Brand new bullet proof pants.
After a number of the things that are meant to protect the Vancouver real estate market from ever going down turned out to be not so effective in some big US markets I’ve been a touch worried about our local market. What if it’s not different this time? What if rich foreigners, drug dealers and wealthy boomers were to one day just not show up to buy at ever increasing prices?
Well my worry is gone today after good news from the Globe and Mail: Wealthy athletes want your condo!
Ross Rebagliati may be known as the first snowboarder to win Olympic gold, but his real estate investments have put him at the top of his game.
Mr. Rebagliati made his first purchase at 20, when he bought a Whistler, B.C., home for $200,000, using racing prize money as a small down payment. He later sold the property for $385,000 and that’s when, he says, a “light bulb went off.” He realized that real estate could be more lucrative than the $50,000 a year he was making as a professional snowboarder.
Why do I know this is a good sign for our own local market? Because “as an athlete, failure is not an option.”
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October 30th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
WTF? Tell that to the 29 teams that don’t win the Stanley Cup every year.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
As long as Canadian dollar is good to park currency, we will not see a lot of investor leave the market.
Athletes, they are just a spice into the whole setup..
October 30th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
October 30th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
RTFA. That was quoted from the article. Unless the article was being sarcastic?
“As long as Canadian dollar is good to park currency, we will not see a lot of investor leave the market.”
BC Realtors’ Association did a study trying to determine the amount of foreign investment in Vancouver. They figured that by far most of the investors have some physical attachment to Vancouver. That is, they have reason to keep money in CAD currency.
I don’t buy the currency argument: it works both ways. RE in US is cheap with exchange rate so I should buy in the US. Or, Canadian dollar is appreciating so let’s wait to sell until it appreciates more. Who knows which one dominates.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
RE in US is cheap with exchange rate so I should buy in the US, but first lets see if they are going to go lower… but meanwhile.. well apparently Canadian dollar is doing good, so lets wait for a while , till the situation starts to reverse.
If this is correct, we may see first significant downward trend in Vancouver RE next winter..
some of them may chicken early and get off the RE sooner..
I was in Burnaby this weekend and I could not believe myself how many houses had “for sale” sign erected.. almost every third. I wonder is this the situation in the other parts of greater Vancouver or I have hit particularly bad area…
October 30th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
That of Amsterdam was bought for 4600 florins, a new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete set of harness. Munting, an industrious author of that day, who wrote a folio volume of one thousand pages upon the tulipomania, has preserved the following list of the various articles, and their value, which were delivered for one single root of the rare species called the Viceroy:
Two lasts of wheat 448 florins
Four lasts of rye 558
Four fat oxen 480
Eight fat swine 240
Twelve fat sheep 120
Two Hogsheads of wine 70
Four tuns of beer 3
Two tuns of butter 192
One thousand lbs. of cheese 120
A complete bed 100
A suit of clothes 80
A silver drinking-cup 60
I wonder how many condos it would have cost for a Tulip?
October 30th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
October 30th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
October 30th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I sold one while stoned out of my gourd on PEY-O-TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
It was really cool.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
So all the players/athletes are showing an excellent team work.They can buy their own stanely cups if they want to.
The message is loud and clear that we can not take our current status for guranteed.Specially age is a main factor,I am worried about people who are over 35 and did not buy anything yet,because around 40 its very hard to take a mortgage decision.
Any body before 35 year of age if they can afford monthly mortgage payments should proceed without any fear.
Anyway little bit off the topic: countinue from last page here is little update smile for all the “bears” and “bulls”
Had Enough said…
sadly that will never happend -yeah- hon -hon.OK here we got a smile for all.
GST cut one percentage point to 5%, effective Jan. 1, 2008
Personal income tax cut retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007, cutting lowest marginal tax rate to 15 per cent from 15.5%
Jump in basic personal exemption to $9,600, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007, increasing to $10,100 in 2009
$10 billion in federal debt paydown
One percentage point cut in corporate tax to 19.5% in 2008
Reduction in corporate tax rate to 15 per cent by 2012
Small business income tax reduced to 11% by 2008
Total tax cuts of $60 billion over 5 years.
5%GST in the making part-2
October 30th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Well last I heard, Alberta used the C$ and prices are now tanking. And they have oil too, which has gone up a lot lately, in case you haven’t noticed.
And I think anyone with a teensy weensy bit of economic savvy will tell you that a rising C$ is bad for the BC economy. Oh, sorry I forgot that BC RE doesn’t depend on the local economy because RE is the economy.
The rationalizations never end.
October 31st, 2007 at 5:37 am
Define “afford”. Our payments as percentage of income lead the continent. 44% DSR is nothing to sneeze at. Especially in a low inflation environment. Whatever pain mortgage payments cause they better get used to it, because real payments will shrink at a glacial pace.
And second, define “fear”. What if the “fear” is overpaying for a house by $200K? Surely most people would care about losing such a sum?
