Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

My buddy at TD essentially ran an arm of the bank that loaned GOVERNMENTS money to complete infrastructure projects. My parents are wealthy entrepreneurs as well, and then there are the families in the East that own whole chunks of provinces and have been wealthy for many more generations then you and your family have been in Canada.

People who have been wealthy for generations do not gamble with their cash. They calculate risk vs opportunity and invest based on that. This is something you just don’t seem to get.

Risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin so to speak. Ordinarily if the risk is high, the opportunity to make money is also high. However in the case of Vancouver real estate the risk is now extremely high and the corresponding opportunity to profit is VERY VERY LOW.

Many of not most bears understand this, which is why they are bears.

It’s like standing around a gambling casino. Bears are observers watching people make increasingly foolish bets. They know that while the gamblers have won the last few hands eventually they’re going to lose and that will wipe out not only their profts, it’ll take the grocery money and the kids’ college funds too.

The problem is the gamblers are so intoxicated with the success of their past wins they’ve gone beyond rationality and won’t listen to the voice of reason.

I don’t mean to sound like a racist asshole but is there something in the Asian psychology that doesn’t get this? All the Chinese guys I know loooooove to gamble but a lot of them are really bad at figuring odds.

Current score: 4 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

An immediate ‘stop work’ order would be more appropriate. As far as ‘numbers’ go, I suggest reading the papers. Count back the number of citizens killed by RCMP in the past year and tally that against the number of CDN soldiers killed in Afghanistan over the same period. Yeah thats right, pretty shocking isn’t it?

There needs to be immediate civilian oversight and removal of all personal files into the public domain. All agents under 50 should be given an independant psych evaluation. The RCMP members involved in atrocities and the cover ups should have thier benefits and pensions revoked and the budget should be directed towards paying victims reparations.

As far as the ‘gangbangers’ are concerned it has been RCMP inaction over the years that has led to the proliferation of the problem as it exists. How were they suddenly able to come up with so much information after the media turned a fire on under thier asses. They have been complicit all along and should be permaently barred from police intelligence services.

Current score: -2 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

We now know that few of those massive losses will ever be realized. No large banks will go under. The government has sanctioned their fraudulent accounting practices, extended credit as necessary to keep them running, and monetized much of their toxic waste. Millions of people are also living mortgage free in houses they bought but aren’t paying for because banks won’t or can’t recognize any more defaults. Furthermore, we know that real reform is impossible at least in the US. Even superficial reforms have been eviscerated by the banking lobby.

The conversation on the internet has shifted from “how long until banks go bust due to lies and financial machinations” to “how long until countries go bust due to lies and financial machinations”. The system has been trashed to save the bad actors, who are now clearly in charge and have their hand on the taxpayers’ credit card.

In this new era, I do not have much faith in numbers on a bank statement or stock in a company. Anything paper or electronic can easily be manipulated away or decimated outright. Much greater security can be had by owning a house, even though the government could conceivably take that though property taxes.

That being said, I still have all my money in GICs, etc. I’m not running out to buy gold. I’m just saying, I understand why people would go out and buy a house and overpay now.

Current score: 2 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

http://www.livethemark.com/

http://www.themarksandiego.com/

Current score: 6 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

What supratard doesn’t understand is that rich people take calculated risks. They study the market, then place their bets if it makes sense to do so. The supratarded risk takers are just gamblers.

Go look at Gold today, Doh! over $1200. Wait till gold rockets over $2000, you’d wish you had bought a property today. I bet you’re holding cash, shove it all into GICs, yup, that’s the way to beat inflation with your mentality.

So, the 400% increase in gold since 2002 was inflation, eh? Boy you truly are a supratard!

Current score: 6 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Instead of letting the market correct to more reasonable levels, the policies this year (through purchase and extension of CMHC mechanisms) have simply created a whole new stream of FTB at higher debt levels who are sensitive to interest rate resets (i.e. a canadian subprime like situation). In a sense, what the government and banks have done is double up on the bet and hope the economy recovers enough to offset the later side effects.

Personally, I think it would have been better to allow homeowners, who had already gotten rich without effort anyways to take the hit now and in a sense pay for the mess with those windfalls, rather than indebt the next wave of FTB at a higher level only to have it coming crashing it at the slightest lift in bond yields. This will surely happen one day when true recovery arrives.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 8 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

The significant amount of investors in the market, especially in Vancouver, makes it prone to price volatility. The RE market is also inefficient for many reasons: it is not very liquid, it is not possible to short RE, it is possible to straw bid up prices, detailed quality data on the housing market is not available from unbiased sources.

This makes housing prices go up more than they should for longer than they should and then drop more than they should and for longer than they should, simply because too many people buy at the peak and there are too few people left to buy at the bottom. Government, CMHC, and bank intervention can have temporary influence over the market as we’ve seen but this control isn’t omnipotent nor ever lasting, and neither does it come without side effects and often it simply postpones the inevitable at the expense of further detrimental effects.

Current score: 4 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Or maybe the bulls have returned to the board….

