Welcome!
VancouverPeak.com- jesse and Makaya are now friends
- jesse replied to the forum topic Sandbox. in the group Housing Data
- jesse posted an update: CMHC starts, completions and under construction in Vancouver […]
- The Ant started the forum topic BC Population Growth in the group Housing Data
- jesse and The Ant are now friends
- jesse and wreckonomics are now friends
- wreckonomics posted an update: New Year, New HPI. ”Selection Broadens and Demand Eases to […]
- Best place on meth and admin are now friends
- jesse and Best place on meth are now friends
- jesse replied to the forum topic February 2012 Daily Numbers in the group Housing Data
Wordpress theme by Abhishek Tripathi of Mediawick Digital Solutions
November 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Anon 74:
Thanks, I like to think of myself as either the anti-krrrish or SOMEBODY!!! It’s amazing how a full length mirror to the head can rattle your brains in just the right way, apparently.
FYI, it’s scullboy, not skullboy. A scull is a small boat you row like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowing_(sport)
As an aside I rowed in the boat in that photo! Wow, I’m like one degree from Wikipedia greatness! I can’t believe they gave it to a women’s team….. it’s a beast to get in the water.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
It’s all going according to plan.
The pumpers entice the fools to drink the Kool Aid,
The greater fools are encouraged to keep drinking, in spite of the fact some of the victims are staggering, while some have already fallen and wading in their own vomit.
The media invites the pumpers to give their expert advice, which they are only to glad to give.
“It’s just a temporary fine tuning of the market, it will pick up in the spring”
Special thanks to my friends: Bill Good, Pastrick, Muir, Jurock, Rennie, and very special thanks, to the fine people at VANOC.
Especially you Bill, please keep enticing the very few fools left, by 2010 we don’t want a single potential buyer left.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Taking your house off the market now is a great plan.
Just wait until you are even more desperate to sell and the buyer will pay more!
November 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Ok, is anyone going out to vote today?
Who do you think I should vote for:
1. Gregor Robertson
2. Peter Ladner
How would I go about helping with the election — driving people around to vote, etc.?
November 15th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Regarding Victoria Hill halt that’s got to make units that have completed a tough sell. Instead of a master planned community you have condo’s along side half finished buildings and muddy fields.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am
howe sounds bail out beer
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/briti.....-beer.html
for all those who drank the kool-aid
http://www.eleykishimoto.co.uk.....-thumb.jpg
cheers for the upcoming laughs
November 15th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Anonb,
The name “Millstone Creek” invites mixed metaphors.:P
November 15th, 2008 at 9:07 am
More driving by looking through the rear view mirror:
10 flawed assumptions at the heart of the financial crisis
Ahhh, so it’s a myth that house prices always increase!
Noticeably absent from this guy’s analysis is how it applies to Canada right now rather than just the US until 2006. WTF–is this guy a historian? Do the Mounties stop these flawed assumptions at the border?Note to MSM media: Give your readership something that can help them understand what’s going on now instead of forcing them to extrapolate Canada’s risks.
This reminds me a little of how the British media was treating the US housing collapse last year–with an implicit tsk tsk! I say, those risky Americans
November 15th, 2008 at 9:02 am
More coverage of the leaky condo saga:
http://tinyurl.com/condos-leak
“Of all the condo apartments built in British Columbia in the 15 years up to 2000, 45 per cent had leak problems.”
“Lower Mainland high-rises that were built more recently and in which problems may take longer to appear could be part of the next wave of leaky buildings.”
November 15th, 2008 at 8:28 am
“If the market turns around, everyone is going to walk away from this saying: ‘What a fantastic deal,’ ” he said. “If the market goes down some more, somebody is going to be holding some property longer than they would care to.”
