$2.4 Million Tear Down House in Vancouver - Update: $9 Million Tear Down

[guntrix]

1 hour ago, smokes said:

What Vancouver lacks in attractions it more than makes up for in terrain. I think Vancouver would attract a different type of tourist. Ones that are more into nature.If you are a nature buff, easily 1 day in Stanley park, a day in Squamish, Gouse Mountain, . New York, London, Paris may beat Vancouver in terms of being an "exotic" city. But Vancouver trumps when it comes to natural beauty.

I agree. 

But what if you're not a nature buff? What if you go to Vancouver with the expectation of exploring a foreign city (like many tourists do)? Well, I'd wager that you're gonna be hard-pressed to find things to do a few days in. 

[Lancaster]

1 hour ago, smokes said:

What Vancouver lacks in attractions it more than makes up for in terrain. I think Vancouver would attract a different type of tourist. Ones that are more into nature.If you are a nature buff, easily 1 day in Stanley park, a day in Squamish, Gouse Mountain, . New York, London, Paris may beat Vancouver in terms of being an "exotic" city. But Vancouver trumps when it comes to natural beauty.

The thing with the outdoors is that Vancouver doesn't really have anything unique.  A large park within a city... not really unique.  Grouse Mountain?  Perhaps if you're gonna do the Grind, but a hike up the mountain is the same everywhere.  I've hiked up some mountain trail around Kyoto to see some ancient Shinto shrine.... either than the weather, the vegetation, and the path being more worn, the trek wasn't different from anywhere else. 

When I have to suggest places to see/visit for family/friends from Korea/Japan.... most are usually quite a deal away from Vancouver.  With the exception of tourist traps in the city, everything else requires some form of transportation.  Maybe the Grind, the Chief and and Capilano Bridge.... but if someone is visiting to see the wilderness... then it's off to the interior, the Island, or up the coast.  Not really Vancouver itself. 

[inane]

This is all just painful to read. Everyone so sure their experience and their views on things is how others 'should' think or feel. 

[Electro Rock]

On ‎2016‎-‎02‎-‎01 at 3:22 PM, taxi said:

2 hours ago, guntrix said:

Experiencing a vast influx of incoming immigration is something consistent with all Canadian cities. It's not a Vancouver thing, it's a Canadian thing.

And even then, Vancouver used to be more multiculturally varied. Nowadays, you got a bulk of the new Vancouver population composed of Chinese and South Asian, sprinkled with the occasional Vietnamese, Philipino, Korean, etc.

Vancouver is unique however in that the majority of the influx consists of a few big blocs of ethnocentric and exploitative people who subtract from the general appeal of the city, yup I said it.

 

[guntrix]

33 minutes ago, inane said:

This is all just painful to read. Everyone so sure their experience and their views on things is how others 'should' think or feel. 

Relax. 

It's just a back and forth convo about the city most of us live in. 

If you don't like to read it, don't click on the thread. It's that easy! 

[Electro Rock]

5 hours ago, taxi said:

It's a myth that crime is on the rise. Crime rates peaked in the early to mid-90s and have fallen dramatically since then.

Petty crime MAY be less than the old days, assuming the police aren't simply under-acknowledging it now, but the level of serious corruption and organized crime is now ridiculous, IMO putting new age Vancouver into the same class as Chicago, New Orleans, Marseilles etc.

[taxi]

17 minutes ago, Electro Rock said:

Petty crime MAY be less than the old days, assuming the police aren't simply under-acknowledging it now, but the level of serious corruption and organized crime is now ridiculous, IMO putting new age Vancouver into the same class as Chicago, New Orleans, Marseilles etc.

Vancouver has always been like that.

It's not just crime either. The unions and interest groups have always had a stranglehold on the city. The dock workers, taxi companies, power line technicians, developers, Hell's Angels etc... it's all one big racket. People getting overpaid for doing next to nothing and then passing the cost down to the working middle class. The line between those unions and the mafia is often blurred, but all of these groups have been allowed to plunder the province freely for decades.

[Electro Rock]

54 minutes ago, taxi said:

Vancouver has always been like that.

It's not just crime either. The unions and interest groups have always had a stranglehold on the city. The dock workers, taxi companies, power line technicians, developers, Hell's Angels etc... it's all one big racket. People getting overpaid for doing next to nothing and then passing the cost down to the working middle class. The line between those unions and the mafia is often blurred, but all of these groups have been allowed to plunder the province freely for decades.

Yeah but Vancouver was never traditionally a global hub for drug and human smuggling, the sex trade, money laundering etc. It was a decidedly provincial affair up until roughly 25 years ago, now its like the North American version of Napoli where little is not touched by dirty money and its noted as a source of corruption even in faraway places.

