I can see your point. I also run a weblog and I know that irrelevant comments can sometimes be a pain in the neck. I regularly read real estate related weblogs and, yes, I often comment on interesting posts. I know that linking search terms to my website from the comments will not increase my Google ranking. I do agree that preventing Google from counting irrelevant links is a good thing. I do not intend to spam weblogs, that is why I always try to be on-topic. If you find that any of my comments are irrelevant I encourage you to delete them. I do the same when I moderate my blog. Oops, I've just realized that this comment is by far the most irrelevant one I've written in ages…

Jay

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Not very helpful.

Also, "People die but we know that they do not all die from the same causes."

Not true. We all die for the same reason, the route we take to get there varies. Likewise bubbles all die for the same reason, because they ARE. Perhaps a bit too existential for you but hey, that's not my problem.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Whatever the differences in our view and despite your perverse need to taunt others and indulge in playschool fantasy of dishing out imaginary grades, I have to admire you for your high work rate in this blog.

I have no problems with bears using a well tested model based on the simple premise of cycles of booms and busts. I subscribed to that model until lately (translation: I stopped being a bear). It defies logic and imagination that since 2004 Canada and BC can still stand tall when all around have succumbed. That’s why I believe we now need a more versatile model in order to capture more accurately what’s happening in the commodity-based Canadian economy.

Everything might crash for different reasons but because they all crash we can falsely conclude that they crashed for similar reasons (were they similar?). People die but we know that they do not all die from the same causes.

Also, a hypothetical or past example (market busts) should not be used to make a real life prediction, maybe, just to explain something. Hypothetically, a top team will beat a weaker team, but this need not happen.

So I predict a crash for 2013 instead of 2008-2012, your Doomsday scenario. Why 2013? “Well, it’s a few years after the Olympics, things will slow down and you know, a crash must happen since the others have long ago crashed but this is just the broad stroke, I’ll flesh out the details later”. Isn’t this the same fuzzy, airy-fairy Freudian logic to avoid?

I prefer to deal with hard core Numbers that are at the tip of my nose and revise my hypotheses accordingly as and when the Numbers change significantly. Isn’t this the reason why GDP reports are issued at quarterly intervals so that the authorities can tweak their monetary policy accordingly? They never make long term predictions.

If the Numbers remain roughly the same in 2-3 months, I’ll bet the present 58:42 ratio will change when some bears defect.

Anyway, everything in life is judged by their consequences. Time will tell if “your” team or the other 42% of posters called it correct. Good luck.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

It already is, the BOC keeps lowering prime but the banks refuse to lower their key lending rates. On top of that it's becoming harder and harder to qualify for 'discount' rates. I would imagine the upwards push applies to all loan types, people applying for new loans will face increasingly higher rates or may be bumped beyond a 'bankable' category of risk entirely.

Especially in the case of condos, in Miami many of the major banks have blacklisted certain developments, they will not give a mortgage to anyone buying in those developments period.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

The words are there but the underlying issues are lacking.

Remember when I said he had the broad strokes but didn't go into the finer details? That's where you run into trouble.

His logic was based on an assumption that Vancouver would perform similarly to other North American and world cities which have been in the same bubble with us. Your argument is just a re-hashing of the typical bull, "we're different" rhetoric. I'll give you 50 points for style but minus several thousand for good thinking.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

bears “Do you have any data or evidence to back you up?”

Great, a master template exists! I’ll use the scenario that Anonymous mused over:

…On the other hand, if it ends up being just a matter of Vancouver prices having reached unaffordable levels, I think 20% of current would be the stablizing point.

and rewrite Betamax’s:

A 20% drop would cause speculators to bail and cause a drop in employment and consumer spending, making any slowdown/recession worse. The virtuous cycle becomes vicious and prices fall further before hitting bottom

A 20% drop caused speculators to bail out, but buyers who had missed out when the market dropped twice in the last 4 years moved in. A number of them had sold earlier or had saved wads of cash. They were not going to miss out again now that Vancouver property prices appear more affordable to them.

The virtuous cycle avoided becoming vicious and prices stabilized around this level and appear to regain some upward momentum. BNN (Business News Network) which had interviewed last March 4, 2008 a financial expert who predicted that Canada would narrowly avoid a recession in the next two quarters of Spring and Summer (expected GDP growth of 0.5% each quarter) now suggests that these figures can possibly be revised upward a little more optimistically. The DJIA also seems to have finally priced in the fallout from the subprime property market crash especially after the Federal Reserve had reduced interest rates by a further 50 basis points last March 18 2008…

At least now we can have two contrasting scenarios both framed within a very rational system. Maybe, just flip a coin to decide which scenario would emerge 3 months from now…

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

in pink with Hello Kitty graffiti

yep enuf to scare the crap outa you!

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)