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May 25th, 2008 at 9:34 am
“indeed will be interesting to see to what degree we get stagflation, or to what degree the boc will respond to cpi pressure. carney may test the bond market further, he seems at this point to be a bit of a inflationist; or at least interested in testing the boundaries.”
Very true, but let’s keep in mind, that every regular Joe on the street knows, CPI is as fraudulent as a loaded dice.
The difference is that unlike, a regular Joe, or a Reader’s Digest educated realtor/blogger/Re pimps, Carney and other central bankers are well aware that the cost of reckless monetary policy is not simply the choice of a “bit “of inflation as opposed to a recession.
Economists are indoctrinated from first semester that inflation is public enemy number #1, and the regular kool aid mortgaged slave will eventually find out why as well.
Yes it’s true the law of gravity can be defied – but only for a while.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:30 am
B.C.Assessments has issued a notice of assessment to more than 1.89 million people on jan,2008 based on the performance of market in 2007.
Total population for Metro 2,289,900 (2007)after reduction of total percentage of tenents the left over percentage of populations are home owners and their family members.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:17 am
70% people are home owners and 30% people are renting till 2007.There was 2% to 3% percent increse in home ownership btw 05-07.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Drachen, if I remember correctly, 56% of people in the lower mainland rent, which would imply only 44% owner occupancy, which would imply an even bigger uh-oh if any percentage try to sell…
Yes but rental properties get put up for sale too. What you have to look at is the number of individually titled dwelling units (SFH or strata) versus the total number of dwellings.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:16 am
indeed will be interesting to see to what degree we get stagflation, or to what degree the boc will respond to cpi pressure. carney may test the bond market further, he seems at this point to be a bit of a inflationist; or at least interested in testing the boundaries.
pre-sales: indeed a lot of people should consider themselves luck to have the option of walking, their money may be more efficient with another option.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
This is clearly an excellent opportunity for those pre-sale buyers to just walk away without a penalty. That’s what I will do.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
true enough, if the government decides deflation is in its best interests, all bets are off. for now expect continued inflation and the market to stagnate.
Continued inflation will mean a bond bear market like in the late 70′s and early 80′s. No there will not be deflation, but the BoC will have to hold CPI under 2% or the country will face some nasty consequences.
I am talking consumer prices not asset prices like housing, which are independent of consumer prices.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Absolutely fabulous! Check this out.
http://www.rgemonitor.com/fina....._economies
The author, who will now post on fridays, is London Banker, an regular and well-respected poster on Roubini’s blog. Very interesting posts, he obviously is someone of some clout and power in London,political and/or financial, possibly retired (or not, he is cagey. Says he likes the candour anonymity permits.)
May 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
-A-:
true enough, if the government decides deflation is in its best interests, all bets are off. for now expect continued inflation and the market to stagnate. you’re looking through the right window, don’t get caught up with trying to manipulate stats like others here in assclown town.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Drachen, if I remember correctly, 56% of people in the lower mainland rent, which would imply only 44% owner occupancy, which would imply an even bigger uh-oh if any percentage try to sell…
May 24th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Krissh Krass Aaron Newsflash, Satv Rob:
Just got off a conference call with Carney and Bernanke, they have been trying to reach you on the phone but apparently your phone is too busy for them to get through. (lots of sales, or listings?)
They would like some advice from you professionals; Bernanke is concerned that damage caused by the housing bubble has yet to be tallied, but the remedy of easy money is causing some serious structural damage to the general economy, Carney is very concerned about the Stagflation Tsunami to hit Canada.
What should they do? They finally realize the printing of cheap money is causing a commodity bubble, and want to end the vicious circle of mopping up one bubble after another
May 24th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Inventory continues its upwards march, “To the moon alice!”.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Is my math right?
Check your name you have minus before and after -A-
May 24th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Is my math right?
