Manyee Lui was just another dim sun queen, one of thousands it seemed. Braindead and barely pretty with lots of warpaint.

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If you don't mind my asking, What actually happened to the BELA boys? Where are they now ?

One of the partners owned a Chinese restaurant,(died years ago)

One or two were engineers

One was a house builder(who had some experience to get the ball rolling)

I remember meeting one of them and he showed me a list of projects. it filled a page. They claimed they were THE biggest SFH builder in Vancouver at the time in the mid to late 1980's, and this occurred in the span of 3-4 years. That is both bizarre and unsustainable.

The last time I saw them they were spec building in old Shaughnessy. Their business model was that it was tough for the average millionaire to go throught the hoops to build in Shaughnessy, so they spec built $10 million plus homes and had Manyee Lui (?) sell them.

I know the original partnership imploded a few years after it started..one left the group … but I saw some minor SFH projects later,but I asume they are gone now. Most builders crash and burn…maybe higher turnover than realtors.

Later on "Bill's Development" came onto the scene….a party who had a landscaping business and then came out of nowhere and was pumping SFH out like no tomorrow, outcompeting BELA… that's how much frontier "Hey I 'm a builder now !!! mentality is out there in boom times.

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Re Feng Shui.

Well whoever started it…it sure caught on…..even Richmond City Hall called in a Feng Shui advisor to "consult" on the new City Hall design…though doesn't like to admit it. Many builders I knew were scared sh*tless to make sure they were Feng Shui compliant.

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If I'd been selling houses/building projects to anally fixated persons I would have advertised it as 'the a-hole of the universe'. I made the whole thing up ( The Feng Shui thing) to make a quick buck. Two of the boys at Bela were in some of the JV's under a differant name. I didn't know Feng Shui from my left nut back in those days other than I knew the effect it had on my clients. We all agreed to play it up for the sake of the money.

I also made a point of selling my own image by allways showing up in tennis togs and a big gold Mercedes. My 'assistant' at the time was a 19 year old lingerie model , also Chinese. She didn't type worth shit, but when I walked into a social gathering I got noticed, that was what I wanted. That 'big face' I had drove them nuts, because as I said they are lemming like and wildly attracted to the look of success I presented.

I was a fisherman, a good one. I know these fish. They are my fish swimming in my pond. I think I became that cynical when I worked in advertising research as a kid and found out just how crooked the world really is.

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I call these boys " The Dim Sum Queens'. They crashed and burned in lock step with all the other specuvestors ( I love that term) of the time and lost big when the turn came in '92. I went to Fiji. Those were good times.

The pools open, but you're right not be a divin' in.

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Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.

Regards,

arit

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Fascinating reading…thanks !!!

Fills in a lot of blanks…as well as corroborating many other facts (which I concur with).

I do recall all those whacky "Feng Shui" ideas such as laying out a given area like a dragon…and the hot areas were certain dragon body parts. Someone once told me Broadmoor was the "eye" of the dragon re: Richmond being layed out as a dragon ….thus it became hot for no other reason.

I'm sure the Honk Kong threat from Red China was milked for all it was worth…while the rest of us predicted Red China wouldn't dare interefere with the golden goose Honk Kong was at the time.

As you state, it was all scared money…which came over…hence not many so-called "fundamentals" involved. It gave too many a false sense of security, economic or otherwise. Scared money is fickle and foolish, it is bad to consider it, (let alone rely on it) as a never- ending golden goose.

I knew one of THE biggest SF House builders in Vancouver(BELA) …they started out very small on the East Side of Vancouver building small spec houses….then before I knew it they rode the Rich Asian gravy train with investors spec building. They simply lucked out with perfect timing in the mid 1980's ….they ended up spec building in Shaugnessy of all places.

( I did notice that some became smart and avoided purchasing spec homes and all the built – in profit …they saved the dollars by hiring contractors for custom builds )

In the end….It's all promotion and gullible lemmings…nothing has changed. However, after the last lemming takes the plunge is when it gets V-E-R-Y interesting .

