Vancouver Condo Info

It’s Friday, and that’s a beautiful thing.  As most of you know, I’m going to step away from writing for this site for a while, so this is my farewell post for now.  At this point there are at least six readers who have signed up to post stories, so the conversation should carry on fine without me.  If you’re interested in contributing content to this site please read this.

OK! Let’s get this party started! It’s time for the end of the week news round up. Here are a few stories I’ve noticed this week:

-Canadian new home prices down for first time in a decade
-Canadian consumer confidence plunges
-Huge job losses may be tip of the iceberg
-BC economy going down
-Translink asks for cellphone tax & plans expansion
-BC’s new economic brain trust
-Experts agree: Asia, natural gas & the Olympics
-For some, free-fall; for others, wind-fall
-Bailouts please: Cars, Tech, ABCP and 50 Cent
-Bank of Canada’s ‘mystery assets‘
-Bank of America to slash up to 35,000 jobs
-Foreclosure storm to hit US in 2009
-Big sale as woolworths closes 815 stores in Britain

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news, links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an extra fantastic, upbeat, magical weekend – comfortable and free of money worries.

note: any conversation on Vancouver, real estate or economics is allowed, please keep it civilized. When posting articles please only quote pertinent points and link to the original instead of pasting the entire article here. Pasting a link into your comment will automatically create a clickable hot-link. This list of web links is neither created nor endorsed by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.  Do not operate a motor vehicle while accessing this site.  If itching, swelling or rash develops discontinue use of this website and consult a physician.  Accessing this site may involve exposure to contrary opinions, rambling incoherence and the occasional intelligent but not socially sensitive commentary.  May contain nuts.

The Bank of Canada is warning of severe economic turmoil, including the risk of many Canadians losing their homes, if the financial-market crisis worsens.

It’s different here, no?
But don’t worry…

Banks are somewhat insulated by mortgage insurance

Thank goodness for that, or we’d all be in real trouble.

I’ve been trying to follow the conversation regarding my decision to close this blog on multiple sites, and am a bit overwhelmed by the response.  I’m not as motivated to post stories and maintain the site as I used to be, but others have offered to step in and help rather than see the site dissappear.  I think a community run site could be a great thing, so I’m going to start transfering the reigns.

This means that the future of VancouverCondo.Info is you!

I know its an oxymoron to give up control and still want control, but I’d like to maintain some of the personality this site has built, so I’m going to do this change slowly.  If you’re interested in writing for VancouverCondo.Info the first thing you should do is register for a user account (if you don’t have one already) and then email me expressing your interest.  I’ll change your account status to ‘contributor’ and you’ll be able to start writing stories.

If you are interested I’d like you to consider the following important point: Ranting is for the comments section, stories should be respectful and factual.  There’s an important difference between pointing out the flaws in someones statement and calling them a liar.  The former is fine, the latter is not.

If you would like to contribute content and help this site carry on Popeless, then let me know.  If you have other ideas about the future of this site leave them in the comments section – then we can get away from this boring site-centric naval gazing and you can get back to discussing the Vancouver housing market!

Ok. Shutting down all access to the blog was overdone and led to a lot of speculation.

Lets clarify: The issue with the REBGV was minor and was dealt with immediately. They were concerned that the 2008 housing market graph shown on the November market update post could be construed as being somehow created by or endorsed by the board.  That image has been altered and all older versions of it have been removed to address their concern.

No one has told me to close the blog and I have not been offered $25,000 to stop publishing this site (geez, i wish!).  I don’t believe (as some seem to) there is any conspiracy by the board to try to shut down blogs or hide news about the market – that seems about as unreasonable as trying to get a meteorologist to stop reporting the weather because you don’t like that it rains so much here.

I’m closing this blog because it feels like it’s run its course.  Originally I found humor in the widespread excitement over the Vancouver housing market, and the popular view that this was somehow a market that was not affected by any normal economic fundamentals or cycles.  As the market peaked and started to decline there was less opportunity for humor and this site became more technical.  A lot of the topics covered by this blog are now found in the local dailies and on the evening news, so it’s begun to feel redundant.

When a hobby becomes an unpaid job it’s no longer fun.  For the most part lately I’ve been linking to news stories and sorting through spambot posts to make sure that all of comments on this site are at least posted by humans, if not always on topic or sensible.  The grouchy note from the REBGV was simply one more thing that made me think “how much time and energy do I want to spend here?”.  I will likely be making the archives of this site available to someone else to host, and for now the wiki remains open.  If anyone has any problem with the content of the wiki they can edit it themselves.

