Friday free-for-all
The end of the week is here again! Congratulations! You made it! Here’s your open topic post to discuss whatever’s on your mind. Here’s a few things I noticed this week:
-Vancouver police want easier access to Condo buildings
-Scotiabank: Canadian economy will slow for 3rd year in a row.
-BC government wants expats to return.
-RBC says BC housing getting more affordable.
-US subprime mess keeps getting messier.
Whats the word on the street? The nitty-gritty? Post your links, news and anectdotes here!
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March 19th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Very few I think. Remember that these are the people who grew up during the Depression and fought WWII. And indeed some are still around – I know some personally.
My sister and her husband bought a house with 5% down for $45,000 about 30-odd years ago. When she died, I thought the house was paid for and that her husband would be financially OK. Not true. Every time their mortgage came up for renewal, they upped the mortgage. They had very little additional equity after 30 years.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Again, no sh*t, some of those houses were bought in 1948.
I wonder how many of these have had big MEWs.
Very few I think. Remember that these are the people who grew up during the Depression and fought WWII. And indeed some are still around – I know some personally.
Boomers – that’s another story.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
“As a whole, parapsychologists are nice, honest people, while the critics are cynical, nasty people”
(Ray Hyman, skeptical scientist)
For ‘parapsychologist’, substitute ‘MSM-RE-commentator’.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:53 am
“freako: thanks for the analysis. “
You mean vitriol?
March 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
freako: thanks for the analysis.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:57 am
GREAT POST FREAKO!
Deserves to be spread across RE blogs & forums everywhere.
A breath of fresh air, compared to crap like “prices must be going up cause I saw tonz of traffic around an open hose”
March 19th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Still, more than 93 percent of the 32 million single-family residences’ valuations and loans in the study had positive equity
Or seven per cent or 1 in 15 homes (not mortgages!) has negative equity! Stunning. Defies belief. Whoever could have conceived of this five years ago?
Worthy of being featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not in the Sunday comics.
And how positive was the positive equity in the remaining homes … e.g., how much of a market downswing would be required to double the 7% to 14%, or higher?
Again, no sh*t, some of those houses were bought in 1948.
I wonder how many of these have had big MEWs.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:11 am
“Isn’t this the result of limited income capping what landlords can ask for rent? “
Sorry I meant squeezed downwards. Getting too myopic for my own good.
OT:
If you want something to rant about, check out this article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17686807/
“About 1.1 million additional home foreclosures are expected over the next six years as adjustable-rate mortgages”
At least. But then we get:
“”It’s less than we spend on alcohol. It’s less than we spend on the lottery and gambling,” said Christopher Cagan, director of research and analytics, and author of the report Mortgage Payment Reset, The Issue and the Impact.”
Why are we spinning so hard that you need to reach for such desperate comparatives, Mr Cagan?
“That’s what gets the attention,” Cagan said. “The traffic report reports the accidents. It doesn’t report the normal traffic.”
Give me a f*cking break Cagan. When your industry has done the equivalent of serving copious amounts of booze to rush hour motorists, no sh*t there are going to be accidents that SHOULD be reported. Unbelievable.
“The study forecasts that the defaults won’t severely hurt the economy and will account for about 0.36 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.”
Ah, what assumptions does the study make? Read on …
“The report focused on single-family residences and reviewed only the impact of loans that will reset to new rates. It also assumed that prices will stay level with those at the end of 2006.”
Ah, I see some major flaws with your little study. Are you for real? Second, realize that there are feedback loops. Falling prices will multiply defaults exponentially. To boldly go out and proclaim the subprime news spotlight as ambulance chasing when your study uses rosy assumptions is disgusting.
“The U.S. mortgage industry loans about $2 trillion each year, so the loses from foreclosures may be less than one percent of total lending, the report said.”
Misleading. One percent is the spread for prime mortages, there go your profits or the year. And that is with your cherry picked outcome.
“The percentage of loans resetting with negative equity is expected to leap from 12.9 percent in 2007 to 24.4 percent in 2008. Still, more than 93 percent of the 32 million single-family residences’ valuations and loans in the study had positive equity.”
Again, no sh*t, some of those houses were bought in 1948. I would hope they have positive equity. But what about impact at the margins, you spinning j*ckass. If lose 7% of my blood, are you going tell me that the glass is 93% full?