[smokes]

7 hours ago, guntrix said:

I agree. 

But what if you're not a nature buff? What if you go to Vancouver with the expectation of exploring a foreign city (like many tourists do)? Well, I'd wager that you're gonna be hard-pressed to find things to do a few days in. 

Yes but you can say that about almost all cities in Canada.

[Warhippy]

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/two-abandoned-west-side-homes-worth-a-combined-dollar10-million-share-same-owner/ar-BBp6nRF?li=AAggNb9

 

The $6.2-million Point Grey home boasts unobstructed vistas of the North Shore mountains, English Bay and Vancouver’s skyline.

A park sits across a quiet street. The home represents everything a family could aspire to.

But it’s vacant and rotting. Windows are left open and debris sits in the yard. Like a symbol of futility, a June 2015 City of Vancouver “untidy-premises” order remains pinned to the door.

The 1926-built home’s issues seem to encapsulate a rising tide of angst revealed on websites documenting vacant homes and “bulldozer-bait” teardowns in Vancouver.

City hall is currently trying to estimate how many Vancouver homes are vacant. And these online communities are anecdotally gathering photo evidence and coming to conclusions that offshore investment is to blame.

"That is what is driving everything,” said Caroline Adderson, whose website, Vancouver Vanishes, has over 8,000 followers. “It is sickening on all levels.”

The Point Grey property apparently stopped functioning as a home and became a storage of wealth six years ago, according to property documents and a neighbour’s account.

It was well-cared for in 2010 when it was sold to an investor. Since then it has been flipped through a property transfer in a Beijing law office and left unoccupied.

Current owners Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun bought the 4100-block 8th Avenue West home from Wei Min Zhang in July 2011 for $4.6 million, records show.

The couple’s occupations were both listed as “business person.” Wei Min Zhang had bought the home in July 2010 for $3.35 million.

On Wednesday, a neighbour told The Province he hadn’t seen the current owners.

City of Vancouver spokesman Tobin Postma said a 2015 order to clean up the property was “remedied.”

However the order remains pinned to the property and messy conditions appear to continue, according to a reporter’s observations Wednesday.

Postma said city departments respond to safety and mess complaints at vacant homes and issue cleanup orders in warranted cases.

If owners don’t respond, the city will clean up and issue a bill. In 2014, there were 213 actions taken against 85 properties, Postma said.

Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun are also owners of a $3.57-million Arbutus Ridge home in the 2300-block 21st Avenue West, records show.

The home also appears to be unoccupied.

On Wednesday, a Province reporter found that the windows were shuttered, a phone book was left on the doorstep and a mailbox was stuffed with letters.

No one answered the door and the home’s external condition seemed degraded.

Huai Can Ren, then listed as “businessman,” and Xue Pei Sun, as “homemaker,” bought the home in 2006 for $1.75 million from transferees Zhaohong Su and Xin Li.

In transfer documents, Xin Li was listed as lawyer for Su, who had bought the home in 2005 for $778,000.

Adderson said she started her website in 2013 because she couldn’t get Vancouver councillors to address her concerns about countless character homes being demolished for redevelopment.

Some of her readers want to see heritage-zoning protections to slow down Vancouver’s crazed property investment market and others want to see foreign investors taxed or restricted.

Adderson’s following jumps when she posts stories such as a recent Postmedia report of a $6-million mansion that was built in 1996 and is now “bulldozer bait.”

Readers of Vancouver Vanishes have organized a demolition protest at the Adera Street property on Sunday.

“Disgusting. Obscene beyond words,” demolition protester Marilyn Paller commented on thewebsite.

“There is already an appetite for near-million-dollar homes in Maple Ridge,” Bryan Kim said. “Soon to own a home the middle class will have to look out there in Chilliwack.”

[taxi]

15 hours ago, Electro Rock said:

Yeah but Vancouver was never traditionally a global hub for drug and human smuggling, the sex trade, money laundering etc. It was a decidedly provincial affair up until roughly 25 years ago, now its like the North American version of Napoli where little is not touched by dirty money and its noted as a source of corruption even in faraway places.

Naw...Vancouver has always been a global hub for drug distribution. It's geographic location with access to the ports, the USA, and the rest of Canada make it a prime target. Not to mention that marijuana production here isn't exactly a new thing. BC bud has been famous and in high production since at least the time I was starting junior high, which was over 25 years ago, and it wasn't a new thing then. Heroin coming in from Asia has always come through Vancouver. You might not be old enough to remember what drug addicts were like 25 years ago. Before there was meth, there was heroin.

