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Victoria rental housing market and related issues discussion


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#1201 VIResident

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Posted 30 August 2019 - 04:59 AM

Victoria Renters, Landlords & Property Managers - what do you think of this?  

From Globe & Mail August 30/19

 

Lease guarantor Locnest finds a rental niche

 

"......introducing a “lease guarantee” product that offers tenants a way to avoid the upfront cost of a security deposit and landlords protection against delinquent tenants."

 

"......A lease guarantee is when a company provides assurance to a landlord up to a certain amount, covering them against rental loss or damages caused by a tenant. In B.C., it either replaces a security deposit of half a month’s rent, or it supplements it. The landlord doesn’t pay anything and the tenant pays a fixed eight per cent of the guarantee amount each year. For example, if the landlord wants a guarantee of $1,000 on the unit, the tenant would pay $80 a year to the guarantor company, Locnest. The tenant would not pay a security deposit. And once the tenant moves out, they wouldn’t be refunded anything."

https://www.theglobe...a-rental-niche/

 

https://locnest.com/ca-en/?region=bc


Edited by VIResident, 30 August 2019 - 05:00 AM.


#1202 Mike K.

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Posted 30 August 2019 - 05:03 AM

You know why that won’t work? Because that security deposit communicates a very important thing to a landlord and gives a tenant motivation to return the home in the condition they got it.

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#1203 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 30 August 2019 - 05:15 AM

i think it also tells the landlord the tenant is in very very tenuous financial times if they can’t afford a deposit in full. it’s a first strike against that applicant.

#1204 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 04 November 2019 - 10:54 AM

here is a couple rental properties for sale that you might know well.

 

516 quadra - $3,250,000

 

https://www.realtor....fairfield-west?

 

417374_3.jpg

 

 

ATTN: INVESTORS, DEVELOPERS! REDEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL IN DOWNTOWN VICTORIA. HUMBOLDT VALLEY AREA! Zoned R3-AM-1, present zoning allows for 4 stories. Property backs onto St. Ann's Academy on Humboldt Street. A short walk to the Inner Harbour, Parliament Buildings, The Royal BC Museum and Beacon Hill Park. This 13 Unit Character Revenue Property has been wonderfully maintained by the same owner for over 40 years. Features wood floors and detailing, stained glass windows and high ceilings; laundry, storage and rear lane access to parking. 



#1205 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 04 November 2019 - 10:55 AM

this one is at cook right near hillside.  you'd know this one.

 

 

Description

 

https://www.realtor....ctoria-oaklands

 

Opportunity to acquire a well located 3 storey, 16-unit rental apartment building on a 10,377sf lot, with significant rental upside. Constructed in 1946, the main and second floors each have 5 suites, the third floor has 4 suites, and the basement contains 2 suites. The suites are large with older style kitchens and washrooms. Appliances have been replaced as needed. Electrical room, bicycle room, and covered parking for tenants. Rents are well below market averaging $826 for 1bdrm suites and $1,029 for the 2bdrm units. 
 
417402_1.jpg

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#1206 Mike K.

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Posted 04 November 2019 - 01:41 PM

I had a friend in that Cook/Hillside building. The apartments were awesome, nice and spacious with that early mid-century vibe. Very cool. Even the driveways and garage doors add a cool touch to the building.


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#1207 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 08 November 2019 - 11:31 AM

many will know 1595 rockland

 

$3.888M

 

RAPPAHANNOCK, a prestigious landmark heritage mansion converted to 11 legal suites. Ideally located on a .6-acre private corner lot in Victoria's historic Rockland neighbourhood. Every suite is beautiful and unique in its own way with a full kitchenette and bathroom, basement storage locker, and on-site parking. Upper level suites possess stunning mountain and ocean views while the garden level suite enjoys secluded privacy. R1-A zoning House Conversion. Same family ownership for over 40 years and well maintained over the decades with numerous updates. 

 

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Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 November 2019 - 11:32 AM.