So what is it going to be? Dont think you have to be a rocket scientist to answer this one. Lets ask Maggie Chandler, maybe her and her felloe pimps will buy some of those units at $1,000/SF.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:57 am
tje source – Jack Clark Francis did a study comparing stocks v. real estate between 1978-2004. The results? Housing delivered a solid but unimpressive annualized return of 8.6%. Commercial property did better at 9.5%. The S&P, however, delivered a crushing 13.4%. So, what was your point?
I have seen other studies which had pointed out that the return on housing tracks inflation, around 3% YOY. Did this Jack Clark Francis guy actually accounts for expenses the home owner incurred when he annualized his returns for housing, like mortgage, repairs, unforseen? I mean, he can’t really track house returns like stocks because there’s really no maintenances needed to house a piece of paper other than paying a yearly SDB or trading account, which is like hmm nill to some people.
I can understand about commercial property, because it should return better than GICs would.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:53 am
This isn’t going to help attract more ‘rich Americans’ buying into Vancouver…
NY Times Nov 14
Now, Vancouver residents prepare to vote in a municipal election on Saturday, the freeze in credit markets and a collapse of the city’s real estate market have made the financing of the 2010 Winter Games a critical issue.
http://tinyurl.com/5pvmma
November 15th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Question for whomever:
A colleague at work told me she was renting and saving to buy an apartment since 2004 but now she lost her down payment on the stock market.
What can I say to her to calm her mind?
It really depends upon what she owns. Does she own a portfolio of individual stocks or a series of mutual funds?!? Paper loss is different than realized loss, in which she actually sold her equities. Did she?
If it is paper loss, then tell her there’s nothing to worry about it. It’s a temporary setback. As long as she owns good shares of companies or mutual funds or have someone like Odlum Brown rep managed her stuff, then all she has to do is let the events unfold as they go along. It will take sometime, but that’s her savings so she has no debt to worry about. Remember that real estate has an inverse relationship against the stock market, so when the market recovers and goes upwards, the RE will actually go down even more.
As the stock market picks up more steam however, more of that RE money will be siphoned out to be used in speculating the market. This is a shift of the bubble cycle.
It had happened in the mid 1970s and the mid 1980s.
Where do you think all the personal computers, ipods and Nintendos came from huh?
From the innovation and seed money of the mid 70s and 80s, when the economy then were just as bad or worse as we are experiencing now!!
November 15th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Construction halted at Victoria Hill in New West.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6bpvph
November 15th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Elder crime problems as Japan ages
http://preview.tinyurl.com/626b4m
“More senior citizens are picking pockets and shoplifting in Japan to cope with cuts in government welfare spending and rising health-care costs in a fast-ageing society.
…
Coverage intensified after a 79-year-old woman slashed two women with a knife near a Tokyo railway station in August. She wanted police to take care of her after she ran away from a shelter for the homeless, Kyodo English News reported at the time.
…
“Some elderly, particularly men who lost their wives, even turn to crimes to be put in jail so they can be fed three times a day,” Yamada said.”
Our future.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Read the post more carefully. I said over the long term and over a fixed land mass (ie Vancouver). I think we know what has occured with the stock market of late, check your data more carefully.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:06 am
tje source – Jack Clark Francis did a study comparing stocks v. real estate between 1978-2004. The results? Housing delivered a solid but unimpressive annualized return of 8.6%. Commercial property did better at 9.5%. The S&P, however, delivered a crushing 13.4%. So, what was your point?
November 15th, 2008 at 2:03 am
@The Pope
No worries!
November 15th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Hey crew, just remember that real estate is basically the only investment that guarantees above inflationary returns over the long haul. That is true for any jurisdiction where population growth increases over a fixed land mass. All applicable economic models point to real estate being appropriately priced at the current time. Of course volatility out there is creating some leverage for buyers. You heard it from the source.
November 15th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Who disagrees that house prices will continue to fall?
http://patrick.net/housing/crash2.html
Real estate related businesses disagree, because they don’t make money if buyers do not buy. These businesses have a large financial interest in misleading the public about the foolishness of buying a house now.
