Episode 4

[00:00:00] Jennifer-Lee: Welcome to Behind the Design from Yaletown to Andmar. This new podcast is gonna follow the journey of the new development Andmar inspired by Vancouver’s, Yaletown’s history, Andmar blends sustainability, innovation, and luxury. We have so many conversations about how a development like Andmar gets built, what is lease land and what is it gonna be like to live in this thriving community? So let’s get started.

[00:00:26] I am Jennifer-Lee and welcome back to behind the Design from Yaletown to Andmar. I have a father son duo, which I’m really excited about. Greg Nord-Leth and Jake Nord-Leth, welcome. I know Jake was kinda like putting his hands over his eyes for the people in audio when it was like father son duo, but you guys are super, super cute.

[00:00:50] Greg Nord-Leth: Just to clear it up. I’m the dad. 

[00:00:52] Just in case for people that aren’t watching the video version, the more deeper voice is Greg. We’ll leave it up to the viewers or the listeners imagination. Maybe they’ll have to come and check out the YouTube version to see who is, but I’m really excited because you guys are also long time Chilliwack resident. Greg, you’ve been doing real estate in Chilliwack forever. 

[00:01:16] 21 years. 21 years. 

[00:01:18] Jennifer-Lee: So, so you just gave away Jake’s age to me because,

[00:01:21] Greg Nord-Leth: Not quite. He was around a little bit when I started. 

[00:01:24] Jake Nord-Leth: Yeah. Tack two on more then, and that’s how long I’ve been in Chilliwack for. 23 years. 

[00:01:31] Greg Nord-Leth: Oh. I’ve been in Chilliwack for 35 years, but realtor for 21.

[00:01:35] Jennifer-Lee: There you go. I know right before the call you’re like, I started after Jake was born, so I was like, there we go. We got Intel right away. Greg, what is it about Chilliwack to you because you’ve lived there for over 30 years? 

[00:01:46] Greg Nord-Leth: Well, honestly, when I first came here I was in broadcasting and I was actually attracted to Chilliwack because of its proximity to Vancouver and its house prices. Kind of a big part of why I still do what I do now. Benefits of the city itself, I’ve lived all over BC in virtually every kind of iteration, and I can really speak highly of big cities and very highly of small towns. And Chilliwack, especially when I moved here 30 years ago, was kind of a little bit of both. It was more small town than it is now. Now I would categorize Chilliwack as a small city. Which is really good for me. I really like way more to do, even though when we live here, we think we do, but we don’t have the traffic. 

[00:02:29] Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, you don’t have the traffic. I am a traffic broadcaster. I’ve been one for a long time. Sometimes you’ll still catch me flying around in the helicopter, so I understand that Chilliwack does not have as much traffic, but to get to you guys sometimes a little bit difficult due to that highway one construction, but that’s a whole other topic. 

[00:02:48] Greg Nord-Leth: Well, I used to live on an island for a short period of time, and I’ll take highway construction over a ferry anytime.

[00:02:53] Jennifer-Lee: Fair, really easy. And I also started in broadcasting, but started up in a smaller town up north in Fort St. John. So I totally understand the small town feel and then kind of a smaller city feel because I lived in Prince George after. Chilliwack is thriving. Not just this Andmar development, but I know so many people have moved out that way. And they just said it is a great place to live, a great place to raise a family. Like you did with Jake. And Jake, you aren’t going anywhere because you bought in Andmar. You’re not like a lot of us where I couldn’t wait to get out of the town that I was raised in. What is it about Chilliwack for you that makes you wanna stay?

[00:03:29] Jake Nord-Leth: Well, I, I get what you’re saying, but Chilliwack not nearly the same place like when I was a kid growing up. It feels like I live in a different place. For staying here, I mean, I grew up here. I, I know everyone here. It’s awesome here. It’s so much hiking, so much stuff outside. And then also I can go to Vancouver, but I don’t have to live in Vancouver, which is a positive too. I, I don’t even call it a town anymore. 

[00:03:52] Greg Nord-Leth: Well, generally what I tell people, two things. One, I describe Chilliwack as Langley 15 years ago. I think that will always kind of be our progression. I used to say, as an example, when I first got here, we were super excited when the White Spot came to town. People who come from Vancouver might still think that we’re pretty small, but from anywhere else in the province, we’re doing pretty well.

