I am one of the people that bought in the willows. They said the finish date would be April 2007. Burt Chapman is the biggest sack of monkey sh!t the world has ever produced. He is one of those smiling realtors, I have learned a lot of this experience. Lesson number one, realtors (though not all) are worse than lawyers. Lesson number two, the guy with the biggest smile in the room has his c0ck in your @$$.

My money is in trust so we wil see what happens. Where is sympathy in the dictionary?

http://tinyurl.com/23q7ju

Here is the receiver report on the Sophia project. Makes for very good reading. Tonnes of insight into Vancouver real estate with complete frankness. I enjoyed reading it.

The points that I picked up out of it was that the Eden developer was inexperienced and got a bit panicky during the marketing stage and sold a lot of the units at a discount, and that as usual the best units went to his friends, and the consultants working on the project.

This whole pre-sale thing is so corrupt. The architects, consultants and others get first crack at the best units.

Reminds me of my telecom boom days when the pre-ipo pricing was given to 'friends/family' and john q public had to pay the market price.

We all know how that ended…

The class divide in Vancouver is drawn along generational lines. I'm in my late twenties and I'm priced out for a studio suite, let alone anything remotely resembling a house. I have more education, work experience, and money in the bank than either of my parents did at my age but I have no chance. It's a painful, frustrating reality. Had I been born ten years earlier, my situation would be very different. Now I look at this city and see that I'll probably have to leave it if I have any hopes of being able to have a family. In Vancouver, having kids has become some sort of luxury option only available to the wealthy. This is how hard it is for me and I am relatively privileged given that I did well in school, I have a decent… Read more »

BOP – Maybe true, but the problem with bubbles (as opposed to plain old inflation) is that they *pop* leaving the last fools in taking the losses. If you're going to hop on a bus I think you probably want to keep an eye out for the *next* bubble and not hop onto the bus with all the flashing red warning lights.

The following phenomenon sucks but I believe that it is true. In his book, Shiller mentions that we have come to depend on rising asset prices to increase our standard of living. First it was two earners per family and when that couldn't cut it, we became a bubble society. If we did not have asset bubbles we would experience a declining standard of living. For those of us who have missed out on the bubbles, that is exactly what we are experiencing – as our income and savings buy less and less. This is part of the free market ideology that has dominated North America (perhaps the world) and was translated into political policy in the USA by Bush's "ownership society." If this is the economic model of today and the future, what does it mean? Do we have… Read more »

Damann, one of those people we discussed, the ones who look down on their tenants, came into our office stinking of perfume and was really rude and arrogant to the receptionist.

A few weeks later my wife and I were shopping and we ran into this same woman and she was working in a dollar store!

For some reason she wanted us peasants to think she didn't work????

Arrogance or Ignorance? I'm not too bright myself but I can't see what she's thinking looking down her nose at other people for.

No one is better than another. We're just lucky we weren't born in a country where our parents sold us into prostitution when we were 12 or a town where you are woken up in the middle of the night to see your entire family slaughtered.

There are huge parts of the Vancouver area that are worse than "kind of shabby". Spend some time in South-East Vancouver, South Burnaby or many parts of Surrey. Very ugly, depressing places and, yet, you can find million dollars houses there. We lived in Halifax from 1996-2006 and had a lot of good times. We sold our two unit house when we left despite it being possibly cash flow positive. It was an old house and needed too much work to manage from afar. Bring in manager fees and regular repairs, and it was no longer cash flow positive. A couple of things to keep in mind about Halifax. Heating costs are very high, especially for older homes, so that takes a bite into the otherwise affordable real estate. Taxes will tend to be higher than BC too. Also, have… Read more »

the rich get richer. I believe they have made Vancouver RE truly unaffordable

You couldn't be more wrong. The rich get that way by buying low and selling high. Is Li Ka-Shing buying Vancouver condos or selling them? Is he driving prices up or pushing them down?

The people buying today are the wannabees and poseurs, who are going to be the nouveau poor.

Increase in cost of new Calgary housing slows

Talk about spin. The article uses February YOY figures to give the impression that prices in Calgary are still going up. In fact they peaked summer 2007 and have fallen 10% since. Note that they report an insignificant fractional % gain from December to January to continue the deception. Prices always start falling months before YOY declines, typically around 6 months.

If you know anything at all about math you can see that the author of the article knows this and is trying to tap dance around it.

In fact Calgary seems to be shaping up for a major condo debacle, with SFH surely to follow. See Alberta Bubble for details.

"I have long since given up hopes of buying a property. Remember, the rich get richer. I believe they have made Vancouver RE truly unaffordable"

I found something all of us can afford!!! This is it everyone!!! V686341 Check it out.

If anyone is interested in the ecodensity / affordability issue there is a hearing for the rezoning of 1754-1772 Pendrell Steet.

5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Best Western Sands Hotel, Capilano Room,

1755 Davie Street

http://www.wera.bc.ca/index.php?itemid=424

They won't get sympathy from the majority of us, but the way the BoC acts or reacts rather, they'll probably get a reprieve of sorts through our tax dollars, repaying the banks/lenders for all the losses… bollocks!

Scullboy, thanks for opening up. Your post on jaybanks was humor! What gets me is how these new "real estate moguls" do the following: 1) Never account for mortgage or interest payments when reporting their profit (it's simply "I paid X and sold for X+Y) never seem to mention the time between purchase and sale where interst payments would have depleted their overall net gain, not to mention their property taxes, maintenance/strata fees and insurance premiums; 2) They never mention capital gains tax, obviously not on principle residences, see #4; 3) They don't seem to understand realized gain vs. unrealized gain, they just assume the money is theirs without a sale; 4) And last but certainly not least – those that sell their principle residences with profits only to realize that they need to live somewhere and guess what? All… Read more »

The main thing I'll take from the latest threads is not to generalize. I have no idea what my landlords financial situation is, and I don't care.

At this moment I know the rent I pay him is fair, and to buy this place would cost me twice as much a month. P/E out of whack…nothing else matters.

And for what it's worth, I work with blue-collar types that make >$100k with overtime, and I have friends with PhDs who make less than 30k a year, and doctor friends who are renters.

In Vancouver, what's more important is when you bought, not how much you make, nor your level of education.

In an rapidly appreciating market everyone is a genius, and in a depreciating market as someone else said before we'll see who is swimming naked.