242 Responses to “Friday free-for-all!”
Pages: « 5 4 [3] 2 1 » Show All
Pages: « 5 4 [3] 2 1 » Show All
Customize your Avatar by registering your account email at gravatar.comWelcome!
VancouverPeak.com- jesse and Makaya are now friends
- jesse replied to the forum topic Sandbox. in the group Housing Data
- jesse posted an update: CMHC starts, completions and under construction in Vancouver […]
- The Ant started the forum topic BC Population Growth in the group Housing Data
- jesse and The Ant are now friends
- jesse and wreckonomics are now friends
- wreckonomics posted an update: New Year, New HPI. ”Selection Broadens and Demand Eases to […]
- Best place on meth and admin are now friends
- jesse and Best place on meth are now friends
- jesse replied to the forum topic February 2012 Daily Numbers in the group Housing Data
Wordpress theme by Abhishek Tripathi of Mediawick Digital Solutions
August 1st, 2010 at 4:07 am
@oneangryslav2:
Case-Shiller Composite 20 (January 2000 = 100)
Jan 2001 112.39 Bush takes office, Senate split, GOP controls House
May 2002 125.66 Bush announces major home ownership initiative.
Jan 2003 135.64 GOP completes takeover of House and Senate.
Jan 2005 176.44 Bush starts second term, GOP control of Congress continues
Jul 2006 206.52 Bubble peak
Jan 2007 202.31 Democrats take control of House and Senate
Jan 2009 146.34 Obama takes office, Dem control of Congress continues
The first mainstream calls of a US RE bubble were in late 2004.
http://www.standardandpoors.co.....us—-
August 1st, 2010 at 1:35 am
@theproman23: I’d also recommend taking the apartment close to David Lam Park. For what it’s worth, I’d also be looking at places that are listed at over 3,000/month and talk the landlord down to your price. It sounds like you’d be a good tenant and, as such, you’d have a lot of bargaining power.
Check out this luxury 2BR/2BA at the Wall Centre, where the monthly rent (for at least a 6-month lease is listed at 3195. Notice, however, where they write “[f]or good, longer term tenants we would consider negotiating down the rate depending on their need.”
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.....37675.html
Best of luck and welcome to Vancouver.
August 1st, 2010 at 1:21 am
I am set to move to Vancouver on what we refer to as a Secondment to work there for at least the next 3 years.
I get pretty decent benefits with the position and the rent allotment is roughly $2,750 per month along with another $195 for Utilities.
I’ve looked at a few apartments in the past few days and there are two I really like. The one is at the Smithe Mews literally right across from BC place and another at Strathmore Mews by David Lam Park. I am 26 and single and will be work at W Georgia and Howe.
The two places are the same size except for the one at Smithe Mews has a larger living room with smaller bedrooms while the one at Strathmore Mews has a smaller living room but a bit bigger bedrooms. I am leaning towards the Strathmore Mews one as the Smithe Mews one is so close to the BC place and apparently there is a Vegas style casino coming soon.
Any thoughts and suggestions will be much appreciated.
August 1st, 2010 at 12:29 am
@realpaul 145
Those are surprisingly nice apts. I couldn’t believe the 1250 sq ft in Chelsea (!)
Another wake-up call to what we’re in for here when the whip of correction falls.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:54 pm
@chip:
I’ve called you out before for making factually incorrect statements, and someone else called you out on your patently false claim about the housing bubble in the US “really getting going” when the Dems took over control of the house in 2006.
As for your suggestion above that the CRA of 1977 coerced banks into “abandoning their risk models”, this is complete Fox News style b.s. Here’s the “liberal” businessweek weighing in:
The patently false and implicitly racist claims about the 1977 CRA (i.e. “we would have had none of these problems had banks not been forced to loan money to black and brown people”) have been peddled by the same slime merchants that have been calling Obama–the most centrist Democratic president ever possibly–Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.
