It is without doubts that our local economy is affected by the US. It has to be. They are our neighbour and our largest trading partner. As you mentioned in your article "Eighty-five percent of Canadian exports are destined for the US and about fifty-nine percent of its imports come from the US", so that's quite an influence. I am not as familiar with the situation in Vancouver as you are, but here in Toronto neighbourhoods it looks probably similar. Some brokers used predatory lending to sell to people thet were not good candiates for mortgages, appraisals were over inflated to close on home, and resale values fell. Easy.

“The outlook for the economy has worsened in recent months, and the downside risks to growth have increased,” Bernanke told the committee. “To date, the largest economic effects of the financial turmoil appear to have been on the housing market, which, as you know, has deteriorated significantly over the past two years or so.” Bernanke also said that the “virtual shutdown” of the market for subprime mortgages — given to people with blemished credit histories or low incomes — and a reluctance by skittish lenders to make “jumbo” home loans exceeding $417,000 have aggravated problems in the housing market. I'm sure that lenders don't have a problem lending large amounts to people that can pay it back. I suspect they just don't want to give jumbo loans to deeply in debt people earning $35k a year so they can buy… Read more »

Forgot the link to the full story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23164148/

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the country’s economic outlook has deteriorated and signaled that the central bank is ready to keep on lowering a key interest rate — as needed — to shore things up.

If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

Some better RE value perhaps?

http://www.ushomeauction.com/auction-registration…

Ohh Krissh, how clever of you to post as an anonymous poster.

Tony,Btk,Scullboy, you guys are annoying dog barking if you don't get it read the brand new post from the pope.You guys should post your opinion on related topics do not make this thread boring. "Anyone here reading from NJ or NY"?-Tony "Why do you ask"?-Scullboy "Krissh1, you have never responded to anything".-Bdk krrish1 2008-02-07 18:14:03 but we have our own Canadian cities- we are not American cities those are victim of Natural Disaster,Threats,Subprime Mess,Gambling Addiction,and Field Wars. No, since the wisemens are coming to know that they are drinking recycling water from glycol recovery shhhs those are running to buy in Vancouver B.C. California stink with smell of marlboro and industrial gases now it’s right time for them to buy here. bdk?Hello? and also check the link from MS kids on the fresh post,you guys refuse to believe,reject the truth… Read more »

Krissh1, you have never responded to anything. You have written a bunch of borderline retarded regurgitated sales pitches with the occasional rap and incoherent tales about "wisemans". Imagine going into a Hyundai Dealership and the car salesman telling you that the Hyundai was as good as a Porsche, would you repeat this as truth? Would you then pay the same price for a Hyundai as a Porsce and start rambling incoherently on blogs about your "Porsche like" car? So why would you, or the otehr troll on here, believe Vancouver is anywhere near the same league as New York? Because a realtor told you? Has it occurred to you that realtors make commission off of sales? What is it you do that makes you think you know anything? You've never said anything that indicates you're more than 12 years old.… Read more »

Canadians getting less upbeat on economy

http://tinyurl.com/34fxx5

Anatomy Of An Intentional U.S. Foreclosure

(there is a video on the left hand side you can watch)

http://tinyurl.com/2xcewv

Ouch! I remember a couple of years ago reading about the San Diego boom – it sounded like they were using all the hype excuses about why prices would never go down that you hear around Vancouver. Is it different here?

The U.S. foreclosure crisis is worsening and the number of foreclosures will become even higher over the next few years amidst growing economic uncertainty. Housing Predictor extends its foreclosure forecast into 2011 nearly doubling its original prediction.

http://tinyurl.com/22wcwb

Heads up!

cash is king!

http://tinyurl.com/2gj32h

Based on the interpretations and implications

from this chart, after the Aug/07 credit crisis

the US Fed opted to protect the dollar and

let hard assets deflate.

They basically flipped the bird to the big banks

and started draining liquidity from the system.

The way they are handling the systemic risk is

to remove the punch bowl and drain the swimming pool.

Cash is king, hard assets (incl RE) are deflationary toast.

Leveraged RE bulls just took one in the shorts!

Sunshine and blueskies this AM with a touch of fog.

also posted this on chipmans site:

Mom, Dad, where's my condo? ;p

I'm sure there aren't THAT many people in that situation. I have a friend whose parents are in their fifties. Their mortgage (on a house in Surrey) is $400k. They tried to sell last year for $800k. It didn't go, despite being on the market for almost a year. Their rational for having such a big mortgage? "It cost us $400k to build, we'll be able to sell for at least $600k." Hope to God I'm not 50 years old with such a huge mortgage!

Jesse, condos don’t increase productivity, but they do increase use of land.

Semantics. The land is more productive. For some interesting glimpse of what the future may bring, google "contour crafter". This thing essentially "prints" a house with concrete, much like a bubble jet printer prints on paper. In theory, it could build a floor a day, at a far lower price. To date, construction technology has improved, but the inflation adjusted cost per square foot has not gone down. If that changes, the whole equation will be altered.

But the stock price of Nortel is still 1/10 of what it was at it’s peak?

Try 1/100.

here's how it is done!

just ask satv/k

http://tinyurl.com/yvgyfr

They don't like to tell you, but we see kids come in who are in their early 30s with a nice home and no mortgage,

Gah, nice to see a story that focuses on that. I'm not suprised that 30% of the US buyers from the last two years are underwater though. When prices drop here we're going to see the same thing. I remember a few front page articles here in the early nineties about people who were underwater on their mortgages. Just wait till we come off the peak of this boom!

Jesse, condos don't increase productivity, but they do increase use of land. To me the condo boom kind of puts to bed the notion that we're running out of land. I've seen the land of two single family homes turned into 64 'dwelling units', even if those houses had basement and atic suites thats still a more than 10x increase in the number of homes on that land.

Holy crap. Here's an interesting stat from the US – 30% of people who bought in the last 2 years are underwater.

http://tinyurl.com/38pect