Eh, I went to one of those lower ranked schools and here I am — a well paid professional living in the best place on earth sipping cranteenies on my patio like everyone else that went to York House. Ok, so I'm a jizzbag renter and my landlord has a beehive, so what?

I can't tell you how many chinese families I've met that have wanted to move to the west side so their kids could go to the best private schools. They are willing to sacrifice a lot financially to make this happen. Personally I think this is a waste of money. This isn't the U.K. — nobody here gives a damn what school anyone went to. At the end of the day how you prove yourself after school is over is what matters.

@crabman:

"Down in LA for a few weeks. I met a friends husband today who is a professional actor. When I brought up the possibility of him getting work in Vancouver he said the following:

“Not anymore. They still do some production work up there, but most of the acting work has gone to Detroit. With the high $CAD it’s not really worth it.”

Has another BC industry bitten the dust? Is there anything doing well right now that isn’t RE related?"

There are several major productions shooting in Vancouver this summer. Your friend's husband shouldn't blame Vancouver for the fact that he can't get a gig.

vhb says: DT-FN condo inventory is down 20% over the last month. (See here.) Is there an explanation for this that does not rely on bear wishful thinking?

you really expecting carnage downtown? this is a market thats more or less been stagnant for three years. the flippers have primarily exited the market over that time. demand has not exactly lit it up but either has supply. some post olympic shake out is in order. i'd look to the suburbs for more drama, leaky condo liquidations and rental restriction bylaws are a couple of factors helping a bearish demand/supply dynamic.

OMG. This is what you get in Seattle for $1.8mill. Actually you could prob get it for $1.6.

http://www.historicseattlelakefront.com/

* 141

Crabman says:

“Not anymore. They still do some production work up there, but most of the acting work has gone to Detroit. With the high $CAD it’s not really worth it.”

Detroit and other "depressed" US cities have provided tax incentives for production to be done in those cities.

The high CAD vs USD has made every exporting industry suffer, including film industry.

Forestry is another example….lumber at US$300 x 1.50 = CA$450; at current FX rates: US$300 x 1.03 = CA$309; a reduction of $110 revenue when costs in CAD.

Strong CAD is great from cross border shopping, but lousy for exporting industries.

@crabman: Thanks for the made up anecdote, but you have no clue

@203

My wife is attending the free English courses available for new Canadian immigrants and PR's at Mosaic center on commercial dr. In her class she talked to two of her classmates. One is a woman from china and her occupation is "real estate investor" and the other is an Indonesian woman who works at KFC. She separately asked both of them their opinion of Vancouver real estate, the Chinese woman said without a doubt it is going down now. The Indonesian woman said Vancouver real estate is going up right now. I would like to mention the Indonesian woman lives in a 7br house half of which is rented out.

Bear teacher and rich asian buy condo like bear buy toilet paper. Hard to understand for poor little bear scratching at slit of light in moldy basement but it's true. Reason why kid do so well with union teacher is because of smart real estate investment by teacher. Bear you should have paid more attention in school.

Can anyone explain what the legal implications are if you buy a house that has had renovations done without permits? The place we looked at on the weekend had all new plumbing and electrical but the realtor said the homeowner did it all himself and didn't get permits for the work. He then tried to justify it by saying the homeowner was an "engineer", as if that somehow implies he knows how to re-plumb a house.

Besides the obvious safety concerns, what legal issues could a new homeowner encounter in this type of situation? I'm wondering if the house burned down because the previous owner didn't wire something correctly, would the new owner's insurance refuse to cover it?

@Jimmy: I agree. I also think they're asking too much. A $30,000 cut would probably get a few nibbles. We'll see. I'll keep everyone posted.

oneangryslav2 Says

"It’s been on the market for seven weeks now and there has been no offer yet"

———————————

No disrespect intended, but perhaps it's overpriced relative to other similar listings in the neighbourhood. If she wants to sell now, she may need to lower the asking price. Just my 2 cents.

@Dan in Calgary: Don't worry, Dan. It's nearing the end of a long weekend without much real estate news. Once Pope creates a new blog post, the comments will reflect that change.

As for real estate news, my sister had an open house (in Coquitlam) yesterday and there weren't many attendees. It's been on the market for seven weeks now and there has been no offer yet.

Florida condos for less than a Prius.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/real_estate/1…

Sure hope this blog doesn't go the way of albertabubble.blogspot.com.