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Remember all that talk about how Canadian Banks were the envy of the world? Well it turns out to be maybe not so true, at least according to a ranking by The Banker magazine. No Canadian bank made it into the top 30 banks in the world in terms of capitol strength. Our friends at CIBC did however manage to make the list of banks with the worst losses, coming in at number 15.
The bank posted losses of C$1.46-billion and C$1.1-billion in the first two quarters of 2008 alone as CIBC took the brunt of the U.S. credit crunch.
The bank did come in 71st in the overall rankings, down two spots from last year.
Still, CIBC’s losses pale in comparison with the mammoth US$59.3-billion shortfall suffered by the Royal Bank of Scotland that landed it the dubious honour of top spot on the list.
Rounding out the top three is a pair of American banks, with Citigroup down US$53-billion and Wells Fargo & Co. close behind at US$47.8-billion.
Well, you know what they say: Flaherty will get you nowhere.
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Regular readers will recognize the name Paul Boenisch as the North Vancouver realtor who provided daily market stats on his blog. As many of you know, Paul and his family moved to to the other coast recently, and he now has a new blog focusing on the Prince Edward Island real estate market.
It’s an interesting contrast to our market- check out the average sales price chart he’s posted that covers the last four years. They started 2006 with an average residential sales price of $120k, and peaked just above $160k.
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Little posted a link to this Province newspaper story over the weekend. Subcontractors at the Vancouver Olympic Village are accused of taking shortcuts in its construction, including not insulating all in wall pipes. This brings a risk of mould problems 3 or 4 years down the road:
During the meeting, Loftus says, Jasper was shown photos of the uninsulated pipes in various buildings on the site and said he would get back to the insulators union, but Loftus said he’s still waiting. A second visit to the site weeks after the meeting found the drywall still in place with the pipes now hidden behind it.
“I don’t think they can fix it on time,” Loftus said. “They would have to take the walls down, inspect all the piping and then do it right. It would certainly be cheaper to do it now rather than later, but I’m guessing it would cost millions.
“And if they found mould, it would be even worse.”
Ballem said she wasn’t told about any specific problems with the construction of the Olympic Village, only that a union had some concerns about quality control.
“This is the first I’ve heard of this,” Ballem said when contacted by The Province. “If the concerns are true — and I have no evidence of whether they are or not — and they not being paid attention to, that’s a concern for the city.”
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Juraj sent in this link to a suprisingly negative travel review of Vancouver by a Frommers travel guide writer. I’m just going to quote the whole paragraph so that no one can accuse me of taking parts out of context and making it appear worse than it is:
Vancouver. “Blandcouver” looks great on TV, where it often masquerades as other, more interesting cities. This Canadian metropolis is indeed like many other places, just duller. I actually heard a Vancouverite call their city “diverse” and “cosmopolitan” when what they mean is “we have some Chinese people as well as the Anglo-Canadians.” Anyone who thinks Vancouver is cosmopolitan has never been south or east of Portland. Most of Vancouver’s other attributes, meanwhile, are seen in better form in either Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco. Spend your time in Victoria instead, or Whistler, or, heck, Nanaimo. If you insist upon going, try our much more enthusiastic destination guide.
So what do you Vancouverites think? A nice place to live, but not visit - or is this just bitter grapes from a jealous non-Vancouverite? With our extremely high cost of living there has to be some reason people choose to live here, what’s yours?
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Pani sent in the link to this article at the Wall Street Journal blogs about a recent study claiming that not only are renters happier than owners, they’re also less fat.
The average homeowner, however, consistently derives more pain (but no more joy) from their house and home,” writes Grace Wong Bucchianeri, an assistant professor at Wharton.
The report says that homeowners spend, on average, less time on leisure than those who don’t own homes. And the average homeowner is around 12 pounds heavier that those who rent.
The basis for the research comes from a survey of women in Franklin County, Ohio, which includes Columbus, the state capitol and Ohio’s largest city. And, interestingly, the research took place in 2005–so the recent drop-off in home prices wasn’t an issue.
The study controls for factors including household income, housing quality and health to draw it’s conclusion. The full paper is available as a PDF on the Wharton School of Business website.
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From the boom/bust irony department: It appears that the slow down in hectic condo construction means less money to fund the leaky condo repair loan program from the Homeowner Protection Office. It’s apparently gotten so bad that the HPO is no longer funding leaky condo repair loans.
…Soloshy added that some residents are having extra problems because the HPO has not officially turned them down, but instead is keeping their applications in limbo.
She said this makes it difficult to re-approach other lenders, who will generally consider helping only after someone has been officially turned down by the HPO.
“I had a lot of difficulty proving to the military that HPO wasn’t returning my calls,” Barnes said of getting his military distress loan.
“All I needed was something saying they had run out of funding,” he said. “They wouldn’t even get back to me regarding that.”
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Here’s a fascinating bit of info for those of you that have been surprised by the spring bounce in the Vancouver real estate market. The Province is reporting that house prices in Vancouver have jumped an astounding 16% since last May!
..Or at least their headline is. Those that read the article may be dissapointed by the actual number:
The average house price for the city and surrounding area was $583,674, down 6.6 per cent from a year earlier.
Nationally, the housing market continued to rebound in May with a fourth consecutive increase in monthly sales, the association said. The Ottawa-based group said the average sale price of a home sold through the multiple listing service reached a record of $319,757.
That’s up 0.4 per cent from May 2008, when the previous record was set. The association said the market is now returning to what it called “pre-recession levels” of activity.
It’s a very bouncy spring bounce indeed.
Hat-tip to Beau for finding this gem.
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