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Friday Free-for-all!

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It’s the end of the work week, and for most people a long weekend – are you ready to talk turkey?  It’s time for our regular news round-up and open topic discussion post for the weekend.  Here are a few stories I’ve noticed lately:

–TD: Vancouver RE rebound ‘too much, too fast’
–Royal LePage: reboung doesn’t point to boom
–Ipsos Reid: Optimism rising amongst BC home sellers, buyers
–Hot market expected to cool by November
–Olympic Village $131 Million over budget
–Strong market needed for Village to break even
–Australia first G20 nation to raise interest rates
–Currency traders bet Canada will be next to raise rates
–TD: Could home prices trigger rate hikes?
–BC recovery so feeble it might as well be dead.
–CIBC: Consumer borrowing in Canada ‘defying gravity’
–US rents are falling almost everywhere

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

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YLTNBoomerang

@mk-kids:

We were paying $2200/month and saw another unit in the same building for $2100. Looked at it and said "too much" and it is now listed at $1800 – South Granville.

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pundit bandit

dboy, so now you want to restrict freedom of speech as well?

Wow, interesting how some deal with the more inconvinient matters.

Not sure but when a city/province starts limiting my personal freedoms in major ways (through wacky bylaws/police) then this does affect me and my decision to buy a house for my family here. In fact it's one of the main reasons not to settle here at this point. Someone pointing out the not so great things about Vancouver, cutting through the re marketing crap, is actually quite helpful.

If you dislike other's posts howabout choosing to ignoring them? 😉

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Anonymous

@dboy: The Troll has posted 14 times so far in this thread. Not a single one of those posts has a positive score!

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dboy

@realpaul:

You are a fucking moron. This is supposed to be an re site. There really needs to be moderation on this site, its going to the dogs.

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dboy

@read on:

Funny I was thinking the same thing….. a bunch of nut jobs on here with nothing better to do… get a life already!

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No Longer Looking

@tincup: “Or are homeowners/landlords generally able to come up with enough related deductions to offset that?”

Yeah, pretty much. Say your basement suite is a third of the floor area in your house and you have to spend $10,000 to replace your roof. Well, you claim $3333.33 against your rental income. That should take care of about four months alone. And it goes on from there…

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logic

^^ Jesus, what a sense of entitlement this spoilt little bitch has:

"With a blunt and harsh realization that not everyone with a Canadian passport is brimming over with excitement and anticipation for the sixteen day event in February"

– no shit. Perhaps that's because folks from back home "Albertie" aren't going to be stuck with the bill for her little party?

"Seriously? Ten thousand PAID positions for a once in a lifetime chance at working at an Olympic Games and we gotta beg? Maybe a free jacket and lunch would sweeten the pot."

– perhaps they could offer market wages, rather than trying to get poeple on the cheap?

"And the Olympics are a bad thing? "

– yes, yes they are.

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Starving Artist

Poor Alberta girl doesn't understand why people who are loading up on generational debt are such DOWNERS and can't just ENJOY life and spend billions so she can go zooooom on her little sled!!

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/luge/news/newsid=16980….

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Starving Artist

We really are growing up; it only took us 30 years to have an Olympic fiasco as large as Montreal's. Go Vancouver!! Maybe in another 50 it will be a great place to live.

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mk-kids

It was/is Kim Rossmo but the story is the same. He was shunned by VPD as a Crim PhD. Shame. He is brilliant & a great guy but not a VPD asskisser.

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Vansanity

Someone mentioned there is a high number of furnished apartments for rent, I agree.

I did a quick search on craiglist and counted 123… all posted October 13!!! 123 posted, in one day. Furnished.

Nuff said.

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logic

No, it is not "normal" in any balanced market.

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Ulsterman

Secondary suites needed for home ownership

http://www.vancouversun.com/bu…..story.html

“Heaney said that on a $580,000 mortgage, which is fairly typical for Vancouver, a buyer would need a family income of around $100,000 a year to carry the payments

*****************

BOM will lend almost 6 times family income? Is this normal?

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rentah

Watch two really uncertain and anxious guys, who actually seem to know very little, trying really hard to look like they know what they're talking about as they chat about RE and mortgage rates:
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip219864#clip219864

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Dr Topper

@rp:

"If it increases the income due the owner then it does increase the value……."

Yes, I agree. But the point I was trying to make is that with a laneway house, you'd have somebody living in the backyard, which on some level, lowers the value of living in the place, even if the dollar value of the place is higher.

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realpaul

Braidwood Inquiry determines RCMP defense of Taser use ' a reliance on junk science'. No kidding. How many science geniuses do you think are on the police force. Stop counting you idiot , there aren't any. For example, remember when the VPD refused to incorporate the geographic profiling work of Gene Rosmo in the Willie Piction / Missing Womens case of the DTES. Rosmo was up for an inspectors promotion but the high school drop outs who infest the senior positions of the VPD boycotted his work because the promotion was deemed by the insiders ' an inside position' and they wouldn't allow a better educated outsider to get the job. They effectivley shut down the investigation for two years until they forced Rosmo out of the running and an insider high school drop out from Richmond was slid into… Read more »

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tincup

@patriotz

Regarding the secondary suite discussion way back on comment #96&97:

I never hear taxes mentioned when doing these calculations. Isn't rental income fully taxable? Or are homeowners/landlords generally able to come up with enough related deductions to offset that?

