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friday free for all!

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This is your open-topic for the weekend. I normally post this in the morning, but I was busy saving the world, hence the delay.

Some things I’ve noticed:
-Our Property taxes are going up to pay for a bigger translink.
-Denver Colorado lost four years of price gains in the last year.
-US housing continues to tank, D.R.Horton CEO says 07 will suck.
-Subprime lender New Century Financial halts all loan applications.
-People still lining up for condos in Vancouver, price spike in Nov.

What are you seeing around you on the housing front today? Share your links, anectdotes, news and opinions here!

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the pope

Hey can we at least try to be a bit more civilized? I don't really want to have to go through and start deleting comments, but I think its time to wrap this one up.

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Freako

cowards You stole my insult from this very thread. Can't you be at least a little original.

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ReductiMat

Cowards? I suppose you are a master logician then, correct?

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Jim

cowards

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Freako

"We owe a higher standard of care with those who are not anonymous. "I think are required to have a higher standard of scrutiny of those who have direct and vested commercial interests in what they provide opinions on. Do you think it is by accident that this and other blogs got put into the "Bear Blog" category, and the RE Blog's lead to RE industry sales fluff blogs. Rob is in it for the money, he has said as much. Ask him, he'll tell you.

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ReductiMat

Critiquing an anonymous blogger is fineThree words in that sentence aren't required.Can you guess which ones?

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Jim

The listings are materializing on the westside. Yes there are sales as well, and inventory is steady. Critiquing individuals (like Rob) is a mark low self esteem. It's why I took a hiatus from this blog. Critiquing an anonymous blogger is fine. We owe a higher standard of care with those who are not anonymous. Or say nothing.

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mold

Americans who have been victimized Gosh yes! Everybody's a victim these days – How about legislating a very basic understanding of math instead of throwing tax money at the companies that have 'victimized' home-buyers.Give me a f###ing break!

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dingus

How about a bill sponsoring free ice cream while you're at it?For distressed owners it'll merely forestall the inevitable. If they can't afford the payments, they can't afford the payments. Foreclose now, or foreclose 6 months from now. Whatever. But it's taxpayer money that'll go straight to the lenders that have been doing the "victimizing". Worse, consider that the incidence of mortgage fraud (ie foreclosures with 0 payments made) appears at an all time high, and, gee, do fraudsters now get a break? Beautiful piece of legislation. Just beautiful. It's people like Dodd what cause unrest.

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Freako

Speaking of Marketwatch, this quote from the article about record foreclosures made me hurl."A top lawmaker hinted at some kind of bailout for borrowers, which would also leave the lenders and investors better off. "The federal government has a dual obligation both to protect consumers from abusive lending practices going forward and to work to ensure that Americans who have been victimized by abusive products and practices are able to keep their homes and with them, their piece of the American dream," Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said in a statement. "Here is the key part again, in case you for some extra nausea:"Americans who have been victimized by abusive products and practices are able to keep their homes and with them, their piece of the American dream"

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Freako

"Gee-whiz! I go away for a few days and this turns into the bitch-about-rob forum.."Rob who?

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Van Housing Blogger

top 7 most read stories at marketwatch.com today are about housing.Boy, good thing Vancouver isn't in the US, eh?

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the pope

Gee-whiz! I go away for a few days and this turns into the bitch-about-rob forum.. Although I can understand some of your frustrations with him, I'm not sure what you expect when you visit his site.. The fact that he puts the time into sharing the numbers AND accepts that prices can and do go down is a fairly bold thing for a realtor to do.. I don't follow his argument that it's always a good time to buy, but hey, he is trying to sell stuff.Reductimat: thanks for the census link – I wonder how many of the people coming to Vancouver are here to buy one of our wonderful new condominium pre-sales?I just got got the spreadsheet treasure-trove from VHB. I hope to post some updates on his info as soon as I have some spare time.

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chip

JimWhere do you see listings rising? In the areas I track — North Van, Coal Harbour and DT — inventory is low and falling.

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Warren

Some 2006 census numbers are out on population growth. Good post, thanks for the links.Some observations:1. From those figures its certainly easy to say we are "running out of land". Heh.2. You'd have to dig into the details of the full report, but my gut tells me that there has been significant growth outside of what StatsCan considers Vancouver's CMA (as compared to other CMAs), in part due to the high prices. We have had a good economy in those years (2001-2006), but newcomers probably balk at the prices in Vancouver or close by. Just a thought.

