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Friday Free For All!

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178 Comments

Friday means the weekend is almost here, and that means it’s time for our end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion.  Here are a few stories I’ve noticed this week:

–Work comes to a halt at Jameson House
–Construction halted on Victoria Hill Building
–Municipalities urged to increase residential property tax vs. business tax
-Vancouver west houses: 968 listings, 12 days, zero sales
-Builder Association: The Vancouver property market will bounce back
-Condo Wiki: ‘expert’ Quote-tracker
–BC #1 in job losses since September
–Vancouver fund’s cash reserves ‘tapped out’
–When politicians treat voters like bumpkins
–Entire city council agrees to lie-detector test on $100 olympic leak
–Ottawa boosts mortgage buy-out by $50 billion
–Canada to consider selling national assets
–US Foreclosures up 25% year over year

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, anecdotes and thoughts here and have an excellent weekend!

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paul

a lot of interesting stuff happening in Toronto as well these days. no question that some of it is of "concern"

http://pauljohnston.com

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Drachen

"even intelligent people have a curious myopia at times."

Intelligence and independence of thought are not directly correlated. Many of my acquaintances who are highly specialized intellectually are people who I would rate quite low on a scale for independence or intellectual curiosity outside their specialized field. I think Malcom Gladwell explains it pretty well in "The Tipping Point" when he talks about Mavens. Many of us here have what he calls the "Maven" personality (I know I do). Mostly in my experience Mavens are quite intelligent people but not all intelligent people are Mavens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven

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Vansanity

VanTOVan – Interesting. I mean, we're all smart enough to know that you should take everything said by someone with a vested interest in the subject matter, with a handful of salt.

It's a strange conflict between realtors, as one sells and another buys. Two realtors representing two opposing sides to a sale. Vs. say a used car salesman who represents himself (the seller) and then you, the buyer, on your own.

The common interest of both sides to a real estate transaction is the sale itself and the price. Both gain when there are sales. Grain of salt for sure.

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k9dr

Just for everyones information. I have been tracking condo and house sales at Paul Boenisch site. (kudos to him)

http://www.nvcondos.realpagemaker.com/aPage.jsp?a…

For the month of November Greater Vancouver has been averaging 48 condo/house sales a day. Unless sales pick up, we are on track to sell only 912 for the entire month (compared to almost 3000 last year)

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VanTOVan

@Vansanity

His card says he has been in the business for more than 20 years.

The funny thing is that he is a very sharp guy. He knew a lot about the area and what to look for in a house, etc. And he had a nice edge about him–the kind of hardass you want negotiating on your side.

To me, it just goes to show that it's not just idiots that buy in to the Party line. Not every Jonestown cult member was a moron; even intelligent people have a curious myopia at times. Or maybe this realtor was the one handing out the koolaid…

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Anonymous 165

Alexcanuck – thanks for the graph, that's what I was looking for. I'm going to ignore the jab.

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Tony Danza

Its unfortunate to see the investors in Jameson House lose money, but less supply in the Vancouver Real Estate Market going forward is a good thing.

Hey Mike, what's the matter? Did the bitter renting bears chase you off of Chipman's site? You have a brilliant marketing campaign going on here Mikey, it's so smart to go and trash talk the bitter renting bears when they're probably some of the only people who'll be buying anything from your ilk in the next few years.

Things must be very slow for you to suddenly spend your days regaling anonymous blog posters with your "very nice offers" you're presenting on downtown condos. Why don't you go chase down some unemployed condo workers maybe they're looking to get into the condo flipping game in their spare time.

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buff_butler

Very interesting article. Its unclear if the condo owners knew and/or voted on the investment or not. If they did then I have no sympathy for them.

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NO -LYMPICS

Hey Pope:

Check this one out.

In today's Vancouver Province.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html…

" Owners of two condo complexes in BC have lost substantial amounts from their reserve funds after making risky investments ".

I wonder how much of that goes on….tip of the iceberg?

