Friday Free-for-all!
It’s time for our traditional end of the week Friday free-for-all post where we round up the weeks news and have our open topic economic discussion for the weekend. Here are a few stories I’ve noticed lately:
-Businessweek: Vancouvers Bubble Trouble
-11 Olympic Village buyers want out
-Reading the mortgage fine print
-Royal and TD trim some rates
-Big bank growth offsets office vacancies
-Economist muses on comparisons to 1930s
-g20 leaders face worries about rising deficits
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
June 27th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
They are really pulling out all the media stops:
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Wealthy+Chin…
June 27th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
@Coastal
Did these people buy in Vancouver? How would they lose money selling today if they bought a couple years ago?
June 27th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
It's a blog that discusses real estate and occasionally daily news events which may or may not be directed related to real estate. If you have something interesting to say I will read it otherwise fuck off!!!!
June 27th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
@Patrick_saint: No one cares. This is a real estate blog.
June 27th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Eponymous
YOU ARE AN IDIOT. If you still think the cops and security forces used today in Canada have the peoples interest at heart you are an idiot.
They don't work for you and I, they work for Shell and Royal Bank and Pfiser and anyone else with tons of money like Revenue Canada.
Please….
June 27th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
"Based on evidence that has always and only been observed during or immediately prior to U.S. recessions, the U.S. economy appears headed into a second leg of an unusually challenging downturn."
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100628.htm
…This should help accelerate our housing bust like in '08.
June 27th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
@sluggo: No press for the slime please
June 27th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Boombust,
Both of those posts were from bears.
June 27th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
@patriotz:
So you admit "its different here"? Ha ha.
You forgot to mention the total herd mentality here. This is a city full of sheeple, completely incapable of independent thought. On a street with three lanes everyone drives down the middle lane (heaven forbid you should have to merge, this requires paying attention). People go grocery shopping in packs of 10. People will see a lineup and automatically queue up, sometimes for nothing (olympic pavillions with nothing in them), sometimes for overpriced crap (condos, bad pasta), half the time not even caring about what they've lined up for. But everyone else is doing it so they should too!
June 27th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
"2 posts on Chipman today"
Oh. Him. I'm surprised anyone still bothers.
June 27th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Wazzup with the RE bull blogs?????
2 posts on Chipman today.
A few more on the Johnny Horton blog, but most of them are from some zombie pumping dick meds.
June 27th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
@realpaul:
Well no.
And if you know anything about China, people in market rentals (i.e. not the old state-owned ones) pay WAY more of their income on rent for much less space than people here. HK too.
June 27th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Some interesting stats about the US housing market as of today, and the general supply situation:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/06/housing…
Clearly an oversupply to last a few years. Notice that this are national figures, but even the most sought after locations in California and the East Coast are experiencing over-supply and ever decreasing valuations. Notice also that borrowing costs are close to an all-time low.
Interesting times ahead for us, i bet.
June 27th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Ok, after spending 4 months in Hong Kong, now that i've had a chance to drive around Vancouver today, I have a different opinion.
I saw loads of "For Lease" signs out there on commercial buildings. What the hell happened after the olympics? I leave for 4 months and this place turns from a bullrun on real estate to a setup for a plunge.
I also drove by the Olympic Village, that place looks sad especially with a big paved lot there instead of a park. I saw the initial development plans 3-4 yrs ago and it does not feel anything like what it is meant to me. What kind of joke is this. The worst part is seeing a lot of businesses go under.
Bear or bull, it doesn't matter.
The fact is Scullboy's not around and he'll never be back, I guess that's all that matters.
June 27th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
#226 BPOM , but look at those rent/income ratio's, far lower than Vancouver. We have plenty of examples of 250 sq ft condos ( Electra ex) and cockroach and bedbug infested units here ( highest infestation in N.AM) as well. In fact aren't residents here paying 70% for shelter.
And I can tell you….it isn't just the Chinese girls whp don't shower more than once a week or so. I have been in elevators and restaurants here where well dressed young women have literally smelled like like they hadn't washed for a month.
And….. I did hear also that the Secretary General has decried Canadas police arresting and beating of journalists. Some have been detained for days and their news orgs haven't heard from them. So maybe we shouldn't look down on whats happening in China when we have a brutal police state and shitty RE conditions right here under our own blanket of denial. Isn't the Toronto police attack akin to Tienanmen Square on similarily peaceful crowds who demand that these power crazed killers be shut down? These stories are in every newspaper around the world. Hey…if you let police investigate themselves and they think they are above the law and then the top cops staff the recruits with psycho's like Millington, the Indian drunk guy and the two other stooges than pretty soon you get Nazi' brownshirts and KGB goons killing people. We all need to think hard about disbanding the RCMP and getting civilian oversight of all police activity. Its either that or we see more of the shameful un Canadian behaviour we've witnessed in TO.
Canada stood by while innocents were brutized in Bangkok recently. Is brutality the new face of Canada? Is this the new normal?