Oh, and here’s some more from that Business Week article:
Does any of the above support your contention that the 1977 CRA forced banks to “abandon their risk models?”
http://www.businessweek.com/in.....risis.html
July 31st, 2010 at 10:07 pm
12 Manhattan apartments under $500,000. Locations that make Vancouver look like Willy Pictons willy. This dump has a looooooooooooonnnnnggggggg way to fall.
http://nymag.com/realestate/features/66782/
July 31st, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I’m not sure if much of the damage has been done in Alberta yet. Prices did fall about 15% from the 2007 peak before the BoC 0.25% taps were turned on and most of those losses had recovered, roughly 5% below the peak.
Things have really stalled the last two months though and unless the numbers change dramatically on the last day of July (or the CREB fluffs their numbers), Calgary SFH prices will be down 3.8% (mean) or 4.8% (median) in the last two months.
Meanwhile sales are down 48% from last July and MOI is sitting around 6.5. We’ll revisit the 2009 trough again before we see the 2007 peak.
And if anyone really believes that rich immigrants, and not cheap money, caused the housing boom, Mike Fotiou has this nice graph up on his blog:
http://findcalgary.files.wordp.....rical2.gif
July 31st, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Self modding patriotz? The only negative points not realpaul factually contradict your errors. Curious that.
July 31st, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Richmond New Unit sales
1995 = 27
1996 = 71
1997 = 57
1998 = 28
1999 = 49
2000 = 32
2001 = 40
2002 = 43
2003 = 63
2004 = 32
2005 = 87
2006 = 118
2007 = 92
2008 = 33
2009 = 92
2010 = 22 down -76%
July 31st, 2010 at 7:18 pm
@realpaul:
Relax fecalpaul, the mayor is aware of the situation and he’s on it.
A new lane for the bedbugs is going in next week.
July 31st, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Confirming Bedbugs on transit, in movie theaters, hospitals etc etc. City of Vancouver is infested but the council is thinking that TOURISM WILL SUFFER AS A RESULT OF RECOGNITION….WAIT TILL THE INFESTATION MAKES HUGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE STAY AWAY…..IT WILL KILL THIS CITYS TOURISM FOR DECADES.
“There are a lot of different reasons people have them. One of them is travelling and picking up bedbugs in hotels. You can get them in movie theatres and anywhere. They’re hitchhikers, so if somebody has bedbug eggs on their pants and they go to a movie theatre the next one in picks them up and brings them home. You don’t know you have them for a month, but then you do.”
, it’s believed bedbugs are now in mass transit.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Objective comparables of Housing – US vs Canada
July 31st, 2010 at 4:33 pm
http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....473272.htm
July 31st, 2010 at 3:57 pm
@chip: Well, yeah, the bubble started to get serious in 2006 and the Dems then took control
Housing prices peaked in 2006. If you mean things got serious when TSHTF then yes. But the real warning signs started 2-3 years prior for those who chose to look for them.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:32 pm
@patriotz:
Patriotz, you’re a smart guy but your political obsessions get the best of you.
“Regardless of what Clinton had done, Bush became president in Jan 2001 and the Republicans had full control of Congress in Jan 2003 before the bubble became serious”
Well, yeah, the bubble started to get serious in 2006 and the Dems then took control. And it’s then that House Finance chair Frank was telling F/F to roll the dice and Senate Banking Chair Dodd was taking sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide.
“Instead, Bush made promoting home ownership at any cost or risk a central policy of his administration.”
He just extended Clinton’s policy. The Community Reinvestment Act was brought in under Carter in 1977 to coerce banks into abandoning their risk models and increase lending to low income people, but it was Clinton who really blew it open, getting the community activists involved in blackmailing, I mean working with, banks. This is from the year 2000:
“A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, “CRA is the backbone of everything we do.”
http://www.city-journal.org/ht.....ollar.html
That was one root of the crisis. Then Fannie and Freddie started to gorge on subprime in 2004.
Interestingly enough, there was an attempt in 2005 to rein in F/F, when the then Senate Banking Committee voted to prohibit the GSEs from holding portfolios, and give their regulator the ability to set capital requirements.