The number may be even bigger, the 17,000 + is what is on the MLS, it doesn’t include the 50,000 plus units under construction held by specuvestors, and it doesn’t include the for sales by owner, and the specuvestor that may have 3 to sell but has “officially” listed only 1 just to generate the sales leads.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Drachen wrote “Listings are at 17,188 currently which is high. Total residential properties in GVRD is over a million. Current % of residential properties on the market is approximately 1.7%”
Is my math right? If I assume (incorrectly but for the sake of argument) that all properties are owner-occupied, this would mean that 1 in 60 households has a property for sale. That’s a big number. Now if we factor in that they’re not all owner-occupied, that would be closer to (say) 1 in 50 (or fewer) households has at least one property for sale. That’s a big number too.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 pm
A,
Wow is an ass clown taken out of Sonika’s word of mouth”wow just wow”Interesting satv actually knock wbwycr and wow in the first round but they are shameless sold out owners who thinks they can shake the market from it’s roots but i know they are wasting their time.
Another surprise is jesse found to be kidding around blogs by comparing Vancouver with Phoenix,Bears and Sold out owners are nuts, personally entertaining them self and wasting their valuable time to pay down the mortgage.
Soon you will get in soon you could be debt free.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hello Krissh krassh you won’t believe this until you read it yourself.
Rob has broken down and has conceded to WoW that a 50% to 70% price drop is very likely.
http://robchipman.net/blog/?p=82#comments
oh the agony of defeat.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
In the “This Weeks Vulture” dept, Gordon Campbell wins the prize for his TV commentary on the China Earthquake and how the devastation is yet another financial opportunity for the whores in our forest industry. Campbell is busy dismantling mills and rebuilding them in China to process the raw logs sent there from BC. You see the greed in his eyes? China to the rescue LOLOL
In the “Too Good to be True” department, tourism from the USA is WAY down and the tourism industry is panicking now and ahead of the 2010 Olympics, but one wonders how many of the tens of thousands of employees in the industry here will even be in this doomed industry by the time 2010 comes around. Of course this is all FANTASTIC news for those of us who want more than anything to see this city knocked down off its underserved high perch and to see the corporate whores and real estate industry crash and burn.
Recently moved here from somewhere else? Allow me to get you a map showing how to get out.
MR
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
In this weeks West Ender freebee paper in Rob Joyces advertising of apts. for sale
there is a price reduction of $120k on a 2 bedroom place west of Denman on Nelson.
Chop, Chop, Chop.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
from a Bloomberg article:
http://tinyurl.com/4qprlh
Inventories will stay out of balance at least until the end of 2009 and prices will keep falling.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Drachen, thanks…some good points taken well under advisement.
Also, thanks to jesse, and out glorious leader “his holiness” for replying. I’ll be sure to check those links out ASAP. You guys all rock, and I’ll say this:
Buying a house is a HUGE ball of stress…and I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m starting to really hate fax machines.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
umdesch4
“My RE agent, however, tells us horror stories about how “anyone with a ladder and a flashlight” can become an inspector these days.”
There is a flip side to that equation. YOU can become an inspector. You don’t have to know a ton about housing to know some of the things to look for, ask for all the permits and inspection records for work done in the last 10 years or so (if these don’t exist it’s a big uh oh!) poke into the darker corners and look for problems (attic, crawl spaces, basement etc.), look at the roof, especially where two angles join look at the heating and hot water systems, both of them have pretty limited life spans and may need replacing. If you don’t have any skill as a handyman watch a few episodes of Holmes on Homes, he does an excellent job of pointing out the problems that often occur in houses.
I’d still hire an expert but if you find your ‘expert’ is missing problems you caught you might want a second opinion.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
But times they are a changin’ and the bulls might as well prepare themselves for a bearish response:
You bought too late
You bought too late
You greedily rushed in and bought too late
Now the crash has sealed your fate
You’re gonna go bankrupt at this rate!
Not wishing this on anyone, though…
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Not that there isn’t enough levity on this blog
but given its Friday Free-for-All!, here’s a little ditty the bulls (you know the usual suspects) may have sung for the bears a few months ago:
You sold too soon
You sold too soon
You foolishly caved and sold too soon
But now that prices have flown to the moon
You’re not only a renter, but also a buffoon!