June 27th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
@jim: I know a couple who were forced into buying a couple of years back cause "daddy knew best" and he co-signed and coughed up the downpayment as they work low level jobs. The suite in the basement idea never worked out cause they kept getting assholes for renters and they had to put their kids in an illegal daycare to save money.
At the least they advise their friends to not buy, but they can't sell cause daddy will lose his cash and they're stuck paying most of their income to the mortgage. I can imagine how many other young couples are locked into this same scenario.
June 27th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
"…..a city so expensive that the average white-collar professional can't afford to buy a home."
Hey that sounds like my city!
BEHOLD THE ANT PEOPLE OF CHINA!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100627/ap_on_re_as/a…
June 27th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
@patriotz: And in about 2 years from now half of them will be whining and crying to the media looking for a bail/handout "waaa.. we never saw this coming… waaaa… why did'nt anyone warn us? waaa… how could the government and the banks let us do this to ourselves… waaa.. everyone else was doing it!…" The people that I know that have bought in the last 2-3 years are oddly enough the dumbest people I have ever met. Most of them are crying already because they don't have any money after barely making their emergency low interest rate mortgage payment. It's all I can do to not give them a good hard kick in the nuts.
June 27th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
@granite countertop:
Seems that if you look at the history of Vancouver it is all about speculative land deals. There also seems to be a current of racism running parallel to this. I'm not saying it's unique to the place but it's a bit hard to ignore when you look back.
June 27th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Meanwhile, back to real estate: Any bets on what the next presale to hit the news with buyers trying to get out of their contract is? I'm sure this will happen with the killer river green development, but that will be a while.
There's a development near 12th and Kingsway that was pretty expensive for the neighborhood, not sure how their presales went, but wouldn't be suprised to see buyers start to panic and try to get out of their contract if the market keeps going in this downward direction. What else is nearing completion?
June 27th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
BTW it is now being reported that the police are running scared from the negative publicity and have begun to arrest and confiscate, reporters, cameras, equipment and producers are being cuffed and taken away to unknown destinations. These are CTV CBC and international press representatives. They RCMP are planning murder and don't want another 'Djikanski case' on their hands. Welcome to the KGB vision of a fascist Canada.
June 27th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Even the dimwits on the CBC have speculated that the police cars were left suspiciously in areas where the police had already cordoned off the protestors. It is seeming more likely that the police torched their own vehicles as an excuse to attack the crowds.
June 27th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
@sensibleone: Yeah! Whatever happened to the good ol' days when anarchists could torch a police car in peace without big bad bullies like the Toronto mayor saying people that do such a thing will be dealt with as criminals?
Sheesh. Nice handle, too bad it doesn't help you get a grasp on reality. Crawl back under your bridge troll.
June 27th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Don Newman of CBC reported today that world leaders have been complaining that the security in TO has been 'heavy handed', 'thuggish', 'unrealistic response'..overall complaining of Canada's descent into a police state. I say 'what descent'? We can see that the police have been planning this show of force since well before any of this happened. Wellcome to NAZI CANADA the Fascist leadership wannabe of a new world order where you either pay your taxes and shut up or you get bullets and gas.
If you get a guy from the CBC reporting this, you know its bad.
June 27th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Yup, that gut feeling that the end is nigh is turning into a rush as we're running out of excuses, and the descent from the summit will definitely be more dramatic than it was on the way up.
June 27th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
@patriotz: I found it interesting hearing about the Bank of Vancouver $5 note auction, especially the part about how "they were badly hit by the collapse of the real estate speculation" in 1912-1914. It would seem real estate bubbles have been the local sport for over a century.
June 27th, 2010 at 11:19 am
@patriotz: "The real question is why people in Vancouver have been so slow to get the message from the global RE bust – and its own mini-bust in 2008 – and are still paying such ridiculous prices."
—
Agree completely. This willful self-deception is remarkable; a testimony to the power of bubble dynamics.
June 27th, 2010 at 10:56 am
my wife left me (for my brother!) due to my views on Vancouver RE and gold.
Now – comeuppance!
About time.
June 27th, 2010 at 9:56 am
No arguement at all with patriotz's take on our real estate, and I can't really add any more logic to an unavoidable correction.
I know we've heard it all before and it may sound lame, but with all those price reductions, low sales, and the media fianally on side, I have an overwheming gut feeling that there are no more miracles left to save our market….it's our turn, and the descent from the summit could be shocking.
June 27th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Some nice numbers from the past week from Agent Will, particularly for detached.
MOI for houses at 7.65 and selling price at less than 95% of asking.
http://agentwill.com/weekly-stats/
June 27th, 2010 at 7:23 am
@Newcomer, regarding "Why aren’t those Chinese investors currently too busy attending the Shanghai Expo, then?"
I dunno. Maybe it's not such a big deal for them. Or maybe there's no (perceived) opportunity to make money in related venues.
But then again, maybe they are too busy attending the Shanghai Expo. After all, isn't the Vancouver real estate market tanking again?
