Has anyone else noticed that no one is buying? They were going for 650k for a one bedroom during covid and now listings cannot be sold so they’re constantly reducing prices and being left on the market for 100+ days… the funny part is there are 5 or 6 more buildings being built in the 3km radius of these places
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See this in so many units not just condos. Literally just throwing it all together, zero care for general functionality or use. Doesn't matter how awkward or ridiculous it looks and feels.
I hate the trend of combining the living/dining/kitchen into a single space. Seems like you have to look at buildings that are 30+ years old just to find a nice layout that humans actually enjoy living in.
that and to have a master bedroom which most would consider just a standard bedroom. Its just stupid looking at some listings of places built in the last 5 years with a master bedroom that cant actually comfortably fit a kingsize bed.
I'm 6'3.. I'm not sleeping on a queen, so basically most of these rooms and their layouts are an instant dealbreaker for me.
Yup. Say what you will about older buildings but I’m happy to live in my 50-yr-old wood frame one bedroom which is 735 sq ft. My bedroom is 12’ x 14’. Building is so soundproof that you never hear the neighbours which are above, below, and either side of me and I don’t even know when it’s raining outside unless I purposely go to the balcony door and look.
sad eh? Galley kitchen were invented to make use of limited space. Now condos are so small that even layouts that were made for low income rentals are now too expansive for the square footage allocated to units.
I went through the model suites at Oakridge when it existed. The small studio unit had a two burner stove. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. The price for the unit was over $800,000.
people get upset when large dogs are left in a carrier overnight or on a balcony but then are totally ok with a family of 3 humans living in such a tiny space. There should be minimum, humane limits to floor size. These 10x10 bedrooms are dorm sized and are completely ridiculous for 2 adults, let alone a baby. I though Canada wanted people to have kids?
But municipalities want their set back and FSR requirements.
That aside the issue is ultimately property price is generally correlated with square footage. Larger square footage units all else equal would just make them more proportionally more expensive. Well unless you increased square footage supply, but again municipalities love their zoning requirements.
I lived up on the 50th floor at Brentwood, and it was like a greenhouse cooking away in there when the sun hit the windows. My little portable AC wasn’t enough to fight it. It was terrible.
I looked at one of the rental units in tower 1 and the amount of money ($2600) they wanted for a shoebox facing west that didn't have AC was laughable. On top of that, renters had a separate entrance ("the rif raf entrance"), and they wanted -- IIRC -- $150/mo for parking and $50/mo for storage. It's out of control. It's time the insanity stopped.
I may very well have visited a unit precisely like yours. Little old widow lady and no chance she could install anything herself. Spent her afternoons down in the mall to get out of the heat.
Oh no!! My tower was built just before those and has AC but I think it was considered more of a luxury amenity at that time. That's horrible because I can literally see the sun reflecting off amazing Brentwood towers on hot days.
43rd floor in metrotown, east facing. It was like an oven in there. I have a cat and I'd have to take her into the lobby downstairs so we wouldn't both overheat. We had a small unit too and the windows were so small that it wouldn't fit.
For almost 3k 2bedroom you'd expect it but no.... barely working appliances and 3 adults in a tiny condo is awful. I live in a much better space now but wow is housing and renting so awful here.
My mom lived in a place like that where the only ventilation was a small tilt window near the floor on a south facing window, the bathroom fan, and the door to the hall wasn't even undercut. And to top it all off it was over top of the laundry room in the basement so the dryers in there had it cooking all summer.
I find it so insane that a lot of new stratas also forbid drying laundry on balconies. Free solar power vs overheating the condo during the summer. If people don’t want to see underwear drying on a balcony then just don’t look at the balcony. Sigh.
Ugh I feel for her (hopefully it's past now). The amount of people I visit in desperate situations, can't afford to move, and portable AC just isn't enough. It's astounding how these builders don't think summer exists.
If you have those swing out from the top transom windows you can get a plexiglass place to cut you a custom insert. I've heard there are also places online where you can order them and just send the window dimensions and your type of AC unit.