The model has always been to land the stuff in Vancouver and have biker gangs redistribute it through small towns across the interior of BC. It's been like that since at least the 1960s.

[Tre Mac]

On ‎04‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 8:53 PM, Warhippy said:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/two-abandoned-west-side-homes-worth-a-combined-dollar10-million-share-same-owner/ar-BBp6nRF?li=AAggNb9

 

The $6.2-million Point Grey home boasts unobstructed vistas of the North Shore mountains, English Bay and Vancouver’s skyline.

A park sits across a quiet street. The home represents everything a family could aspire to.

But it’s vacant and rotting. Windows are left open and debris sits in the yard. Like a symbol of futility, a June 2015 City of Vancouver “untidy-premises” order remains pinned to the door.

The 1926-built home’s issues seem to encapsulate a rising tide of angst revealed on websites documenting vacant homes and “bulldozer-bait” teardowns in Vancouver.

City hall is currently trying to estimate how many Vancouver homes are vacant. And these online communities are anecdotally gathering photo evidence and coming to conclusions that offshore investment is to blame.

"That is what is driving everything,” said Caroline Adderson, whose website, Vancouver Vanishes, has over 8,000 followers. “It is sickening on all levels.”

The Point Grey property apparently stopped functioning as a home and became a storage of wealth six years ago, according to property documents and a neighbour’s account.

It was well-cared for in 2010 when it was sold to an investor. Since then it has been flipped through a property transfer in a Beijing law office and left unoccupied.

Current owners Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun bought the 4100-block 8th Avenue West home from Wei Min Zhang in July 2011 for $4.6 million, records show.

The couple’s occupations were both listed as “business person.” Wei Min Zhang had bought the home in July 2010 for $3.35 million.

On Wednesday, a neighbour told The Province he hadn’t seen the current owners.

City of Vancouver spokesman Tobin Postma said a 2015 order to clean up the property was “remedied.”

However the order remains pinned to the property and messy conditions appear to continue, according to a reporter’s observations Wednesday.

Postma said city departments respond to safety and mess complaints at vacant homes and issue cleanup orders in warranted cases.

If owners don’t respond, the city will clean up and issue a bill. In 2014, there were 213 actions taken against 85 properties, Postma said.

Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun are also owners of a $3.57-million Arbutus Ridge home in the 2300-block 21st Avenue West, records show.

The home also appears to be unoccupied.

On Wednesday, a Province reporter found that the windows were shuttered, a phone book was left on the doorstep and a mailbox was stuffed with letters.

No one answered the door and the home’s external condition seemed degraded.

Huai Can Ren, then listed as “businessman,” and Xue Pei Sun, as “homemaker,” bought the home in 2006 for $1.75 million from transferees Zhaohong Su and Xin Li.

In transfer documents, Xin Li was listed as lawyer for Su, who had bought the home in 2005 for $778,000.

Adderson said she started her website in 2013 because she couldn’t get Vancouver councillors to address her concerns about countless character homes being demolished for redevelopment.

Some of her readers want to see heritage-zoning protections to slow down Vancouver’s crazed property investment market and others want to see foreign investors taxed or restricted.

Adderson’s following jumps when she posts stories such as a recent Postmedia report of a $6-million mansion that was built in 1996 and is now “bulldozer bait.”

Readers of Vancouver Vanishes have organized a demolition protest at the Adera Street property on Sunday.

“Disgusting. Obscene beyond words,” demolition protester Marilyn Paller commented on thewebsite.

“There is already an appetite for near-million-dollar homes in Maple Ridge,” Bryan Kim said. “Soon to own a home the middle class will have to look out there in Chilliwack.”

Makes me sick.

[Warhippy]

Just now, Tre Mac said:

Makes me sick.

Think of it, hypothetically if there is even just 85 properties that are nothing more than investment holdings never lived in and literally just accruing value without being lived in, at an average in the area of $2.8 million that's almost $200 million worth of empty real estate, and this doesn't even factor in the homes people come and stay in or condos for that matter for 1 week a year

 

Crazy no?

[riffraff]

On February 4, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Warhippy said:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/two-abandoned-west-side-homes-worth-a-combined-dollar10-million-share-same-owner/ar-BBp6nRF?li=AAggNb9

 

The $6.2-million Point Grey home boasts unobstructed vistas of the North Shore mountains, English Bay and Vancouver’s skyline.

A park sits across a quiet street. The home represents everything a family could aspire to.

But it’s vacant and rotting. Windows are left open and debris sits in the yard. Like a symbol of futility, a June 2015 City of Vancouver “untidy-premises” order remains pinned to the door.

