures above! Wow that brings back memories. Camp F.I.S.H., Fishing Instructional Seminar Headquarters in Walker, MN. Still have the "most fish filleted" trophy. good with a knife as a tot. then there was this backwater where casting out a white spinnerbait, the Northern's would jump and grab it a foot or two out of the water.

Anyway, I've never been one to plan my future, but turning 40 in 8 days, and realizing I'll hit 120 max before sleeping with the worms, I think I've only got 50-60 years of truly useful life left. Next Summer/Winter I should be able to buy my first home here. And by home I mean a 3 car, 2 story garage and huge kitchen with maybe a cot and a garden hose thrown in as amenities.

Buying Canadian would be an investment and a vacation spot, so anything on a lake in the middle of nowhere would be perfect. But then Montreal does have the best bagels in the world, so that must be taken into consideration as well.

Early 2009 would be when I could seriously consider.

Just musing for now, but thank you again. great stuff as always from Pelican OT!

notfarnow · 03:37 PM

Went to snoop this spot out for a relative a couple weeks ago:

http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?vd=&SearchURL=%3fMode%3d0%26Page%3d1%26vs%3dLand%26ret %3d303%26aid%3d3439%26MapURL%3d%253fAreaID%253d637 1%26lsu%3d7%26wftg%3d4%26mp%3d0-0-0%26mrt%3d0-0-4%26trt%3d2%26of%3d1%26ps%3d10%26o%3dA&Mode=0&PropertyID=5954772

5.5 acres of riverfront, about 5 minutes from my wife's family cottage...250k

Dottore · 07:54 PM

Snapped this photo in downtown Lotus Land tonight.

These so-called "estates" are just apartments. Add 10% to those prices and you have the US $ price. (that's 5 to 19 million $)

Silly? You bet it is - but people are standing in line to buy these things.