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February 6th, 2010 at 11:35 am
49, let me translate for you:
Foreign idiots throw away thier money.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Quotes from Vancouver Sun
“Mainland Chinese buyers led luxury-home market recovery” “Canada seen as a safe storehouse for personal wealth”
Yeah, you bet it is a safe haven for their money and on top of that they get to use our tax dollars for free medical care for their at least 3 generation extended families. Plus free education for their kids all for a bit of property tax. You won’t get any income tax out of these people.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:27 am
@nero: Good question…..maybe in a world in which even the banks are willing to forego risk-free profits to avoid being reprimanded (and their bonuses being restricted) later on.
Let the blame game begin!
Personally I blame the government which changed the rules of the game through the CHMC. Banks are private companies which naturally want to make money and maximize profits (like most private companies).
This is the government’s fault: abolish the CHMC!
February 6th, 2010 at 10:21 am
from article 46:
“Mortgage advertising outside a Bank of Nova Scotia. Deborah Baic/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Top bankers pushing government to clamp down on market to avoid any chance of U.S.-style collapse”
———————————–
Horse. Bolted. Door. Close?
February 6th, 2010 at 9:41 am
FROM GLOBE AND MAIL: MUST READ ARTICLE
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le1458585/
In what world do the banks have to tell the government to rein in lending and squeeze profits? I’m actually (somewhat) proud of our banks.
Flaherty can’t blame anyone else now.
As soon as downpayment minimums go to 10% you can expect a 20% drop in RE prices here.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Speaking of Ottawa, here’s what 400K gets you in a neighbourhood that is the counterpart to Dunbar/McKenzie Heights.
The 417 is not close enough to the property to be noticeable.
http://www.realtor.ca/property.....Id=9066339
And no I’m not claiming Ottawa is good value – that house should only go for about 300K. Ottawa is about as overpriced these days as Seattle IMHO. But the difference is that Ottawa has gone up over the past couple of years (while Seattle has gone down) due to CMHC’s bubble blowing.
February 6th, 2010 at 5:39 am
@Starving Artist:
In fact it’s the other way around, people from the coast (and Alberta) are driving up prices in semi-ghost towns like Grand Forks, Kaslo, Midway and Greenwood (population 600, Canada’s smallest incorporated city) where there are few full time jobs, never mind good ones. People in the Interior don’t have the incomes to service the negative cash flow to “invest” in RE in their own towns, never mind Vancouver, where they would face higher prices and management expenses.
340K gets you this house in Greenwood – price reduced from 390K – better buy now! On the market for a year but won’t last long!
You can buy a nicer house in Ottawa for that price.
Ironically the one town in the West Kootenays which has a lot of well-paying jobs is the cheapest – Trail. That’s because the out-of-town speculators aren’t interested.
BTW, there are other investment opportunities than RE. Like the stock market, for example, and last I heard that’s just as accessible from the Interior as anywhere else.
February 6th, 2010 at 2:06 am
go load up on van real estate Eent Van or be priced out forever, great metrics right now, plus i guarentee you it will go up.
you clearly have no clue about this blog, values are absurd now, perhaps not so much in 81, 95 and 99. timing is everything, and today is not a good time to buy, but hey you are trump jr so who am i to call you a fuckin moron
February 6th, 2010 at 2:02 am
#40: “The price now means nothing! Call me a retard!”
OK, you’re a retard.
February 6th, 2010 at 1:50 am
WAKE UP BEARS!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:47 am
Logic!
The price now means nothing!
The cost of ownership is everything!
D0 YOU OWN YOUR HOME?
I”m talking about TIME!
Call me a retard!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Guilty! I am a retard!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:25 am
37, are you a complete retard?
seems so.
what’s the price now? would you buy _now_? if so, then you are a retard, end of story.
February 6th, 2010 at 1:21 am
I’m so glad I didn’t buy that 3000 SF Point Grey Rancher in 1981 for an absurd asking price of $229K @ 13% per yr.
I’m so glad I didn’t buy that 1/2 acre British Property view home with a pool in 1991 for $360K when % rates were 19%!
I’m so glad I did not buy that tacky East Van bungalow in 1995 for $200K (with a basement suite) when % rates were 9%.
I was so lucky to walk away from that North Van bungalow in 1999 with a basement suite for $220K because % rates were 7%.
It only gets better BEARS!
Want to make MONEY?
Buy RE and HOLD!!! OR keep paying your Foreign SMARTER owners mortgage!
Oh Yeah, had to decide between cycling, downhill skiing, boating, hiking, scuba, kyaking an on an on! yeah it sucks here Get a life Arit, Logic, realpaul etc!
Wake up people, Look around, Use your own intuition!
