Friday Free For All
It’s Friday! Thats the next best thing to the weekend and it also means it’s time for our weekly news round up:
-Condo supply growing faster than population
-~600 new REBGV listings in first week of May?
-Coco’s Things you may want to know
-Welcome to the wild west
-Whats our number one industry?
-It’s good news on the job front
-Canadian housing market cools in April
-Vancouver residents love condo investing
-Beware of home reno ripoffs
-Forestry demand to soar
-Foresters warned to expect more blood
-Canadians fleeing to cash?
-BC exports contract for 3rd year
-The booming bust-vulture industry
-Americans feel gloomy
How ’bout you? How are you feeling as we head into a beautiful spring weekend? What are you seeing out there in the streets? Post your news, links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have a great weekend!
note: any conversation on real estate or economics is allowed, please keep it civilized. when posting articles please only quote pertinent points and link to the original instead of pasting the entire article here. Thanks!
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May 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I agree with JR’s comments on immigration. I am a Nexus cardholder, and the US is by far the worst to deal with. I could bore you with anecdotal stories, but suffice to say as a group they are anal powertrippers. Canadian officers aren’t perfect, but I’ve had much more positive experiences with them.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:53 am
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…wait a second…3 months ago, according to the media, Canada was going to avoid a recession completely
Yeah, that theory is working out nicely. Never mind all of Canada, there’s tons of people that believe Vancouver is a special planet – totally exempt from the vicissitudes of life on Earth.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Mish is commenting on the OZ house prices falling. I’ve heard reports from Australians, some commenting on this blog, that RE prices in OZ are not falling. I’d like to hear a more recent perspective on Mish’s claims if anyone knows?
May 12th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Arizona is non-recourse, Nevada is recourse. The biggest bubble state that is recourse is Florida, or perhaps NY (NYC area).
List of non-recourse mortgage walkaway states
If you want to see a fascinating tableau of the foreclosure fiasco, just google “non-recourse states”.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Any financing subsequent to the time of purchase is recourse in Ca, thus the impending bankruptcy.
Also some of his properties were in Arizona and Nevada. Don’t know if they are non-recourse or not.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:44 am
“Recession expected to deepen in Canada”
http://www.canada.com/vancouve.....9baf7cef44
…wait a second…3 months ago, according to the media, Canada was going to avoid a recession completely. i love atching the media “gear down” the news with time as if we won’t notice.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:45 am
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The answer to “Who are they serving?” is as always “Follow the money.” It answers most questions in business and politics and, regrettably, some questions in organized religion.
Yeah. ‘Regrettably’. That’s funny:)
May 12th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I will note also that mortgages made at the time of purchase are non-recourse in California. It appears that Shawn’s MO, like many other specuvestors, was to take equity gains out of his first purchases by refinancing and use them for subsequent purchases. Any financing subsequent to the time of purchase is recourse in Ca, thus the impending bankruptcy.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
And in due course we will see that it was our very own Shawn Forgaards, along with the gotta-buy-my-own-condo 20 somethings, who were responsible for the absurd price runup and subsequent bust, not mysterious foreign millionaires and drug lords.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
If you do something really stupid like buy 9 homes before a housing bust, lose them all in foreclosure and get forced into bankruptcy at least you can look forward to the media coverage:
“I knew I was sitting on time bombs,” Forgaard said. “I knew the market was going to go soft and I knew that property values would decline. But I figured that I had enough equity to survive the storm and sell or take the loss and refinance.
“I didn’t anticipate a downturn of epic proportions such that home values are 40 percent less than they were,” he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24569891/
May 11th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Tsur Sommerville’s comment don’t make sense. It does have to have 20 to 30% annual increase to create a bubble.
If a tire could only take 50 psi before it pops, it doesn’t matter if you increase the pressure slowly or really fast. Once it reaches 50 psi, it’s gonna pop.
Same could be said about the real estate market. If the real estate market bubble pops when average homes exceeds average income by more than 4 times, then the bubble will pop regardless as to whether it took 5 years to get there or 2 years.
Anyways, it doesn’t matter what Tsur says. The market has turned. Within 6 months, everyone will freak out. We will see double digits decreases from it’s peak in 2008.