[00:04:13] Jennifer-Lee: It’s a real thing though, because when I was living up in Fort St. John, I was doing radio, the next town over, which was only 45 minute drive, got a Browns and we thought we made it. And so everyone was super excited to go to the Browns. So I get that. When you start to get chain restaurants, you’re like, yes, 

[00:04:29] Greg Nord-Leth: I lived on Main Island and we envied what Fort St. John had. 

[00:04:33] Jennifer-Lee: Oh. This is what I love about Chilliwack doing a lot of these small towns is they’re thriving, they have new developments like Andmar. Jake, especially for you, you work and live in Chilliwack as well. 

[00:04:45] Jake Nord-Leth: Correct. Yes. Yeah, no, I’m an, I’m an accountant, uh, here in Chilliwack. Uh, for the past three years I went to school at UFV for accounting. I’m just finishing that now. So yeah, Chilliwack has just always, it’s always been everything in Chilliwack. Hockey in Chilliwack, basketball in Chilliwack. Work in Chilliwack, school in Chilliwack. I just, yeah. 

[00:05:04] Jennifer-Lee: And do you work from home or are you hybrid? 

[00:05:07] Jake Nord-Leth: No, I’m always here. This is my office behind me and it’s tax season right now. So I live here. 

[00:05:12] Jennifer-Lee: My point is maybe when you move into Andmar, you will start doing a hybrid because it will be a great place.

[00:05:18] Jake Nord-Leth: It is true. I don’t have the space right now living with four people, so it’s not really an option. I think that’s, that was the big reason I got an apartment with a den so I could do that. But yeah, that is a positive for sure. 

[00:05:30] Jennifer-Lee: And I know that’s Mark’s vision and I think he even wants to get a coworking space in there as well as he really wants people to live, work, and play at Andmar, which I think a lot of cities are doing. Even here in Vancouver, I’m finding a lot of our cities or a number of cities, a lot of our areas are getting smaller, smaller and more people are walking around. I’m starting to notice more of the same people, and I like that’s what they’re doing in Chilliwack. This topic for today, which I’m always fascinated by because my family is also, not in real estate but in home building, is presales. I always hear so much, presales versus already existing property. What one to buy. An old apartment, new apartment. I hear so many things. And right now too, especially from Vancouver, all the way to Chilliwack, we see a lot of cranes, a lot of fancy brochures. How do we know which one to choose? Greg, first off, because you sell them all. You sell homes, you sell apartments, you sell presales. What is a presale? Just for anyone that wants a clear. 

[00:06:32] Greg Nord-Leth: But a presale basically means whenever you’re buying is not completed yet. It could be bare land and they’re gonna start from the ground up. It could be an apartment building where you are choosing which unit you wanna go, but the building’s not there yet. It could be almost finished. For the most part, I, for the last 10 years, I’ve been selling a development where we’re selling houses. We’re, we’re almost done and we changed various ways the way we did it. When it first started, we would allow people to custom build their house from the start, but that’s a very difficult situation for builders. So then it progressed to, we got to the point where we would be about three months away from completion. So the purchasers could choose some things, but not all things. Now with an apartment, like Jake, quite often the way it works is you can choose your style. Sometimes you can actually choose the style and the place, and they’ll, they’ll build to suit.

[00:07:35] In the case of Andmar, which is also quite common, is that if you want this color, you have to go to this unit or this unit. So you can choose your color, but you cannot choose your color and your unit. It’s one or the other. I think in the boys’ cases, location was far, far more important in the building than the color of the cabinets. For other people it’s not that way. There’s a lot of benefits to buying pre completion presale. One of the huge ones is kind of going away, what people used to do was buy something that was gonna be built in two years and then try to resell it before they built. That’s not really a thing anymore. You can still do it, but generally builders frown upon it because then they end up in competition with themselves.

[00:08:18] We’re not in a crazy, crazy market right now. For Jake and his friends timing is a real factor of whether a presale works for you. If you’re buying something that’s gonna be a year and a half out that doesn’t work for a lot of people, but for him it was perfect. But it does allow you to buy something at today’s prices, and then when you move in, which is when you pay for it, you’ll be paying in two years prices. Where prices will be is always a gamble to some degree, but essentially prices tend to go up. I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s ever noticed that, but real estate prices do tend to go up. 