Stop listening to these Losers!
February 6th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Hi Folks,
Your good friend Boog Rennie here. Ha, just kidding. #15, you are spot on. taking 3 big vacations with the family this year, just brought a new car and the mrs some fancy ear rings. All my house owning friends (probably 99% of them) comment, “oh must be nice being a renter”, I simply say yeah it is great, we save the difference between our rent and the total cost of owning, juice up our RRSP and spend the rest and actually buy shit with cash not credit. WOW, what a difficult concept to crasp! Some still don’t get it. Mark my words, this time next year, Vancouver real estate will be in total collapse. Wishing you and your family a happy Olympic experience in this crap ass town, I will be in the Carribean enjoying the sun and cheap rum.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
@Anonymous:
#31
Where is “Gordy”, the drunken BC premier erratically driving down a Maui highway?
http://www.mugshots.com/Hall%2.....mpbell.htm
February 5th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
The Trail house returned 14% per year before maintenance and property taxes, so yes, it probably was a good investment opportunity. However, you actually have to manage the thing. Maybe you didn’t want to be bothered?
February 5th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
@Starving Artist:
“…how much of Vancouver speculation is being driven by professionals that live in BC’s smaller towns and cities, where there aren’t that many investment opportunities”
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, but being from the interior, trust me, most people think that people in Vancouver are completely nuts for spending $900k on some East Van shack. Besides, I’m not sure there is a lack of investment opportunities in smaller cities (Okanagan, for example?) A few years ago (pre-bubble) I had the chance to buy a decent, solid house in Trail for $60k. Yes, $60k. The rent was about $700/month. Property taxes, not too much. If that’s not an investment opportunity, I’m not sure what is (and yes I still wonder if I shouldn’t have bought that house, houses there are now $120k plus)
February 5th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Letterman’s idea for ticket holders to bring their own snow to Cypress was a good one, except that it will melt during the 3 hour security wait to get to the event.
February 5th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
hahaha
Rejected 2010 Mascots
http://drawn.ca/wordpress/wp-c.....b7bb4.jpeg
February 5th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
In the Shadow of the Olympics – form the New York Time
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02.....tside.html
“We are who we are,” Sullivan said. “We’re not busing anybody out. We’re proud of what people will see, the work that’s being done. We’re not hiding anything.”
Hrmmm I guess he’s referring to not busing out the current people. I wonder where all the people they bused out are now?
I heard the Langley area, so they have no access to transit.
February 5th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Benjamin Koellmann paid $215,000 for his apartment in Miami Beach in 2006, but now units are selling in foreclosure for $90,000. “There is no financial sense in staying,” he said
No help in sight, more homeowners walk away
February 5th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
opening ceremonies?
YAWN.
I’ll be on the beach in Fiji, thank you very much.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Hey all you cash-rich renters, opening ceremony tickets available at cost. Get ‘em while they last.
http://www.vancouver2010.com
Come on realpaul, we know you want to go!
February 5th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
@Wilma
Kaspersky AV gives a “malicious” warning when I land here on
this site. Can anyone shed some light on this?
malicious http://pagead2.googlesyndicati.....how_ads.js (analysis according to the base of suspicious web addresses)
February 5th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Also re: market slide… seems to me it’s priced about right now, with potential to undershoot.
http://www.multpl.com/
February 5th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
You know, I was in the interior last week and I had the thought that I wonder how much of Vancouver speculation is being driven by professionals that live in BC’s smaller towns and cities, where there aren’t that many investment opportunities. Any anecdotal evidence to support this?
Also, anyone got a historical graph of consumer spending in BC? The BC Stats site only goes back about a year (at least the free stuff I was looking at). I’m curious if it paced RE valuation at all. I’m sure it went up a fair bit even from HELOCs etc. I just read Shiller’s book and he says a classic bubble feature is that people don’t cash in and actually enjoy the “paper wealth” they think they have. It would also be a pretty good predictor on how cash-strapped our province could be when prices correct.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I see now why people are so anti-VANOC
———–
Opinion is growing that the $10-million Canada pavilion in downtown Vancouver is an “embarrassment” to the country — and a “rinky-dink” effort by the 2010 host country.
“It looks like a temporary tent,” said North Vancouver resident Alastair Campbell, in town to take a peek on Wednesday.
“I’m very disappointed. It’s not very impressive. It seems the federal government forgot they had to have a pavilion,” he said.
“It was done at the last minute. To showcase this to the world is embarrassing. They’ve let go a major opportunity. It’s being upstaged by other countries and provinces. This is really rinky-dink.”
http://www.calgaryherald.com/s.....story.html
February 5th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
21
Lol – we are all millionaires or Rhode Scholar economists on this site and all of us have “seen the RE meltdow before” in past economic cycles…
“I would love to sell my house here but I would never get all the money and headaches I’ve put in.”