There’s a mix of sadness and relief in making the decision to stop this blog.  I appreciate the range of discussion and community that this site has built, and wish you all the best of luck whether you rent, own or somehow manage to live for free.  Be nice to each other.

For me its time to move on to other things!

Keith sent in a notice that CondoAdvisory.com is online and seeking reviews of condo units – the site looks like it’s got a lot of promise and if widely used could become a useful community resource for condo buyers and renters.  I like the tag line too: “Take the ummm…out of condominiummmm…”

Here’s their Vancouver Condo reviews page, they’ve started adding video of many units, and like any self-respecting real estate site they also have a blog.

The headline is ‘sales drop forces realtors to cancel 09 conference‘.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) held a version of the conference in the spring, but in a letter to prospective attendees and exhibitors, board president Dave Watt said a careful review of its sponsorship model led the executive to postpone the next edition until 2010.

“With REBGV members and prospective sponsors/exhi-bitors currently facing economic challenges, we believe forgoing the 2009 edition of our event is a prudent and responsible measure at this time,” Watt said in the e-mail.

When contacted, Watt declined to offer further comment on the cancellation.

Lower Mainland real estate markets hit the down stroke of their cycle this year, which has meant declining sales and falling prices.

Also in the news today, Richmond is the latest area of the lower mainland to see real estate prices drop lower than they were this time last year:

But it could be worse. You could be trying to sell a house on Vancouver’s west side where detached, attached and apartment properties are being sold respectively for 18.5, 19 and 19.6 per cent less than 2007.

Coun. Derek Dang, a Richmond realtor of 23 years, said it was only a matter of time before the city’s real estate bubble burst.

“It’s not that surprising as we were always going to get caught up like the rest of the world,” Dang said.

“Ultimately, we’re all part of the one big worldwide crisis. We’re good, but we’re not immune.

“It’s an international market we’re dealing in these days and when the global financial market gets into trouble it’s bound to affect us.”

It’s time for our end of the week open topic discussion and news round up.  Here are a few links I’ve notice lately:

-Vancouver Real estate sales grind to a standstill
-November: More houses sold in Edmonton than Vancouver
-Food bank gears up as layoffs begin
-BC house price predicted to keep rising (March ’08)
-New Quotes have been archived in the Wiki Quote-tracker
-Canadian bankruptcies jump in October
-Concord Pacific chops down trees, then gets permit
-A question of priority: City residents or Vanoc?
-Taxpayers will pay extra security cost for torch route
-US style housing collapse could cost tax-payers plenty
-Vancouver prices dropping faster than US bubble cities
-Bay Area House $348k in 2006, today $79,900
-Victoria sales hit nine year low
-Saving money by shutting down the government

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

YLTNboomerang sent in this updated snapshot of the townhouse market in Coal Harbour & False Creek North, along with a chart showing days on market vs. sales price reductions. You can download the XLS here and here’s the price change over time chart:

I’ve started a new submarket tracker in the wiki and encourage anyone tracking specific Vancouver sub markets to share their information there. Email me if you add information there and I’ll create a blog post about it.

The benchmark price for a Single Family Home in greater Vancouver is now $666,525. Vancouver West is seeing the biggest drops in detached house and town homes.  Both of those benchmark prices are now down at least 18.5% year over year.  Overall the benchmark house price for Greater Vancouver has dropped $104,725 since May of 2008.  That’s a few free cars worth for those keeping track.  Thanks to cashisking and gadwin for pointing out these numbers.

Post any other interesting things you find in the stats package in the comments section below and I’ll update this post when I get a chance.

Benjamin Tal of CIBC World Markets is saying that we’re currently in a recession and is predicting a 20% drop in BC house prices, and a smaller 10% drop in house prices nationally.

He said Canada’s recession was sparked by slowing growth in the wake of the meltdown of U.S. housing markets. The economy will not begin to recover until American real estate bottoms out, the financial sector stabilizes and until government economic stimulus packages take hold.

Tal said that could be sometime around May next year.

He cautioned that recovery will not be a robust “V-shaped” bounce-back. Rather it will take more of a “U-shape” and will take some time.

Tal said Canada’s housing downturn is a recession-led correction rather than the kind of meltdown that brought U.S. markets low when large numbers of high-risk borrowers defaulted on their loans.

Tal said B.C. is likely to see deeper corrections in real estate prices, largely because values here shot up so much higher and more quickly that in other parts of the country.

“When you double the value of your real estate over the course of breakfast, then you pay the price,” Tal said.

He said the recession still has to run its course, and was in the equivalent of “the sixth or seventh inning” of a baseball game.

I notice that we don’t have any quotes from Tal in the Wiki Quote-tracker, anyone feel like adding some? Thanks to Re-diculous for the link!