They gotta give this spinmeisters a harder time.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:31 am
No, let the specuvestors head for the hills.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:22 am
blueskies: Vancouver has a 50 week growing season
Some folks push that up to 52 weeks by going indoors and using the right equipment.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:14 am
freako: The one worrying thing is that rents are not being squeezed, and vacancies remain low. That is an enigma to me.
Isn’t this the result of limited income capping what landlords can ask for rent?
March 19th, 2007 at 6:09 am
After all this city is a perfect spot for money laundering, scamming, illegal trade of counterfeit goods, drug making nad selling, pornography and real-estate speculation.
Wow,
nad selling???? I guess that it is more expensive to live there than I thought. I too, would be very afraid. Thanks for the much needed levity, that is rich and I just couldn’t resist the grin that I got from that concept.
patiently waiting,
Maybe you and I both suffer from the grass is greener syndrome. Take the wife to that campy Atlantic Trap & Gill place on Davie if it still exists and have a donair:)Maybe that will help.
freako,
Dust off your gear and we will head to the hills sometime:)
March 19th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Well that is your conclusion. It is an invididual decision. Others may happily accept the tradeoff.
Well of course. I can remember when Vancouver was laid back, relatively unpolluted, reasonably free from breakins, reasonably easy to get around, and had unobtrusive street people. Oh yeah, it was affordable too.
Now if you are willing to accept the deterioration in all these factors in exchange for cultural considerations – either lifestyle or ethnic – that’s you’re choice. It’s not mine.
Eagle Crest Estates in Queensborough.
May I nominate this for the Real Estate Oxymoron Hall of Fame?
BTW I can remember when Queensborough looked virtually unchanged from the 1920’s, to the extent that they used it for movie shoots.
March 18th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
streel – Yes, I know what your name means.
I moved back to Vancouver for family/personal reasons and I do have mixed feelings now. There is no doubt about how my wife feels about this place (she brought up our old house in Halifax a few days ago).
Think long and hard before moving back from Halifax. We miss so many things from there. Even the outdoor lifestyle is more accessible in Atlantic Canada. You can drive 15 minutes from downtown Halifax to some fairly remote trails and the Ocean is there too and cheaper. And it does have many decent restaurants, perhaps more per capita than Vancouver.
Halifax reminded me of the old Vancouver I knew before it was “discovered” by the world during Expo 86. Coming back after a few years, I’m still getting over the continuing decline in the quality of live around here. And yes, I am dreading the Olympics. Aren’t we “discovered” enough?
March 18th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
If there is a big jump in inventory, why aren’t I seeing it on the MLS?
I’ve noticed new condo ads announcing 30% and 50% sold. Wow, impressive.
I’ve been watching the final phase of Eagle Crest Estates in Queensborough. 25 new townhouse listings have been on the MLS since December and NOT ONE has sold.
March 18th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
The inventory of resale homes should start to hit record highs in the next few weeks.
I would imagine MLS will get “creative” so as to not start a stampede.
It will be interesting to see how the usual suspects will deal with the new inventory coming on stream.
Will they pay actors to stand in line overnight?
Will they start selling to “holding” companies which the developers themselves own?
Will they cut the price and offer a $50,000 shopping spree?
Free interest for 3 years? 5 years?
No credit, bad credit, no problem?
If the newspaper ad sales managers are smart and want to get the lion share of the advertising, they better start writing some stories quickly. Start with how the population of Vancouver….
March 18th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
warren: $50k in debt? See my post above about sucking it up by working part time and/or living at home to save money.
What worked for you may not work for others. Living ‘at home’ doesn’t work if the parents don’t live near college/university, and for mature students it’s often not possible for various reasons.
I worked part-time the first two years of my BA, then realized that the job was keeping me from a 4.0 GPA to guarantee my choice of grad school. So I quit and relied on student loans thereafter.
It’s not as easy nor as simple as you paint it here.
March 18th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Vintage and streel, good on you sorting out your differences. I do think your viewpoints overlap quite a bit. And it is a good reminder that this here bubble is NOT victimless. People do get frustrated and tempers will flare.
Once again, I wish we had access derivates based on the GV benchmarks. A house came up that I am really interested in. I may still buy it in the end, but if derivatives were available, I’d buy it in a heartbeat and short the index for an offsetting amount.
As for the subprime, its great for getting headlines, but you’ve seen nothing yet. Price declines and foreclosures will be the new media darlings. In about 6 months, foreclosures will hit newsworthy levels, and sometime after that, VHB will have his Oprah moment. IF that pain does not resonate in Vancouver, I don’t know what will.
Oh, and I have a good suspicion that this springs inventory run up will be a dandy. I wonder how much demand there is left.
