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May 18th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@bubbly: NM, here is the link: http://www.vancouversun.com/ne.....story.html
May 18th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@anonymousAA:
That’s just a reflection of you age and demographic. Most people in your circle have purchased. There are all sorts of people younger than you and in a different demographic that have yet to purchase. The buyer pool never dries up.
I think there are a lot of people who sat out the boom for fear of buying at the top. The number of those types of potential buyers is probably quite high because we are near peak pricing. I think many such buyers will jump in should we ever have a 15% correction because that is a far as prices dropped during the correction a couple years ago. The people who missed a chance at discount prices the first time around will not be so silly as to do it a second time.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
@realpaul:
Why assume that these people were smuggling dope for the purposes of paying their mortgage? Or that this somehow means that the local market is saturated? I don’t think either of these assumptions are supported by the facts of this case.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
@XXX: Link please.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
@Raincouver: Well, I suppose it depends on what you are sacrificing and what you get in return. Don’t get me wrong, I feel sorry for the 50% that live on $2 a day.
The point I was trying to make is my coworker is now “house poor”. She could have rented (in the same place), gone on vacations, given to charity, and still saved more money than she is now (about $0).
What do you think is better use of money???
May 18th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
DaMann,
My son is always laughing at Home HW commercials. For him they sound as “Home moaners helping home moaners”.
I have not been to any of Rona/HD/HHW stores for half a year, and because of that, as a renter, have a sizeable increase in my disposable income comparing to my previous homeownership.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
@DaMann: Thanks for the vote of confidence.
I completely agree with your thoughts on the true cost of Olympics. If the city somehow manages to come out on top of this foolish enterprise, the next prospective host will say “it doesn’t matter the cost…..we will always be able to recoup…look at Vancouver 2010″. It’s the whole moral hazard thing.
To further my rant, $170 MILLION!?!?. Crazy. The right thing to do would have been to rent out a whole hotel for 2 weeks. Say $4000 a room for the 2 weeks times 400 rooms = $16 million. Less than 10% of what it looks like this debacle will cost.
Yeah, I guess I’m a little bit bitter. I hope they (we) really get spanked by this.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
An anecdote. One of my co-workers just bought a condo downtown. It’s beautiful, but where she used to plan holidays (she likes to travel) and plan outings, now she is saving up for furniture, and can’t afford to travel anymore. I feel sorry for people like that…
.
Wow, that is one bizarre way of looking at life – considering that half the planet lives on $2 a day or less, cutting back on vacations looks pretty lame in comparison to real sacrifice.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
City and First Nations just agreed on development of 8 acres on south side of Burrard Bridge (in between Planetarium (sp?), College of Music and Bridge. FN braintrust say they want to get out of old leasing land model to active development. Good luck with that. I wish the city had stuck to “just” leasing!
ps I thought there was no land left!
May 18th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
@Krazy Kanuk:
I agree, I don’t want to see the city off the hook for this one. They had no business getting into the condo building game. Whether they wanted to or not, they shouldn’t have. It wil also shed a light onto how much these Olympics will really have cost the city of Vancouver.
As a side note I have decided to boycott Home Hardware. Their slogan used to be ” Home of the handyman” now it’s “Helping home owners” So as a renter I’m not welcome? This whole boom has created the “second class citizen” renters… I can’t wait till this crap is over with and sanity restored.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
@rubberduckie:
Titles to the stratafied 1/2 duplexes were registered on September 9, 2008. 2922 W 5th sold for 899,000 on January 12, 2010. 2918 W 5th has not sold yet.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
@Purp1: Well, I can only speak for myself when I say I hope the city gets well and truly burnt by this. And if it hurts the taxpayer….well, so be it. You know the saying that “we deserve the leaders we get”? Well I believe that.
When our city gov’t basically speculates on property with our tax dollars. Well, all I can say is I hope they get burnt, and that the voters remember this next time one of our leaders gets a bright idea. The problem I see is the 70% of people who “own” are all for overpriced real estate. It’s almost a form of “tyranny of the majority”. Our leaders fall all over themselves pandering to the “homeowner”. Renters don’t matter.
The devil in me hopes they hang onto these properties for 2 more years, and have to sell them after the crash.
An anecdote. One of my co-workers just bought a condo downtown. It’s beautiful, but where she used to plan holidays (she likes to travel) and plan outings, now she is saving up for furniture, and can’t afford to travel anymore. I feel sorry for people like that, but this “your house is your best investment” mentality needs to stop.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Last night I went for a walk with my partner to check out some brand newly constructed houses for sale in our neighborhood. We got there-SOLD! They were listed at $749k each. We started talking about the upcoming housing crash and my partner expressed concern that once the crash starts, there will be plenty of people like us, who are just waiting at the sidelines to buy, thus prices won’t go down as much as we think. I said “Take a look around, how many people do we know are renting, rather than buying these days? It’s pretty meager. Anyone who has a decent job has bought something highly overpriced in the last few years.” It’s true, even people who had agreed with us for years, that a correction was coming, ran in and purchased after the rebound in 2009. Sometimes I feel like the last man standing.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:40 am
A six minute doc on how the real estate crash in California left something useful behind.
