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Personal debt concern highest in BC

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This should come as a surprise to no one, but this province leads the nation when it comes to concern over personal debt according to an RBC report.

RBC chief economist and senior vice-president Craig Wright said much of the debt concern centres around higher real estate costs. “Historically, if you look at the housing market, it’s always highest [in B.C.] in terms of affordability.”

The survey also notes that B.C. residents have the grimmest assessment of the economy in the country (43 per cent characterized it as good, compared to 48 per cent nationally), something Wright found a bit surprising because RBC expects the 2010 Olympics to boost B.C.’s economy into recovery mode. “It may be that [B.C.] is looking backward instead of forward.

“We expect to see B.C.’s economy grow by a solid 3.3 per cent in 2010 before moving higher to 3.4 per cent in 2011.”

Good solid growth, I’m guessing that’s why they’re sponsoring the games.

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patriotz

@/dev/null:

My wife and I are both enrolled in one of these plans so I wonder how likely we are to ever get anything out.

Municipal pensions are an obligation of the BC Crown, not individual municipalities. Municipalities in BC can go bankrupt (as they can in the US), but the Crown cannot.

The Crown can in theory disavow its obligations by legislation, but that would be getting pretty extreme.

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/dev/null

Patriotz, last thread you said:

In BC municipal pensions are tightly regulated at the provincial level and the kind of pension crisis he talks about cannot happpen.

I'm curious – do you mean that the pensions are regulated so that they can't easily crater (e.g. from bad investments) or that if they do crater the provincial finances won't be impacted? (Or both?) My wife and I are both enrolled in one of these plans so I wonder how likely we are to ever get anything out. The annual newsletter says "Everything is fine!" which just makes me even more skeptical. Since we're fiscally cautious (to a fault) we're not expecting to get anything.

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nero

Chinese Real Estate Bubble:

http://pragcap.com/an-interview-with-a-chinese-re…

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gvrdpropertyowner

@shannon: So basically it comes down to this. Bob takes his real estate medicine show on the road, but wait the citizens of Seattle don't seem to be buying Bob's story? It seems that his stick is only effective in markets filled with savvy investors— like Vancouver.

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patriotz

@oneangryslav2: Absolutely correct. The only mission for private companies is to make money, be it media organizations, health insurance companies, hospitals, schools. But if the only business of a private company is to provide information to sophisticated customers, who need to know the real facts and are smart enough recognize the real facts, and the business does not have conflicts of interest, it will deliver the facts. Thus The Economist, which is independently owned, was the only large circulation business publication to correctly call the global housing bubble in 2005. Note by the way, that all of the big-business funded think tanks and university "joint institutes" in the US either openly denied the bubble or ignored it – which has also been the case this side of the border. The people who correctly called the bubble were the much-disparaged "ivory… Read more »

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shannon

Could this possibly be the same Bob Rennie you guys are always refering to being quoted in the Seattle Bubble in the article titled "Escala Condos’ Shocking Price Strategy Timeline" ? That guy really gets around!

Find it at

http://seattlebubble.com/blog/

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VRENGD

Ok #7 and #22 are two different posters meant to creat little fun during slow traffic.

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VRENGD

I withdraw my comment@VRENGD:along with VCI me too was unaware about the fact that Vancouver West and West Vancouver Real estate is up above 25% so debt means money that was spent has produced an solid output that will countinue to carry the tradition of Vancouver R.E.never goes down.

Sorry for my comment at #7 like anyone else I am also learning the fact quickly.

Thanks everyone!

Please countinue……

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oneangryslav2

@Drachen:

"Never forget, News Media’s first mission is NOT to keep the public informed. It’s first, last and only mission is to earn money."

Absolutely correct. The only mission for private companies is to make money, be it media organizations, health insurance companies, hospitals, schools. Which is fine as long as we're aware of it. But, what has made the situation worse the last copule of decades is that there is a gaping divergence between the long-term interests of the owners of these private companies (i.e., the shareholders) and those who run the company on a daily basis (thanks to stock options, incestuous boards of directors, etc.)

It's a strange kind of capitalism where there are no capitalists.

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Drachen

@rp:

Of course not. Mass media is never to blame, at least that's what the newspapers, television and radio always inform me.

Why not run an article titled, "The news media dropped the ball on the housing bubble, why it's going to cost you a bundle, and how to unsubscribe from your local newspaper." over to the editor of The Province and see if they'll print it!

Never forget, News Media's first mission is NOT to keep the public informed. It's first, last and only mission is to earn money.

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Drachen

@realpaul:

"At last the swimmers bring nose plugs along as part of thier gear."

