Paying off the Village
Ok, this should hopefully be the last Olympic Village story for a while, but manx posted a link to more coverage of the uphill climb that the city faces to break even on construction costs and get paid for the land:
Inside city hall, officials are encouraged by the interest in the Olympic condos. But privately they express fears the city won’t recover the $170 million it is owed for the land on which the Olympic village stands.
Taking the land costs out of the equation, there may be the prospect for break-even, or a slight profit, on the construction price tag. But some serious challenges remain for this star-crossed real-estate deal.
The first is the HST, which will be applied to the new condos July 1.
Early buyers will no doubt be spurred on to make a deal before Canada Day, to escape the added HST costs. But the post-HST world could dampen buyer interest.
Vancouver city hall certainly thinks so. Officials have been lobbying the provincial government for an HST holiday, to help the city minimize the $1-billion project’s losses. The province has responded with a flat no.
The other challenge is the time frame of the Olympic sales plan.
It’s anticipated that sales of the remaining 474 condos will be stretched out over two years, to ensure there is no glut that might push down prices. The problem is the rising cost of credit.
Read the full article over at the Vancouver Sun.
May 19th, 2010 at 11:30 am
@VHB #102
I think if you find the stats for Mar and Apr you'll find them closer to 2002 and 2007, I remember I saw them somewhere. This May is certainly faltering though.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:40 am
@KWL: I had to go check that out. “Downtown” – which is a big area including Woodwards and Yaletown – by itself is over 500. West End, 270. False Creek North, 239. Coal Harbour, 243.
So, over a thousand is a shockingly low level of downtown inventory? At the beginning of the year we had just under nine thousand for Inventory’s ENTIRE area.
Baghdad Bob, indeed.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Long time reader first time poster. I don’t know if anyone caught this or not last Tuesday Business in Vancouver had an article on the OV and Bob Rennie stated this:
“The stats are shocking in how little inventory is [becoming available] downtown,” he told reporters during a media tour at the opening of the Vancouver Olympic Village last Saturday.
Is this guy for real? There will be nothing but inventory coming into the market in the next while. I don’t know why no one in the media calls BS on this guy.
The full article is here:
http://tinyurl.com/27d8tb2
May 19th, 2010 at 3:29 am
@Talking:
Fact is fact. there ain't no hatred,only those who are blinded don't understand why Van RE will never meet the same fate as US RE,coz Chinese are prudent and stable homeowners who won't run away from their financial obligation as those US owners. Don't use race issue as a weapon.@House buyer:
May 19th, 2010 at 3:26 am
@Talking:
Fact is fact. there ain't no hatred,only those who are blinded don't understand why Van RE meet the same fate as US,coz Chinese are prudent and stable homeowners who won't run away from their financial obligation as those US owners. Don't use race issue as a weapon.
May 19th, 2010 at 1:38 am
@ House buyer
What is with the fake chinese accent. Is your life so pathetic that your idea of fun is to pose as an anonymous chinese person claiming they will prop up Vancouver RE in perpetuity in an obvious attempt to incite hatred towards that race? I can't imagine how hollow your life must be to feel the need to do this everyday, are you related to johnny horton?
May 19th, 2010 at 1:11 am
@patriotz Indeed that is the correct way to think about this. As someone once remarked, "there are no bad assets, only bad prices". There is a buyer out there for pretty much anything. Gotta meet them on the price.
May 19th, 2010 at 12:20 am
@Anonymous:
C, immense Chinese purchasing power will definitely sustain Van RE perpetually though there might be occasional and minor hiccup but owning a pc of Van RE is the safest investment.Those retarded bear must be blinded and delusive.OPen your eyes,from east to west in Van every block of single-house units are mostly owned either by wealthy or middle class Chinese dwellers and they will stay there for long haul.Even the int rate were tripled in the future,they will just hold on there; also most of them are renting out to supplement their mortgage. American-type default will never happen in Van. Vancouver is a difference city.
May 19th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Just checked Jurock's RET site.. it really is a ghost town now. Go Pope!
May 18th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
@Anonymous:
Thats probably in line with the general demographic of Vancouver. We just need to sell them out, to whomever! Otherwise the taxpayers get hurt.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Don't know if it's true, but from a media source more than half of the OV buyers over the weekend were Asians. The sold units included a $5M penthouse.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
@girlbear: The signal to noise ratio was getting pretty bad for a while, so I set a micro-font for downrated posts. I've just reset that to the old style.