[00:08:54] Jennifer-Lee: And that, that’s something I wanna ask you before I jump over to Jake, is you mentioned it, a lot of people used to use them as investment. Now there’s obviously all these different rules and regulations like capital gains. I think you also have to live, and correct me if I’m wrong, don’t you have to live in the apartment at least one year before you can get rid of it now. They’re putting all these stipulations in. 

[00:09:16] Greg Nord-Leth: You can actually ask Jake. He’s the accountant. 

[00:09:18] Jennifer-Lee: Yeah. He bought it at these. 

[00:09:19] Jake Nord-Leth: I was gonna say, if you want your principle, I recommend you gotta live there. 

[00:09:22] Greg Nord-Leth: I will tell you there is, for every rule, there’s always 18 exceptions. And if there’s a person, like if you bought it to live in it and your situation changed, like your job changed and you can make a legitimate case, you won’t have to then pay that capital gains. But especially in right now, in that market the way it is right now, there’s not gonna be a huge amount of capital gains in that first year probably. Four years ago, it was $5,000 a month or $10,000 actually, at one point it was in my development, was $5,000 a week that the house prices were going up. And that lasted for extended period of time. It was a bit crazy. Obviously that can’t continue, but now things have pretty much settled out so. 

[00:10:08] Jennifer-Lee: And Jake, why a presale for you? Because you’re also in Chilliwack. You could maybe get somebody that’s a little bit older, that had more square footage. Why a presale for you? 

[00:10:18] Jake Nord-Leth: Yeah, so I mean, there’s multiple reasons for that. One, the first reason is personal. Like I live with my three friends right now and it a lot of fun and I, we’re not, I’m not quite ready to live on my own yet. Like I, I do want to keep enjoying living with my friends. The first part is it’s nice to have something brand new. I’m not gonna have to worry about maintenance and stuff like that or, and if it’s an older place, this sounds like it’s in an upcoming place in town, like a really nice place in town as opposed to, yeah, I might be able to afford other square footage, but it might not be like where I necessarily wanna live in town, especially living here 23 years.

[00:10:51] Also too, for the timing thing, when it comes to the market, it’s really nice like being young, knowing like, hey, I don’t want a place right now. I know I want a place in two years. That’s when I put the deposit down, why not fix myself in the market at this price instead of taking a coin flip and potentially, I know what if it goes again, $5,000 a week for two months. That might not be the case for apartments. But I, I didn’t wanna take that risk necessarily. And pricing yourself in like, I’m building equity. Like I couldn’t necessarily like be building equity right now without a mortgage, without having the house. Like by the time I get it could have built, I don’t know, couple tens of thousands of dollars in equity hopefully. From an economic standpoint, it seems like, like kind of a no brainer in that sense. 

[00:11:37] Greg Nord-Leth: The impetus of this was Jake had just moved into his house with his three friends 

[00:11:44] Jennifer-Lee: Frat house. 

[00:11:45] Greg Nord-Leth: It just so happened at that point, we got this demonstration from Tracey. She came over and showed us Andmar for the first time. And there were some perks. There were some special offers. And as I was listening, ’cause I don’t think Jake was really thinking about that time, I know Jake was saving up for an apartment. For him the year and a half, I said, that’s perfect because in a year and a half, you’re gonna wanna live with the three guys for a couple of years and then it’s gonna be enough.

[00:12:12] Jake Nord-Leth: Again, like that is a part of it too. But like the other part of it too is like, year and a half, like it’s hard to get into the market right now. And I mean, it’s already like affordable. And then on top of it, it’s like, oh, you’re also gonna have another year and a half to save more, to put more on it. And you know, the price is fixed. And at the time I put the deposit down, um, interest rate was at least 50 points higher I, I think, than it is today. 