#1208 m3m

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Posted 08 November 2019 - 12:11 PM

The virtual tour of that property is pretty amazing:

 

https://my.matterpor.../?m=BPJBoL1QPuj



#1209 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 30 November 2019 - 12:43 PM

The rental rush: Investors are scooping up apartment buildings — and tenants are getting squeezed

 

The twin 1970s brown-brick apartment buildings that rise above a supermarket and strip plazas in northwest Toronto aren’t elegant or even striking.

 

But the Country Club Towers, both 27 storeys tall and backing onto a golf course, are crown jewels of a sort. The buildings are two of the largest in a portfolio of 44 dated suburban rental buildings and, in early November, the collection sold for an astonishing $1.7-billion. It was among the steepest valuations in Canadian commercial real estate history, relative to the properties’ rental income.

 

The sale process was an unusual one. The current owner, Toronto-based Continuum Residential REIT, had launched a $300-million initial public offering for 40 per cent of its shares in October, but after a few weeks of marketing the deal was massively oversubscribed – with orders totalling $1-billion. The night before the deal was supposed to price, privately owned Toronto real estate firm Starlight Investments swooped in and proposed buying the whole portfolio. The offer was so good that Continuum withdrew its IPO.

 

The single transaction solidified a trend that had been brewing for months: Canadian apartment buildings have become one of the hottest asset classes in the world, and institutional buyers desperate to find the next great investment are scrambling to scoop them up.

 

https://www.theglobe...-are-likely-to/

 

 

RioCan REIT, one of the country’s largest shopping centre owners, also has ambitious plans to build rental apartments. Many of its malls in and around large cities are surrounded by large parking lots, offering valuable land it already owns to increase density, and RioCan has found through its research that younger people in urban markets will pay premium rents for new builds with amenities such as cold storage for their food deliveries.

 

The REIT’s long-time CEO, Ed Sonshine, has also been one of the few willing to call it like it is. He’s argued that while it’s possible to put lipstick on a pig – meaning a 50-year-old apartment building – it’s still a pig. “When you’ve got 50 years of cooking in a building, the walls smell," he said in an interview with The Globe earlier this year. “And you can’t replace anything, because then you have to kick people out."


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 November 2019 - 12:51 PM.


#1210 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 09 December 2019 - 02:43 PM

in ontario they dropped rent controls for buildings built after doug ford was elected in 2018.  the result:

 

https://nationalpost...al-housing-woes

 

Until recently, a building like the Livmore, a new 43-storey, 595-unit housing tower in downtown Toronto, would have been a rarity in the city. Not just because of its unique mix of amenities — which includes a dog spa, an outdoor dog park and a two-storey sky lounge — but because it’s a purpose-built rental, not a condo like many of its Bay Street neighbours.

 

Structures such as the Livmore were once common in Toronto. Between the mid-1960s and 1970s, developers built 140,000 rental apartment units, a number that started to dwindle when Ontario’s introduced modern rent controls in 1975. Those controls protected the budgets of existing tenants, but limited the return on investment for developers’. By the 2000s, little more than a thousand units were coming onto the market every year — or less than 10 per cent of the number of condo units completed over the same period.

 

Today, though, a confluence of factors is changing the city’s housing mix. Condos are still king (there were more than 56,600 units in development as of September 2019), but there are more rentals currently under construction than at any time since at least 1990 – 7,800 as of September, with another 50,000 or so proposed. The city’s rapidly rising rents – the average one-bedroom currently goes for $2,300 a month, the highest in the country – and historically low vacancy rates (about one per cent) are enticing investors, as are new provincial and national initiatives such as relaxed rent controls, deferred development fees and cheap federal loans.

 

 

the cheap loans are also useful:

 

 

 

in 2017 the federal Liberal government introduced a $2.5-billion, CMHC-backed program offering low-interest, long-term loans to rental developers. Currently, rates are between 1.5 and 3 per cent, with loans locked in for 10 years. So far, the program has helped fund some 12,000 new rental units across the country.

 

Those include 761 units in a massive three-tower development in Toronto’s West Don Lands by Tricon Capital Group and Dream Unlimited Corp., which received $357 million in federal financing. The program has been so popular that the government is increasing the fund to $14 billion by 2028.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 December 2019 - 02:45 PM.


