cabinessence Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 As reported in The Vancouver Sun newspaper, this is an issue that has been a concern for a while. Is it linked to foreign investment in real estate, or immigration scams where you get in by opening up a business (then close up shop)? http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html?__lsa=85db-ab8b Even before the story was printed, a documentary was made on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaU4EDhuDLw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 You mean like stores full of vancouver kittens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edlerberry Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 wealthy asians wanna charge more rent to less well off asians and won't rent to asians with no business plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabinessence Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 2 hours ago, Edlerberry said: wealthy asians wanna charge more rent to less well off asians and won't rent to asians with no business plan. That doesn't seem quite right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riffraff Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 "Who stole the soul?" -flavour flav Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edlerberry Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 30 minutes ago, cabinessence said: That doesn't seem quite right. Quote Norm Taylor, the executive managing director for commercial real estate broker CBRE Vancouver, said besides the natural turnover of leases, what is happening along Denman may be connected to the city’s red hot real estate market. Vancouver, he said, has become a city on the world stage. “I think all landowners are reading about the hot market and the prices being paid for real estate,” he said. “Everyone thinks things should be moving up so landlords are always trying to increase their rents.” Taylor said that if a landlord has the ability to keep a property vacant to get higher rates, they generally will. Some landlords will budget for vacancies of six months or more to hold out to get the right tenant, he said. Quote Owner Christine Cho said she closed her Denman store on Nov. 30 Quote Edward Chiu is the broker at Macdonald Commercial for 780 Denman, the ground floor retail space next to Cope’s Ritual. At a basic rent of $40 per square foot plus property taxes and other costs, the total cost of renting the 1,400-square foot space works out to about $73 a square foot or $8,500 a month, plus GST. Chiu said there have been lots of inquiries but he hasn’t found the right tenant yet. “We’ve had people inquire, but people we didn’t feel could succeed there,” he said. “People with no business plan, for example. Quote Just the normal signs you would expect of a city which has sold itself to mostly absentee chinese "investors". The demand for businesses and the low wages they pay will continue shrinking as the city empties itself and becomes unafordable to live and work in for the average person. Not rocket science k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurn Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 With internet sales and businesses booming, the old brick storefronts are not as needed. Plus the rents are crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Another symptom of the real estate price issue. When real estate prices go through the roof, rents rise with them. Businesses can no longer afford to stay in business so they go under and no one moves in. Starting a business is even pricier than maintaining an old one, as there are huge renovation costs involved. Quite frankly, I don't know how any of these retail places survive. The rent is ridiculous and few people have enough money to shop at these places. Places like Chapters cannot afford to stay open downtown. I'm not sure how a small retailer or restaurant is expected to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 My wife and I have been thinking of starting a small clothing re-sale shop... but the lease rent is way too high for just a small-time operation. I think we're just looking at Main Street with all those antique and vintage shops and the going rent is $45/sqf not including utilities, taxes, insurance, etc. So... if assuming it's 1/3 of per square feet cost..... $60 x 800sqf (a small boutique shop) = $48000/per year in just leasing the place... and that's not even including the cost of inventory, furniture/decor, and so on. It makes me wonder how anyone makes money running a retail business, short of them already owning the property themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabinessence Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 26 minutes ago, taxi said: Another symptom of the real estate price issue. When real estate prices go through the roof, rents rise with them. Businesses can no longer afford to stay in business so they go under and no one moves in. Starting a business is even pricier than maintaining an old one, as there are huge renovation costs involved. Quite frankly, I don't know how any of these retail places survive. The rent is ridiculous and few people have enough money to shop at these places. Places like Chapters cannot afford to stay open downtown. I'm not sure how a small retailer or restaurant is expected to. Is it possible they are fronts for something else? I have seen numerous shops stay open with little to no customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabinessence Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 I love how the type in the thread title actually seems pretty funny, as in Vancat, which is close to Vancant as in Vancouver Cannot. Actually the Vancouver Cannots was a nickname used for the hockey club on a series of sweatshirts in the 1980s. Cue bass solo on that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 30 minutes ago, cabinessence said: Is it possible they are fronts for something else? I have seen numerous shops stay open with little to no customers. Definitely some are...however, I think the whole "front" thing is a little overblown in Vancouver. It's legal to sell marijuana on the street now. Hiding grow op money was probably the biggest reasons for fronts in the past. Now you can just open up a marijuana shop and make millions selling "prescription" marijuana. A lot of these sketchy store fronts are closing as their long term leases expire. The landlords don't really care if all that much if they have a tenant, as they make more money from just holding the property than rent could ever generate. You might make $50,000/year from rent in a commercial place in a somewhat busy area, like Main Street. However, the property, which will typically cost well in the 7 figures, is going up by 10+% a year in value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kragar Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 1 hour ago, cabinessence said: I love how the type in the thread title actually seems pretty funny, as in Vancat, which is close to Vancant as in Vancouver Cannot. Actually the Vancouver Cannots was a nickname used for the hockey club on a series of sweatshirts in the 1980s. Cue bass solo on that! Am I missing something here, or do you not recognize that it's a spelling mistake? And, it's your thread. Did someone hack your account earlier and start the thread, and you find the title funny now? Or is my brain so fried from boredom that I missed some subtle humor here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabinessence Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 3 minutes ago, Kragar said: Am I missing something here, or do you not recognize that it's a spelling mistake? And, it's your thread. Did someone hack your account earlier and start the thread, and you find the title funny now? Or is my brain so fried from boredom that I missed some subtle humor here? I think the latter may be true. Typo was typed as a typo, by "type". No, no one hacked the account. After realizing the type/typo, it did seem humorous to me (and by the excellent responses so far, many more). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographical_error Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kragar Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Just now, cabinessence said: I think the latter may be true. Typo was typed as a typo, by "type". No, no one hacked the account. After realizing the type/typo, it did seem humorous to me (and by the excellent responses so far, many more). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographical_error OK, no worries. At least it's time to go home now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offensive Threat Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Leasing space to someone who doesnt even have a business plan is just bad business. They will usually go bankrupt in short order and you, the leasor, will have to wait for the bankruptcy process to run its course to find out if you are going to get back any or even a small portion of what they owe you. Then you will finally get access to your property that will require cleaning out all of their junk and who knows how much in repairs to get it rentable again. We own a warehouse property in Blaine Wa. We have long term high quality tenants because we did wait for the right ones to come along. A guy who says hes gonna invent the next great surfboard wanted to rent from us with nothing other than his ID. He thought that was all he needed. Thats the kind we had coming by on a regular basis. Half baked ideas and a couple thousand bucks. No business plan, no business permit, no insurance etc etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Also, this isn't just happening in the West end. Take a stroll up and down Granville sometime. The clubs and stores are closing. At best you've got a revolving set of big grand stores that are also closing/opening. The same thing is happening to stores on Commercial Drive. They are being replaced with marijauna stores, as that seems to be the only viable business in Vancouver. The economy here is crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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