If I have a marginal tax rate approaching 40%, isn't that going to effectively reduce my income from a secondary suite by 40% (less the deductions like portion of utilities etc)?

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gorky

It's like they are testing the rather numb Vancouver folk on how much they can get away with. It's a really thin line to walk with these bylaws that's for sure. Basically it's the city/province (the folks working for *US*, the public, our civil *servants*) telling *US* to kindly shut up and put on a smiley face for the olympics if we like it or not. Imagine France gov tells their people that they can't go on strike anymore to express their opinion because it might look bad in the news. F*ck they'd have a major revolution on their hands and rightfully so. People fighting for their rights is a good thing and should be embraced and supported by government on all levels at all times. Having grown up for 30yrs in Germany (right on the border to France) I… Read more »

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realpaul

@NO – LYMPICS: Yes , have we elected these shitheads to commit to civic leadership or to undermine the institutions that have produced the very system that has given them the lives they enjoy. "Our civil liberties are being undermined on a 24/7/365 basis. For someone like Gregor or anyone else to lay the obligation onto their constituent citizens to challenge in court the legislated whims by elected officials which conflicts and tramples over our basic rght is disgusting" How does the idea of making bad laws purposely so that the citizens have to challenge them make sense to anyone? What next , pass a law that, say, says " Lets kill the Jews" and then expect the citizens to challenge that through to the Supreme Court " to make our laws stronger" as stated by this idiot Nazi Mayor… Read more »

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NO - LYMPICS

realpaul:

I see that Garth Turner(on his blog) has resigned and will not run for the Federal Liberals. I am surprised he waited this long.

To me, this indicates a homogenization in our political representation, a lack of clear and distinct choices.

Our civil liberties are being undermined on a 24/7/365 basis.

For someone like Gregor or anyone else to lay the obligation onto their constituent citizens to challenge in court the legislated whims by elected officials which conflicts and tramples over our basic rght is disgusting.

It is this type of "we dare you" arrogance by our officials that makes one wonder why we bothered fighting wars .

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realpaul

@gorky:

#116 G, how civic politicians who grew up in this country can turn around and pass draconian police state style laws is completley beyond understanding. This is shame beyond shame.

The comment you posted is on the lines of Hitler saying to the world " give us Poland and we will stop the blitzkeig". As we we all know these police states have all started with 'just a little more power being neccessary" type thinking. Thats usually the night before the truck loads of storm troopers and the barking dogs have been placed on every corner.

And then you hear from the deniers " But we didn't see it coming".

Zeig Heig Greggor Robertson, you anti democratic shit head.

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NO - LYMPICS

Rennie and the Olympic Village: If not mistaken Rennie takes an up front cut for every unit he markets/sells….I read somewhere it started at $50,000. Regardless, this may be the time the " condo king " falls on his own sword, and thuis may be due to his contractual obligations to market what is likley far too much product. The Olympic Village gig was a feather in his cap, and apparently he had a lot of sway with its design and features. He has advised COV to delay marketing the many UNsold units till MAY, 2010. I read that they are hoping the units will not be vandalized and have put up temporary barriers in the units to prevent use of certain areas and items by visiting athletes. Given these several hundred UNsold units will have to be renovated after… Read more »

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NO - LYMPICS

Re Cruise ships and disposable income:

Saw a feature on the Cruise business last week ,….much of which is based in Miami, and most of the pie is owned by 4 major companies.

While the logistics etc. to facilitate a cruise were fascinating…the bottom line is are they making $$$? The news crew followed one cruise, and in the end, the cruise line said they barely broke even. The industry is really suffering, and cut back on expansion plans.

One interesting note was they are very dependent on repeat business, which I interpret as the older crowd that used to have a lot of disposable income. Looks like this will be another bubble ready to burst.

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Disbelief

Wasn't Rennie saying last week that prices are unsustainable and we should watch our spending. What a difference a few days make. If this doesn't tarnish his credibility I don't know what will. If you wanna know what he really thinks you should ask his boyfriend. He is a little more straight up.

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NO - LYMPICS

I'm sure the 2010 Olympics will have more surprises coming, they are simply letting out the remaining agenda slowly.

I am sure much of these affronts to civil liberties were part of the contracts signed once we "won" the bid…there is much we ,the public who pays the Olympic Tab, will never see.

What this indicates to me is that our elected officials can and will sell us out (prestige/ego etc.), and/or are too stupid to read the fine print and fold like a cheap tent to a bunch of non constituents.

Unfortunately, the games will be used as a distraction and focus by our politicos from now till the last Polish athlete leaves safely in Feb 2010.

Back to reality,…Then the REAL games begin.

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