@Animal Spirit: I know of no case that this has happened and don't believe it would be technically possible for someone to do. The goal was simply to improve the signal to noise ratio.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
i`ve incorporated my company today…
Rennie Repo Systems.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
@girlbear: In at least one case no insight had tagged the downarrow to bring pop ups on to the screen…
May 18th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
We've added 137.7 net new listings a day this month. With 8 working days left, that would add 1102 more. This would take us to 19,416. We should make 19K in a week or so, but 20K will have to wait until June.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Pope. Question.
The posts that have nothing written, but that you have slapped a foreclosure stamp on…did you erase what was written as it was too rude?
Just curious.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Before having a look at the OV public tour I stopped in at the Pinnacle presentation centre. This particular pile of poo will be situated along 2nd & Crowe. So on the south side is the busy 2nd street and directly north of it is the Foundry. In other words, either noise or obstructed views are in store for all units. Selling for over $600/SF! They told me that Phase I was already sold out. Someone explain this craziness to me!!
I think the lower priced units at the OV will sell. There are too many greedy irrational buyers in this city. I think where they will suffer is the $1M plus units. I just don't see many people with that kind of cash forking out for a complex with a mediocre unestablished location, decent views (but not as good as coal harbour and only in very few units), next to social and senior housing. Also, the high end units aren't that special. They have the same finishings as all the other units – same appliances, flooring countertops etc. Only differentiation is size and view. And I don't see that view lasting long with further development expected by Condord on north false creek as well as a school being built on the west side of the development.
On The National last night the anchor proclaimed the housing market was still "hot". Sigh. I keep seeing the listings go up but there still seems to be willing buyers at inflated prices. I don't get it.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Thats about it for today
New Listings 380
Price Changes 264
Sold Listings 166
18,314
May 18th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
While Jurock provides a platforms for scumbags like Mike Stuart and Sam Dimou (aka Silverman) his biggest fault is allowing sick perverts like Johnny Horton to escape the administrators.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Found a gem of a link.
For anyone interested in learning about the psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions…fuel the boom and bust of financial bubbles…check out this very cool visual guide:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30548590/Cognitive-Bias…
Contents:
The 19 social biases
The 8 memory biases
The 42 decision making biases
The 36 probability biases
May 18th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
@Boombust:
Boombust, I'm the "proxy" poster, I checked out the stats on visits to his blog, and discovered most were directed through this site.
I can't understand why The Great One- The Pope provides a link.
Chipman is the most shameless, most useless on the web.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
@VHB: Loved the Rennie quote from the article after selling only 36 of 474 units at the Olympic Village:
"I'm happy, really happy. We're ahead of schedule."
Thought that was perfect for your False Creek Bob forum topic, so I made this.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
@anonymous:
How many here believe that Johnny is the pimp Jurock himself? Click on the up arrow if you do. I do.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
"Its really tragic how many unsuspecting lemmings they herd off the proverbial cliff."
ON THE OTHER HAND, there are/were a LOT of people who, presented with compelling evidence that this was the biggest bubble in history, simply shrugged their shoulders and bought anyway.
I feel very little sympathy for them.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
So in other words, we're "on pace" to equal the second-to-lowest year for sales in the past decade (yeah, that's a strong showing).
You have to hand it to the real estate community, those vested in them (economists) or supported by them (mainstream media). There are no better spin doctors. Its really tragic how many unsuspecting lemmings they herd off the proverbial cliff.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
New Listings 358
Price Changes 250
Sold Listings 154
May 18th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
"Chipmans blog has one post today…"
Ugh. Who would want to read what that twerp has to say?
May 18th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Why does everyone keep saying sales are 'holding up' and are 'strong'?
We are on a pace for about 3000 sales this month (3042 to be precise). Here are sales for the previous 9 Mays.
2001 2703
2002 3429
2003 3279
2004 3916
2005 4434
2006 4297
2007 4331
2008 3002
2009 3524
So, we'll likely be ahead of 2001, and it will be a close race to beat 2008. So, we're doing about the same as 2008. Great. How did 2008 turn out again? Can't remember . . .
May 18th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Chipmans blog has one post today if you don't count my comment about no action. And the only sign of life on the Johnny Horton blog is…well, Johnny Horton.
So much for the bulls.