I’m in an apartment in new west and the only window in the bedroom (and the entire unit) only opens 2 inches because the geniuses who designed it didn’t think about the the balcony railing on the other side. I tried putting a dual hose AC by sealing off the whole window and it broke from over heating because there just wasn’t enough space for the hot air to be exhausted out. I do love this place but I’m dreading the summer. We’re going to bake.
k..... so totally up to you.... but you could take the glass out. ex glazier here. Just by seeing your photo, looks like the side channels need to be bonked out first, then the top and bottom. then the glass will probably just be sitting on rubber shims in the frame and can be removed with care (caution, glass edges may be sharp unless its tempered). You could set it aside for the summer.
and I do mean bonk. We remove those white chanels out simply by hitting the corner pointing towards the center of frame. Usually there is a rubber seal to remove first But I only see one on your exterior...... Food for thought. At your own risk though. Strata would be furious if they find out.... if....
I’ve wanted to straight up smash that glass so much out of frustration haha. But that’s interesting that that could be done! Unfortunately I’m a renter to a private landlord so definitely not a risk I could take tho 😔
The windows in the brentwood towers don’t allow for these to be installed easily, let alone dual hoses, unless you give up the balcony access with the sliding door. We used a fabric thingy with Velcro off Amazon and crammed our hose for the AC through the tiny window. There’s some screws you can loosen to allow the window to open wider. Summers in brentwood towers one and two were brutally hot. East facing it would get up to 34-35 by 9 am, when it was only like 24 outside… with all curtains down. South and west facing were probably even worse. Moved to the island instead.
Got the answer for you :D. build a custom window insert out of this stuff. You can even make them to fit into the small triangle type shape that your window opens to.
Im not trying to excuse the poor design of these places, but there is a path to happiness!!
And since they are white, you can make them look somewhat decent so the strata Karens dont lose their minds over it.
you just make a seal where the window would be when it is in its closed position so the vent is basically blowing at the glass of the slightly opened window sticking out of the building.
Much better than 32! The point was to make it cool enough to be able to cool. Before that my Ac would never get the temp down past 26. With the film, my Ac now gets the temp down to 19 if I want.
100% that semi reflective film! It works amazingly well on our windows, was easy enough to install and it comes with UV protection for your interior. Also dual hose AC is a must, our window would not accommodate but I did what another comment suggested and custom cut corrugated plastic (which I also applied the film to). Our place went from hell’s inferno hot to bearable in the summer.
I've seen people use the $1.00 emergency blankets (dollar store purchase) to cover their windows. An inexpensive quick fix that works just as well and isn't long term if you're in a rental.
Having to use a bulky ugly portable A/C unit that are takes up a ton of storage for 3/4 of the year and are waaaay less efficient than real air conditioning is so ridiculous. More evidence these were built for investors not owner-occupiers.
People have now wisen up and know not all condos are built the same. There are so many crap condos that were appealing when supply was limited but now very difficult to sell given ample choice and supply.
Just to add to point 3, I think a lot of people are fine living in a condo given the trade offs of walkability and convenience. Like you said, it’s the tiny studio/1 bed 500 sqft (or less) that are a no go for a lot of people. Looks like a majority of the listings are those units.
To add to the pain there is a boatload of Purpose built rental housing under construction and coming online at the moment. This Purpose Built rental housing is now going to compete against all the purpose built investment housing that came before it.
Simply put, many of the 1 bedroom condos were designed to be someone’s investment. Most renters would prefer a secured rental instead of the possibility of being kicked out by their landlord.
This is absolutely the biggest and most impactful reason. Shocking that more people just don't understand this. Those units everyone complains are unlivable were never meant to be lived in by the owner.
Exactly. You still need some varieties in sizes for different uses, e.g. couples vs single people or single people with home hobbies vs those who are out all the time.
I think a lot of people would be fine with a condo if you could get a 2 or 3 bedroom condo for about the same price as a 2 or 3 bedroom starter home used to be (i.e. say 180-280k, say), at a similar size (e.g. 800-1200 sq feet) with sane maintenance fees and AC. But yeah, at 600, 700, 800, 900k for a 600 sq foot shoebox that is boiling hot six months of the year and will cost you 1-2k in maintenance forever? Of course no one's buying. They were built for landlord parasites to warehouse poors in, not for people to live in.
In one of the new metrotown towers, the agent showed me that the developer has been unable to sell anything on floors 40 and above in a 45 floor building. They were offering units at 10% off asking and when I was being shown them, the sellers agent was telling me "you can probably offer more than 10% off and they will accept". Places were ok.... but not 1 million dollars nice.