[00:12:41] Greg Nord-Leth: I think it was two full percent, 

[00:12:42] Jake Nord-Leth: I think it was two full. Yeah. So, yeah. So, um, that’s another thing, like I, I don’t even know if I would’ve qualified for a mortgage at that time, but now going forward, like building my income higher, building my down payment higher. It’s just an advantage for so many reasons. And then on top of that, hopefully your equity building as well. And all of that without a mortgage is like an easy decision compared to like buying like maybe a little bit of a bigger but older apartment. And I’d have to go in right now, have to get a mortgage right now, have to, being an accountant, wanting no, no risk. Probably fixing the mortgage for five years made it seem like it was just a better move than buying a place that’s already built and ready to go in. 

[00:13:21] Jennifer-Lee: Let’s talk about this for a second. But presales, I think, sometimes people get a little confused of how they work because you’re not getting a mortgage right away. You’re putting down deposit first. Greg, because you’re a realtor extraordinaire, can you explain to us a little bit of usually what type of deposits you see and what people need to do to take those steps when they’re purchasing presale.

[00:13:44] Greg Nord-Leth: Okay, so when you’re purchasing a presale, quite often early in the procedure, if you’re one of the first people in auto development, your deposit might be a little bit less. In this case, they only requested 5%. They do tie it up for a year and a half, which is in a normal real estate deal, your deposit would only be in for maybe a month and a half. So it’s a year and a half that they’re holding onto that money. So it’s less money, longer time. For the purposes of planning your life out, works out way better. Because now Jake and the other guys all know exactly what they have to do for a certain amount for, for that year and a half to make sure that they can qualify for their mortgage.

[00:14:23] The, the risk that they would face if, which is in their case, not that severe, would be that suddenly, uh, after year and a half, they don’t qualify for a mortgage. So now they’ve given their deposit, not their down payment, but their deposit. Um, and then, then that becomes a, that becomes an issue. So in, in Jake’s case, we kind of knew the market, the entry, everybody knew that the interest rates were gonna drop. So we’re just hoping now that for the last, the last year or so, that they stay, stay kind of where they are. Maybe even drop a little bit more. The gamble you could have taken in different market is that the, the interest rates were to skyrocket after you put your deposit, you no longer qualify. In this case, Andmar made it extremely, the terms of the deal were really advantageous for the buyer. 

[00:15:15] Jennifer-Lee: I get it. You can pay attention to the market, but would there be anything else that you would, would tell people to maybe look out for or prepare for before purchasing a presale? 

[00:15:26] Greg Nord-Leth: Again, when you say presale, I’m assuming you’re talking into a project like this? 

[00:15:32] Jennifer-Lee: That’s something similar? Yeah, like a price power. 

[00:15:34] Greg Nord-Leth: Like it’s a different conversation completely if you’re talking about a presale on a house from a builder who’s building like two houses. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but it’s a whole different set of concerns. But if we’re talking condos, you wanna make sure that the builder’s reputable. What, what can happen a lot of times is that you get close to completion, then they find out, oh, it’s gonna be delayed. Now if you’re, you have to be prepared for that. Delays happen all the time. If it’s a 30 day delay or 60 days even, it’s irritating, but it’s not impossible. But there are stories of two year delays.

[00:16:11] You wanna make sure that the, the builders financially solvent, that he’s not going anywhere. And if you can look at any past projects and see what, see what they built in the past. And then it’s all about what’s your budget? What’s your timing like? Does this, does this coincide well? Can you live with when it’s being completed? And location. Location is always one of the big ones, and that can predetermine your budget because the same unit in a different place can be three times as expense. 

[00:16:41] Jennifer-Lee: That’s great advice. That’s the one thing I really love is with Andmar is, also, Mark and his business partner have built in Chilliwack for many, many years. And there’s, 

[00:16:52] Greg Nord-Leth: Yeah, I sold into it, into another project that Mark built that I was very impressed. So that’s helpful. Oh, I forgot the number one piece of advice to give, for anybody looking into a pre-sale is get yourself a good realtor. A lot of times you’ll walk into the project and they will, um, they will sell it to you themselves, but they’re not working for you. You really should make sure that you’re with somebody who knows the area, who’s working for you. But most of the time, the realtor can steer you through the purchasing process, which can be long and very confusing and difficult. And if you don’t have somebody on your side, you’re not gonna get any kind of a deal.

[00:17:31] Jennifer-Lee: Okay. Jake, give me the honest answer. I know he’s your dad. Did he make it easy for you to understand? Give us the details. 