I don’t see granite countertops or stainless steel appliances finding such good post-crash alternate use.
http://videosift.com/video/Cannonball
May 18th, 2010 at 11:24 am
@Johnnyrent: Well! The OV have a clown.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:16 am
@bubbly:
yes the taxpayer loses big
i was hoping to hear some schadenfreudic story about Millennium’s pain too.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:15 am
I agree with Purp1 and Northeast Canuck – we need the OV sold to the last 450 suckers in town as soon as possible. I would much rather have the 450 buyers on the hook rather than the City of Vancouver. Even if the buyers are getting CMHC approved mortgages, at least this spreads the pain to the entire taxpaying population as opposed to just City of Vancouver taxpayers. After that, let the crash continue.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am
@bubbly: A carnival, nay, a “CELEBRATION”!
May 18th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Olympic village huge waste of money by taxpayer for olympic disaster doom. Bust is here and rennie, realtor and banker to blame for my constant renting. Vancouver is a crappy town with horrible weather, no jobs, no culture, no future, nothing of interest and no fun. Much more fun to complain on blog than do anything else.
Current score: 85
May 18th, 2010 at 10:53 am
@patriotz:
Good point, it’s Vancouver so I just presumed presale! So that’s offically 36 suckers on the hook for the rest of their lives for these overpriced boxes. Poor souls.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I can’t pay my mortgage.
http://www.vancouversun.com/ne.....story.html
Entitled generation ‘douchebags’ get caught smuggling dope across the border. For one thing this tells us that the underground market here is saturated and grow ops aren’t as viable as they once were. And two the tip of the ice berg oon personal debt is going to treat us to many more funny stories about ‘instant rich’ stories like this. Hey guys I got 3 words ‘get a job’.
Oh and seriously ‘spreading out the condo sales at the OV over two years so that there won’t be a glut’, thats rich. I think Greggy the Idiot king is smelling the bicycle seats over at Shitty Hall.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@arbitrage: Taxpayers lost.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Less than 10% sold, after costs of over a billion dollars, but it was a ‘carnival’ on Saturday.
Success!
May 18th, 2010 at 10:31 am
How are the developers making out in this whole deal?
iirc their generous valuation of the land at +190M is what helped them win the deal.
They gambled and lost? Time to pay up?
Hadn’t heard much news on that end of things.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:31 am
It will be interesting in two years time comparing how much money was made by the HST and how much was lost by the OV project… What a glitch!
Other topic. A friend was visiting from Europe.
Me: Did you watch the Olympics on TV?
Him: Yes, the whole family was glued to the screen
Me: What do you remember the most about vancouver?
Him: The lack of snow, the helicopters bringing snow on mountains. And the pretty bad weather.
Me: Bad weather???? It was sunny most of the time!
Him: …….. It depends what you compare to. My place enjoys sunny weather most of the time.
Me: What did you think when you saw the city, the mountains, the views?
Him: I did not see any of these. Journalists did not care much about the city itself. You must understand we were watching a SPORTS program.
I felt like an idiot… I had been contaminated by the hype
May 18th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Been seeing alot more of these foreclosure listings lately…
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.....85931.html
May 18th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Anecdote from Garth Turner:
“I just spoke with a guy who makes a ton of money in the financial business – north of half a million a year – in Vancouver. “You know this market is insane,” he said, “when my wife and I feel we’re actually priced out of the market. There’s nothing less than one point five that you’d even want to live in.”
http://wp.me/pcq1o-Ta
May 18th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Its in all our interests that Bob sells these things. With $1b of taxpayers money on the hook, we will all own a part of one if he fails… The protesters are really wide of the mark here.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:01 am
I’m curious about this 1/2 duplex on West 5th:
http://mls.ca/propertyDetails......Id=9314136
I remember both sides being for sale in the lovely summer of 2008. Anyone have the sales or listing history?
I have another question. Why does splitting a house in half double the total value of the house?
May 18th, 2010 at 9:48 am
@DaMann:
They’re not presales now. There is no “get out” period for a sale. When the conditions come off, it’s binding.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:43 am
The only difference between the Olympic Village and the Titanic, is that at least the Titanic had a live band.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I am surprise that people actually millions for a condo in the OV when a lot of them will be paying a few hundred for rent in the sup housing section. There are endless supplies of fools.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Ok. I have set up a forum thread for Iraqi Information Minister-inspired quotes. Let’s see that famed VCI creativity! Have a look here.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:23 am
I don’t know what the problem is here. According to Agent Will, there were 1000 realtors at the meeting. They should all buy a unit, outbid each other and send the real estate price in Vancouver to the moon! There, problem solved. If these nuts can’t see that, then I guess we’re really screwed.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Hmmm 36 sales eh. Usually the presales come with a one week or two week “get out” clause. How many of the 36 do you think will get recinded once they see the anemic sales and think to themselves that the market is toast, I want out!
I take a perverse pleasure in watching this thing tank. So much money wasted on so few units. I still don’t see why we had to build posh accomodations for the athletes.
$1.4 million dollar suites, $2 million and $10 million! $600k for a 600 sf shoebox with no view. Bloody hell!