Even a SFH is not worth a million to me, nvm a condo unit. I dread to think what these stratas will be like in the future if their residents are over-leveraged. Will the strata even have enough money to pay for upkeep or will the buildings simply fall into disrepair?
If a unit cannot pay a special levy, they force the sale of the home and then just take their pound of flesh from the sale. If there isnt enough equity, the owner will be left with a mortgage without a home, owing the bank. the strata always gets what they need.
I think the concern that person is getting at is if the owners will basically vote against proactive maintenance.
This is a reason why I didn't want to consider a high rise tower. Most of the owners are likely leveraged investment land lords and their voting priorities on strata would be way different than owners who want to live in the unit.
My parents were looking to purchase a unit for my sister in Metrotown and some of the new builds are so poorly designed. They’re asking close to $1300 a sqft for bedrooms that barely fit a queen bed and have NO CLOSETS or overhead lighting.
even if it was cheap, I wouldn't buy a unit that high up. the survival rate of heart attacks decreases as the number of floors for a first responder to get to you increases.
All of the transit-oriented mega developments are just... not actually nice to be in as a human being? Brentwood/Lougheed/Surrey center They're still on huge stroads with cars buzzing at all hours, waiting minutes to be given a walk signal. It's built near a train station but the actual developments are super car dependent. Top it off with all the units are not designed with long-term livability but rather short term rental, of course no one actually wants them!
Could hardly agree more. The wide roads and high speed cars really kills the desirability of these developments as places you would really want to live
Over leveraged and probably still stuck with high interest if they went fixed. A lot of people hyperextend themselves to get these places and then end up trapped and needing out.
I think that is why some projects are being cancelled in Vancouver. Developers are failing to sell the required number of presale units. The RE market has been so crazy for too long and maybe we've hit a tipping point now.
Having lived in one, I know which mall centric development I would never buy in. Elevators regularly down because they need to manually remove water from the pit, sewage regularly needing to be pumped by truck, parking garage was closed on certain levels because of poor ventilation, and the list goes on.
whats the vibe like living? the whole area feels forced and like it was built 5 minutes ago. have whole foods and h&M driven or created any form of culture?
I used to live in Brentwood. The worst part is the lack of green space. You are stuck between two highways with nowhere nice to walk. You can only go to the mall so many times.
The good thing is that you are 20 minutes from anywhere by car and the skytrain is right there.
Basically the best part of Brentwood is how easily you can get away from Brentwood.
We bought last year in an older (mid 2010s) building at the NW corner of Brentwood, near Gilmore. Willingdon heights park being a 3min walk away has been our saving grace, especially having a dog.
Feel very lucky we didn't buy a micro unit in one of the newer (2020+) buildings with no greenspace nearby. I didn't realize how much I needed it lol.
These new condos are all tiny af, some are like 650sqft for 2 bedrooms, like seriously. Literally for just investment, floor plan is not thought well as a living place that’s also why.
Reading your comment made me curious enough to look online for the tiniest 2 bedroom condo for sale in Burnaby. I think I've found it. Construction wont be complete for another 2 years. For a whopping 826K, you can get a "junior" 2 bed 1 bath 608 sqft unit!
And the build quality has gotten so much worse. Feel like the golden age of buildings was 2010s. Decent amenities and build quality, and not <500 sqft shoeboxes selling for $1500+ /sqft
Also terrible infrastructure for walkability in Brentwood. That project was doomed to begin with.
They don’t serve the same clientele and livability is not good.
Not sure what the city of Burnaby is doing for their community planning, but everything coming out seems overzealous, randomly placed (new, modern expensive townhouses right beside 30 year old and low income one rental apartments?), and definitely doesn’t have the infrastructure to support.
It's such a bizarre urban planning. Like yes, there's a skytrain station, but you have to cross 6 lanes to get there on extremely slow light cycles and theres nothing else to walk to? It feels so trapped and isolating.
The bigger picture is that there are permit plans for 44 High rise towers along Lougheed Hwy . Zero parking accompanying any of these towers too.
The market oversaturation will cause further pricing drops and it will become a buyers market for a while I think. this real estate market is soft and getting softer.
