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That posting was copied from the Greater Fool site. I am not the one who wrote it. I will continue to post any similar stuff I find.

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I don’t think you understand that I am one of the biggest bears around. I am not predicting roses and chocolate bars for real estate!

Perhaps our economy is somewhat similar to Spain, that could be, industry wise. I am not disagreeing. My point was simply that they have more foreign speculators per capita than we do (ours were a myth!)

I am also not disagreeing that this burst is going to be unfrickinbelievable in scope!

“Ms. Kniffen said about 40 percent of Cascadia Pacific Realty’s clients were Americans” is a direct quote from the company not my writing fiction. Look it up on their web-site. Look for quotation marks in my posting . They are these sqiggly things “”””””””””” on either side of an enclosed grouping of words. Ex: The dog said “Woof” at the mailman. Woof is the direct quotation.

Let’s not get too pedantic here, mmmkay? I understood that was a quote from an RE agent, which is exactly why I ignored the hell out of the quote and asked you for a REAL stat, not something imaginary from the RE fairies.

Dude, it’s your own fault that you chose to use an RE agent as your proof that there are more foreign speculators in Vancouver than in Spain!

Is the bet on or off? Where are your numbers? Do you want to call a truce, or do you want to share a keg in 15 years?

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It sure isn’t what you wrote. Your commentary was all within one paragraph implying that you considered a declining population would result in declining productivity. Convenient that you change your interpretation after having it explained. GDP growth and productivity are two different concepts. You were confusing the two.

In any case, yes negative growth is detrimental to an economy.

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Yes.

You are not using the term correctly.

How did I use the term incorrectly?

The size of the work force doesn’t enter into it.

Where did I say that it does? I simply said that it’s detrimental to an economy to have negative growth, am I wrong?

I also said that it’s detrimental to an economy to have an aging population. I’m talking about the effects of the Boomers aging and expiring on real estate values. But outsourcing will save us, thank you Jeebus!

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Do you understand what productivity is? You are not using the term correctly. Productivity is simply a measure of output per unit of work (e.g. one hour). The size of the work force doesn’t enter into it.

I can only presume you are referring to a drop in overall economic output due to a decline in the workforce. I doubt that our economic output will drop. Firstly, there are lots of workers coming behind the boomers. Secondly, our population is still growing. Thirdly, many boomers will remain in the work force in part time or consulting roles. Remember, they are an active bunch.

And finally, I would predict that should the workforce drop in size, productivity increases would likely make up for it. It’s a global economy and outsourcing services and products is easy to do. That will allow our workers to take on roles that generate higher GDP per work (i.e. higher productivity). But, I am not a macroeconomist so this is just a hunch on my part.

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Kinda like: “IF I CLOSE MY EYES YOU CAN’T SEE ME”

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“Most people who buy SFH in GV are not first time home buyers.”

And those people don’t impact the market significantly. Sell 1 home to buy another and the net market impact is essentially 0. For the market to keep going upwards it needs to feed on new buyers and home ownership is at record levels.

But enough of you changing the subject and avoiding my question.

You’ve admitted your system of market prediction is broken over the long run. You’ve said your system works fine for the last 50 years but will fail over the next 100.

At what point between now and 100 years from now does your system fail?

What makes you believe the system is still working now if you know it will fail eventually?

Your system of market prediction is 0 for 4 right now in predicting recent trends, that, coupled with the fact that you know it will not work forever doesn’t tell you that maybe now is the time it fails? Really?

You’ve said in the past that you don’t purposely dodge questions yet twice you’ve avoided this one (in spite of your name being in bold at the top). How about an answer Dave?

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Dave what happens to our economy when productivity declines by say 1%? It’s bad right? With the Boomer generation winding down we’re going to see a declining population. What effect do you think that has on an economy? Oh and you’re right about immigration but guess what, most of the immigrants coming to Canada are Boomers! You’d think that a real estate agent might have even a cursory understanding of the demographics of the market they work in! Maybe you slept through the “Demographics 100″ component of your rigorous realtor training seminar?

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WEB EXTRA: Hotel developer asks city for five-month delay

http://www.bclocalnews.com/van.....42384.html

QUOTE:

The developer has asked Nanaimo city council for more time to begin construction on the 180-room hotel adjacent to the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.

Council is scheduled to meet Wednesday night in a special open meeting to discuss the proposed new terms.

In a letter to council dated Dec. 15, Millennium Nanaimo Properties president Shahram Malek says his company is still committed to the project and has invested “significant time and resources” even though it has missed several contractual deadlines that should have seen construction begin last summer.

QUOTE:

In his letter, Malek offered the City of Nanaimo some incentives as a “gesture of goodwill,” adding that Millennium is now ready to obtain a development permit after two failed attempts.

One of those incentives would be to give the city $50,000 per month starting from Jan. 31 to pay for each monthly extension, though that money – up to $250,000 – would be refunded once the hotel is complete.

What makes this interesting is that Nanaimo, like Vancouver, had a bit of a purge after the civic elections , the common thread being deals with Millenium.

However, I think Millenium is simply delaying the inevitable in Nanaimo, given they had to borrow $100 Million from City of Vancouver to complete the Olympic village. Can’t Nanaimo see the obvious, it is getting the wool pulled over its eyes ? Unfortunately, Gov’ts, especially Local Gov’ts , are basically whores that will take any legal bribe they can, like Milleniums $50,000 per month offer to buy or rent ” False Hope”.

