The Future of VCI
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!
December 12th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
#36 No-lympics. I reread your #36 post and it is excellent. Everyone should read it. keep up the good work
December 12th, 2008 at 7:22 am
OMG thank you! I wanted to puke when I saw your farewell post.
Time to add this back to my bookmarks ^_^-b.
December 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
"people vote down opinions they disagree with, not just offensive or spam comments"
makes sense. Maybe have three votes then: "up", "down" and "away"? If you get certain number of "away" then collapse it or remove it? This way "disagree" and "junk" voites would be separated.
December 11th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Some guy, had a similar idea, but instead of deleting it would be best to "collapse it", have a "+" icon next to it. So if somebody wants it, it is still available, but otherwise it is out of the way
December 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Imagine whats coming when over 4 million people are unemployed in the US with an additional 3 million + guaranteed to hit the bricks in '09 , Can you imagine a population larger than the city of Toronto unemployed. Unemployment growing fast in '09 and continuing unabated into 2010 !! This is going to be a doozy if you consider that 85 % of the Canadian economy depends directly on the USA. Read the article and hug your children.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081211/financial_meltdown…
December 11th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Censorship via a benchmark of negative scores ?
Naaahh. Bad idea !
You'll just get tit- for -tat battles…could end up that nothing shows up on this blog via posters settling old score, getting even , "trolls" etc etc.
Save that for , or leave it with, the elected pr*cks in Office
December 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
In repsonse to Some guy's post (comment 34)
I disaggree with the suggestion that posts that pass a certain negative score threshold ought to be removed. It's good to read views one opposes. It's part of healthy debating. Having nothing but posts everyone supports wouldn't leave much to reflect on.
On another note: I'm extremely glad to learn that this blog may continue on. I was about to buy in late spring 2006 and its blogs like this one that made me pause, take a breather, and reconsider. Thank you Pope!!
December 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
And we now have our first contributor post! Reductimat just posted a story about the BOC warning of the possibility of mass foreclosures:
http://vancouvercondo.info/2008/12/bank-of-canada…
December 11th, 2008 at 11:07 am
someguy: Good idea, and I had hoped it would work like that, but here's the problem: people vote down opinions they disagree with, not just offensive or spam comments. This quickly makes it a one-sided conversation.
ted: Not sure why people are voting down your question, they seem like good topics for discussion to me. I think the readers of sites like these are the ones that will be buying on the way down when it makes sense to them personally.
Anyone who has a topic they want to open up for discussion can register for a user account and send me an email to make them a contributor. You don't have to post stories, you can simply post topics for discussion with a couple of sentences or a paragraph outlining the question. As others have pointed out, its the discussion that's the interesting thing about this site.
Once you're a contributor just claim a posting day on this wiki page: http://vancouvercondo.info/wiki/index.php?title=P…
December 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Some Guy: It was tried. General consensus (the Pope decided)is that it is too close to stifling free speech.Spam and offensive posts are usually blocked or deleted, but an unpopular view or stupid comment only gets exposed to ridicule and unmerciful rebuttals.
I'm alexcanuck, and now that I registered I need to change my password to something I can remember so I can log in at other computers.
December 11th, 2008 at 10:49 am
From "Greater Fool" Blog
10 reasons we are not there yet (ie " the BOTTOM" )
posted Nov. 18, 2008
http://www.greaterfool.ca/2008/11/18/10-reasons-w…
QUOTE:
1. Jobs are being destroyed in the post-crash shock that corporations are feeling. The pace of unemployment will be relentless in the coming two years, driving down the economy, consumer spending and borrowing. The number of potential homebuyers will dwindle and as supply of homes for sale overwhelms demand, prices will continue to slide.
2. Government bailouts will fail to reflate the economy of the US, Canada, Europe or China. As stock markets see clear evidence there is no magic bullet, another wave of selling could occur (reminiscent of what happened in the summer of 1930), which will shatter popular confidence and stall any real estate recovery.
3. It is much cheaper to rent a home than to buy one, so until there is a powerful reason to own real estate (like a sure-thing capital gain) there’s no reason to expect prices to rise. Anyone looking to improve their family’s finances will conclude that tenants win in this environment.
4. Real estate cannot rise in value without a steady diet of new buyers, and right now potential first-time purchasers have been shut out of the market by a return to more traditional financing. With the end of zero down payments and 40-year amortizations in Canada and the collapse of the subprime lending market in the US, it takes actual money to buy a house. New buyers will have to save for a down payment – and that takes years.