May 11th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
me too, The answer to “Who are they serving?” is as always “Follow the money.” It answers most questions in business and politics and, regrettably, some questions in organized religion.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Freako:
“Tsur Sommerville. I had given him the benefit of the doubt to date, but now he has officially crossed the line into industry shill/ignorant asshat territory:”
Tsur, Bill Good, Pastrick, Muir,Baxter, make big bucks peddling BS.
Chipman and his chimp Quasi Moto Aaron deserve more respect, as they don’t hide what they pump.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
But when RE is the economy, like in the US and BC, an RE bust brings on a recession by itself.
So right, and more so! What we do have for an economy outside of RE is getting hammered by the US troubles, which are due to start round 2 any day now. We have seen their housing market collapse, the financial system creak, groan and start to tilt. The Fed plastered the worst of the cracks over with even more borrowed and imaginary dollars to buy some time. The structural deficiencies remain.
The US real economy is now in trouble and no quick fix in sight for that. When that becomes undeniable round 2 starts. Ours, of course, is the sideshow which follows a bit behind.
Anyone else care to weigh in on that presale assignment question?
(Is the developer a party to an assignment, thus freeing the original buyer from liability?) Someone must know!
Thanks, Raincouver. Just speculation there, good reading though.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Nitpick: stop buying, not stop consuming.
Like other capital assets, buying housing and consuming it (i.e. living in it) are two different things.
Also no recession is needed to bring house prices down. Exhibit A is Calgary and Edmonton where house prices have been falling for a year during a booming economy. Also the first year of the US bust.
But when RE is the economy, like in the US and BC, an RE bust brings on a recession by itself.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Priced Out?
Too bad someone doesn’t appeal to all those who are “Priced Out” to STOP CONSUMING anything whatsoever they don’t absolutely need in order to survive which hopefully will bring this economy here into a recession and force people to leave.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Today’s Province front page and the Sun “15 myths” front page are the local equivalents of the Time magazine cover from 2005.
The Time cover marked the beginning of the North American bust – San Diego started falling soon thereafter – and the Vancouver covers mark the start of the finale in Vancouver.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:49 am
RE Province article (crossposted at RETalks)
I have just skimmed this multi article piece so far, and there is so much to comment on, I will start with two:
1. This article laments the social and demographic impact of high prices. This is a chance to spin the bears are “negative” the other way. Obviously the intangibles of high prices are huge. It could easily be argued that bears are positive and bulls are negative. Of course, I think the entire notion of putting market sentiment into “positive” and “negative” is pointless, but food for thought nonetheless.
2.
Tsur Sommerville. I had given him the benefit of the doubt to date, but now he has officially crossed the line into industry shill/ignorant asshat territory:
Somerville says he’s reluctant to use the B-word because the numbers are not adding up to such a scenario.
“If you say bubble, then at some point it’s going to pop. And if you look at our price increases, they’ve been double-digit, but for the most part they’ve been between 11 to 15 per cent for the past few years. That’s high, but in a bubble you start to see 20-per-cent growth, 30-per-cent growth. Just really rapid acceleration, and we haven’t seen that. That’s what happened in 1981 and 1982 . . . That’s what a bubble looks like.”
So it is not a bubble because we had 15 percent for 6 years instead of 30% for three? That has to be the dumbest argument EVER. What a clown.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:33 am
They want your comments about how the housing market has affected you here:
http://www.canada.com/theprovi.....c0453aea41
May 11th, 2008 at 10:48 am
There is a reason for everything.
And you are probably right, they are afraid of the truth. Or rather that people will figure out the truth. That will teach people about the integrity of this country. Which will make people angry. Which will make them demand changes in how things are run. Which will shake things up. Which may cause some heads to roll. The truth is dangerous for some, but good for the masses. The papers are not serving the masses.
Who are they serving?
May 11th, 2008 at 10:23 am
re: the province
anyone else notice that they’re not opening up the real estate articles for comments anymore? They’re probably afraid some real info might show up.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Re the Province
This is exactly the kind of cautionary article I’ve been expecting to show up about the social implications of high real estate prices.
Keep your eyes peeled for stories of peoples financial mistakes and fraud next.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:09 am
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Still hoping to get an informed opinion on this question.
There’s a thread on RET titled “Flipping Pre-Sales For Zero Fun and Zero Profit”. Gets interesting around page 5.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:30 am
A TD Canada Trust poll released last Wednesday showed almost half of Vancouverites (48 per cent) would consider raising a family in a condo, up from 34 per cent in 2007.
your average kid wouldn’t care if it is a condo, townhouse or doghouse. the importance would lie in the “caring” from the parents not the social standing of being a homedebtor…. we are losing track of what is important.
