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

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

Granted, average sales depends on the sales mix, and the benchmark data will hopefully be out later this week for April to get a better read on things. I used his Feb 23 numbers to see the change over two months:

EndDate Feb-23 Apr-26
ListPri 577,303 534,726 -7.4%
AvSales 567,296 525,618 -7.3%

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

4 * $900 * 12 = $43,200 rent per year

$290,000 / $43,200 = 6.71 Gross Rent Multiplier

That is a good deal, one I have never seen before. Downtown Vancouvers GRM is round about 19.

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

That’s a multiple of 80 times rent, and the bulls think you’re nuts to suggest it might go down to 100. Also a four-plex has better fundamentals than a condo (no management ripoff, more land value) so the condo would need to have a lower multiple for the same total return.

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/3qumq5

unh unh! nah! no way! never!

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

..if the building has four units renting for $900 a month each, expenses that eat up 50% of your gross income, and a cap rate of 7.5%, you can quickly calculate that you should pay about $290,000 for the building, tops. If you pay more, it’s probably not a good long-term investment.

We know what you’re thinking: “Where on earth am I going to find a four-plex that’s going for less than $300,000?” Certainly not in Vancouver, where the average detached house is now selling for north of half a million. Probably not in Toronto, Calgary or Edmonton either.

But that doesn’t mean the calculations are wrong, What it means is that now may not be a great time to buy. Your annual return is essentially the spread between market rent and the cost of buying and owning a property. In many cities, property prices have been climbing by as much as 10% a year. Rents have been edging up far less. Thus, the rising prices have squeezed the profit potential right out of buildings.

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

Anyone here have any good information on the Mosiac townhouse developers? They are building a new project in Coquitlam apparently on spec. I drove by it and the completed pretty on the surface, but the half-built ones seemed like the typical crappy materials.

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

No, all are. The smart money isn’t buying.

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

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

I didn’t say that. Please don’t attribute things to me that I didn’t say, I get in enough trouble for the things I DO say”

Sorry Drachen, For the record, it was not Drachen.

It should have read:
Comment by Patiently Waiting
2008-04-27 10:46:26

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

I didn’t say that. Please don’t attribute things to me that I didn’t say, I get in enough trouble for the things I DO say.

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

Later in the article, Balfour says,
“Canada will undoubtedly be asked to take on millions of people as a result of climate change”

Who will “ask” us? Oh, wait a second, I think he might be saying the Americans will head North. Arnie leading a caravan of SUVs from California. Yikes!!!

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

Comment by Drachen
“They come in three waves,” Balfour told the Georgia Straight in an interview at his home.

Please tell me this is not the same Balfour as:

http://www.balfourproperties.com/

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

Which has been going on for a generation, during which we have seen a severe bust and a bear market. BTW there are other places rich people can go to you know.

The second wave is the middle class thinking they are going to move up to have a better place for their family, and that has started

Preposterous. It is the middle class who are leaving, precisely because they can’t afford a decent lifestyle for their families here.

And then starts the true wave, where you have the refugees arriving with nothing. How do you stop them?”

Am I the only one who remembers those rustbuckets that arrived from China, whose passengers (except the ones who slipped through the net) were eventually sent back? What happened? No more rustbuckets.

This is just more “everyone wants to live here at any cost” BS.

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

He’s not the captain, nor did he build the ship. He just came up with the slogan, “unsinkable”. Our city council, provincial and federal governments are the crew who apparently believe the “unsinkable” line and therefore don’t see the need to prepare for icebergs.

I don’t think the ship has a captain, maybe that’s part of the problem.

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

http://www.straight.com/articl.....l-refugees

“When Kitsilano-based strategic planner, architect, and peak-oil proponent Richard Balfour talks about environmental refugees, he mentions his own speculation that “20 to 30 million people” could be living in the Georgia Basin in the next 15 to 20 years.

“They come in three waves,” Balfour told the Georgia Straight in an interview at his home. “The first is the one that is already happening, where people with money think they are going to find refuge up here. So they are buying up the coast of B.C. and the farmland of the Interior. The second wave is the middle class thinking they are going to move up to have a better place for their family, and that has started. And then starts the true wave, where you have the refugees arriving with nothing. How do you stop them?”

Why would we let all these people in? We haven’t previously.

A little something for the bears to maul on a quiet Sunday.:)

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

Wrongo, for the simple reason that Vancouver rents have not even kept up with inflation during the bubble.

See for yourself

I will also note that rent controls exist only for sitting tenants. Landlords can charge whatever they want when a property is for rent. So why are advertised rents so far below (~50%) the carrying costs of the same property? Because that’s all the rental market will bear.

Your canard is duck soup, fella.

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)

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

In my mind, you know the gig is up when these “pumping” schemes are used.

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

Disclaimer: The following is pure conjecture, and opinion I have absolutely no proof, and the readers of this post can do their own reading and draw their own conclusions.

Looks like Rob Chipman inadvertendly became a message mule for the sophisticated Landcor/Vancouver Sun/RE bubble pumpers.

It’s no secrete it’s my opinion, Rob is the master of BSology, but the real masters are those who can pull off the scam on the BSers, and not be detected.

In my view the 15 myths of real estate feature is nothing more than a shrouded advertisement, with some of the participants being fully aware, while others were just used as props.

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