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ReductiMat

Some 2006 census numbers are out on population growth. Over the radio on News 1130, the report sounded quite bullish. The blurb on their site however was quite subdued (comparitavely speaking).The numbers shows a somewhat different story. Vancouver had less than half the growth of Calgary, about 60% the growth of Edmonton and about 70% the growth of Toronto. Finally, they failed to mention that BC's growth was ever so slightly below the national average.Finally, I found this comment interesting:Though the province experienced net losses in its migration exchanges with the rest of the country, especially other parts of British Columbia, Vancouver is the destination of many international immigrants.

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Jim

Listings are exploding. The most I have seen in 1 day since 2002.

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TheVanMan

Folks, Don't spend too much of your energy debating the finer points of the possible housing crash to a bunch of jubilant RE sales people. You just can't win.. Just sit back and relax.. Just look at Garth Turner, a post dot.com bomb mutual fund pumper and Millennium TV host and creator turned cranky politician. In his past books, he said he will never become what he is today. Yeah right. When the money ran dry for him in the dot.com world, he had to do what he did best – B*llshit on a different front. The reason I mentioned Mr. Turner so often because he behaved exactly like Rob Chipman, except that he defended Nortel like it was a scared corporation without a fault. Several people who attempted to put him down, me included, in his forum were stomped… Read more »

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Freako

"The classic RE bust during good times was Florida in 1926."And I believe Florida RE fared relatively well during the Depression because they already took their medicine.History is littered with valuable learning opportunities. Too bad extrapolation only focuses on the past 5 years."And I think the current subprime bust and its media coverage (NYT, etc) are going to be the tipping point for the RE bubble, worldwide. "Other factors that will get press soon are:1. The present and upcoming layoffs in the construction industry completions occur.2. 1. The present and upcoming layoffs in the mortgage/finance/RE/home inspection etc etc industries. For example, Orange County is about to feel some heat because it served as a service hub to the regions real estate speculation.3. The foreclosure time bomb. We are talking exponential growth with a lag. It takes something like 8 months… Read more »

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Freako

Good take on it, aetakeo. The trend you noticed is definitely occurring. The balancing act of applealing to buyers AND sellers is difficult, and requires some creative thinking and allowance for logical inconsistencies. I have always hammered away at Rob's posting of these gems (nothing personal). In the end, he "resolved" everything by concluding that I was not interested in making money. I presume that invalidates my counterarguments in his mind. Yeah the rising snark-o meter is a good thing. I have no beef with overt hostility. And yes, the walls are closing. And that REALLY is all I have to say about that.

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duck

And I think the current subprime bust and its media coverage (NYT, etc) are going to be the tipping point for the RE bubble, worldwide.It's beyond subprime; it's rapidly becoming pervasive.

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duck

He's afraid.Maybe. Some of the posts (including mine under my previous user-id) were pretty strong on "conscience". I think these kinds of posts resonate in the minds of certain groups of people.

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patriotz

First time that I know of a housing slump during an economic expansionThe classic RE bust during good times was Florida in 1926. And as I already mentioned, the 1981 Vancouver bust began a year before the recession.It doesn't matter how good times are. If there is a physical oversupply of housing relative to the number of people who have the desire and means to buy it, prices have to come down. Period.And I think the current subprime bust and its media coverage (NYT, etc) are going to be the tipping point for the RE bubble, worldwide. The crew is heading for the lifeboats while the band is still playing. But a lot of passengers are going to go down with the ship.

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aetakeo

With Chipman, I think there's a problem that goes beyond doing his job: I mean, yes, it's his living, but he's also waxed eloquently about his customers in a way that makes me think he may, in fact, care about them. If he exposed people he likes to undue risk after he was convinced of the bear argument, that would be not a very nice guy thing to do. I think he got snarky when he finally saw that the bear argument is built to carry water. And he's getting snarkier as things unravel down South. He might be right that a good investment from 4 years ago is still a good investment. There's got to be something niggling him that that house he'll sell tommorrow might be financial ruin for the middle income, middle aged couple who hopes to… Read more »

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betamax

Nope, couldn’t find a good word to sum up, ‘overeducated, unintelligent, arrogant’ responses.'No need to apologize for your shortcomings, but I appreciate the gesture. Cheers.

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