#1211 Nparker

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Posted 09 December 2019 - 03:40 PM

..Those include 761 units in a massive three-tower development in Toronto’s West Don Lands...

But is it Esquimalt town centre massive?



#1212 LeoVictoria

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Posted 10 December 2019 - 11:19 AM

in ontario they dropped rent controls for buildings built after doug ford was elected in 2018.  the result:

 

 

Not really evidence for the effect of lifting rent controls.   In victoria there are 10x the number of rental buildings under construction now than the average over the previous 25 years.   No change to rent controls.  

The money pouring in from the feds, the province, and the municipalities are the much bigger factor.



#1213 Awaiting Juno

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Posted 10 December 2019 - 02:07 PM

Right of passage is to finally live alone till you decide to "shack up" with someone on a more intimate basis.

 

And in Victoria when that someone shuffles off their mortal coil, why must Grandma decide to take on a room mate...


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#1214 Nparker

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Posted 09 January 2020 - 12:37 PM

Just when you thought your tax dollars couldn't be wasted in a more ridiculous way, along comes this...

...The government has also introduced a pet damage deposit fund to help people find and maintain affordable housing...

https://www.vicnews....tance-overhaul/

 



#1215 Rob Randall

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Posted 09 January 2020 - 12:45 PM

"...increasing the amount of time two people can love together..."

 

 

????


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#1216 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 09 January 2020 - 12:49 PM

all those "barriers" that were there before.  who even knew?

 

how are the supports?



#1217 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 10 January 2020 - 07:38 PM

Seattle built 17,450 rental homes in 1 year, while Vancouver only counted 1,364

https://dailyhive.co...using?auto=true

 

 

 

“It’s not rocket science. When the demand for apples goes up, normal people plant more trees. It takes a few years, but sooner or later there’s enough apples to meet the higher demand. Perhaps even enough to ship some to China and add capital to the local orchard. But when the demand for housing, especially rental housing, in Vancouver increases, we don’t build more. On the contrary, we do everything we can to sabotage new supply.”

 

He lists rent control, rental-only zoning used to downzone, and the 12-year-old moratorium on the demolition of rental buildings for the city’s slow growth with building new rentals.

 


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 January 2020 - 07:39 PM.

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#1218 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 06 February 2020 - 04:42 AM

The Berkley Apartments is a positive cash-flow producing multi-family rental apartment building centrally located in one of the strongest residential rental markets in Canada. The property is found in the beautiful and upscale neighbourhood of Fairfield. The building has been well maintained and undergone a number of capital expenditures including new exterior windows, common area carpets, and updated suite washrooms. The building features full height storage lockers and laundry room, with parking in the rear. It is 3 storeys, with 17 suites, including one bachelor, 6 one-bedroom, and 10 two-bedrooms suites. 

 

$4.75M

 

https://www.realtor....ctoria-rockland



#1219 Rob Randall

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Posted 06 February 2020 - 07:12 AM

I find the NY rental market quirky and fascinating and here are two new stories of interest:

 

A court ruled that a live-in caregiver can inherit her client's $283 a month (!) rent-controlled apartment. There are 22,000 rent controlled apartments left in New York City.

 

And in a surprise ruling, broker fees have been eliminated. This has always puzzled me and struck me as an unnecessary cash grab. If I'm renting an apartment why should someone be forced to pay a broker up to 15% of the annual lease? New York was one of the few cities where a broker fee is charged in addition to the standard damage deposit and first month's rent.

 

"When a landlord selects a broker to find a tenant and to negotiate a lease, for a fee, that obligation to pay the broker cannot be shifted to the tenant because it would be a 'payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy' other than a background or credit check as provided in that section," the law states.

 

 

A person can still hire a broker and pay them to help find them an apartment. 



#1220 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 06 February 2020 - 07:20 AM

well no broker fee now just means the landlord needs to hire rental agents.  and pay them somehow.  it's not like it'll cause units to rent for 15% less.



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