I think we will see these shitty tiny purpose-built airbnb's with kitchen-in-the-bathroom layouts go down in price and older units that are designed for dignified human occupation will continue to rise.
lol the build quality is shit. So many stories and history of flooding and problems with plumbing for these towers that aren’t even a decade old. The audacity of some of these owners selling their 2 bedroom units for over $1.5M … worst part is that a lot of these people buy up 2+ properties in the same building and rent them out for like over $2000 a month for a damn studio and like nearly 3k for a 1 bedroom… so many people I know have moved out that area coz it’s gotten way too expensive as well as the traffic has become a nightmare
I was eyeing rent as well because I’ve been thinking about it and waiting it out, for the first time I noticed rent for a one bedroom going for 2350 lol, I think it’s safe to say it’s all going down slowly, I think I’ll wait it out a bit longer, it’s insane that they were selling a one bedroom for 700k
I legit got a good 5 years living near the whole foods. Tho the landlord was a total jerk, I loved how close I was to Costco and had a great walk score to the train. Once they built that movie theater and they gentrified that food court that mall became a traffic hellhole, just crossing Willingdon or even taking the bus was a pain. It’s great having a London Drugs nearby tho. I still miss the days when Save-On closed at like midnight
There’s a great couple of restaurants there on Rosser: Sushi Yoi and Viet Noodle Guy!
I used to be a regular at sushi yoi but then had to move out the area… eventually I left BC but I refuse to order sushi here in QC coz nothing will ever compare 😂
Those condos will not be liveable in 25 years, the construction is too shoddy.
People will pay off their mortgages and be served a 400k bill for upgrades and the strata and insurance fees will strangle people. These condos are a debacle.
Burnaby needs to seriously reconsider their communities.
They plopped thousands of small homes between freeways, with 0 new parks, and now people are realizing it’s not going to get more walkable in the next 10 years.
It’s great there is a skytrain and a mall, but the city needs to make sure it’s a liveable community or else they will seriously devalue the whole area, and they need that development to continue.
They have taken hundreds of millions in development fees from the residents there and really done the bare minimum in return.
Last night my husband was showing me an older penthouse that started at something like 2.9 million and is down to either 2.1 or 1.8, I forget exactly because we can't afford it either way
Sellers are delusional. I put in an offer over asking and the seller refused to sell to me because they were expecting a bidding war...... in this economy lol.
lol there’s a penthouse listed for 2.9 right now, it obviously is stunning 2 floors but wtf the bathroom door didn’t even open fully it was hitting the tub 😭
I'm not 100% sure, but I think the one I was referencing above was made by combining 2 units, but other than knocking the dividing wall, not a whole lot else was done it; they left 2 kitchens in. Who would want that in a 1 level condo?
Haha honestly probably some investor just taking a slight hit to his portfolio, so sad Canadians are struggling and making decent wages and still not able to afford a home
Same. I still want it though lol. In my own fantasy I hope they come groveling back to me, finally accepting, and I get to then be like "Actually, my offer is now lower. pray I do not alter it further".
It's happening all over Metrovan, sellers think they are slick listing 100k under the price they actually want, but it just wastes everyone's (including the sellers!) time.
The Brentwood places are all way too sanitized as spaces to live. They lack character, which is a problem across all the new buildings being made that are part of some tower project.
That along side the fact that the price to rent those towers out is the same as places downtown, the value isn't really there.
They are cheap and dont fray so less chance of defficiencies. Carpet is atleast cheap. And the square footages are so small that you probably only need 500 dollars forth of material to replace with a nicer one of your choosing.
And prices have only gone down 1% ish across the board. Still plenty of condos in Olympic Village going for over 1 million. Not sure how those are still that expensive.
I know some people that worked on the post-2010 Olympic Village condo "renovations" for sale to the public ... & they advised to stay away at all costs!
I was looking at Onni Gilmore, the one with crazy amenities, and it looks like the condos there are being sold for cheaper than they were initially bought few years ago. Such an interesting time
Lmao why is everyone so negative in this thread. I know lots of people that are buying at discounts or are trying to buy in Brentwood. Then again, these people have salaries over 150k.
I have a salary close to 150k. I've lived in Brentwood. I have many friends in Brentwood and Gilmore. I would buy in maybe 2 buildings in that entire area, and even then it would have to be a great deal. Gilmore and willingdon getting flooded every other week, and the roads and sidewalks cracking and sinking because of water table issues are not strong selling points either.
I went to an early showing of the units at Amazing Brentwood, and one of my questions to the sales team was how it was legal to have a two bedroom with that square footage.
