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18 Karat Gold Friday Free-for-all

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308 Comments

Hey, guess what?  You’ve reached the pot of gold at the end of the week.  This weekend is your chance to buy an almost new condo touched by elite athletes.  If those don’t catch your fancy there are lots of other options out there for your consideration.. looks to be around 18,000 listings in the REBGV now, and that doesn’t even include Surrey.  Lets do our regular end of the week news round up:

–40% off prices key to rebound in Kelowna
–Olympic condo prebuyer protests
–2 bdrm house and lot, 30 minutes to Vancouver $154k
–Police probe massive Alberta mortgage fraud
–Vancouver best business tax climate
–Statscan: Recession was quicker, not worse
–MPs refuse to let Auditor-General review their expenses
–US ramps up probes of banks
–Pretending to live in the lap of luxury
–The bailout game

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

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Canadian Saver

"A big difference though is you can actually sit on cash here. Bankwest is currently paying 6.15%, ING 6.25% for savings accounts."

How can I get me some of that!!

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patriotzed

@oneangryslav2:

In fact, I don’t think the city has a slogan.

Of course the city has a motto (not sure what the difference is really) which you can see on the coat of arms: "By sea, land, and air we prosper".

But perhaps it should be updated: "By RE, debt and drugs we appear to prosper".

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CanuckDownUnder

Hi everyone! Great site, I've been following for a few weeks now an decided to get in on the action. I was living in Calgary at the height of their crazy boom (2006/2007) and decided that renting and hoarding gold was a better option than tying myself down to an oversized mortgage. We made a choice to move to either Vancouver or Sydney, and are in Sydney for the time being. Prices are just as bad here, same excuses for why the prices are so high – no land, rich Asians, etc – but really it's cheap money and government stoking the fire with housing grants. A big difference though is you can actually sit on cash here. Bankwest is currently paying 6.15%, ING 6.25% for savings accounts. Nobody is actually saving money so banks are crawling over themselves to… Read more »

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Van MD

Further local Chinese MSM news. key points: Many Chinese immigrants are not the typical "rich" kind, they need mortgages too. Chinese MSM's are becoming less bullish (I wouldn't call them bearish yet), starting to tell people to watch-n-wait. 1. "How to buy/sell RE in this chaotic time?" http://van.worldjournal.com/view/full_van/7415246… (use http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|en| for rough translation) and I quote: "I've seen people bringing a Vancouver West house they bought in March on sale in April, with a mark-up of 200k. I've also seen many people in Burnaby marking up their properties by 200k since their purchases in 2009. 'Reasonable prices' are very hard to come by these days " "Many buyers are becoming cautious. Many people cancelled their offer or were unable to obatin mortages. Recently I have seen many realtors receiving offers but unable to reach a sale" "Most obviously, newer immigrants… Read more »

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spitfires

@vibe: Thanks for the charts Vibe! 🙂

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Scorched Earth

Speaking of trees.. Suprise! The Province chops down the trees at Robson Square, nobody at city hall saw it coming:
http://www.vancouversun.com/City+caught+unaware+t…

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Anonymous

Trees are a commodity! I buy tree, huzzbah buy tree!

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Tony Danza

Commodities imploding! Massive buying opportunity for rich Chinese?

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The Ant

More than 4.2% down in Shanghai now. Tomorrow should be interesting when North American markets open.

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The Ant

@vreaa: Damn! What a crazy collapse in Shanghai!

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vreaa

Shanghai down 3.8%; Dow futures down 126…

At this rate, they'll be down 10% by morning! (kiddin')

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The Ant

@VHB: Neat! So both 'Space' and the 'Erickson' have one fifth of the building on the market? Wow. How old are those buildings?

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The Ant

@M-: I think the new slogan is "Below the waterline"

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Spec

Hey Dan in Cowtown. I was hoping you could squeeze the word "fireworks" in a few more times. That way, boomtime might be able to pick up on it. Where's that asshat at anyway? Is his absence a sign?

Good assessment BTW.

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M-

@girlbear: For a couple of years, Richmond's slogan was "Better in Every Way". Now they've toned it down to "It's all Here," or something along those line.

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admin

@VHB: @Anonymous: You've seen the rollover info? 😀 Thanks, but I can't take credit – the same mystery c0der that gave us the excellent comment rating system has bestowed this gift upon us. It's in very early beta testing and may be a while before its ready for primetime, so don't be surprised if it disappears in the short term.

If you'd like to get a beta testing link so you can check it out before it goes full time live you can PM me in the forum, I may be sending out links for testing purposes in the next week.

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vibe

@spitfires

Here is the data for the inventory charts.

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Anonymous

The VCI Mystery Index is awesome…Thanks Pope!

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VHB

Anyone notice the 'VCI mystery index' on the left sidebar? I'm tingling with excitement for the Pope to uncover the mystery!!

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Dan in Calgary

@San Franciscan in Vancouver: “I don’t seem to be able to fully understand why some of you care so much and seem to be preoccupied with the up-to-the-minute minutia of daily residential real estate listings on the Multiple Listing Service in Vancouver? ” To VHB's reply, I'd like to add that our apparent obsession may not seem mature or rational to some, but it doesn't have to be. By analogy, consider that the various New Year's eve countdowns to midnight, which take place around the world, aren't rational, but we take part in them and enjoy them. New Years' is fun because we look forward to a new start. We humans need new starts on a regular basis. On this and other blogs, many of us have — as a group — been watching and discussing the numbers for three… Read more »

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vreaa

Shanghai down 3% now.

Dow futures down >100.

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vreaa

I personally enjoy all the inventory fun and games.

Thanks to all who contribute.

And it will be breathtaking if that chart simply keeps going up.

We're getting close to unchartered territory now.

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girlbear

@girlbear: I forgot to add that San Diego also resembles Vancouver in that neither has any serious financial center to speak of.

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girlbear

@oneangryslav2: You are correct – thanks for the heads up. It is BC's slogan. Still embarassing and arrogant though… 😉

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oneangryslav2

@girlbear: I agree with everything you said in your post, but have to correct you on one detail: the slogan "best place on earth" refers to the province (BC), not the city of Vancouver. I've seen this myth repeated here on several occasions. In fact, I don't think the city has a slogan.

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