June 27th, 2010 at 3:39 am
@chip:
As others have pointed out, metros in the US and elsewhere saw price/rent and price/income just as high at peak, and at higher interest rates. So there doesn't have to be any exotic flow of funds to explain the high prices seen today in Vancouver. Just the same old source – debt.
The real question is why people in Vancouver have been so slow to get the message from the global RE bust – and its own mini-bust in 2008 – and are still paying such ridiculous prices.
The answer is that Vancouverites are the most gullible, self-important, and self-entitled bunch of fools on the planet. Or as Robert Shiller put it succinctly in 2005:
"Vancouver is the bubbliest city in the world".
June 27th, 2010 at 1:10 am
@Newcomer: It's obviously the drug dealers, whose business is inexplicably picking up to compensate. They're such savvy investors, keeping Rich Dad, Poor Dad on their nightstands, right next to the 9mm Glock.
June 27th, 2010 at 12:58 am
I got a theory, the 'Black' shenanigans in TO are all 'agents provocateurs' of the RCMP. They are deliberatley causing the destruction and mayhem to ramp up the public sense of fear so that the downside drift on their other activities is mitigated. I noticed that the media coverage cut away whenever there was a police charge, there was never any footage of the cops outrages against what looked like kids and riot tourists. The cops never moved in on the 'Blacks' whenever there was storebashing or namecalling. The action was all designed to draw in the crowd and the cameras. Fucking cops are trying to set up an excuse to lobby for more guns and draconian laws to restrict the peoples freedoms. The media should be ashamed of itself for acting like the stooge again.
The PC goofs on this site who insist that immigration is 250K per year are complete idiots. The 250K number only refers to the head of the family. He or she brings in dozens of dependants along with them. I know of one case where a retired engineer from China, in his early seventies, applied through his church and got in with a bogus degree from a bum fuck college in Beijing, no good anywhere in the world except there.
He has no intention of working here..so no taxes. Yet he has brought in his wife, his four sons and their families including six children ( two with severe Downs Syndrome) and two sets of grandparents. Only the old man speaks any English. The kids get free schooling. His father has had cancer before to Canada and was put in a care home withing weeks of arriving. Its costing hundreds of thousands just for this one individual. The rest get free health care ( and he's always taking the old folks to the doctor). Free English lessons and resettlement allownaces, job training etc..all on the Canadian taxpayers dime. Remember, none of these people have ever paid a dime into the system here. Thats 20 people collecting benefits they've never paid for. Ain't we a grand country. Now this is just one story,multiply this by 250 thousand and the real immigration number is much much higher than the PC lumps are alluding to.
Any wonder why the country's health care and service sector can't function on the 8% of the budget that the union parasites haven't sucked out?
June 27th, 2010 at 12:03 am
sorry: doubleplusgood (from the doublespeak dictionary)
June 27th, 2010 at 12:00 am
@ulsterman:
What's the phrase in George Orwell's "1984" – "double plus good", or (as the salesperson put it) "and these features are considered a plus-plus"
too weird.
June 26th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
@Best place on meth: Feel the value – LOL!
June 26th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
@Dan in Calgary:
Why aren't those Chinese investors currently too busy attending the Shanghai Expo, then?
June 26th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
@Best place on meth, regarding "Excuse me, but where were your drug lords and Chinese millionaires in the summer of 2008? It was dead in real estate land, sales were in the crapper and prices were plummeting. And this was months before the financial crisis. So what happened?"
The Beijing Olympics were in August 2008. They were busy trying to make money in Olympics-related ventures? Or they were too busy attending the festivities to bother with Vancouver?
Somehow this would seem to confirm the hypothesis that when Chinese millionaires lose interest, the market tanks; when they're interested, the market rises? I shudder to think it might actually work that way.
June 26th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
@Best place on meth:
It's not that the Japanese didn't speculate, but they did not do it in that way. The were not crass about their purchases. A family who could afford six properties would not line up at an open house. The would not split the purchases between husband and wife. They would not mug for the TV etc. They just have very different customs and cultural sensibilities. And nowadays you would be very hard pressed to find Japanese nationals who are interested in speculating in real estate. I think that you can understand why that is.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
@specuskeptic:
"Speculatorian"
Love it!
June 26th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
@Chip
You pointed out a good point regarding foreign influence on Van's housing market. (your 2nd point)
http://www.mpfinance.com/htm/Finance/20100627/New…
The link above commented on 231 apartment units being sold out in 3.5hrs.
It just seems like there is nothing that can put a dent in Hong Kong's real estate market. The government enacted a bunch of executive restrictions since April, cooling off sales activities for a while. It didn't last long, I guess as greed just couldn't be defeated that easily. Mind you, Hong Kong withstood a long bear market in the real estate market from 1997, which reached CAD$1600/sqf, till 2003, when avg housing fell to CAD$600/sqf. Now, it's back to CAD$1400/sqf.
Well, if your comment about foreign influence on Van real estate bears any truth, we are looking at years of permabears being on the chopping board before senses come back to the market.