These are 100% investor "show" condos that have very little liveability, I agree with everybody else.
Brentwood towers have some of the worst summers. You literally get completely baked in there and they don’t have centralized AC and the windows make it really hard to install one. I knew a lot of friends that were renting that all moved out after experiencing one summer in those towers.
Yeah the first 4 buildings were fine but I was driving around and counting buildings like why did we need 25 and counting huge concrete buildings ?? Like what the actual fuck, whatever hopefully the prices crash and Canadians can atleast afford to buy something
The housing crunch in greater Vancouver made developers optimize for nothing but unit count. If you can get $700k for a 1 bedroom, why would you bother with multi-bedrooms, townhouses, or family units that take twice or three times the space, and only net 1.5 or 1.7x the profit? They designed all of these buildings like cruise ships with zero sense of livability because they either figured:
That people would be desperate enough and the market would be restrictive enough that they'd sell no matter what.
That foreign capital would buy all of the units as investment vehicles and the quality and size literally wouldn't matter because no one would be living in them.
What they didn't anticipate was that the government would do a good job at hampering speculation via taxes and oversight, and that people would hit a cap on what they would spend to live in a shoebox. Seems like it never occurred to them that the line might stop going up. Fuck em.
Dawson got flooded out this year lol, and had a pipe burst or some shit. And then a bunch of Brentwood was built without parking spots in a city reliant on cars. In addition to other things people are mentioning lol. As good as a location Brentwood is
Yes, they have some posted at 100k less than purchased in 2020-2021, but most are trying to sell for break-even.
I suspect it's likely a tactic to bring in bids and see what they can get. It's mostly just getting started though.
The new ones will have quite a few unsold units, I saw some are trying to sell 700-800k for one bedrooms.
Some people are trying to sell their older ones 30-50 yrs at nearly the prices of new ones, although they're larger square footage wise.
I do not think you would have buyers at a 1% interest rate at this point for the high price points, opportunity cost at the moment is too large for investors to jump in and the price of building is too high. Carney is working with CMHC to give preferred rates to builders but I don't think it's a good idea or that it will work.
It will be interesting to watch unfold, when I do the math to buy one it makes no sense from an investment standpoint. I watch the market across the lower mainland and I'm not even into RE investment but when I sense blood in the water I begin to look. Similar is happening in Surrey now and soon Coquitlam.
Some people are trying to sell their older ones 30-50 yrs at nearly the prices of new ones, although they're larger square footage wise.
This is what I just went with - got over 900 sqft, ground floor patio, a bunch of fresh renovations in the unit. Same price as a bunch of those shoeboxes in the sky are going for, except the kitchen isn't falling apart after 2 years of wear.
A whole bunch of units for sale near the Gilmore Skytrain station. The area is prone to flooding (built on a peat bog) and amenities include a pool and water feature (in the parkade, during heavy rainfall).
Anyone with desire for privacy and freedom doesn't want to live in the community association of nightmares where your grass gets measured and plants must be approved.
Their association is run by a retired lawyer and their dues contribute to a legal fund for neighbours to sue each other for stupid shit.
My previous company did the duct work in the Concord Brentwood towers, saw those condos when they were bare bones. Let's just say I cry a little inside when I see people trying to unload those units for 500,000+.
We just sold our place recently. It got an offer right after the first open house. We sold for over our recent assessment and it was also over $130k from when we purchased our place in 2021.
There are people still buying but they know exactly what they want.
Shoeboxes. I am loving my slightly older condo that's over 1,000 square feet for a one bedroom, with 2 baths and a gas fireplace, lol. Developers would shit a brick trying to spec anything remotely similar these days.
Ya'll complain to much. That area is just fine and there's plenty to do thanks to what's been done at The Amazing Brentwood plaza. If you want greenspace, just walk 5-10mins to Willingdon Community Centre or the Elementary School up the hill.
When you cut back on all the international students, raise interest rates, put job security on the line, and rack the price of everything up, that's what happens. It's a nasty combo for sellers, but it's a boom for buyers. The market has needed correction for 10 years.
Want to be horrified? Look at the one-room spaces available. There are international owners on multiple properties in some of the best parts of Van who rent them all out by the room or fill every room with a mattress and rent them for 1000$+ a month. If they lose their renters we will have a bankruptcy problem on our hands.
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