1. Buyers’ agents get nothing if there is no sale, so they want their clients to buy no matter how bad the deal is, the exact opposite of the buyer’s best interest. Agents take $100 billion each year in commissions from buyers. Agents claim the seller pays the commission, but always fail to mention that the seller gets that money from the buyer. Think about it: who brings the money to the table – the seller or the buyer? All money comes from buyers. No buyer, no money.
If a stock broker were to charge 6% on the sale of stock, he would quickly go out of business. Real estate brokers don’t do much more than stock brokers, so why should you give up nearly two years of your working life earning money to pay a realtor for the few hours they may put into helping you buy or sell a house? 6% of the 30 years it takes to pay off a house is 1.8 years of donating your working time to your realtor.
There are good buyer’s agents who really believe they are helping the buyer, but they’re in denial about their conflict of interests. Author Upton Sinclair had a great explanation for this: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
2. Mortgage brokers take a percentage of the loan, so they want buyers to take out the biggest loan possible. Even worse – mortgage brokers get paid according to how BAD the deal is for the buyer. The worse the deal is (higher interest rate, points, fees, etc) the more the mortgage broker gets!
3. Banks get origination fees and then sell most mortgages, so they do not care about the bankruptcy of borrowers. They will lend way beyond what buyers can afford because they lose nothing if the buyer defaults. Banks sell most loans to the government agencies Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The conversion of low-quality housing debt into “high” quality Fannie Mae debt with the implicit backing of the federal government is the main support for the housing bubble. That is ending as Fannie Mae shrinks.
The other way for banks to dump the risk of loan default has been the Wall Street market for mortgage backed securities. Now that mass foreclosures have eliminated the subprime portion of the loan-resale market, banks are under pressure to increase loan quality.
4. Appraisers are hired by mortgage brokers and banks, so they are going to give the appraisals that mortgage brokers and banks want to see, not the truth. Appraisers that kill a deal by telling the truth do not get called back to do other appraisals.
5. Newspapers earn money from advertising placed by realtors, lenders, and mortgage brokers, so papers are pressured by that money to publish the real estate industry’s unrealistic forecasts, and to avoid the fatal words: “prices are falling”. Instead, we may sometimes hear about “softening” or “easing” prices, which sounds so pleasant. At worst, you may hear about a “housing slump”, but you will never hear the mainstream press talk about a crash in prices.
Worse, realtors have a near-monopoly on sale price information, and newspaper reporters never ask realtors hard questions like “how do we know you’re not lying about those prices?” The result is an endless stream of stories reporting that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) says it’s a good time to buy. Asking the NAR about housing is like walking into a used car dealership and asking the salesman if today would be a good day to buy a car.
6. Owners themselves do not want to believe they are going to lose huge amounts of money.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:36 am
“It would be prudent for the City of Vancouver to take over the project asap and accept the loss, rather than throwing money into the black hole.”
Who would build it if not Millenium? The City is running out of time so the only 3 options they have is throwing more money, throwing more money, and throwing more money. Councilors who voted for this project took a huge risk and ignored well reasoned arguments against it. I hope they are held accountable.
It’s not the number of right decisions you make, it’s the magnitude of the bad one that matters.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:01 am
On the Olympic village issue, can we reasonable say that Millennium is insolvent, for all intents and purposes? Given that the West Van and Nanaimo projects are all stalled, I find it hard to believe that Millennium can meet all of its debt obligations. To me, any guarantee offered by Millennium is truly worthless. It would be prudent for the City of Vancouver to take over the project asap and accept the loss, rather than throwing money into the black hole.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I’d like to vote twice for scullboy.
bdk also did a nice job of explaining why “they’re not making any more land” is the stupidest cliche in real estate. So I propose he gets an extra vote, too. Well said.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Falling,
Your link says vancouver real estate never go down,please double check it.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Check this out REAL ESTATE NEVER GO DOWN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM
November 14th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Robert Schiller, Bill Fleckenstein, Jim Grant. They have been very clear on what the fallout would be. Also, with respect to Warren Buffett – I am a 25 year vertern of the financial insdustry, first hearing of Buffett in the late 70’s
*Hey Nameless Oldman,If you did not buy anything since 1970 what’s the point of reading tonz of book,if you did not care about your life you should have settled up your family oh may be you were too cheap and never had chance to get marry,did you?.
