Another BC condo project stalls
Yet another BC condominium project has entered recievership, but this one isn’t in the lower mainland. The Willows in Lake Country, Okanagan has left about 78 pre-sales buyers waiting to find out what’s going to happen with this condo project thats currently near 75% complete. The developer in this case is Victoria based Divergent Environments and the receiver is BDO Dunwoody.
This year hasn’t started off with the greatest track record when it comes to pre-sales. Problems at the Willows makes at least five BC housing projects that have failed in the last few months. The Eden group canceled two projects in November and then saw the Sophia go into receivership last month. February also saw two Chandler Development projects, H+H Yaletown and Garden City in Richmond go into receivership and on Friday we got news that construction has been halted on the Abbotsford condo tower Brio.
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March 11th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
March 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
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
March 11th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
How did it all come to this?
“That’s your misfortune”. And mine. Sorry scullboy to foist Rhett Butler onto you, but then you’re the resident English Prof.
I have long since given up hopes of buying a property. Remember, the rich gets richer. I believe that they have made Vancouver RE truly unaffordable. This is something, with time, more people will accept. The only real challenge left now is to predict the direction of the market.
And DaMann, I can relate to your story. I couldn’t even afford that $230K property in 2004. Don’t feel too bad towards your ‘friend’, I’ve been told the same (many times). Those “fundamentals” exist only in classrooms. This is the real world of Canada. And yes, the US is not Canada. Don’t believe? Here are real Numbers for Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, and Winnipeg:
Calgary housing prices
Don’t look like a quick rush for the exits anytime soon.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I found something all of us can afford!!! This is it everyone!!! V686341 Check it out.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:42 am
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.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:24 am
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.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:00 am
AMEN! The rich do NOT get richer pay laying out a lot of cash. My dad is in the top… ooooo maybe 0.5% of earners in this country. The man’s got piles of money and life the rest of his family, by and large he’s *CHEAP*. I mean mind bogglingly cheap! I was talking to him the other day, and he mentioned he wanted to visit Vancouver for a week. He pretty much invited himself to stay at my place.
“Uhhhhh, Dad” I said “I don’t think you understand how I’m living out here. I”m with someone now, and we’re splitting a 400 square foot apartment. There really isn’t any room”
“Oh don’t worry, I’ll just sleep on the floor.” (!!!!!!)
“Uh, Dad, I don’t have that much floor space available”.
Seriously.
The rich don’t get rich or stay rich buy purchasing overpriced assets. They find things that are expensive yet undervalued,and buy those up. I would think after it’s all said and done, there will be bargains in places like London and New York for instance.
My folks got into art a while back and made some purchases they felt were valuable. Sure enough the value of those particular artists skyrocketed and now they’re sitting on assets worth double what they paid a while back.
No, me dear evergreen, it isn’t the rich who made this place unaffordable. It’s the ordinary people who stampeded in, propelled by a mixture of greed and fear.
And yes, it’s my misfortune that I must wait. I chose to come out here, so I have to live with the consequences. Still, having come from a place where the real estate is pricey but within reach, and having been born in a party of the country where real estate is seriously undervalued, I’m a bit stunned by Vancouver.
You know which part of the country is being bough up by wealthy foreigners? Atlantic Canada. Nobody reports on this but Europeans have been snapping up that part of the country. You can get a house on the ocean there for 100K. It’s changing the nature of Nova Scotia. Building signs are in English French and German!
If I were to choose real estate to purchase as an investment, it would be there. Outstanding infrastructure, good neighborhoods, quiet place…. in 20 years it will be the place to be. And if you’re “investing”, it seems like the way to go…
March 12th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Friends just sold their overpriced house in the burbs and are heading back to Halifax. They will be buying a beautiful house cash and buying a boat. As well throwing a few hundred K in the bank. With price differences that big it just makes no sense. I don’t care how beautiful Vancouver is, Halifax is no slouch. Hmmm no mortgage, boat and a wad of cash in the bank all for the price of a crummy house in the burbs over here ( that still had a mortgage).
March 12th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I’m starting to think the same thing. Anywhere is “the best place on earth” if you have the money to enjoy it. I could buy a really nice home in a really nice part of town. Because so many people left for the West, they’re dying for talented people. It’s looking pretty tempting. Then again, so is Miami. Hell at this point NYC is looking pretty good, it’s expensive but at least you can make money there!
I was hanging out at a friend’s place in Burnaby by Renfew yesterday trying to cheer myself up. Honestly, I’m not sure where all the hype in Van comes from. Except for Yaletown, Coal Harbour and the West End, the city’s kind of shabby. I’m not exactly sure where the whole “livabaility” thing coems from….
March 12th, 2008 at 10:02 am
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 some longterm work lined up before you go. There are many, many over-educated, underemployed people in Halifax. There are lots of jobs, but nothing good unless you have certain highly demanded skills. Think about your career before you move there, particularly if you believe we are about to have a worldwide recession.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am
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.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Obviously, the rich are,nt rich because they’re stupid.
Unfortunately, such simple logic appears to be far beyond the reach of some of the mental midgets on realestatetalks and Chipmans blog.
That “rich foreigners” shit is getting ever more difficult to cope with.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
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 to get on the bus or be left behind?
March 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
March 12th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Thanks for pointing out the employment realities of Halifax. Obviously there is a reason RE is cheaper there. Having said that. If you have no mortgage and a wad of cash in the bank does it really matter?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for the head’s up. I was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia…. went to Jr. high with Ashley MacIsaac and senior high with Julian from the Trailor Park Boys. Seriously.
I know about the pitfalls of life in NS but may because to get around it. My family still own a couple of oil companies there, which means both a source of employment, and free home heating as a benefit :).
You don’t really get anywhere unless you’re related to the right person, vote for the right person or sleep with the right person…. and sometimes (brrrrr!) all three…
That being said there are pockets of work to be had that are fairly reliable and the cost of living is sooooo much cheaper out there, it certainly makes a move worth considering.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
This is how hard it is for me and I am relatively privileged given that I did well in school, I have a decent job, and I’m good at saving money. I can only imagine how hopeless it is for people less fortunate than me.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
But, I just can’t help thinking about who would be buying those multi-million dollar homes everyday for weeks that I see on Paul’s numbers? I don’t think they are the wannabees and poseurs (maybe, some who have pooled their resources). And, maybe, like your family scullboy, (regarding buying those works of art) they don’t see the property to be under-or over-valued, just valuable, or even just what they fancy. Money is a non issue to them and they don’t buy for the express purpose of making money. But, it’s no coincidence they buy into assets that at worse will protect their money.
Maybe, if you can shed light on these buyers, I’ll have a better insight into what’s driving this market.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:35 am
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…
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
My money is in trust so we wil see what happens. Where is sympathy in the dictionary?