Sniff sniff, it hurts even now
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
umdesch4 check out Coco’s blog as well, there are several posts on the topic in general:
http://thingsyoumaywanttoknow.wordpress.com/
I also just saw the ubergeek post jesse wrote at Langley Financial planning on the correlation between inventory and price pressure, nice work!
http://langley-financial-plann.....s-and.html
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
umdesch4: check out this Real Estate Talks forum post. Also you can search the entire forum and see what comes up.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I noticed one of the linked articles talking about the lack of home inspections being done by purchasers. My RE agent, however, tells us horror stories about how “anyone with a ladder and a flashlight” can become an inspector these days.
So…maybe not the best place to ask for advice, but does anyone know of any quality house inspectors in the GVA, or anywhere online where this is being discussed?
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Hey Pope,
I read your last post as “there are 2 B.C. Buds for Scullboy, for posting the last link.”
Imagine my disappointment.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Actually we know what will happen if prices start to fall. Go to some of the California bubble blog sites. In Cali one can search on outstanding liens against the property and price histories. Originally you could see the initial stages of the crash where list prices started off at 20%+ above the previous sale price, then reduced to just a few % above (break even), then quickly degraded to previous sale price minus the downpayment (-100% return), then to short sale/FC. The phases of denial open for everyone to see.
If any investors are reading, don’t follow the market down. Skip one of these phases and save yourself some money.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Drachen, yeah I posted and left my computer before thinking about it. You’re right that the investor market will have a larger effect. The conundrum for these investors is that, as we all know, “real estate only goes up” so having money on the sidelines is a “losing” proposition.
I would bet that most residential real estate investors are of the sort that are looking to re-invest in real estate in reasonably short order, say in the next 6-12 months. From that point of view, along with the very nature of investing, means marginal pricing is still an issue.
For someone not to care about marginal pricing means they are financially secure regardless of their house price. These people are not common but definitely exist. That’s the thought now; we’ll see what happens if prices start to fall.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Nice links Coco, the foreclosure purchase story is particularly gruesome! I do visit your blog sometimes, but lately I haven’t been reading the local blogs due to a combination of work and topic fatigue.
Thanks also to bcbuds and skullboy for emailing the last two links, have a great weekend everyone!
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Jesse and Patiently:
You’re both seem to be only thinking about owner-occupied properties. I would be surprised if owner-occupied accounts for over 75%, if I’m right it would mean that once prices start to shift downwards there is a potential massive sell-off in the works.
Listings are at 17,188 currently which is high.
Total residential properties in GVRD is over a million.
Current % of residential properties on the market is approximately 1.7%
If even 1/5th of those speculators dump their properties on the market in a short period it will mean a 400% increase in listings which would be more than enough to topple the market.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Patiently, I think this is true to some degree, assuming they are truly exiting the market and not trading in for something else, larger or smaller. In the case of trading, which is still the case for almost all sellers, I think marginal price is a huge deal.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
jesse,
Could this mean that prices could fall fairly easily? If an 80 year-old couple wants to get rid of their paid-for house they can easily go under the comps by a huge amount and live very well for their remaining years on the profits. As along as they are not blinded by greed.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am
“But the truth is, they were overly inflated to start with.”
Well thanks for being truthful about it. I, for one, would never dream you wouldn’t be “truthful” in the first place.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
“I guess the huge mortgages of new owners don’t affect the average that much.”
This is exactly what is going on. I don’t know if they include home equity loans in this calculation. Prices are set at the margins — now you know how most people can afford to own in Vancouver.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
StatsCan weighting for fuel is about right for my family. We’re ~$250/month – $3k/year – in gasoline costs. That’s one good laptop and one iPod per year – so our gas bill is without question lower than our consumer electronics bill.
Communications (land line, two mobiles, broadband) also totals a bit more than our monthly gas bill.
Everybody’s household is different – for ours the current model is pretty close.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:10 am
“Her report noted that the average monthly housing cost for owners in the Lower Mainland increased to $1,081 in 2006 compared to $1,057 in 2001. Average rents decreased to $812 from $814 between the two census periods.”
All these figures seem low, but especially the 2006 cost for owners. It must be just the mortgage, not other costs. I guess the huge mortgages of new owners don’t affect the average that much.
