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The Future of VCI

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46 Comments

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!

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paul

#36 No-lympics. I reread your #36 post and it is excellent. Everyone should read it. keep up the good work

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Mike

OMG thank you! I wanted to puke when I saw your farewell post.

Time to add this back to my bookmarks ^_^-b.

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Anon

"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.

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Anon

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

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paul

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…

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NO -LYMPICS

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

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Sidelines

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!!

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admin

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…

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admin

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… Read more »

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Anonymous

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.

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NO -LYMPICS

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… Read more »

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paul

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… Read more »

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Some guy

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.

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Ted

So I should just keep renting for the next 5 – 7 years? What should I do with my large downpayment?

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NO -LYMPICS

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 " ?

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NO -LYMPICS

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… Read more »

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paul

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…

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paul

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… Read more »

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Brittanny Originals

Current Score:

The Pope………….. 1,000,000

REBGV…………….. 0

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admin

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.

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Anna M

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.

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Vansanity

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… Read more »

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Anon

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.

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The_Dude

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…

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Ted

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.

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