Olympic Village Field Report
Crashcow posted this comment over the weekend: a field report on the opening sale of the very lightly used Millennium Water Olympic Village condos:
Field Report of Millennium Water
May 15, 10
I woke up this morning with a massive hangover. Wow, what an 18K party that was! But with the weather so nice today, I decided to checkout my first open house in a long time to get a feel for what’s happening in the trenches. And not just any open house, an entire open village. Little did I know how much of a treat it would end up being.
On the way to Millennium Water, I passed by an abnormal quantity of For Sale signs. I kept asking myself how Rennie is going to pull off a 474 condo sale when inventory is exploding and sales are faltering. But soon after I walked into the gates of the Olympic Village, I knew I had stepped into a dream world of magic.
If Vancouver ever had a ground zero for Irrational Exuberance, Millennium Water is it. And if Bob Rennie is ever the King of anything, it’s hype. The man has carefully orchestrated a circus of clowns, bands, tents, treasure hunts and euphoria. When bands are cheering on lined up speculators and the King himself is handing everyone cookies, what is being witnessed is the last “hurrah” of a heavily inflated market.
I lined up to view a condo and couldn’t help but overhearing what the herd was chanting. One of my favourites was, “I don’t know if I like this area, but I love the wave pattern on the wall.”
I followed the crowd into a staged 1 bed, 2-den condo at slightly over 1,000 sq. feet. I overheard some lady asking an agent the price and he replied with a straight face:
“One-point-three-million.”
The lady’s jaw dropped, she shook her head, and moved on. I couldn’t contain myself and had to keep the conversation going.
- Me: “The miracles of record low interest rates. So that’s roughly $1,200 per sq. ft?”
- Agent: “Yes, but I’m also selling units down the street for $500 per sq. ft”
- Me: “So why, in your opinion, does this place come at a $700,000 premium?”
- Agent: “It’s an opportunity to be a part of this famous community and the proximity to the water.”
- Me: “Not only are you asking for an outrageous premium, you’re doing it at a time when there are over 18,000 units on the market, CHMC rules are tightening and mortgage rates are climbing.”
- Agent: “You should then really consider the units we have listed down the street.”
So I followed the yellow brick road down the street and into another Rennie building called “The Maynard’s Block.” And sure enough, studios were priced at half a million.
Buy now, or be priced out forever.
-Crashcow
May 18th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Damn you, scullboy. Quit having so much fun in Nova Scotia! Keep this up, and I may move back there.
@Pope, VHB, paulb: Once this bubble's deflating as fast as the BC Place roof, will we head back into an info void as happened during the '08 slump? Many blogger bears seemed to go into hibernation after listings busted wide open.
May 18th, 2010 at 2:50 am
@VanCity Guy: I was looking up family history and found two ancestors on the 1898 voters list http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canbc/vote1898/…
What do I miss of the old Vancouver? Well, streets with families, children playing in the alley, neighbourhoods with life in them. I live in Tricities and I see so many areas that seem kind of empty. Then little notices appear on front doors, declaring houses uninhabitable due to grow-ops/meth labs. This city seems half-empty sometimes, which makes the real estate bubble even more confusing. People pay a million dollars for a new mansion with crackhouses next door.
Its interesting how the Olympic vitality wore off so quickly. This is a "no fun" city because so many people have crushing debt, and can only keep appearances up so long. We will become even less fun as deficit-ridden local governments continue to slash away at amenities.
May 18th, 2010 at 1:23 am
@Pythagoras: The No Fun City was a bunch of nonsense propagated by the media like the Vancouver Province to sell papers. Further, re. liquor store closures … having people wasted in the streets, is this really fun? I am sure there were plenty of places to 'get your drink on' before, during and after the olympics.
For many people, crowding into English Bay with thousands of others to watch fireworks and having the best night clubs simply isn't part of a 'fun' city.
May 17th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
I liked Garth's prose about OV:
When I’m in Vancouver this Thursday I’ll make a special trip to Millennium Water. Have to see this with mine own eyes. Sup a little, perchance. Bathe in the ambiance.
This, of course, is the holy grail of Greater Foolishness. If the stone square in front of the sales centre is empty, I may fall to my knees. Perhaps go prone.
…
The listings flood continues, of course, in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and even on the dusty, narrow, rutted road which is home to the Summer Bunker. Homeowners everywhere (including Millennium Water) are gushing properties onto the market as they always do when a storm is approaching – at epic prices, hoping to snare passing idiots who just stumbled out of 2007.
May 17th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
@other ted:
……..was known as the “no fun city”….
*****************
Wadaya mean “was”? They closed the liquor stores during the Olympics. What else would the city have to do to underscore to the world that the “no fun city” moniker always was, and continues to be, right on the mark?
May 17th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
@specuskeptic:
Why so complicated?
Just hire Goldman Sachs to help out, like what they did for Greece.
May 17th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
@Chilled: "Unfortuanately I have to bite my tongue as I often represent the builder or their agent and can’t suggest an ice cube enema to get them through the day."
Ice cube enema… lol! :>
May 17th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Thanks for the response VHB. It makes sense that being a politician is the foundation for his bubble denial and his economic philosophy is only secondary. The ever-building preponderance of evidence to the contrary must give him pause though….
May 17th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
@Absinthe: Do you remember a guy that used to wear neon-yellow shorts (with the obligatory black shirt) to Luv-a-fair once in a while during the summer of 91 or 02? That was me.
My friends & family are pretty much sick and tired of my ranting about the insanity of Vancouver's RE market, so I don't say anything, unless asked directly. I was chatting with my parents on Sunday and my mother mentioned the Olympic Village condos (she had seen a report about them on the local news Saturday evening), and said that if she won the lottery she'd buy my sister and her husband one of the 2BR condos. I said that you could rent them for about 2500 monthly. At that price, you could rent the place for about same as the monthly interest you'd be generating from investing the winnings in a GIC. So after 40 years, you'd have consumed as much housing as if you'd been paying a mortgage, but you would still have all of your principal, and you would not have paid a penny in strata fees, property taxes, or repairs. And I have a feeling that any repairs at the OV will cost a pretty penny.
May 17th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
This is too funny, as if the sellers don't have enough on their minds;
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/reo/1746451…
May 17th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
http://fire-proxy.com/
got to love this
May 17th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
@Chilled: I’ve worked right across the country and in the states, never seen such piss poor HVAC systems in buildings ‘worth’ so much, anywhere.
Couldn't agree more but it is a great way to have infinite job security. Some of the buildings I work on have the combination heating cooling switch on the thermostat, they have no air conditioning its just a standard off the shelf thermostat, so they are piss** when I tell them just cause it says cooling doesn't mean it has any!
Another one was a "world renowned interior decorator" who got on the strata's ass for no heat in a 6M THouse (her opinion). When I went to look she had installed beautiful custom hardwood boxes over the "ugly" hot water radiant heaters, wit a few indiscreet slits in the top to let out the heat….I asked her if the heat comes out those slits how does the air get into your "box". After a long physics lesson in the principles of convection from myself, she escorted me to the door, angry at ME!
Just another "unskilled" trades man dealing with a lot of degrees and not a trace of common sense! 
heh heh Oh yeh was a bunch of plug in portable electric heaters there the rest of the winter and the place hasn't been able to be rented since. (It was $20,000 / month)
May 17th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
@Anonymous:
Anonymous Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:19 am
@No Insight:
Loot at it this way:
If The Condo King only expected to sell 18 out of 472 units at one of the most overhyped places in recent years, what does it say about the market as a whole?
+++++
Don't say "hole" around Rennie, he is easily distracted.