You have been deaf to the experts that have voiced concerns regarding the real esate bubble for the last six years
*So what happend,is there any change that would stop the further growth?
Finally, the advice that you are trying to shovel is basically to convince people to buy into an asset that is heavily dependent on the use of debt.
*Mortgage is not a debt see the difference of interest rates between credit card and mortgages,Mortgage interest rates are always very close to a rent of similar property plus mortgage insurance in case someone lose their job as owner,it’s different than what it would be if tenent lose their jobs.At the end Mortgage provide oppertunity to open door of your dream.
*Oldman,Could you please tell this to Buffet,Lynch,and Shiller that VANCOUVER REAL ESTATE NEVER GO DOWN.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Thanks, Skullboy,
You are a really clear thinker. I will tell my colleague what you have suggested when I see her next.
Rock on
November 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
The G20: Catching a falling piano
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/.....onomy.html
November 14th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Experts jumping on the bandwagon? You have been deaf to the experts that have voiced concerns regarding the real esate bubble for the last six years – Robert Schiller, Bill Fleckenstein, Jim Grant. They have been very clear on what the fallout would be. Also, with respect to Warren Buffett – I am a 25 year vertern of the financial insdustry, first hearing of Buffett in the late 70′s. I have read half a dozen books on the guy, ranging from fawning biographies to controversial but insightful analyses of his track record. First, his investment horizon is longer than any of the readers on this site to whom you are offering your counsel – billionaires can afford infinite time horizons. Second, Warren Buffett has made some major investment mistakes in airlines and insurance – fortunately, these came later in his career when he could afford to ride through the loss and when his investors would give him the benefit of the doubt – if they happened early in his career, there is a good chance that we never would have heard of the guy. Finally, how many properites did you own in 1980 in BC? That was a sickening retracement of real estate prices because we have never developed a truly world class knowledge-based or manufacturing economy that can pull us out of the depths of a recession quickly. As a result, the recession of the early 80s hammered real esate prices so severly that it took a decade to recover. Finally, the advice that you are trying to shovel is basically to convince people to buy into an asset that is heavily dependent on the use of debt. Clearly you have a vested interest to see suckers buy early since you have an abundance of properties. But if those who can actually get financing follow your advice, you are leading them down a very dangerous path at a very dangerous time. Be prepared to hold on to your properties for a very long time. Most of the suckers you are trying to lure into the market will discover that they won’t be able to get financing for many years. They can’t help you out even if they wanted to. Also, credit market history says that this bear market in real estate will provide a horrible test for anyone who is over-extend in using debt. Property owners who have minimal or no mortage debt will surivive. However, those who have made small down payments will not like what is coming.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I am in agreement with the bearish assessment for real estate in the coming months, more so since a friend of mine mentioned Credit Default Swaps to me.
While there is no doubt controversy regarding the valuation of the CDS market, the corporate entaglements are bound to be worrisome. Even if in some cases, such as GM where the losses may have already been factored, in others such as AIG the full impact may yet not have been realized. The fact remains that there are several notable companies in need of bailouts (for reasons that could be tied to CDSs) making all the bailout figures bandied about look like a pittance.
Is it such a leap to think that just as our credit (credit squeeze), cash (job losses) and investments (corporate bankruptcies, stock market crash) dwindle, the real estate market will similarly wither?
November 14th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
thank you thums you just made my point.
Why do the children of boomers have to buy any property when they’ll be inheriting more than they need?