The 1926-built home’s issues seem to encapsulate a rising tide of angst revealed on websites documenting vacant homes and “bulldozer-bait” teardowns in Vancouver.

City hall is currently trying to estimate how many Vancouver homes are vacant. And these online communities are anecdotally gathering photo evidence and coming to conclusions that offshore investment is to blame.

"That is what is driving everything,” said Caroline Adderson, whose website, Vancouver Vanishes, has over 8,000 followers. “It is sickening on all levels.”

The Point Grey property apparently stopped functioning as a home and became a storage of wealth six years ago, according to property documents and a neighbour’s account.

It was well-cared for in 2010 when it was sold to an investor. Since then it has been flipped through a property transfer in a Beijing law office and left unoccupied.

Current owners Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun bought the 4100-block 8th Avenue West home from Wei Min Zhang in July 2011 for $4.6 million, records show.

The couple’s occupations were both listed as “business person.” Wei Min Zhang had bought the home in July 2010 for $3.35 million.

On Wednesday, a neighbour told The Province he hadn’t seen the current owners.

City of Vancouver spokesman Tobin Postma said a 2015 order to clean up the property was “remedied.”

However the order remains pinned to the property and messy conditions appear to continue, according to a reporter’s observations Wednesday.

Postma said city departments respond to safety and mess complaints at vacant homes and issue cleanup orders in warranted cases.

If owners don’t respond, the city will clean up and issue a bill. In 2014, there were 213 actions taken against 85 properties, Postma said.

Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun are also owners of a $3.57-million Arbutus Ridge home in the 2300-block 21st Avenue West, records show.

The home also appears to be unoccupied.

On Wednesday, a Province reporter found that the windows were shuttered, a phone book was left on the doorstep and a mailbox was stuffed with letters.

No one answered the door and the home’s external condition seemed degraded.

Huai Can Ren, then listed as “businessman,” and Xue Pei Sun, as “homemaker,” bought the home in 2006 for $1.75 million from transferees Zhaohong Su and Xin Li.

In transfer documents, Xin Li was listed as lawyer for Su, who had bought the home in 2005 for $778,000.

Adderson said she started her website in 2013 because she couldn’t get Vancouver councillors to address her concerns about countless character homes being demolished for redevelopment.

Some of her readers want to see heritage-zoning protections to slow down Vancouver’s crazed property investment market and others want to see foreign investors taxed or restricted.

Adderson’s following jumps when she posts stories such as a recent Postmedia report of a $6-million mansion that was built in 1996 and is now “bulldozer bait.”

Readers of Vancouver Vanishes have organized a demolition protest at the Adera Street property on Sunday.

“Disgusting. Obscene beyond words,” demolition protester Marilyn Paller commented on thewebsite.

“There is already an appetite for near-million-dollar homes in Maple Ridge,” Bryan Kim said. “Soon to own a home the middle class will have to look out there in Chilliwack.”

But but....racism.

[aGENT]

On 2/3/2016 at 0:59 PM, guntrix said:

I agree. 

But what if you're not a nature buff? What if you go to Vancouver with the expectation of exploring a foreign city (like many tourists do)? Well, I'd wager that you're gonna be hard-pressed to find things to do a few days in. 

Well when I go to places like Hawaii I sure like to stay way from the outdoors. Who wants to go to Hawaii and swim in warm ocean waters on beautiful beaches or hike to scenic waterfalls amidst lush jungle scenery anyway?

[guntrix]

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

Well when I go to places like Hawaii I sure like to stay way from the outdoors. Who wants to go to Hawaii and swim in warm ocean waters on beautiful beaches or hike to scenic waterfalls amidst lush jungle scenery anyway?

You make it seem like Vancouver has the same climate as Hawaii. 

Swimming in the ocean there doesn't turn your balls blue, the beaches are actually enjoyable (like the three warm months in Vancouver), and the trails are actually accessible year-round.

[aGENT]

Just now, guntrix said:

You make it seem like Vancouver has the same climate as Hawaii. 

Swimming in the ocean there doesn't turn your balls blue, the beaches are actually enjoyable (like the three warm months in Vancouver), and the trails are actually accessible year-round.

No I didn't. 

[guntrix]

21 minutes ago, J.R. said:

No I didn't. 

So were you being unintentionally sarcastic?

[aGENT]

 

I wouldn't go to Hawaii to ski, I wouldn't go to Italy for inexpensive, fresh and tasty Thai food, I wouldn't go to rural Argentina for it's opera houses, museums and night life....

[inane]

Point = missed. Try again.