5. Interest rates may have been forced down by central banks, but that didn’t make mortgages any cheaper. The credit crunch tightened lending terms and rates, just when buyers were thinning out. Bad news for the market.
6. Armies of small-time housing speculators have been caught and crushed in the real estate meltdown. In Toronto alone 30% of all the new condos under development (more than 50,000) have been purchased by flippers, usually for minimal cash and with maximum financing. These people will either walk away from their investments before closing, rent them out for whatever they can get to offset monthly losses, or dump them on the market at fire sale prices. The dampening impact on the market as a whole – prices in particular – should not be underestimated. The last time something similar happened, in the early 1990s, condo values plunged by 40%.
7. Plunging financial markets and plopping house values are hitting the soon-to-be-retired Boomers especially hard. These people had been drivers of the real estate market for decades and have a huge amount of net worth tied up in their homes. Their exit as buyers from the market is a downer for everybody, and the certainty that they’ll be desperately dumping properties in the coming few years will further crash values.
8. Builders and developers are in a vice. Sitting on acres and acres of development land or half-built towers, with millions in bank financing hanging over them, many will be forced to dump inventory at any price. The result will be predictable, and many simply will not survive.
9. As energy costs rise and disposable income falls, a large amount of housing stock will simply be unsalable. Suburbs will fall out of favour, areas without light rail transit or reliable bus transit will suffer more price depreciation, as will homes that are not energy efficient. Price deflation may be our future, but it will be combined with energy inflation.
10. Houses are not cheap enough yet for people to afford them. The basic reason this bubble burst is the most pervasive and powerful. Until the average family can live in a property of their peers, having put 20% of its price down in cash and able to finance the remainder on a third of their income, prices will continue to crumble.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Does the idea of having cash in the bank scare you Ted? We should all have this problem. LOL, you lucky dog. Don't be so impatient, the buying opportunity of a generation is ahead, just be patient. I would wait unti at least next year is out of the way. There are issues which dwarf the sub-prime crisis still to come down the pipeline. The bad news is being managed. Prices of everything will continue to go down in the near future. Asset repricing is called defalation, I point towards Japan for an example. Buy a T-Bill until it looks so bad that local owners are bailing out of up-side down mortgages in droves. There will come a day when the headline news states that homeownership is akin to having contracted a fatal disease, that will be your signal to begin to go out and research the market. Then you will begin to make extreme low ball offers on select properties pricing in opportunity cost at a hefty discount present value for the lag time you may be holding before recovery actually takes place. Bottoms are only determined by looking in the rear view mirror. If someone tells you that they can pick tops and bottoms they are lying and / or they want something from you. DO NOT BUY UNTIL THE MARKET IS DEAD. WHEN THERE IS STILL THE HOPE OF A RECOVERY THERE IS STILL TOO MUCH OPTIMISM PRICED INTO THE MARKET. WAIT UNTIL ALL HOPE IS GONE. Thats what I'd do anyway. You're on your own with your thing. Take some of the intrest you'll earn and go on a nice vacation. Remember to keep in touch.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Just an idea to make regulating the comments easier. Why not automatically delete a comment if its score goes below a certain number (like -10 or something). That way if someone posts spam or something highly offensive, it will quickly be given a highly negative score and automatically removed.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:03 am
So I should just keep renting for the next 5 – 7 years? What should I do with my large downpayment?
December 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am
From another Condo blog and the global economic turmoil.
I'm sure many have had similar thoughts…
QUOTE:
" Also forgot to mention… You will need to purchase a gun to keep away the hoards of unemployed starving Vancouverites and desperate recently relocated Ontarian ex-GM/Crysler assembly line workers from burglarizing your home looking to steal some food ".
I wonder if I should invest in Firearms manufacturer stock ?
Maybe it will " Make my day " ?
December 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am
US Bailout:
I recall a US President once hired Joe Kennedy to clean up the US Stock Market etc., saying "it takes a thief to catch a thief" , but get the thief on your side first.
If the US Gov't lets the same inmates try to fix the crumbling asylum they brought down via their own incompetence, and reward them up front…sorry….they are now re-loading and setting -up for a greater fall.
This sends a bad message, the old boys club is alive and well, and the consumer and taxpayer confidence is shot. This has all the makings of a great heist by these Executives knowing the writings is on the wall, they will fill their pockets while the getting and the gravy is good, from the proceeds they have been given the key to the vault to.
This may push the hoped for fix into an abyss of no return…its over, "R.I.P." and then we have 1000's more unemployed in its wake.