Current score: 5 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 1 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 6 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Put it another way. Let’s say your buddy is at a Vegas roulette table. He’s won 6 wagers in a row, each time doubling up.
If you tell him that you think he should cash out and leave, does that make your a pessimist?

And for all you bulls out there, there’s nothing unpatriotic or wrong about lower housing prices.
It means that families have more money left after paying the mortgage to afford things like food, clothing, education, etc.

Current score: 9 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 3 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Obviously flat prices occur AFTER a market top.

I’m not sure what you are getting at here.

Current score: -7 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

I think we have a number of flat years ahead of us.

Do you? Take a look the price charts:

http://cuer.sauder.ubc.ca/cma/van.html

Now where do you find the flat prices? At market tops or market bottoms? There is a reason for this, can you figure it out?

Current score: 2 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

I was just stating that Real Estate and Gold are very different and they are not relating in the slightest.

That just isn’t true, gold and RE have been noticeably correlated since the late 70′s, albeit a bit out of phase (gold topped a year earlier than Vancouver RE in 1980 and then both saw busts, gold has seen a very similar runup to global RE since 2000). In the early 90′s gold was out of whack with Vancouver RE but correlated with Toronto and Southern California which both saw RE busts.

The main reason is that both are very sensitive to interest rates. A big hike will bust both of them.

Compare to the RE price charts at UBC. Gold prices can move way faster but you can see the similarity.

http://www.kitco.com/scripts/h.....graphs.plx

Current score: 3 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

I am not pessimistic, but I am equally not too optimistic of there being much more upside for the next while.

I think prices are going to moderate over the next four months and then slowly start climbing again next spring. I think we will still pass the prior price peak, but probably not by much.

I think we have a number of flat years ahead of us. I think prices are going to mostly sit somewhere between the May 2008 peak and the January 2009 trough. Sales volumes will probably moderate a little as well over this period.

I don’t think there is much risk in sitting and waiting out the market at this point. I also don’t think prices are going to crash.

The patient buyer is probably the one who is going to win out at the end of day. But, when the right product comes up, buyers will need to be decisive. For example, I believe there will be some great deals in the Okanagan over the coming months. Inventory there is quite high and I don’t think currently pricing reflects that. I think some of the recent developers are going to start unloading product at relatively good prices. There will probably be some good land deals as well.

Expecting prices to ‘soar to the moon’ in six months is retarded at best.

Current score: 1 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.c.....eport.html

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

I believe that when prices went down 14% between March 08 and December 08, the steepest decline of ANY North American bubble city, you were proven wrong. I believe you were pretty much absent during that period.

With record unemployment, affordability eroded once again, demand from the past and future absorbed, interest rate decisions around the corner, and the soon to be end of the Olympic hype, its only a matter of time. Bears were proven right once through fundamental analysis – they will be proven right again.

Current score: 25 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Ah yes, littlesuperboy is known as the big “risk taker” on this site. He is the individual who has acknowledged several times that he still lives with his parents in their Richmond family home.

If you cannot even take the simple “risk” of leaving the confines of your family’s home and mother’s womb to experience the world, you clearly lack the ability to risk anything without the family safety net. And if you have a family safety net to fall back on, my dear little warcraft playing basement dweller, you certainly are no genuine risk taker.

Unfortunately for you superlittleboy, the biggest risk takers are those that have been made hungry through world life experience, who have been on their own so to speak, and who have lived knowing that they alone will receive the benefits of risk and the consequences of failure. Alas, you will never be one of those individuals, and your commentary consistency reflects that fact.

A simple grammar, syntax, diction, and argumentative framework analysis all indicates that you lack the “strength of character” to be anything but a mildly educated, co-dependent individual that lacks the social grace to have anything but antagonistic psuedo-relationships via the internet.

Again, if you take my advice, and indeed your own advice of “planting your ass elsewhere,” you might actually be able to analyze people’s socio-economic background and experience without reverting to juvenile assessments. If you left your crowded extended family home where multiple income earners and undeserving recipients of Canadian old age benefits are required to make ends meet, you might actually learn something. However, I highly doubt that day will materialize. But I must digress before a feeble “pot calling the kettle black” posting arises.

Current score: 11 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: 1 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

When investors get scared they buy Gold and Silver etc. NOT Real Estate. Most people know that Real Estate as an investment can be risky especially when in a Bubble as we currently are.

Like gold isn’t? Guess you weren’t around in the early 80′s.

http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/au80-84.gif

Current score: 3 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Current score: -17 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

Isn’t it too bad you hang around with low income and middle class wage earners who hump for the rest of their lives without taking any risks. You’re the type who hides in your little own cave and got picked on in highschool. The only way for you to bitch at people is to vent your frustrations on the internet.

Rich people share common traits, that is they take risks in life. Something you and a lot of bears don’t understand. Go look at Gold today, Doh! over $1200. Wait till gold rockets over $2000, you’d wish you had bought a property today. I bet you’re holding cash, shove it all into GICs, yup, that’s the way to beat inflation with your mentality.

Current score: -18 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)