One of the reasons those houses in Pt Grey are so expensive is because they were bought up by young professional baby boomers in the 1970′s and these buyers have gone on to join the highest income bracket, once these people start retiring there simply aren’t enough people in Vancouver who earn $330,000 per year wanting to buy a house in PT Grey.
The part that really doesn’t make sense is why I would buy a $500k condo downtown, oops more like $390k now, if I want to move into a house in three years I’ll end up paying $2,000 per month to subsidize the tenant for the next 22 years?
Who wants to be a landlord and lose $24k per year on a condo that loses money?
Get out there thums/browntown/satv/total nobody!!! and buy another condo! Lose money and be a slave to a mortgage for the rest of your life!
BTW you aren’t allowed to put 14 members of your family in there either, the strata will fine you.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
When Vancouver appears in an article in the New York Times does that make it a world class city???
Not if the headlines says “Winter Games Project Hits Snag in Vancouver”
November 14th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Yes…just as we see prices go down by 30-50%, everyone will certainly feel excited to buy in a declining market. Just like the stock market. Now that I’ve seen my stocks tank by 50-75%, I can’t wait to go and buy more and watch the rest of my money vanish too!!!
Duh…
November 14th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Today on the radio, I heard the funniest one to date from the pimps:
They claim that although sales have dropped yoy by over 50%, prices have only dropped by 6 1/2%.
And the icing on the cake:
“The market will recover soon, as more homeowners pull their listings of the market, and new projects planned will not be built, which will reduce inventory”.
One thing I have noticed is that the pimps avoid hard numbers, not once have they mentioned just how much supply is out there.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
“If you feel $2,000 is a good price to pay per sq ft go for it”
Oye Confused Idiot,
Tell me if todays prices per sq.ft.are similar to what your parents had to pay for your family home?I am in the market still need to buy more around 2010,posted rates are for you,if you don’t like to pay those rates then you owe your childrens a great burden in the near future however it’s different this time for bears because they are on the verge to lose their jobs.
Homes were listed in the market not on the blogs dumbheads.
secret code in 4 year:
CURENT SCORE:267
November 14th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
sorry, #64 was me..
November 14th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Articles like this make me shake my head.
Real estate gets the Obama boost
Like:
Cheri Dorsey McCann of Sutton Group-Bayview Realty believes people who are waiting for prices to fall further are missing an opportunity to troll for bargains now. The Bank of Canada has cut interest rates, listings are brisk and potential buyers are scarce.
“They [buyers] need to get it. They’re very nervous.”
Yeah, the people holding back from catching those falling knives just don’t get it.
Now when I read this one, I was speechless:
The irony, Ms. McCann says, is that so many potential buyers plan to stay on the sidelines for a few months, she foresees a return to bidding wars when people crowd into the market all at once.
“If everyone waits until the spring, we’ll be back in multiple offers.”
Ohhhh, isn’t it ironic doncha think?
Maybe the G&M should hire some of CanWest’s laid off journalists. Oh… but that would mean someone asking some real questions and doing some research.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
not bears bulls, i got a touch of kriish
November 14th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
***Some links can be read through it’s headline if the reader got brain in his head***
This means that he doesn’t understand anything since he has no brain in his head.
,****Developers are not different than any other investors that’s why they like to bring their rental cranes to fork in the roots but that was good for bears because if those developers decide not to follow their investment plan this city will get dry from new supply.****
Developers aren’t experts but it’s important to trust what their sales staff tell you because it’s always the truth
****Remember that $2000 per sq.ft.starting from the bottom part of Vancouver***
If you feel $2,000 is a good price to pay per sq ft go for it
***,Aren’t you the one who trolled through archives hmmm yep! yep!! that!!! one ok now you should say thanks to developer for coming out to help the bears but the way projects are going down that will bring the same light out of lost Anecdotal in the archive,did some one say vrngd?.***
Yes BDK is the one who opened up the archives and found some of the dumbest things the bears said just months ago about the market going up forever.