This will have a major ripple effect back to the rest of
us even up here in Canada, politically, economically etc.and via a number of reasons.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:43 am
PS, if anyones really interested in knowing why I'm so convinced about an upcoming major recession, here.
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release…
December 11th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Ted # 22. Based on historical data easily accessed as public information it should be approx., 2013 -2015 is when we should bottom and trough. Any capital appreciation after that is anyones guess. This has only just started, next year I can almost guarantee will be much worse. In 82 through 86 more than 50% of the store fronts on Robson St were newspapered over, can you imagine that? You could have fired a cannon down Granville and not hit anyone.
If you're under 35 years old you haven't experianced a recession, you still think it'll be OK because this generation has been sucking the fat tit of inflation. That's over now, the media and everything you see is telling you it's over. If you think will just go away then you're in deep denial and are in for a rude awakening. You can't imagine how ugly things will get. get into the archives of the mid 80's , the mid 70's and the mid to late 60's, it will be a real eye opener.
You may conclude as I have that a great many ( now thought of as nostalgic) social movements were born from the poverty engendered by these extreme downturns in the economy. Do you think that the hippie movement was born from a sudden need for peace and love? Not at all, it was mass unemployment and people sleeping in the streets that had people zombied out in rags.
The ad vertising gurus's from Coca Cola and Levi's tried to make something out of it for sure, and the middle class kids tried to join in and 'rebel' against their parents by growing their hair at school, but the majority of the raggedy ass hippies were banding together out of neccesity.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Current Score:
The Pope………….. 1,000,000
REBGV…………….. 0
December 10th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Thanks all, but please DO NOT click the ads if they do not interest you. I have a few to help defray domain hosting cost, but I don't enjoy visiting sites that are too heavily populated with ads, and I don't want to turn this into a job, which is what actively trying to bring in ad revenue would do.
You've all shown plenty of support in your comments and offers to help out with the site, which just shows what a jerk I was for so abruptly threatening to close the site.
RJ, thanks for the hosting offer, I'll think about it, but for now I'm going to leave things as is.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
i’m so glad this site will continue on. thank you pope and thank you to those stepping up to the plate to keep the party going.
now that all that “lovey dovey crap” is out of the way, i’ll go back to lurkedom.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
NO-LYMPICS – I saw and read up on that. AIG's CEO was before congress today talking about how they are adding an extra 38 employees and executives to bring the total to 168 to receive bonuses. He talked about how it was a disservice to the taxpayers not to pay these people bonuses ranging from $92,500 – $4M per person to keep them.
Let's be clear, these are the same people that have cost them tonnes of money. If I lost my company a fraction of that, my "bonus" would be keeping my job, not $4M in cold cash.
History will show these bailouts as being one of the biggest robberies of all time. And it happened in front of everyone's eyes with the government writing the cheque. Un-Be-Freakin-lievble!
Canada is next to bat… we're going to be paying for this bulls*** for generations to come. Write to your MP, try to stop it before they sign the cheques.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Good stuff. Also, maybe try to expand the content to other topics interrelated with the local real estate market- employment, financial markets, taxation and other government craziness, etc. I would really appreciate such a combination from local perspective focused on BC.
Also, from my perspective comments section is more important than the stories themselves.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Now the bear blogs have run their course we need a blog where we can speculate on the timing bears should jump in and buy
To use a baseball metaphor, I think that in Vancouver we're still in the first couple of innings of the game. Remember that the historical average time to go from peak to trough in here has been somewhere between 6-8 years. Anyone who is here knows that this bubble was, in all available metrics, the biggest ever in Vancouver. That's not going to resolve itself in a year or two. I'll be looking at rent/own ratios and cost-of-living more generally to determine when (if?) I'll ever buy here.
This downturn will have plenty to write home about…
December 10th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Now the bear blogs have run their course we need a blog where we can speculate on the timing bears should jump in and buy.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
“If I click the google ad below do you get the penny?”
Please be careful about stuff like this. It is against google policies to encourage artificial clicks on ads. They may close pope’s adsense account because of that.
Google even uses automatic tool to parse the clicks with the IP/host, and pattern matches the possible offender. So, please don't try artificial clicks. Google adsense only works well (revenue-wise) when a site has a lot of transpassers with randomize clicks.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Pope, I am glad that you have decided to bring VCI back to life!
One quick question and maybe you have addressed this before. I believe you get decent traffic in your website. You have also talked about lack of motivation to post. I am wondering is there any reason that you do not run ads more vigorously on your website (currently,I only see google ads at the bottom of posts when someone wants to leave a comment)? That could perhaps provide more motivation to maintain the website.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
"If I click the google ad below do you get the penny?"