March 18th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
This subprime mortgage thing is a freight train that’s barely out of the station. It’s gonna set off the biggest US housing crash in history and will take us along for the ride.
At least we are starting to wake up to the alarm bells, whereas folks in Calgary & Edmonton still have their heads firmly stuck in that oily sand.
We’re on the brink, and this is the BIG ONE!
March 18th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
bearette,
Actually, a Bloomberg article last week suggested 1.5 million people could lose their homes, and the estimate seems to be growing, as the Globe and the Post info looks quite tame compared to Saturday headlines in US papers.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Back on real estate:
Who else notice the giant US Subprime Meltdown 1&2 page features on the front of both the Globe and National Post newspapers this Saturday? Full of doom and gloom. Hundreds of thousands losing their omes. Loans harder to get. US predictions of full recession by the end of this year. Impact on Canada: tourism, export economy, fear. The Canadian MSM is catching on….
March 18th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
disclaimer: i love Vancouver
we spent 20 years in Calgary, good $ but lots of redneck a#holes
big suburban house, long commute
currently live in YT but considering the East side SFH. Vancouver has a 50 week growing season compared to 90 days or less over the mountains
it don’t get better than that!
March 18th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
freako said:
I am with rentah on this one. I have always heard stories about a certain cities great hospitality, or in some cases rudeness. But when I travelled, I found that experiences often contradicted the stereotype. For example, not a single person was rude to me in Paris even though I never even tried to use my Grade 10 French. So what gives?
I agree. “The grass is always greener…” seems to apply to a lot of what I read on local blogs. Complaining has and will always be a favorite Vancouver pastime.
March 18th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
runaway screaming:
I graduated from a university professional program 10 years ago. Even then my average classmate had accumulated $50,000 in student loans. I don’t know when you went to school but it has become a lot more expensive in the last 20 years. Students these days may have to take jobs outside their chosen careers just so they can pay off their increasingly burdensome student loans.
Dude I graduated debt free from SFU in 2003. I worked part time during school to pay bills, tuition, and managed to live away from home. My current employer of roughly 550 people has at least 30 open positions right now. We hire BCIT grads like they are going out of style.
$50k in debt? See my post above about sucking it up by working part time and/or living at home to save money.
So, overall I do not share your boundless enthusiasm for opportunity in Vancouver. Really, Vancouver is a retirement town, a condo-flipping town and a drug town. There’s not much else going on. It’s simply too expensive to do anything else in Vancouver.
I wouldn’t say my enthusiasm is boundless, but I do try to look at the positive side of things. Retirees are limited to White Rock and Victoria. Condo flipping? That’s a continent-wide phenomenon. I do however think the drug trade is contributing to the run-up in affordability, and its very tough to calculate the overall effect.
March 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I guess as well, the fact that I am on the other side of the country allows me to be a little more objective about Vancouver. I don’t have to face the crap everyday.
March 18th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
vintage,
You cheeky bugger. Good on you. Now you are getting in to the spirit of the back & forth. I love to take as well as give:) Nice veiled olive branch with a backhand of sarcasm. Keep the chin up. This is a blog and is all in the spirit of good fun.
I think that it is very noble to feel about your kids they way you do, I truly do. I couldn’t agree more and I have spent the great percentage of my life working 8 to 5. Also I am probably not as young as you think.
Anyway, I will accept your laced apology as well. So we are all good, eh? I also treat my elders with a great deal of respect in real life, but I don’t cut them any slack when we are having a “for fun” verbal spar.
Good luck vintage, I hope the correction gives both you and I what we crave
March 18th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
streel,
No offence taken.
And please note that said that the place is crawling with assholes lately, but I didn’t really call you one, did I?.
OK, perhaps I over-reacted. I don’t think this place is really unbearable – just not as perfect for everyone as the media would like us to believe. I appreciate the fact that some people love it here, I really do.
After all this city is a perfect spot for money laundering, scamming, illegal trade of counterfeit goods, drug making nad selling, pornography and real-estate speculation.
For people who make their living working normal eight-to-five jobs and are so old fashion as to desire kids and family… well I just don’t see it the same way you do.
I don’t like how Vancouver is changing right in front of my eyes.
I am worried for the future of my kids. I know It sounds pathetic, but I really am.
And I may be elderly to you, but as the saying goes – you can tell so much about society by the way they treat they elders… and the way I see it neither you or this city have much respect for the likes of me….
Anyway, we’re just two bloggers, so it’s all good.