What? Did you just buy your house? Did you do major renovations worth more than the value of your house?
If you bought anytime since 2002, with the exception of Spring 2008, you are up and most likely you would be able to recoup any investment in house upgrades if you sold today. I trust that if you are on your 5th house, you bought before then…
Makes me think that while you may be on your 5th house you have learned nothing along the way…
February 5th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Same Same,
How many economic cycles have you been through?How many houses you owned? I’m on my 5th.
I live in Shaughnessy, I have winter and summer properties. My kids go to private school.
I’m a member of a westside golf club and tennis club.
I would love to sell my house here but I would never get all the money and headaches I’ve put in. Plus my wife laughs at me when I bring it up.
Shake your head son, the Van RE meltdown is coming.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
@Arwen:
What makes sense to me is what makes money, and buying a house 25 years ago would have made you a lot. And let me stress that’s even if you still own it – the house would have been putting income in your pocket year over year.
Waiting until, say, 1990 would have changed the parameters substantially.
But to each his own.
http://cuer.sauder.ubc.ca/cma/.....couver.pdf
February 5th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
@patriotz: I agree with your assessment of Gordon C’s post on one level – but really, renting in your 20s, even if you could buy, makes sense to me. You’re more free to go to school or travel and the like. And maybe less likely to trash it with ill advised house parties.
He might have gotten it paid off by now to sell and be quite well off, but he may have also then missed the experiences of youth. I feel the same way about my kids, actually. A different kind of investment, of course! If I’d had ‘em earlier, I’d be almost done by now, but I would have missed a lot of living.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
@VRENGD: I know you can’t see my Car with loud music infornt of Coal Harbour and yeah Flag is up like Van. R. E.
If anybody like to feel proud then go for walk around Robson and Pacific Blvd,and BC Place.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@Gordon C.:
Don’t you understand that if you have bought in the mid-80′s your house payments would have dropped below rent within a few years and would be substantially below rent now, as the mortgage approaches its payout date. You would have gotten a free house and more.
Whether a house, like any other asset, is a good investment depends on how much you pay for it, and the price was right in the mid-80′s. Fundamentals matter.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Anyone looking at the US Jobs data and wondering why the CDN jobs data is exactly the opposite should slap themselves or drink more coffee, cause you’re not following along. The jobs data lies in the US could no longer be sustained in the face of growing eveidence to the contrary. The CDN government is using the same old tricks to skew the data for political points. Connect the dots indeed, the Cons are back in a hole in the national polls. The media in Canada is actually just a conduit for the advertisers. Hasn’t EVERYBODY figured that out yet? Watch for revisions on the jobs data in Canada. Didn’t anyone hear Carneys comments that Canada was still in recession and it would be a long time before any improvements became obvious? Hes distancing himself from the Cons statements so as not to look like a fool. I’m not hoping for the worst, but as a grown up with money to lose I am not falling for the BS I’m hearing from the CDN government. No matter what the press reports, the RE market in canada is a powder keg ready to explode. What will be the final determinant? It’s impossible to say. The fact remains is that artificial markets never sustain themselves. This IS a bubble, pure and simple, if you can’t recognize that because one year has gone by and you think thats time enough for a macro cycle to have passed, then too bad for you. Only a child can’t see whats going on.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I’m off to New York City for the weekend.
You see, by renting my West Side house instead of buy it, I’m saving $3500 – $4000 every month (depending on how much repairs and maintenance the land lord has to do in particular month). I take that money and live like the rich man I am. I go to New York every month for a dose of art, culture and shopping. (Since I can’t live in a world class city, I visit one often).
Then I take $1000 or so every month to top up and annually max out my RRSP investments.
The only problem is, all my friends are owners. They have no money to do anything!
Bears don’t live in basement suites. They live in houses and they live it up because the bears have the cashflow.
The funny thing is, that Bulls think they are smart paying 70% of their income to the Bank. Have a nice life slaves!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Fact1.Global stock markets slide
Fact2.Vancouver prices hit January peak
Too bad for R.E.Bears who did not buy but good for Stock Bears and Van R.E. Bulls.
Spin:Economy pace is hard to reverse while oil prices crashed and employment rates went up.
Stock market is leading indicator to carry the economy through but nobody can ever figure out about where to start,What could be the bottom or end of stock price.All you need to see is Green light even if the piller is standing on multiple casualities.So the stocks green lights will be ON starting Monday Feb 8,2010.
Results:Vancouver real estate is going to countinue it’s trends upwards,Economy pace will never reverse to nail down Van R.E.
