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Friday free-for-all!

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207 Comments

It’s the end of the week and that means it’s free-for-all time!  Lets do our regular end of the week news round up and open topic economic discussion post, here are a few recent links to kick things off:

–Spending cuts reduce BC deficit by $1 billion
–Vancouver home sales drop sharply
–Olympic Village buyer regret? Call the litigator!
–Condo king slashes Kelowna highrise prices
–Gov to double cash required for investor class immigration
–NY Times discovers Vancouver real estate
–Ooops-a-daisy in Kitsilano.
–Biggest US defaults are from the rich
–The big thinking in US condos is small

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

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/York+Times+went+house+hunting+Vancouver+found+houses+Kits+million/3253046/story.html
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Enough Already

@realpaul:

I guess it hard for you to imagine people can be happy because your life is so miserable. You seem assume a lot of things about people. What can I asumr about you? Balding, divorced loser who doesn't have kids or the kids hate you and you have a lot less money than you think you deserve.

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realpaul

#205 EA, what a dipshit response. "I'm happy….I'm really really happy" . You and the rest of your imaginary playpals eh?

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Enough Already

@realpaul:

I have a good happy life. Your life sucks. Big difference. If I don't agree with what was around me, I would go protest or start my own blog or something, not rant on like a maniac on someone else's real estate blog to people who don't care. Yeah, no wonder your life sucks.

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jesse

Taiwan Central Bank Seeks to Curb Housing Speculation as Prices Surge 20%

Those zany Rich Asians at it again, buying with cold hard cash, of course.

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jesse

@Mike: "All I was trying to point out that foreign buying and easy immigration are a big reason for today’s bubble pricing.."

I think they are an excuse, not the root cause.

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realpaul

#194 EA, so dude, when you wake up in the morning you decide to negate everything you don't like? Disonance is a bitch man, but for the rest of us, the truth is at the nexus of change. If you've got your head up your ass and you dig the shitty status quo, then you get what you deserve, then don't complain when things go wrong in your life. I'm with the people who can call a spade a spade without having to hide under the bed when the boogie man invades my perfect world. I watched a documentary recently that reminded me of what Hitler said in Mein Kamp, "people are stupid, you must repeat the message many times." Remind you of what you're reading in the funny papers? Be a thinker, not a believer. The sad part is… Read more »

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Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

Here is another vietnam clip for you…."getcha a case of beer for that one"

Love that line…

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Anonymous

So…don’t get fooled by the dim sum and dragon dances, the Chinese culture is nothing but a disapora (sic) from a country where life is cheap and unvalued

To quote General Westmoreland, "The Oriental (sic) doesn't put the same high price on life as the westerner." Don't cry context because no amount of context (spin can put lipstick on that pig you put out there).

(See 1:35 of this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huFh760p-MA)

Classic cracker Archie Bunker motherf@cker.

You stay classy RuPaul!

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Mike

@patriotz: I think Chip summed it up perfectly when he said, "I think foreigners and the criminal trade are pumping money into the market, but if the locals weren’t onboard with their speculation, the govt with their insurance and the BOC’s driving of rates down to a quarter point in 2008 this market would have collapsed already."

All I was trying to point out that foreign buying and easy immigration are a big reason for today's bubble pricing..

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Anonymous

@Best place on meth:

Phase 2 LMFAO!

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Best place on meth

@Matador:

You too, Mr. Rennie.

And remember everyone to get on the list for Phase 2.

http://www.2300kingsway.com/

Just to recap:

Phase 1: collect condos

Phase 2: ???

Phase 3: PROFIT!

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jesse

@Mike: "Immigration and foreign buying is a real story."

Again, if "locals" think real estate is a bad value, they would not buy. That they choose to buy, either by taking on enormous debt with basement suites or by commuting an hour a day by moving to the suburbs, is by their own free will. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads.

If people CHOOSE to rent, they can live close to the city with way lower carrying costs than it does to own. They can even get longer term leases, if they don't want the risk of being evicted, for a relatively small premium.

Looking at the "Asian invasion" and thinking that because they're buying they're altering prices is laughable. Don't like the price? Don't pay it.

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Matador

Spain is once again victorious. I shall celebrate by fooling the bulls with red cloth and stab them in the back with my dagger. Stay stupid my friends.