[00:17:37] Jake Nord-Leth: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, like not really anybody who knows more about me than him. And I think that’s a big part of it too. Like, it’s hard in a lot of businesses if you don’t know your client, like know who you’re dealing with. The contracts are easy, the words can be scary. Like, but if like once you actually like dig in and you’re like, hey, like let’s learn what this is. And like I’ll listen to him explain it, listen to Tracey explain it. It’s like, okay, the concept’s actually not like so complex. Like it’s not like something that people can’t understand, like it, it’s, it was pretty, it was pretty simple once it was explained to me by, uh, by my dad and Tracey. So, um, yeah, like I, I think anybody could learn like how this presale development works pretty easily in like 10, 20, 30 minutes if they had the right person explain it to them. 

[00:18:25] Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I think that’s very important. Have a great realtor, have great salespeople at the development as well to explain everything to you, because there’s a lot of pieces to this. Like you get stacks of paper, you’re like, I don’t know what to do with it. So you wanna make sure that you’re, you’re not just signing your life away and that you’re, you understand what you’re getting yourself into. Because buying a piece of property, no matter what, if it’s presale, if it’s there already, it is a big commitment. 

[00:18:52] Greg Nord-Leth: Yeah, and with presales, you do have certain other things that come up, like disclosure statements that wouldn’t be on a normal purchase, for instance, because it’s not there yet. If during the course of construction something changes and they can’t do what they said they were gonna do, then there’s another disclosure statement that has to come up. There’s rescission rights that you need to know whether they come into play or not. Which means basically you’re allowed a certain amount of period to back out of a deal and it’s longer. Now, there’s a rescission period on every property you buy in BC, but if you’re buying a used property, it’s only three days and you actually have to pay to get out, and it’s 0.25%.

[00:19:30] It’s not a huge amount, but there is an amount. In new construction, you have seven days from the last disclosure statement or from the accepted offer in which that you’re allowed to change your mind. Now, normally, I don’t really, I’ve never really had anybody do that. Um, but I know it does happen. It could happen like in six months they said, oh, we’re adding six more floors to the building. That would be a disclosure statement, and we’re making it out of styrofoam instead of concrete. And we may decide, you know, that’s not for us. 

[00:20:02] Jennifer-Lee: This is all good learning for anybody, no matter what stage of their buying a journey. Because again, I don’t think enough of us talk about it enough. I think a lot of people sometimes, we’re scared to talk about, because real estate is such in the limelight, like people are like, it’s so expensive. It’s this and it’s that. Which, you know, it’s true, but also it’s like it’s not as scary if you have the right team behind you and there are other options out there. Just, you gotta be able to, to look and weigh the pros and cons. Jake, this is an important part I wanna know. Because you dad mentioned a little bit earlier, you didn’t mind the color of the cabinets. What was appealing to the layout? Like did Tracey show you some different units? Were there any like little mock-ups you gotta go to? 

[00:20:47] Jake Nord-Leth: We had like all the plans in front of us and stuff. And like for me right now in my, like there was no reason to get like two or three bedroom for more than just preference reasons actually. Money reasons too, but the big thing for me was like in the unit that I picked, the den was slightly larger, I think by like a total square footage of like maybe like 20, 30 square feet, which makes a big difference for me because obviously like I have a job where I can work remote if I choose to. So that was a big decision for me. And then, yeah, just like obviously I already knew I was going in for the one bedroom, so it was really the decision between like if I wanted to add a den or not and have that extra square footage, which it just seemed like something I was definitely going to want. So that’s pretty much like when it comes to layout and stuff.

[00:21:34] Greg Nord-Leth: There’s one that you forgot ’cause we did very early on, because you were looking at the two different buildings and one, the square footage of the apartment was a little bigger, but it didn’t have a balcony. 

[00:21:44] Jake Nord-Leth: Oh, that’s true too. Yeah. I forget about that. 

[00:21:46] Greg Nord-Leth: The balcony. 

[00:21:47] Jake Nord-Leth: That’s a good realtor. He remembers. 

[00:21:49] Greg Nord-Leth: Well that was more dad. Why wasn’t he being dad? I said, I think you want a balcony kid. 