Interest rates will never accelrate on high speed,Unemployment rates will be countinue to sliding downwards,Oil prices got huge skyline to touch.
Look out for 32% extreme speed appreciation in Vancouver Real Estate in 2010.
And
Thanks.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:25 am
There is a scrolling add appearing in this blog when viewing on a iPhone, but the add does not say from admob or google. Is it from a wordpress plugin?
February 5th, 2010 at 11:19 am
7 Cik
Yawn….
Yes, yes, the inevitable seasonal “flood” where listings are just catching up to their norm of 9-12k for the REBGV. The same amount during all of the boom years.
Nothing to see here – move along, or stay in your basement suite.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:11 am
@Gordon C.:
Funny thing is, that house is probably worth over a million now and incomes are at about $60-70k.
Incomes have not kept pace with RE prices.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:24 am
In the early 80′s I was working in Vancouver. A friend offered me his two-bedroom rancher in Marpole for $135,000. At that time I was making $36,000 a year and interest rates were around 12 percent. I didn’t buy, then house prices started going up and I was left behind. I gave up on ever owning a home and instead went back to UBC and later travelled through North America. If I had to do it all over again. I would do the same thing, except study a little harder and leave Canada for the states. I certainly would not want to be strapped to house payments in my 20′s for 25 years. My payments would just be ending now.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:20 am
“Global stock markets tumble: what’s going on?”
They should put this on the end of every headline.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:33 am
@Dave: part time jobs buddy, don’t get to exited!
February 5th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Apparently there’s a huge backload at MLS. Any RE people care to investigate and comment? My RE sources who don’t load their own listings say they’ve been waiting for a week and that the excuse being given is that there are 300+ to go in.
Cashing in on Olympic buyers ?!? or something more ominous?
February 5th, 2010 at 9:07 am
@Dave:
That’s nice. Unemployment was down in the US in 2006 too:
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servle.....NS14000000
Connect the dots.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Unemployment is down across Canada and BC. Most Provinces were down except for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
http://www.vancouversun.com/bu.....story.html
February 5th, 2010 at 7:46 am
The Froogle Scott Chronicles: Mortgaging Our Souls In Paradise –
Part 3: Priced Out Forever? Vancouver Renters and Basement Suites
see:
http://wp.me/pcq1o-sv
In the latter half of the 1980s I was a student at the University of British Columbia, augmenting my student loans by working part time as a bartender in one of the student bars. . . . One evening Mike, one of the food prep guys, told me that he and his mother had just bought a house on the East Side, traditionally the working class area of Vancouver. . . . I remember the price he and his mother paid: $90,000. -Froogle Scott
In other times, and other places, renting was and is the norm. But during the kind of runaway real estate boom that Vancouver has experienced, just about everybody who can buy, eventually does. The cheap loans and social forces are irresistible. Ownership rates rise to record highs. The renter pool becomes more highly concentrated with vagabonds and the indigent. Renters become an underclass, targets of derision and subjects of pity. As with all things human and economic, however, once this process has moved as far as it can in one direction, the only way forward is for it to come back. There may well come a time when the renters rise up out of their basement suites; a time when renting comes to be seen as prudent, as sensible, as responsible, as trendy, as wise. -vreaa
February 5th, 2010 at 7:29 am
“Fixed or variable rate mortgage?”
Wow, something from the “experts” that actually makes sense.
The ruling principal is that you have to pay to offload risk onto someone else. In lending, the longer the term, the more risk the lender is taking. The shorter the term, the more risk the borrower is taking.
So on average, the shorter the term of the loan, the less the borrower will pay over the amortization. What the borrower gets for the lower cost is more risk of payment increase.
Another way of putting it is that the markets are more likely to be wrong in the short term than in the long term. That is, if there’s an unexpected rate increase you may beat the market by getting a 5 year term over floating, but at the end of that 5 years the market is going to want a higher rate for another 5 years. So the guy who has had floating all along is more likely to come out ahead at the 10 year mark.
A good rule of thumb is that if you can afford the payments for 5 year term, you can afford the risk of taking a floating rate and will come out ahead in the long run. Of course the people taking out floating rate today aren’t following this rule at all – it’s the only way they can buy, period.
February 5th, 2010 at 7:19 am
re: “Global stock markets slide”
After yesterday’s drubbing, I see they are busy “adjusting” the unemployment numbers DOWNward.
Silly! Yesterday they were all a bunch of Gloomy Gus’s but today…ta da! Things are soooooo much better after all!
I wonder how many other “mistakes” can be fixed in 24 hours?
February 5th, 2010 at 6:39 am
RE: Fairmont Pacific
Great timing. All we need in this day and age are symbols of rampant excess and luxury.