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http://www.independent.co.uk/n.....08689.html

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Chapter Seventeen: Peak Oil

For those who haven’t seen it, you might really want to check out the previous chapters, especially the ones immediately preceding, on bubbles and “fuzzy numbers”. Fascinating stuff, IMHO.

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“Actually, the average family income for Vancouver in 2000 was $70,000 ($75,000 for couples) http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/d.....onincl.pdf

Even if salary increases didn’t keep pace with inflation, the average now should be over $80,000 so the average family should be able to afford a $240,000 mortgage. Hope they have a big downpayment.”

Median is $62,000 give or take a few hundred at the last statscan measurement. Median is a far better measure of what regular people can afford because it’s not skewed by a small group of super-wealthy people. And Vancouver median family income is increasing far more slowly than inflation, it has been for some time, we’re now four or five from the bottom of the 20 biggest Canadian cities for median income.

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The other one has yet to put the house on the market because they’re just finishing up. Both have said they are planning on doing another flip!

Everyone at the BBQ parroted the spin from what a month ago or whatever about the soft fluffy landing. This is actually a change from before with this group. A few months ago these people said that real estate would never ever slow down and prices could never fall.

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My experience with contracting is that yes, you will probably end up with a 6 month contract, but if you’re good, and using a rare skillset, you end up geting your contract renewed a few times until you’ve been there for years…longer than most of the full-timers. It’s rather funny actually, but stressful every 6 month while you’re waiting to see if you’ll get signed up for the next stint or not.

I happen to know someone who works in IT at BOBJ.
So far SAP is saying there’s no plan to shut down the Vancouver operation, and they’re turning the whole BI PG into what they call a ‘lab’. I expect there will be more info coming around Q1 next year.

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It’s the median income that is significant for housing affordability (with respect to the median residence), not the average. Having Jim Pattison or Bill Gates in your city does not help you buy a house.

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There have never been significant numbers of American buyers in Vancouver, and Asian buyers (I mean foreigners, not legal residents or citizens of Asian origin) are far fewer than people think.

I think foreign purchases from all countries amount to less than 5% of total.

See this study from Landcor which shows that 7% of condo purchases in the West End are foreigners (clearly % of all residences in GVRD is much lower):

https://www.landcor.com/market/reports/West_End.pdf

It’s the local buyers who have driven this bubble, just like in 1980/81, and the lack of local buyers which will bring it down.

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Even if salary increases didn’t keep pace with inflation, the average now should be over $80,000 so the average family should be able to afford a $240,000 mortgage. Hope they have a big downpayment.

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You’ve got lots of company. Wandering through open houses on the weekend seems to be peculiar to Vancouver. I’ve not seen the same attendance at them in other cities.

I agree that most people at open houses are just kicking the tires, checking out the decor or otherwise amusing themselves, but I don’t think it was much different in the past. And, yes, people are holding back waiting for prices to go down. I think they call that pent-up demand. If prices don’t go down by much, anyone have a guess on how long they will hold off buying? In my case, it’s until interest rates start going up. The latest predictions by economists is between March and fall 2009.

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Some of the echo boomers are still in high school. The peak of the baby boom in Canada was 1959, but if you account for immigration, the peak in population in that age group today would have been born in 1961.

The echo boomers started coming into the world in the mid-1980s. I think that lasted until 1995 which would mean the echo age group is currently between 13 and 23. This would explain the enrollment decline in the elementary schools that the Lower Mainland has been experiencing over the past few years. It will be a few more years before this has an impact on university enrolment.

A bachelor’s degree is comparable to what a high school diploma was twenty years ago. Most jobs require some post-secondary education (whether it’s needed is another story). People returning to school to get second or graduate degrees are adding to the enrolment. International students also make up an increasing proportion of the student population. The latter pay higher tuition fees so post-secondary institutions love them.

Technology will have a bigger impact than enrolment levels. Once it becomes acceptable to deliver lectures and classes completely online, there will be less need for lecturers, etc. But with a good proportion of their employees nearing retirement, the likely scenario at post-secondary institutions is lower employment through attrition.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8GPgBM_crU

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Both houses have been on the market for six or eight weeks. Both have been family owned for the last 30 - 40 years, but currently empty because the single occupant (owner or member of the owner’s family) had moved on. One had obviously consisted of three or four rental suites many years ago. Both were approximately 100 years old. They were huge and needed a lot of work. The linoleum in one of them looked to be around sixty years old. The buildings themselves were solid which is more than I can say for anything built since 1980.

I expect they’ll sell, maybe for $50,000 or so off the asking, to one of those young couples wandering about with their kids in tow looking for an extreme home makeover.

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I am in the medical domain.

Bizznitz

Funny you should mention them, I worked there for two years. Still have friends there…

Regards,

arit

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08.....ref=slogin

Gartner group, I am sure they’ve gotten it wrong before, about 8 years ago, and probably got it terribly wrong.

We’ll see what happens this time.

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I’ve heard from a few local tech insiders that they’re being affected by the credit crunch in the US. Development money was easy to get the last few years, almost like the dot.com era again, but recently the US investment capital spigot has been turned off, and small-company hopes of being bought out by a bigger US company are fading fast. Some companies with shallow pockets and a high burn rate are going to run out of money next year.

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August 23rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Where else do you all think we’ll see job losses in Vancouver? What large companies will run into problems? Perhaps Home Depot and Rona? That’s a toxic combination of retail and construction. Is there any chance that UBC or SFU will start laying off employees due to reduced enrollment?

****

Matt, Universities generally INCREASE enrollments during economic downtimes as more poeple choose to study rather than take construction jobs at 19, etc.

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