BTW not to impressed with the article but that is par for the course for the Province.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Still hoping to get an informed opinion on this question.
When a presale assignment is made, does the developer specifically absolve the original buyer from any future liability should the
greater foolproud new owner run into trouble and be unable to complete?
Strikes me that no matter the strength of any agreement between flipper and fool if the developer isn’t party to it then flipper is remains liable. Flipper can sue fool all they want, but won’t get them off the hook to take possession and pay.
Of course, this is just an intellectual endeavor, for prices never go down in the best place on earth. Well, never again, now that we have the Olympics.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:41 am
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Today’s Province has another depressing rundown of the lives of young professionals trying to pursue the middle class dream in Vancouver
“Priced out”. What a revolting headline to see sitting on your doorstep first thing in the morning. It’s a good thing we have this fabulous climate to make up for the insane house prices:)
May 11th, 2008 at 5:25 am
As a second-generation Filipino-Canadian, Mary Ann Masesar was taught the key to middle-class wealth was owning a home.
Says it all right there. The homeownership ideology.
The key to middle-class wealth is to buy a house, like any other investment, at the right price.
And this city is going to learn this the hard way.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Today’s Province has another depressing rundown of the lives of young professionals trying to pursue the middle class dream in Vancouver.
To them, I dedicate this video by the Talking Heads:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EYbUCvz1LYE
I need to leave this city:
Vancouver Province
http://tinyurl.com/5wzj4q
I couldn’t believe Peter Simpson’s comments. I wonder if he regrets them in the context of this article.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Dev:
I hear Bogota is fun, but then again my ex is COlombian.
NYC:
I admire your enthusiasm for Vancouver. Trust me though, it’ll wear off a little as you get used to Van. That’s inevitable; my ex misses home now, though he was very ready to leave nyc/usa when he moved. It’s a nice city and Canada’s a nice country but it isn’t the socialist paradise you see on the surface…
Strata:
EUUUUUU now all I can think about is people pooing in my drinking water. I agree with you; the anti-smoking thing is somewhat silly given that people can do far worse. I’m not big on smoking in indoor places, but let’s not pretend any of us are any better.
Krrish:
STFU
Pope:
That’s as nice as I can possily be to krrish.
THey rest of you, shit up and hand me some popcorn… the show’s just beginning!
May 10th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hey nyc,
I’m not Canadian. I’ve lived in the US and now live in Canada. I’ve had annoying encounters with border/customs officials in both countries, although not frequently. I never had any problems once inside the country. I haven’t been watched, searched and interrogated in either country while walking down the street. At an airport? Yes, a couple of times as I said before. But that’s nothing compared to my friends from the Middle East who are routinely picked up for “random” searches at any airport they go.
I also never had any crime problems in the States (lived in Boston for 3 years, 1 year in New York). In Vancouver I had my bike stolen one time.
I think you’re exaggerating. I’ve seen much higher levels of crime and police intrusiveness in my home country. Even then, I never had any issues there except my car got stolen one time.
Every place has its drawbacks. NYC is far from living in Bogota.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
beatstreet; “Okay, enough about 2nd hand smoke, we have another important issue here:” Agreed!! Just ate a meat lovers pizza from Bella!
Patriotz? 
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Maybe some realitor can inform us if this has happened before? I am beginning to think the next 4-8 weeks will tell the tale, if this recovers with >60% sales then we are different if this goes down the cliff then we are the same.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Okay, enough about 2nd hand smoke, we have another important issue here:
Interesting; permanent weekend shift at the board pretty soon? That would be counted as a new job I think? Vancouver’s economy is booming!
Does the overtime at the RE board signal a top in the Vancouver RE led economic boom?
May 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
So? I agree with you? What’s your beef? Speaking of beef I have a real problem with that, I hate having to get into an elevator with people that eat carrion (dead flesh) they stink so much and the elevator is so small you cannot get far enough away. Any suggestions?
May 10th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
It’s just politics at it’s most basic level; just crap for the naive and stupid,
I’ve got news for you: it’s the 20% of the population who think that blowing cigarette smoke at other people is a basic human right who are naive and stupid, not the other 80%.