Looking for a place to call home (Part 2)

The hunt for a home in Vancouver continues.

We saw a few more places yesterday. First, there was a submarine-sleeping-quarters type of space in the south Vancouver-Marpole area going for about $210,000 and a much more spacious apartment across the street for a correspondingly out-of-reach price tag ($330,000). Nice layout, though.

Next, we were off to the edge of Vancouver-Burnaby, to the site of some really new towers. All of the units had been bought by investors before construction on the buildings had even started, about two years ago. They'd been snapped up for about $150,000 at the time, sight and site unseen.

Even though the floor we saw had been completed eight months ago, no one had lived in the units. Now the pristine one-bedroom plus den facing a new community park that we liked is going for $280,000. It's a nice return for the investor, but I don't think we'll be the ones giving it to him.

The price is a little over our budget, but mostly I didn't like the sterile look of the area. I prefer the pedestrian-friendly commercial-residential mix of Broadway or Commercial Drive. Of course, I'll likely have to compromise on this: the condos in that building were new, not too far from Metrotown mall and had access to Skytrain.

We can't have everything. Perhaps, after we get a foothold in the market, we'll be able to be a little more picky. We'll keep looking.

In the meantime, I'll continue reading up on real estate - not my preferred genre, but when my life's savings are about to get blown on something, I better do my homework.

I did catch an interesting article about the Shanghai real estate market from the LA Times by Don Lee. Until a few weeks ago, Shanghai was the hottest real-estate market in the world. Now some housing units have lost half their value and the tanking of the local enonomy is taking a big chunk of China's economy with it. This, even though local people thought the market couldn't be stopped at least until the World Fair in 2010.

It caught my eye, since a lot of real-estate speculation in Vancouver also seems reinforced by 2010 Winter Olympics dreams of cashing in.

Still, I understand that the market fundamentals are good in Vancouver and in the region as a whole. Commodities-driven economies in the BC hinterland are a good foundation for the urban economy of the Lower Mainland.

We should be okay, here. I guess.

tags: Vancouver real estate, Olympics, speculation, condo, apartment, Shanghai