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Just business analytics not personal at all. If you want to invest in an area the first thing you should think about is your exit strategy. Who is going to buy your home when you finish with it? Theres some merit to the argument " buy the worst house on the best block" within reason of course.

When I first looked at Broadmoor for example I had the #3 transpo line, the Richmond Center shopping easily accesssed , and two schools with some of the best graduation stats in the province. There was no China town in Richmond or any signifigant Chinese population ( to speak of) at that time.

Once we started the ball rolling though with a few succcesful projects the Chinese pop flooded out there. I guess you blame it all on me. I can't take all the credit though. I used the JP Morgan strategy ( that I studied in business school) as a template. I was actually surprised that it worked so well.

I did the Westwood Plateau using the same criteria, before me it was just trees on the side of a mountain.

Not blowing my horn, just telling you that it pays to look at the subtle connections of the entire package. This is also why I disagree so much with those who propose investments in the hinterlands of the Okanogan etc. It just doesn't work for the longer term. We see the reaffirming pattern breaking down in California, Nevada, Yaletown etc. Good lessons in overdevelopment there which will certainly make it into the classroom at some future date.

And sit down, but all that Feng Shui nonsense, we made it all up. It was nothing more than a sales pitch. Once you get people talking by placing information in the right medium it's hard to get them to realise they've been duped. They insist on verifying the thought by insisting they knew it all along. Good advertising by dangerous people.

When developing Lower Shaugnessy, Oakridge, South Granville, Cambie , Oak , Richmond, Coquitlam etc, we used the same cookie cutter BS and it continues to work today. Think about for a minute and then you'll realise that only so many places can be on the back of a dragon. They (the above) all are, how can that be? Self affirmation in a nut shell. We lied.

The new immigrant patterns established by previous groups have been well studied and we in buisness manipulate the needs of these ethnic pops to our own end. The Chinese began to come in 1986 when the PRC announced that it wouldn't renew the lease for HK . The Chinese were as desperate , ignorant and lemming like as all the mass immigrant waves before them. I got to retire at 42 because I new this. The fact that the HK newspapers were sensationalizing the idea that Red Guards would be marching down Nathan Road in Kowloon did a lot to help stoke the fears and we read the papers daily and knew just what to say to ping ponged immigrants from across the pond. We weren't alone in this though, I knew some Aussies who were doing exactly the same thing for the same reasons.

Many car dealers run the same scams today. They know that immigrants like to be instantly comfortable so they rely on the patterns established by those that have come before them. If you wonder why an entire population is driving mini vans one year and hondas the next, look no further than a basic primer on social psycholgy.

I did a double major in Commerce and Psych, I have advanced degrees in Economics. When I got my first suit I was an absolute monster. It's unfortunatly very easy to manipulate people and it's done all the time.

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Meant more as an example of less McMansions, once more affordable and neighbourly via less gentrification.Knew people who bought in there CHEAP , given it was not on the radar screen years ago as people assumed it was old and noisy from the aircraft traffic. Not quite true…more noise in other areas.

Sea Island School closed in the late 1970's, but because of the affordability of the area more families moved in and they re-opened the school, all due to the specific demographic changes that the area attracted .

****Historical Footnote:

FYI: Burkeville was once company housing for aircraft assembly workers…BOEING was once located on Sea Island…then moved to Washington State, our loss = their gain. *****

Price wise, Burkeville has unfortunately suffered the same bubble froth as other areas once word got out. Still, a nice area if you can afford it.

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Prices of everything in every area are falling!!!!!!

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It is the micro markets in the fringes of the epicentric proximity map that will more or less stabize within a band of more predictable volitility. That is not to say that bubble froth is being wiped off the top of every sub area and it will pay to be attentive to the baseline numbers as this scenario plays out. It is premature to step into the market at this point.

I wouldn't consider Burkeville as an investment. Broadmoor I know well as I was the first builder to construct anything in that area. When we first began to JV construction projects in Richmond ( I was a young executive designing buisness ventures to sell to new immigrants) it was almost impossible to get anyone to consider it.

You are correct about the McMansions in the area being converted into rooming houses, this trend has been in place for several years. As SFH they are 'functionally obselete'.

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