Did you read the Michael Lewis (of Liar’s Poker) article thums or were you too busy drinking chai tea and banging your head against the wall?
November 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The lack of land argument has been discussed ad nauseam. It’s pretty silly when, as someone on here had pointed out, they create land by building upwards, as in towers, etc. Futhermore, there is plenty of land within the GVRD especially just east of Vancouver proper that would be easily accessible for hundreds of thousands of SFH’s.
The real problem isn’t lack of land, it’s lack of proper infrastructure to handle the number of people who could be living in those areas. But this lack of infrastructure won’t save this bubble, through an illusion of demand, get it through your heads sheep. Forget everything else you have heard or read, it’s about LACK OF AFFORDABILITY. Everything else is like tossing fuel on the fire.
—————-
Through my work I get to see a lot of condos, and there are some really crappy places out there. IMO – The key to a good condo unit is the floorplan. I have seen few condos with decent floorplans. I’ve seen condos with more space in the entry hall than the living room. Then they cram everything together as an “open space”. Just terrible, cheap, cookie cutter designs.
WHEN it is time to buy, pay special attention to the floorplan and shy away from anything constructed during this boom. Remember, it’s buyer beware.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
oops! just realized that was the first link at the top that I clicked this morning. Now where did I put my coffee…
November 14th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Jameson House project halted. Yet another hole in the ground. I have an idea, they should turn it into a community garden! Those are the latest boom, they’re popping up everywhere downtown
November 14th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Bdk,
Some links can be read through it’s headline if the reader got brain in his head,Developers are not different than any other investors that’s why they like to bring their rental cranes to fork in the roots but that was good for bears because if those developers decide not to follow their investment plan this city will get dry from new supply.
Remember that $2000 per sq.ft.starting from the bottom part of Vancouver,Aren’t you the one who trolled through archives hmmm yep! yep!! that!!! one ok now you should say thanks to developer for coming out to help the bears but the way projects are going down that will bring the same light out of lost Anecdotal in the archive,did some one say vrngd?.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Nobody; Yay gotta get out of your warehouse..lots of land making machines, look across the skyline if you see a crane you are looking at a land making machine. Wouldn’t buy one though if I were you they are a dime a dozen now. And land making operators well time for retraining!
November 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Browntown I found a land making machine!
Browntown is too busy trying to dump his property because he is upside down now
Poor, poor, browntown; he’s caught with a property that won’t sell in this market, and he is losing gobs of his equity everyday.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Browntown I found a land making machine!
Check out Evelyn (currently on hold)in West Van they are taking 57 houses and making it into 176 units!
Obviously you owe me for finding out about this!
Maybe one day they’ll start using this land making machine on all the surface parking lots downtown and put infill buildings on parking lots in the west end!
November 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
As No Lympics pointed out above when a nobody warehouse worker who even calls himself NOBODY! gets involved in real estate “investing” then there are no greater fools to join in (if NOBODY! were any stupider he wouldn’t be able to use a computer) then the game of musical chairs is about to end.
There is a chace Nobody is just a troll who pretends to be the stupidest person alive but after this long he/she would have to be pretty crazy to take so much abuse and keep coming back for more. It obviously can’t comprehend or doesn’t read any of the links and it’s source of information is unclear.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason’s latest article on the Olympic Village Bailout
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....gary+mason
November 14th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Hey Nobody!!!, how old are you? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?
November 14th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Re Jameson House story posted in the “Free For All” :
WOW!
I know the developers, the Pappajohn family.
However, while I knew they had various holdings, I didn’t realize they were into the Hi-Rise condo development market.
Like I had posted a while back,as a builder once told me, when Firemen, BC Tel employees and Housewives start getting into the development scene, time to bail.
This appears to be the same phenomenon as Toronto, with a land shortage, everyone and their dog gets into the Hi- Rise market, and especially those that shouldn’t be in there in the first place.
Nice folks, but work within one’s limits/expertise, and not get caught up in the gold rush euphoria.