Please be careful about stuff like this. It is against google policies to encourage artificial clicks on ads. They may close pope's adsense account because of that.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Thank you Pope! And all the others who wrote in support, sufficient to keep this good thing going.
If I click the google ad below do you get the penny? I'm not quite sure if you get it or if Shaw does.
Everyone: If the Pope does see the revenue, please make an effort to click the ads. Show our support. Don't actually buy anything, just get the Pope some cash.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Glad to see the VCI "resurrection", Pope..
Now…Back to business
Just watched the News…
RE: U. S. Govt $700 Billion Bailout.
They have provided approx 50 % ,ie $350 Billion.
It is NOT being monitored…one Congressman says it is falling into a rathole.
The bailout is not stimulating anything as intended.
Some of it is going into pockets of Bank and Insurance Co.Executives. They were talking about $4 Million in salary and bonuses going to these executives once the Companies got the bail-out cash.
How f*cking dumb is the US Gov't didn't they have rider clauses ? Aren't these Executives the same pr*cks that created this mess? What did the Gov't expect? Or was this an inside job of Gov't -to – Business insiders?.
Maybe Canada can take notes before it starts.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
A truckload of work for sure. Thanks for the effort!
I wondered if there would be life after VHB. As it turned out, there was. Will there be life after VCI? Yes.
But the fat lady ain't sung yet. And she won't until after the Olympics. That's when the scale of our almost-decade-long follies (housing crash, debt for Olympic debacle, social disorder) will finally become apparent. I selfishly hope that you find someone to step forward who has the energy, maturity and sense of humour to do the job as well as have you. Regrettably, I lack all three qualifications.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for keeping the site going Pope. I was worried VCI would go the way of VHB…
December 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
My offer still stands to host your site for free. Drop me a line and we can talk further.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Just an update, you've got four new contributing authors on the site so far: Dave, InvestingDave, YLTNboomerang & Reductimat. You may want to use a posting schedule on the wiki to divide days up between you.
Good find Vansanity, I'll post that on the Friday Free-for-all, which will be my last post for now.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Biggest winners? Ha ha. Yah, whew good thing they are saving a few hundred a month on their mortgage payments,it will afford them the luxury of buying more booze to drown their sorrows as the house value plummets buy $10k a month.
I also love how the cop in the article decides that because they are saving some money they should go out and blow it on fun. Good planning there Sherlock.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I posted about it here Biggest Winners – Homeowners With Mortgages?.
From the G&M article "…lucky mortgage-holding Canadians…"
December 10th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Awesome! Enough of this lovey dovey crap, let's get it on!
I came across this article in the Globe and Mail titled: "For some, free fall; for others, windfall"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA…
It gives some real life situations on both sides of the story. One thing for certain, the times are here and we all better be prepared. The comments section is definately worth a look.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
yea thanks for re upping the site. Community forums are important. Truth WILL set you free.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I agree with Pope's comment – it is the discussion that drives this site and it needs to continue around its core subject.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Pope – You should run for office brother! You not only heard the people, you listened. Thank you.
I'm more of a ranter with crappy grammer myself, so I'll probably stick to comments, but if in the future I have a story to post I'll email you or suggest someone in the community post it up as a story piece.
Cheers!
December 10th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Hey Pope,
Thanks for your efforts over the years. I'm glad to help out and I will sign up shortly too. Also if you need folks to do muckwork (cleaning up the site, spam posts etc) please outline what you need done, perhaps I can be of service there too.
Cheers
December 10th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I'd argue that the comment section of this site is at least as important as the story section. I think it's important not to have more than one post a day so that each subject has time for the discussion to develop. CZ- you write clearer than many people whose first language is English, so I don't think the ESL is a problem. If you don't want to write a story, please continue to comment!
December 10th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Thanks Pope, that is great! But sorry for my ESL that may not be able to contribute in the content regularly.
With the variety of contents introduced by different content authors, it would make the blog more colorful. Especially with the RE market turning point, new voices and new tastes for sure would attract more readership.
Best wishes to you and the VCI future.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Great news!!! Very happy to hear that this site will live on. Pope lives on as the Don of the Real Estate Bear family.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Pope,
You made my day! I look forward to the community blog. Thanks so much for reconsidering. I look forward to future posts and will be happy to help where needed.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hi Pope,
Thank you so much for the confidence you give us. The "Sticker-Flicker" shall live on!
I personally volunteer to whatever it is you need. Count me in the plan, or let's make a plan together.
Best regards,
arit