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Enough Already

@realpaul:

Dude. Seriously, enough already. You are just bitching and complaining about everything. Vancouver sucks, raw sewage in the ocean, Canada sucks, government takes away rights, the rest of the world is a shithole. Your life must suck. If everywhere sucks in your life, there's only one place for you to go……

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realpaul

Anon 190 , great link. I would imagine there are plenty of lonely girls to meet in the area. Look for the 'open benz' girl and you're in. Many people fail to understand how bizarre the Chinese society is and how antiquated their values are. No one should overlook that behind the well hyped 'modernization' of China there are the other 99.999 % of the people who live in medieval ignorance and extreme poverty. Local officials still murder peasents for their land and government turns a blind eye for bribes. We in Canada should not be looking to China for advice or guidance on anything. These people at the baseline are ruthless savages that have no social conscionce or morals. China is a savage shithole. If China was such a great place, why are there so many people desperate to… Read more »

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realpaul

Video proof of cops dressed as 'black bloc vandals' in G20 riots. No amount of lying is going to save the cops from getting outed on this issue. The cops wanted the rioting and vandalism to shore up their power base and increase their budgets. It is increasingly obvious that it was 100% police action that vandalized and set fires in TO during the G20. There will be a public outing of this issue and assholes like Dalton McGuinty will look as stupid as the prosecutor who rushed in and tried to whitewash the murder of Robert Djikanski.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XgEI5dCrE

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Anonymous

@Mike: Mike and chip have some valid points.

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Anonymous

@realpaul:

One Californian location is dubbed "the concubine village" because hoards of corrupt offshore officials in a hurry to launder money dump cash and their concubines there. If you want the links, just goolge search 美国加州2奶村

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patriotz

@Mike: My point exactly…the foreign buyers now represent the marginal buyer in many areas. They have become the least able buyers, having priced out many local buyers. Are you claiming that in many areas no locals are buying at all? That would have to be the case if even the least able buyers are foreign. In any case, it doesn't matter how irrational buyers are – white, Asian, or whatever. If prices remain out of whack with rents, investors will lose money, and prices eventually will have to come down to levels at which investors can make a profit. Because there is only so much dumb money, and if prices are out of whack with rents, supply will outrun demand, real rents will continue to fall, and the Ponzi scheme will eventually fail. That's the cause of all RE busts,… Read more »

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Mike

@patriotz: My point exactly…the foreign buyers now represent the marginal buyer in many areas. They have become the least able buyers, having priced out many local buyers.

Chip has it totally right. One of the reasons why Vancouver is tremendously overvalued is unrestricted foreign buying and immigration. Also, many of our immigrants are east Asian. The Chinese have a culture of faith in hard assets. They believe in buying real estate.

But go ahead Patriotz. Ignore all the people in the streets of Vancouver speaking Mandarin. Ignore those with accents. Go back to the school you graduated from. My highschool was 95% white when I graduated nearly 20 years ago. It is now probably 50%. Ignore all these things.

Immigration and foreign buying is a real story. Running out of land isn't.

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VHB

Shall we take stock of where we are? We have very high inventory and sales are shrinking. They haven't plunged, really, but are slowly slinking down. This suggests to me that between now and the end of the year we will likely see growing MoI and perhaps slightly accelerating price declines. 2% per month or so. Sounds trivial, maybe, but it adds up. What about 2011? Well, if everything just continues on the same, then we'll see some more house-shoppers show up in the new year, along with a new surge in listings, likely taking us over 20K–perhaps far over it. But will things stay the same? I see three risks on the horizon. 1) double dip recession. 2) chinese economy slow down / crash. 3) interest rate increase. If any of these three happened, it would likely hurt the… Read more »

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realpaul

The 'ugly Canadian' bouying the US property market according to experts.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/new-economy/2010/0…

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realpaul

Chip 181, the Chinese Hawala is called the HSBC here in Canada. The article indicating a $50K cap on capital exports out of China is completley untrue. There have been a constant stream of articles that expose the cash being carried in suitcases into Canada from China, millions in some cases. The only ones that get publicized are the ones who didn't claim it at customs and have been fined a nominal $3000 for non declaration. Otherwise the HSBC with branches throught Asia simply transfers the cash for completions into readily available bank accounts here. I have seen the cheques and transfer docs personally for deposits and completions. Where they got the idea that there was a restriction of $50,000 is a mystery. Until the CDN governement gets some heat on its ass as happened in OZ for having foriegners… Read more »

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Jenny The Troll

"It’s the idiots who grew up hearing their Anglo Saxon and Asian immigrant illiterate parents, which real estate always goes up in Vancouver because ….."

Keeping and eye:

Brave and Bold, with the raw truth, but the rest of the poverty conscious immigrants have done their share as well with brainwashing their children.

Nonetheless, point well taken, but you will likely be labeled as a bigot.

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chip

@patriotz:

"They could live further in if they simply rented. The point is that everyone has the option of buying versus renting, and if the locals simply refused to buy at excessive prices, excessive prices would not happen."

I agree. I think foreigners and the criminal trade are pumping money into the market, but if the locals weren't onboard with their speculation, the govt with their insurance and the BOC's driving of rates down to a quarter point in 2008 this market would have collapsed already.

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