So much for rents going up, although I think they have gone up since 2006.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Nice french article coco, you’ve got to hand it to realtors, they’re good at spreading the hype around. I liked this bit though:
But in the resale market, some sellers have been forced to cut prices in recent months. “A lot of prices have been reduced to some degree,” Hasman said. “But the truth is, they were overly inflated to start with.”
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:27 am
The Pope,
Funny you would mention foreclosures. I recently published some threads on home inspections or the lack of thereof and had this article about a foreclosure linked on my thread. Seems even the rich are not immune from foreclosure problems.
Not sure if you read it on my new blog, but here it is again if anyone missed it.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.s.....o_pur.html
btw the latest trend in the U.S is to trash the house if your home is being foreclosed upon.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:08 am
Inflation figures are a joke – There are big increases in the cost of fuel, food and housing, but computers and TV’s are cheaper! Yeah, well how many people buy electronics on a daily or weekly basis compared to fuel and food?
They’re just playing games with the stats, I’d bet true inflation is at least double the ‘official’ numbers.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Here is an article published in a French newspaper:
Vancouver’s residential market stays hot
http://www.iht.com/articles/20...../revan.php
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 am
The way inflation is calculated is very misleading. That makes me wonder if they’ve changed the calculation since the 70s/80s, when they had sky-high inflation and interest rates subsequently went up to stave it off. You’re right, no one believes that inflation is what they say it is. Hmmm…1.2% and yet gas prices have gone up 30%? Give me a break! But that’s the government for you!
I was watching CNN recently, they had a segment on high gas prices, interviewing people in the US about it. They were all really upset at paying $3-$4/gallon. I wouldn’t be surprised if people started rioting in the streets soon enough.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:52 am
Statistics Canada said that we were being sheltered from inflation due to the high Canadian Dollar. If that changes (ie. American Dollar goes up, maybe after Obama gets in power)
USD doesn’t have to go up against CAD. We weren’t importing US inflation because the CAD was rising against the USD. If the two currencies just stay even, we will start importing any US inflation just as all the countries that have a USD peg have been doing.
Note also that foreign central banks and sovereign funds don’t have an incentive to prop up the CAD (as they have been doing with the USD), because we are a commodity exporter and not an important importer of their products.
Bottom line is the BoC has to take a hard line on inflation, if not we will see a rapid bear market in CAD bonds.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:12 am
Big glossy “Homes&Land – Vancouver to Whistler” magazine in this morning’s Globe and Mail full of sexy looking realtors – do you get the girl when you buy the house? – anyway, appears like they’re trying to rev up the sales…a little desperate perhaps?
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:47 am
suggested that a “large percentage of new mortgages may be high-risk”.
i’ve seen this movie!
the gringo version…
sad ending
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 am
I just can’t believe that inflation is as low as stated. The average joe isn’t buying it anymore either. The wife works with people on the very edge of financial destruction on a daily basis and life isn’t good for the pleebs right now. My fear is there’s going to be a heck of a lot more pleebs out there soon.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 am
Here’s a nice chart showing the Housing-to-Rent ratio over time.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:40 am
Happy Friday!
All that we’re really missing is an increase in interest rates to really get things going. Maybe by this time next year we’ll see just that.
Inflation is increasing, mainly due to fuel costs right now. Inflation being a lagging indicator, it will likely take some time for the rates to reverse direction. Statistics Canada said that we were being sheltered from inflation due to the high Canadian Dollar. If that changes (ie. American Dollar goes up, maybe after Obama gets in power) than we’ll likely have the perfect storm.
I hate being patient, I really do.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 am
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Thursday that home prices fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter compared with last year.
Er, what is that supposed to mean?
Did housing prices actually fall 3.1% in the first quarter, i.e. since Dec 31, 2007? If so no need to say “compared to with last year”.
Or did housing prices fall 3.1% since March 31, 2007, i.e. YOY? If so, should have said “as of the end of the first quarter”.
Or did housing prices fall 3.1% more in 1Q2008 than in 1Q2007 ?
Clear English please.