I see Millenium playing the new councils in both Vancouver and Nanaimo like fiddles, despite all the bluff and bluster of the new Councils who got elected on the platform of “Dammit we will get to the bottom of this “.
Egos and legacies are on the line….regardless of who is in power and when…the taxpayer always lose when these bad quasi P-3 deals are signed.

PS: Stay tuned for a major move by Millenium on the “new” Vancouver Council, and moreso based on what happened with Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme . I’ll bet Ladner and Sullivan are breathing a major sigh of relief they ain’t Mayor for the next 3 years.

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” #8 Gordon C. on 12.15.08 at 8:21 pm

As for the “WET COAST” of Canada, it really sucks to be a Real Estate Appraiser. Sales activity is at the lowest point in ten years. That puts us back to pre-boom times which were a flat half dozen years. Prices are declining and in my city at a rate of 2 percent a month or roughly 25 percent a year for single family homes. Condo prices have rolled back to the Q1 prices of 2007. As for properties with 5 or more suites, there is no market for them and multi-family properties have stopped selling.

Lots of calls for divorces and I expect requests for court ordered sales to accelerate by Q2 2009.”

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http://www.canada.com/vancouve.....f1&p=1

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Prices are going lower than $750k.

Why pick 6% for your mortgage rate? It isn’t very hard to get 5%, so that brings it down to $3,250 per month, or $39k per year. It’s even easier to go lower than that with a variable rate mortgage, but I think people are safer looking at 5 year rates.

Most people who buy SFH in GV are not first time home buyers. Many go in with more than 25%, but I have no idea what the median down-payment is. Do you?

Median incomes do not necessarily translate into the median SFH buyer. Actually, the two demographics are probably worlds apart. Clearly a student working at Subway or a low income renter are not the demographic looking to buy a home. So why we think that the median income is somehow representative or even useful as an affordability measure? People who buy homes do it in their highest income earning years.

And why should we think the entire population will be able to buy a home? Do the math and look at our density. It’s not possible. At this point in time, perhaps only the top the top 1/2 or 1/3 of earners can afford a SFH. So again, the median income is useless for your scenario.

And finally, you have not accounted for mortgage helpers. What percentage of homes have them? 10%, 25%…???

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19k? You’d probably want to use some of that pay your taxes, EI etc. I’m pretty sure the 62k stat is gross income.

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“Once inflation returns, the central bank will need to sell assets into the market, to mop up the excess money it has created in fighting deflation. Similarly, the government must reduce its deficit to a size it can finance in the market. Otherwise, deflationary expectations may swiftly turn into expectations of above-target inflation. This may also happen if the debt sold in efforts to sterilise the monetary overhang is deemed beyond the government’s ability to service.”

this is what I have been wondering will happen, and I also wonder if we will see the housing market continue to deflate while inflation could ramp up again, and how that would last. I feel like there is so much banking and governmental manipulation that a strict Austrian school-style scenario might not happen? If anyone has an idea about this, I would be really curious to learn more.

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thank-you for the link. I have been following with interest (uh, no pun) various inflationary and deflationary scenarios for awhile, and I still find it the most challenging aspect to understand. Once you get past the basics, the scenarios become complicated and pretty interesting.

From the link:

“Is deflation a realistic likelihood? Core measures of inflation strongly suggest not. But one measure of expected inflation – the gap between yields on conventional and index-linked Treasuries – has collapsed to 14 basis points. Moreover, yields on 10-year US Treasury bonds are already where Japan’s were in 1996, six years after the latter’s crisis began.”

“…as explained by the great American economist Irving Fisher in the 1930s, ‘debt deflation’ – the rising real value of debt as prices fall – then becomes a lethal threat.”

If anyone is interested there is a nice list of various scnarios and bank reactions in that article: recommended!

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Maybe the gubmint will mail $1000 gift certificates to every Canadian every month for the next several months. That would be about $33 billion a month.

The gift certificates can’t be saved and have to redeemed at a car dealership/real estate office/furniture store/Future Shop before they expire at the end of the month.

Anyhow, I’m tired. Must go to bed.

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if one closely reviews your last babblings…er, I mean…post, it is quite apparent that you reveal….. absolutely nothing.

Can you try again and actually make a point this time??

John

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You could have monetary inflation with simultaneous deflation in some markets or vice versa, as I understand it.

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“Is it even 1/10th of what has been thrown at me?”

See post #17

It’s certainly more than 1/10th of what I have thrown at you. I’ve been practically defending you on occasion here. Not your ideas, they’re complete trash, but there’s no need for people to insult you on things that don’t relate to your intelligence, your personality or your hygiene.

Actually there’s probably no valid reason for anyone here to insult you based on your hygiene either, I just threw that in there because I like saying things in threes.

P.S. I find it quite amusing that you take my gentle teasing seriously. As I’ve said before your personality shows on the page, you read like a book (a bad book, Danielle Steel or someone like that, real pulpy crap that’s only good for a long transatlantic flight or an epic bowel movement).

Merry Christmas!

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“The question of what prices will be in 100 years begged for the sarcastic response.”

Well it got the desired answer from you. You admitted your system will not work over that timetable. You avoided answering the obvious follow up question however, so I’ll ask again. If your system is broken in the long run what’s to make anyone believe it’s going to work for even a few more years? Why do you so oppose the idea that your system could be in the process of breaking right now? If, as you say, your system is good now, when does it break? At what time between now and 100 years from now does it fail?

Many many problems with your thesis Dave and, as always when cornered you simply ignore the issues.

Stop sidestepping the issue and dragging it to ‘affordability’, that word is simply a dodge used by the real estate salespeople to justify ridiculous prices.

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