Winnipeg |390 on the river (d Condo) | ~81M | 24F | U/C

[Cyro]

^ nah, that's a decent looking building. The waste of land use on the size of site is my beef. As mentioned costs went through the roof.



www.webview360.com

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Cyro

The waste of land use on the size of site is my beef.

Agreed completely. The building design says Upper East Side, the site design says West Fargo.

[bomberjet]

Which one lives there again? I could see old David standing up there with his brandy, gazing out over his subjects through his Gotham style windows. A laugh slowly rumbling in his belly.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Which one lives there again? I could see old David standing up there with his brandy, gazing out over his subjects through his Gotham style windows. A laugh slowly rumbling in his belly.

Someone mentioned it in a thread somewhere on the forum. It was an Asper, I believe the Pent House they used was vacated by the family some time ago.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Which one lives there again?

Last I heard, which was two years ago, only one floor was occupied by Arnie Thorsteinson.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Which one lives there again? I could see old David standing up there with his brandy, gazing out over his subjects through his Gotham style windows. A laugh slowly rumbling in his belly.

That's totally what I would do every night if I lived there.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Hey, you can even spend $2.5M on the old Asper condo in Osborne Village if you want to!

http://beta.realtor.ca/propertyDetai...rtyId=12557163

That building must have been a terrible investment for anyone who bought a unit there ... I remember there were $1,000,000 condos when it was first built about 13 years ago, which was unheard of at the time... they haven't gone up in value at all since then, as there are whole-floor, bare-wall units for sale now for $1M just like a decade ago.

Here's the link from this thread.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Last I heard, which was two years ago, only one floor was occupied by Arnie Thorsteinson.

He has the top two floors. I believe it's floors 2 and 4 that are still vacant.

David Asper lives on Park Blvd. West. It was his mother who lived there until she died. If you're interested in $2500 monthly condo fees in addition to about $15,000 monthly mortgage payment, property taxes excluded, I believe that opportunity is still available...

[pkirvan]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Yeah, this is a pretty good summation of things. Those purchasing upfront are shouldering a ton of risk. They're also 100% necessary for getting the building financed, so you need to incentivize them in some capacity. The danger in these cases can be manifold, but a developer can be his own worst enemy in a lot of ways.

Generally speaking, one would begin to pre-sale with drawings at somewhere on the order of 35% completion along with a fairly good breakdown of what the unit and building will look like. Actually, the new condo act says you have to disclose precisely what a 'standard unit' will be comprised of all the way down to the branding on all fixtures. So to actually cost drawings at about 35% is quite difficult to do. That would be considered a Class C estimate which is thought to be somewhere on the order of +/-20% of actual costs, so you're really throwing darts at the board at that point. So you have the choice: how optimistic do you want to be? If you're really optimistic, you're unlikely to account for true costs. A lot of people also fail to account for accuracy in their costing. In other words, if it takes you three years to sell units and construction inflation is moving at 2% per year, it's irrelevant how accurate your pricing model is, you've discounted 6%. Anyway, these numbers are what are going to set your prices for pre-sales.

Then think about what can happen down the line. Your drawings become more fleshed out, your costing is more accurate - usually higher - and now you have to continue to sell units. If you've skewed way to the low side of your costing all along and now reality has just set in, you're not only at the whim of the market, you're at the whim of your risk tolerance; you need to generate a certain sale price in order to sleep at night. But this is why I say one can easily take a bath on a project like this - oftentimes the market just simply won't bear the costs when they're finally in.

A good example of this would be One Wellington. There are still two units left unsold because the costs just spiraled.

Interesting. Any idea how much prices have gone up for DCondo?

[Buddy1010]

How are people getting there deposits back for this project? Wouldn't you loose your deposit if you decided to back out of the deal?

[bomberjet]

I'm going to assume there's some type of an out clause after a certain length of time, maybe 3 years or something.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I'm going to assume there's some type of an out clause after a certain length of time, maybe 3 years or something.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. I haven't seen the agreement, but given that benchmarks have been repeatedly moved or gone entirely unmet, I don't doubt there were extrication clauses inherent in the agreement.

The reality is that most agreements crafted are done so with the benefit of the developer in mind given that they're the ones who solicit them. But a lot of pre-sale agreements are not actually offers to purchase; they're letters of intent. In other words, the developer presents you with a binding document that for a cost - the depost - allows you first right to bid on the selected unit once the developer has removed certain conditions precedent to procession. These conditions can include everything from suitable financing to pre-sale targets to final costing; anything really, provided the purchaser agrees. But they also often contain a certain timeframe the conditions must be removed within. If they're not, the developer would be considered in breach of the letter of intent and the agreement would contemplate for this - oftentimes in the form of refunding the deposit or, should the purchaser choose, extension of the agreement. Very 'tough' documents actually give the developer half of the deposit should somebody bail even if delays or other issues are their fault, but I doubt that's the case here with so many units and no overwhelming demand.

[Cyro]

Well, it's damn good to here the foundation is being poured as we debate the feasibility of the project.
But I do hope that prospective owners who invested are not affected to the degree that's being discussed.

When did the pre-sales number drop to 50% or lower? Was this over the last few months?

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Cyro

When did the pre-sales number drop to 50% or lower? Was this over the last few months?

That's correct. Again, from what I'm being told.

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by Cyro

^ nah, that's a decent looking building. The waste of land use on the size of site is my beef. As mentioned costs went through the roof.



www.webview360.com

That building is basically Fort Garry Place redux. A hodgepodge of styles, badly mixed, all at the wrong scale.

Building doesn't say "Upper East Side" to me... Jersey, maybe?

[Riverman]

This building is very well finished inside with expensive materials.

[Bluenote]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

That building is basically Fort Garry Place redux. A hodgepodge of styles, badly mixed, all at the wrong scale.

Building doesn't say "Upper East Side" to me... Jersey, maybe?

Looks way better then it's drab neighbours. And 1000000000 times better then stucco palace (Alt)

[Flatland Metropolis]

[esquire]

Pretty exciting to see them moving along with this project. It seemed unlikely to get built when it was first proposed, but it is finally becoming reality.

How is Sandhu Developments getting all of these awesome yet improbable projects built where other developers fail?

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by esquire

Pretty exciting to see them moving along with this project. It seemed unlikely to get built when it was first proposed, but it is finally becoming reality.

How is Sandhu Developments getting all of these awesome yet improbable projects built where other developers fail?

Large personal guarantees. Probably some incentive from the cities with respect to tax abatements and so forth.

Let's give it some time before these projects can be called built and sucessful. Lease up hasn't even begun.