How many swimming events do you think there are at the winter Olympics?

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rp

Nice article in Macleans. Of course their totally fail to mention the media's role in all of this.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/02/02/awash-in-a-sea…

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realpaul

# 16 W, I hope by 'water problems' you also mean to point out the billions of liters of raw sewage the city pours out into the 'supernatural waters' of English Bay, Victoria etc every day.

Go ahead, walk along the beach, have a lie down, enjoy.

Do any of the athletes staying at the Olympic village know about the toxic sweage and sludge that pours from 26 water outlets into False Creek 'when it rains" Nice view eh? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!

At last the swimmers bring nose plugs along as part of thier gear. Or do noseplugs come with the free condoms in every room?

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vancouver2010Disgrac

Now that the international media has been exposed to the constant water problems that plague this horrible, rainy city of doom we're sure to see really, really bad coverage about this town. This is actually one advantage of hosting the olympics because Vancouver will finally be knocked off all those bs lists proclaiming it as being a great place to live.

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oneangryslav2

@taylor192:

"So we make less, pay more taxes, save less, and buy more stuff…"

So, let's see if I can look at this mathematically…

LOWER Incomes + HIGHER taxes + LOWER savings + HIGHER expenses = HIGHER real estate costs.

That is,

2+2+2+2=60.

Makes sense to me. 😉

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VRENGD

"Ya, good thing we wanted the cruise ship to go bust. Now all those greedy condo speculators WILL get clients to pay their year’s mortgage as those cruise ship clients scramble to find accommodation. Smart bears…. "

Right. The same people who refused to pay $275 a night will pay a year's mortgage to a condo owner. Smart bull…

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Smarty Pants

Ya, good thing we wanted the cruise ship to go bust. Now all those greedy condo speculators WILL get clients to pay their year's mortgage as those cruise ship clients scramble to find accommodation. Smart bears….

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White Payer

I'm sorry, the name handle for the post above is wrong for some reason. It was me who posted it, so apologies to Mr. Jones

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Mr. Jones

A close friend lived in Park City during SLC olympics. Just about all the speculators got royally fucked there. Them and greedy homeowners… some actually bought houses in choice areas just to make a "killing" on rent, but got killed instead. "History will teach us nothing" – Sting.

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logic

but also, from the same article –

"That said, there will likely be some Olympic bargains in the next few days. Resellers secured blocks of rooms for specific periods and now have a few rooms here and there for a night or two. So, McColl speculates that prices could dip to as low as $49 a night because resellers would rather recoup something than nothing"

Let's hope so see some of these "resellers" (aka speculators) get royally fucked.

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Garth

On the Olympics front there is a curious article today in the Sun:

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/high+stakes+ga…

They say that all the rooms in Vancouver, Squamish, and Whistler are booked, and if you don't want to sleep on the streets you had better commit NOW at a price of $400-$500 a night. This of course contradicts information in the same article, that the cruise ship wasn't able to sell rooms at $275 a night, as well as what I've heard third hand, that there is still plenty of rooms in Whistler, let alone Vancouver.

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Aleks

Thank God for this. It would be far worse if we led the nation in personal debt and didn't lead in personal debt concern. Unfortunately, it's a little late for most people to start worrying about it now. Once the money's been spent their options are more limited and grim.

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VRENGD

One thing is clear. BC is in a debt fuled bubble. The situation is close to the breaking point. In housing, a large percentage of people cannot make the monthly payments on the median Vancouver home even at a 0% mortgage rate.

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realpaul

#t192, plus we have the most inefficient government in the country. Headlines today read 'Liberals lose money', oh really? http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Liberal+economic… What the state of denial 'over everything' in this province has caused is a society teetering on the edge of destruction. The state of whining about the 'bad things' while having your head up your ass has developed a perfect opportunity for the government to mislead, misguide, misdirect and misinform a public who is willing to swallow the party line and think it's thier own idea. The government has trained the weak minded like dancing chimpanzees to react on cue to every phony program thats levelled on the weak psyche of a gullible and insecure immigrant population. These people don't realise that these 'social norms' have only been designed to separate people into uni-thinking constituencies.The way people react for the… Read more »

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patriotz

You second point is incompatible with the first. BC has the lowest income taxes of any province for middle income earners, relatively low sales taxes, and relatively low property taxes. Thus if BC has lower incomes BCians cannot be more highly taxed.

But that's a minor quibble. Disaster is indeed on the way. Just take a look at Figure 8 in the Urban Futures report. Although it ends at 2001, BC's savings rate has dropped even lower since.

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