October 31st, 2007 at 6:24 am
http://tinyurl.com/25jr2z
http://tinyurl.com/2g8apc
October 31st, 2007 at 7:27 am
The first article is laughable. Obviously this “real estate professional” has no idea of what fundamentals are, or affordability. Yes, I think its true to a certain extent that Vancouver has always been a relatively expensive place to live, compared to Toronto and other major Canadian cities, but nothing justifies current prices.
The second article sounds like the blame game more than anything. Why are renters to blame? They are paying market rates. Landlord-bashing doesn’t drive investors from the rental market, rental yield does. As a landlord and a tenant, I think the RTA is pretty balanced. Its been there for years, with some modifications by the Liberal government. Obviously the regulations should be reviewed by anyone wanting to be a landlord (or tenant).
October 31st, 2007 at 7:41 am
I assume Thumbs up is the latest incarnation of SATV.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:45 am
Onni/Amacon has a land holding at Pacific Blvd and Seymour St.
At one point a tower was advertised but now is being converted into a park and community garden……
awwww they are such nice people!
a little change of plans maybe?
do they see something?
October 31st, 2007 at 7:49 am
A developer might sit on land, but I don’t think they’d build a park unless they were obligated to by the city as a condition of other development (which is very common).
October 31st, 2007 at 8:21 am
“Landlord-bashing does nothing but drive investors from the rental market.”
All RIGHT, let’s get to some serious landlord bashing!
Finally someone tells us what we have to do to pop the bubble!
October 31st, 2007 at 8:26 am
Oh, but they are. The owners just don’t realize it yet.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:36 am
I did RTFA, it could have been the bong hit clouding my perception but I swear the author of the article was being sarcastic with that comment. Could you imagine being the reporter assigned to write that story? Burnt out bong smoking snowboarders becoming real estate tycoons, grade 8 dropout pro hockey players investing in massive RE developments? This is one of the most sarcastic articles I have read in a long time, intended or not.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:03 am
Who, in the real world, can afford to live here now?
October 31st, 2007 at 11:43 am
Just wondering if those homes are empty?
Freako,
Life is not just buying or renting a house,there are lots of other duties and responisibilities.So better if things can take place in life on schdule time.
School/college/university/job/marriage/kids and socail participation.no body can replace those with one and onother
So if some one can manage monthly payments on any unit just get away with it and enter into next step.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:45 am
tony, you might be right. If it is, that is one of the best deadpans I have seen in quite a while.
Maybe it’s me: I stopped watching O’Reilly in favour of Colbert because Colbert aligns better with my values.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:26 pm
In terms of local incomes, yes, because Toronto has (and I think has had for some time) higher incomes.
But in dollar terms for both rent and house prices, no. Vancouver and Toronto have historically been neck and neck, making allowance for the out-of-phase RE cycles in the two cities (e.g. Toronto bust in early 90’s, Vancouver bust in early 80’s).
Rents are still about the same, but Vancouver prices are now 70% above Toronto, which I doubt was even matched in 1981.
Bubble? What bubble?
October 31st, 2007 at 12:42 pm
October 31st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
The author of the original article certainly didn’t come off a expecting that they should live in a penthouse.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
We’re also worrying about making the rent. More than half of people polled say paying the landlord or making the monthly mortgage causes great stress
The study found that as a result of stress, 54 percent of people have fought with loved ones, and 8 percent say stress has led to separation or divorce.
Personally I find the Re pimps morally reprehensible, but I guess until this province goes into a deep recession, and the construction trades hit 30% unemployment, as with the last bust, I will be in the minority.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:02 pm
The functional website is http://www.ledistrict.ca, I think.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
October 31st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
You misunderstood my posts. I most definitely do not wish for an economic shock.
I agree, with you, the bubble can pop without an economic shock.
Bubbles usually pop, when everything looks just fine.
In fact the bursting of the bubble may cause the economy to crash, which is my point.
What will happen to our local economy when RE is no longer a driver, either because it has crashed, and nobody wants to buy, and people are thrown out of work.
Or conversely, it gets so expensive,and sales drops so low RE is no longer an economic driver?
And don’t buy into the farce that the foreign rich investors will keep the market afloat; the foreign rich investors don’t buy leaky condos in working class neighbourhoods.
As for the botched bailout…too late, the Fed had just lowered the discount rate again.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Persons amygdala is responsible for generating negative emotion such anger,stress,fear and disgust.
working on non emotional mental tasks inhibits the amygdala,which is why keeping yourself busy can take your mind off feeling.
for the purpose he said do things on right time and enter into next step.that can reduce the stress level otherwise running out of time can disturb the tectonic plates on forehead of brain thats how we get can stress.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:51 pm
October 31st, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Yes it’s over priced but this little section of Vancouver of 10 sq blocks or so is not indicative of anything imo. Every city has its most desireable neighborhood that everyone dreams about living in. Kits point is that place. The rest of the city is hallucinating if they think there is anything near as nice, all way overpriced imo.
BUY gold its going to $1600.00
November 1st, 2007 at 11:27 am
Would you please stop changing names every few days SATV?
It’s incredibly obvious by your terrible grammar and misuse of words who you are, it’s just silly for you to change nicknames so often.