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Alexcanuck

Anonymous 165:

Are you the same anonymous? This is demonstrating the problem with multiple anonymous posts. Why should I lift a finger to help someone who called me names?

Or were you asking a poster named "Someone"?

That little jab out of the way, and just so other posters who know me as Alexcanuck will continue to respect both my sagacity and magnanimity, are you looking for this?

I think WBWYCDecideToChangeYourNameYetAgain (who has earned my respect) adapted it and put it up first.

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Keeping an Eye on th

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Sex_Lies_and_…
I guess, this kind of a thing doesn't happen in Vancouver.

Greed, beauty parlour worker turned Real Estate Tycoon….

Our housing industry professionals all adhere to a strict code of conduct; they are experts with credentials clearly unattainable by most mere mortals.

Nah, Vancouver is no cesspool.

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Anonymous

Hi, can someone help me find a graph.

I think I've seen it on this blog before. It shows the real estate drop since peak for several cities including Vancouver. I think most of the other cities were US cities.

Does anyone know where I can find this?

Thanks

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Big Balls

Luxury Condo: MUST SELL OR LOSE!

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/reo/921702951.h…

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Spineless

Japan in recession:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081116/as_japan_economy.h…

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Anonymous

Gadwin: A thief is a thief no matter whether they use a made-up name or not! 🙂

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patriotz

“He has recently been the most prolific. In a recent Vancouver Sun he points out that during the Olympics billions of eye balls will be on Vancouver.”

Reminds me of the dot-com bubble, when the "analysts" threw out boring old metrics like price/earnings and came up with new ones like price/eyeballs.

How did that turn out?

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Gadwin

Anonymous #159, first have the balls to post under a real name. You are spineless for not using your own name.

Secondly, I gave credit to the user Inventory, who posted the stats on November 15th. The extrapolation was done on the Nov 15th stats whereas you made the observation on Nov 9th. You didn't post the stats, Inventory posted the stats.

Thirdly, it's absurd for you to COPYRIGHT extrapolations based on somebody else's stats. Anybody can come up with the same extrapolations on Inventory's stats, not just you.

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Vansanity

VanTOVan – Do you know what year that realtor was licensed in? I have heard that crap before,and the one I heard if from was licensed in Jan of 2008. So obviously he has seen a lot in his lengthy career.

Prices going back up? Hit a bottom already? Barack increasing consumer confidence? More like: DEAD CAT BOUNCE ANYONE? That's IF it were to go up at all and that is a huge IF.

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Anonymous

Hey Scullboy,

Ya we're cool. I know you to be a cool, funny guy. I still think you rock.

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Anonymous

Hey Gadwin,

Look at post 307 of Chipman's blog and you will see that I first pointed out the 66% decrease in sales this November compared to last.

It really bugs me when you steal my observations and repost them as your own. I don't know why, but I would really prefer that you give credit.

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scullboy

Alex man, for some reason the site posted me as anon.

Anon dude,

Sorry about that. I mis-read what you wrote, hope we're cool. 🙂

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Anonymous

Re Gadwin post 117:

…if we extrapolate the second half of November in 2008 based on these numbers, the units sold and gross sales will be 1/4 of November 2007.

Yah, Gadwin, that is exactly what I had said over on Chipman's blog. Seems you have no qualms about steeling my ideas and reposting them here. This is the second time you've done it. How about giving credit when credit is due, dude? 🙂

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Dr Topper

"He has recently been the most prolific. In a recent Vancouver Sun he points out that during the Olympics billions of eye balls will be on Vancouver."

He's right! Billions of eyeballs will see Vancouver RE tanking and 'run away, run away….' (with apologies to Monty).

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Anonymous

Alexcanuck Says:

November 16th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

Oooh, I got the anons fighting! do I win a prize? Now, you two stay in turn so I can tell who’s winning.

Yah, you win the BOOBY prize for being such a BOOB! 🙂

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Anonymous

Alex, you knucklehead, there is only one anon involved in this little drama you created.

I hope you are proud of yourself for polluting up the blog. For godsake, old man, give it a rest. 🙂

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