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Friday Free-for-all!

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118 Comments

We’re closing in on the weekend, are you getting excited?  Every Friday we do our end of the week economic news round-up and open topic discussion, so lets get ‘er started!  Here are a few stories to kick off the talk:

–CMHC: Homebuilding poised for a revival
–Bankers get the bonus, taxpayers take the risk
–Demographia: Vancouver ‘least affordable’ housing (pdf)
–UBC: Olympics offer no economic gains
–Toronto and Vancouver have hottest market
–2000 fewer million dollar homes in the lower mainland
–Scotia Capital thinks Canada in a housing bubble
–Don’t bite off more mortgage than you can chew
–The Desjardins affordability index
–BOC: Household debt ‘most prominent risk’
–US home sales plunge, worst drop in 40 years
–Seattle home prices hit new low
–More China bubble fears

So what are you seeing out there in the streets and lanes of Vancouver?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

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crabman

@jjss: Excellent find! So many great lines, but I think this one is my favourite:

With more than 15,000 members, it's the largest military presence seen in western Canada since the end of the second world war, an appropriate measure only if one imagines al-Qaida are set to descend from the slopes on C2-strapped snowboards.

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oneangryslav2

@Dave:

"I have a feeling that inflation is over your head. Mortgages don’t go up with inflation. They go down in nominal terms. Houses prices can drop in real terms and an owner can still be ahead in nominal terms, which is all that matters."

Wow, you really don't understand the difference between real and nominal prices, do you, Dave? No, with inflation mortgages go down in real terms, which is one of the benefits of paying off a mortgage during periods of high inflation.

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Karl

@rp:

I took a dump tonight and noticed that there was more useful information written on my turd than in yesterdays' Sun.

Whoever says newspapers don't know shit might be on to something! No self respecting dead fish would be caught dead wrapped in the Sun!

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oneangryslav2

@patriotz: You forgot to add China and India to the list. Anybody who thinks that real wages will increase is delusional. In fact, real wages in the manufacturing sector have not increased in North America since the early 1970s.

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jjss

sorry about the repetition – It wasn't going through.

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jjss

Some more press!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifameric…

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jjss

Some more news!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifameric…

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jjss

Some more press!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifameric…

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Drachen

@Anonymous:

That was just some random guy taking the piss out of Informer10 (note our regular 'contributor' is Informer10 and this guy is Informer5).

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informer5

That's right 107 you are drinking the piss and claiming it's champagne.

Pretending to be stupid must be the funniest thing ever.

Do you live at woodwards smart guy?

iz werst when preten stupid I do or be Dave and rent is going up and I really believe this because I just said it so now it's true and remember the metrics… Ignore the stars like drachen, patriotz etc. and listen to my intentionally stupid posts cause I'm Dave/Satv/John/Dosh

All the same idiot iz him

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Anonymous

informer – "ronkings"? now you re just taking the piss. now we know you too are a troll, lol. funny. have fun trolling.

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Informer5

That's right David Vancouver number 1 in wurld heulth ronkings too.

"Due in part to rampant intravenous drug use, the area's HIV rate is the worst in the developed world, said International AIDS Society president Dr. Julio Montaner. The HIV rate qualifies the Downtown Eastside for World Health Organization epidemic status, he said."

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David

See we are number 1, buy at woodwards before someone ,who's rich, does:

"This neighborhood is the most concentrated drug and poverty ghetto in North America, with high use of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine,"

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Bob

Dave's whole purpose is to discredit the bulls. He's a bear pretending to be a stupid bull. He thinks it's fun to make silly statements that are clearly wrong and he sits at his computer laughing while everyonetrips over themselves to vote him down and tell him he's being moronic and totally irrelevant.

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logic

epic dave-fael on the rental data front

just another example that undercuts pretty much everything he has to say.

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patriotz

@Wilma:

Wage inflation usually goes up in high inflation. That’s what happened in the early 80’s.

A few other things happened in the early 80's. Like "restraint", the Fraser Institute, Kerkoff Construction, Ronald Reagan, etc.

Anyone who thinks wages would track increased inflation this time around is dreaming.

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Wilma

Wage inflation usually goes up in high inflation. That's what happened in the early 80's. Didn't Trudeau bring in price controls of 6% and froze wage increases. If interest rates go up now it's going to cause a huge dragg on the economy the only way I can see them going double didget is with higher inflation and wage inflation. Our worst worry would be deflation.

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realpaul

#98, don't you mean 'some real press?' Seriously, good post

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realpaul

CREA and the local real estate boards are fighting like rabid cats in a sack to keep screwing the public with thier monopoly on information and data. Read on.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business…

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g

finally we get some big press: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35160185/ns/world_new…

🙂

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JJ John

#73 "If I can never buy in Vancouver I won’t be heartbroken, there are many excellent alternatives. But as long as I can rent so cheaply, save the difference and live my life I’m happy to stay here." I'm with you. My financial situation is this: – A property in the UK (my original country before work then marriage brought me here a couple of years ago) almost paid off after owning it for 10 years – worth maybe $230,000 – Savings of $50,000 – No pension – No investments – No debt – Self-employed income varies from 20,000 to 60,000. partner more secure up to 70,000 income So we have an income of 90,000 to 130,000 and a downpayment of 280,000 and I'm still not touching real estate in Vancouver – vastly overpriced. Much better to rent for $1300… Read more »

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patriotz

@Wilma:

I think the government will either inflate the economy or keep interest rates low.

One, inflating the economy will not inflate wages, and only higher wages will support today's house prices.

Two, you need capital inflows as well as low interest rates to support inflated house prices. CMHC's mortgage obligations are growing exponentially. What does that mean?

Our economy just could not handle a crash ala the USA

With respect to BC, I couldn't agree with you more. But unfortunately, the causes are already baked in the cake.

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Wilma

I think the government will either inflate the economy or keep interest rates low. Our economy just could not handle a crash ala the USA

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patriotz

@Not much of a name:

Are there stats rental rates for non-purpose built rental units (basement suites, etc)?

Never mind the informal rental market, the official statistics show declining real rents.

http://cuer.sauder.ubc.ca/cma/data/ResidentialRea…

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