May 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
The OV is going to be a financial disaster.
But I don’t understand the point of mocking Rennie, he’s got a tough job to unload these turkeys and it’s in the public’s best interest that he does his best. He needs to try and put a positive spin on this to generate hype and sales, and I don’t expect (nor would want) anything less.
I was at the open house on Saturday and saw the protests, and while I sympathized with the need for more social housing, I don’t think these protests were effective at all. Just like protesting the Olympics after they’ve started. The money’s spent and right now we need to find 474 greater fools to pick up the tab for these things, otherwise the taxpayer will have too.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:12 am
A two year absorption rate does seem long for a completed complex, given the months of inventory for Vancouver condominiums.
To borrow from an American way of making a profit on mega projects. The complex should be forced into receivership, bought at 50 cents on the dollar by a private company, that could then sell them out over the next two years at a profit. The longer Vancouver holds the property the larger the debt. I agree with Patriotz blame it on your predecessors, get the village off the books and forgotten before the next election comes around. Otherwise its the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
I would bet Rennie is looking for investors to buy large blocks of condominiums after demonstrating price and rents that the village should attain.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I also love the ‘sales were double my expectations’ line that Rennie was giving.
I wonder, did he write down his 18 sales expecations anywhere? Is this claim verifiable?
Ask yourself this: If sales *had* been horrible, what could Rennie say to make things sound good? Well, pretty much what he said. It’s impossible to verify and still generates decent headlines. Even if it is 100% BS. And in this town, no one calls him on that.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:44 am
@VHB:
The politically and economically correct strategy would have been to follow Gordo’s example with the fast ferries – auction the damn things off and blame the losses (correctly) on the previous council which got the city into this mess.
And then come next civic election, by which time prices would probably have dropped 40%, they would look like geniuses.
By committing to hold on to the OV right through the upcoming bust Vision is going to turn the NPA’s albatross into their own.
Now they just might be planning to dump them all anyway after the buyers trickle out and Rennie is just bluffing about the 2 years. We will see.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Prediction@VRENGD: Agree. But the city won’t do that. They will ‘extend and pretend.’ The political consequences of *realizing* a loss >>>> the political consequences of keeping overvalued assets on the books.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:23 am
My favourite was the news 1130 story that said the condos were selling “quickly”. They sold 36. Doesn’t anyone here remember when presales would be sold out 2 hours after opening–hundreds of units?
Saying this is ‘quick’ is like saying black is white.
Someone with photoshop skills should make a photo illustration of Rennie as the Iraqi information minister.
“They are selling quickly. The rich foreigners are coming to buy them. They just were delayed slightly. By two years.”
May 18th, 2010 at 8:19 am
The “strategy” to sell the condo’s over two years is an admission of defeat. Any project that takes two years to sell is an abject failure.
The PR spin is to call this disaster a “marketing strategy” so that it seems that it was intended all along.
The bottom line is that there is no market for the Olympic Village. Any private sector business would have reduced prices by 40% or more (like they did in 2008).
May 18th, 2010 at 8:15 am
@1: Agent Will needs an editor:
“As we munched Mr. Bob Rennie, the King of All Condos, spoke to the crowd.”
How many of them munched Mr. Bob while the King spoke to his subjects?
May 18th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Olympic Bounce – anecdote
Going to Whistler this weekend and will check out a few places. I talked to the local realtor I deal with. He knows my view but seems to enjoy my company (he must ski without a helmet?!?). He told me everything is for sale and pointed out a listing in the the Four Seasons that is a court ordered sale for 250k. These places traded between 450-500k at the peak. There are at least 10 for sale but I only know of one that is court ordered – for now.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Does anyone, who attended know the Olympic Village opening, know if the band was playing “Nearer My God to Thee”?
That would be appropriate…
May 18th, 2010 at 7:59 am
I thought there was 300 or so million newly minted rich Chinese pounding down Vancouver’s door, scrambling over each other with suitcases full of cash, wailing and gnashing their teeth for the chance to call themselves homeowners in the Best Place on Earth? Surely it isn’t a problem to get 0.0001% of them to purchase a MW condo?
Oh, how about the 3 BILLION people who were salivating over our mountains and buildings of concrete and glass during the most successful Olympics in North America this century? Can’t we find 0.00001% of them who are interested in moving here and purchasing one of the most luxurious/green dwellings on the face of the earth? Shouldn’t these places sell themselves or are all the pumpers, boosters and shills full of shit?
May 18th, 2010 at 7:52 am
Bear like soviet russia and communist china olympic village triumph of what government can build since it take the money from everyone. Only government think big like this. Everyone want to live in millenium water bear. Billion people saw olympic show on tv and now want to buy government built condo town.
May 18th, 2010 at 7:36 am
My advice to the CoV would be to sell these condos now for what they can get for them. Don’t get all fancy with creative marketing because the world will me a much different place financially in a year or two.
May 18th, 2010 at 7:36 am
http://agentwill.com/buying/th.....ium-water/
May 18th, 2010 at 6:13 am
Like there aren’t any other condos for sale in the neighbourhood?
Oh I forgot, the OV is “special”.