[00:21:53] Jake Nord-Leth: Yeah. Yeah. That is true too. I did want the balcony as well, especially like, well, especially lately, even like today, like it just gets nice outside, a lot more in Chilliwack now. It’s just nice to have a place to go out to. And the balcony’s a decent size too. It’ll definitely fit me. 

[00:22:06] Jennifer-Lee: Again, having a right realtor helps you out and that’s the fun part of presales is that you get to choose and kind of make it your own. But yes, you can always make any condo your own. But this is kind of neat because it’s from scratch. So one thing I wanna ask you, Jake, if you could give any piece of advice to someone your age that’s thinking of doing a presale? 

[00:22:27] Jake Nord-Leth: One, I definitely look at like, obviously you can’t get qualified, but I definitely like at least talk to a mortgage person just to make sure that like you’re within the income range. And then the second thing is I would definitely make sure you know you’re gonna be here, like in this city. Like don’t buy the presale if you think your life is like subject to radical change in the short term future. Like, I, I like, I think it’s for people who like wanna get into the market and like are gonna be here for, for at least a few years. 

[00:22:57] Jennifer-Lee: What is a misconception about presales? 

[00:22:59] Greg Nord-Leth: You do not get to choose everything. And I’ve also worked with custom people who build, who do choose everything. It’s a nightmare. You don’t want that. And it also depends on price point. So there’s a ton of things that can vary from presale to presale, and I think that’s the biggest thing that you think if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. That’s absolutely not true. Each one has its, has its own personality, its own benefits, really gotta find out what’s right for you, important factors to you. I go back to price, location, and design. Generally the three. 

[00:23:33] Jake Nord-Leth: I get asked this a lot by people my age, like when I tell them that I did this, this big misconception that you have to start paying right away. Like do not have to start paying right away until you actually have the apartment. But I know a lot of people are like apprehensive presales because they think you’re paying without having the asset ready. That’s just not true, at least for this development. 

[00:23:54] Greg Nord-Leth: Yeah, and I also piggyback on something Jake said too about going to see the mortgage broker and the importance of that is to prevent disappointment. Because the mortgage broker will give you a pre-approval, which is not the same as an approval. They should name it something different, ’cause it’s not really a pre-approval, but it’ll say you should be in this price range if you do these certain things. But at least it gives you an idea. So you’re not looking at, you know, spending a whole bunch of time looking at things you can’t afford or you’re underselling yourself and you could get better. Generally after people come talk to me first and we talk a little bit about what they want, I will send them to a mortgage broker. They’ll do a quick, uh, look at their financial situation and then they’ll come back and say, okay, this is what we’re gonna look for, and that, and that’s what we start targeting.

[00:24:41] Jennifer-Lee: So important, you guys both mentioned it, and I’m glad you did, is because a mortgage broker is gonna give you a better idea. Because people don’t realize when you start talking to one, it doesn’t even matter if you have a lot of money for a down payment. There’s things that you don’t know, like when you’re working for your family company, can be harder to get a mortgage even though you’re a full-time employee. There are certain times like jobs you’ve had to have for at least a year. Like people don’t realize, like you can’t keep switching jobs. 

[00:25:07] Greg Nord-Leth: And don’t get a pre-approval and then immediately go run out and buy a big truck. That does screw things up. And also another misconception is, as I said, not all presales are created equal, but neither are all mortgage brokers and bankers. So just because one says one thing, that doesn’t mean another one won’t. It’s important to shop that around. 

[00:25:26] Jennifer-Lee: That is great advice that anyone should take because we don’t want disappointment. Because too, if you can’t afford your mortgage, when the presale comes up, you lose your deposit. It seems stressful and a lot of work, but you’ll, you’ll be happy like Jake when you do it. And, uh, thank you guys so much for coming on Behind the Design from Yaletown to Andmar. That was a really great discussion about what is a presale. 

[00:25:50] Jake Nord-Leth: Thank you. 

[00:25:51] Greg Nord-Leth: Thank you. 

[00:25:53] Jennifer-Lee: Thank you for joining us on Behind the Design from Yaletown to Andmar. We’ve explored the history, innovation, and sustainability that makes Andmar more than just a community. It’s a place where life, business, and connection thrive. If you’ve been inspired by this podcast, we’d love your support. Follow the podcast, rate it, and leave a review to help others discover what makes Andmar so special. Till next time.