If you’re looking for a political angle, every GOP on the Senate committee favoured that bill and the Dems took a party-line vote against, killing it before going to the floor.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Thx patriotz
July 31st, 2010 at 2:53 pm
@FlipFlop:
Last time I checked it had not had a post in over a year. I think either the server automatically locked it for being inactive, or the owner locked it to keep spammers out.
July 31st, 2010 at 2:09 pm
@anonymous:
Thats all fine as long as you can find buyers that have not already loaded on debt. The last two years squeezed the last juice from them, and now pretty much everybody is loaded – unless the prices do not go up, there will be no change in the people equity and they can not move up (but they can sell).
I think this is over.
July 31st, 2010 at 2:09 pm
is there any way to get permission for Vancouver UnRealEstate?
I used to read it regularly, but it’s only open to invited readers now. Any insight would be appreciated.
Please mail me at jaketaylor.biz at gmail dot com
Thanks.
July 31st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
@patriotz:
Since the comming bust in Ontario and other regions will not be big like the comming BC bust, the Federal government will credibly be able to say that the “Canadian” RE price correction in housing is not a crisis.
It may not be a crisis when declines are averaged over the whole country but in BC it will be a blood bath. But because the Canadian average price declines will not be at crisis levels, expect no free money from the Feds to prop up the bubble.
July 31st, 2010 at 12:25 pm
patriotz, too sunny out to go through all the errors in your post. Again, stemming from the perspective the American gov was handing out buckets of money directly for mortgages. That’s not how it worked. House ownership for low income was a Clinton policy. Glass–Steagall was repealed in the Clinton admin. The decision not to regulate over the counter derivatives was a Clinton policy, see Brooksley Born. You might have also noticed the timing of dot.com. Find “13 Bankers”.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:47 am
@crashcow: sorry, wrong link. See this one: http://www.rebgv.org/housing-price-index
April was the peak, not May.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:42 am
@Best place on meth: Don’t you mean third consecutive month?
http://vancouvercondo.info/201.....ment-84693
July 31st, 2010 at 11:37 am
#97 So a bunch of frantic boys who are hyper focused on their pee pees turn you on? You have to be desperate for entertainment if the cities version of packaged, timed, patrolled, contained and modularized entertainment appeals to you. Did you ever read ‘The bird man of Alcatraz’? Ever been to Camden or Times Square, the Ginzu or a real city for that matter where ‘entertainment’ is not a scheduled event but in fact beats as the heart of a real metroplolis? This pride thing is like the other pathetic events put on by this shithole of a shopping mall puss bag, phony, crass and an excuse for the bush rats to pour out of their caves for a minute and mingle with people who normally wouldn’t be anywhere within a mile of them under other circumstance……..its sooooo freaking lame!!!!!!!!
*******I see the cops are trying to apologize in advance for the very real prospect of a public inquiry into the Pig Farm Killing fiasco. Front running this story is the back story that we all remember about how the top brass had gone on strike against the new chief who’d been brought in from Ontario over the selection of the dipshits here who had always thought that one of them should have got the job.
They refused to investigate the serial killings in protest of being passed over. When the chief then promoted the PH.D Rosmoe to the position of inspector over the crowd of high school dropouts who had been traditionally in line for the job the file was buried and the body count piled up. The hated genius Rosmoe told them who was doing the killing and where he could be found…… but until a certain flunky (from Richmond) got the inspectors job when the chief reluctantly accepted Rosmoes resignation ( he got a better offer from the FBI) to quell the revolt, the investigation was put on hold allowing at least twenty additional women to be murdered. The flunky got his inspectors job ( just like all the flunkies waiting will) and the families of the murdered got nothing but misery.
So now the dipshits are trying to say ‘we’re sorry’ Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha…..what a bunch of assholes. This is all going to come out in the public inquiry….wait and see…it was a common knowledge story at the the time….buried under the ignorance of an advertiser controlled press. Just like the RCMP’s failed attempt to cover up the murder of Djikanski this issue stinks and needs to be aired. It is not the 1940′s anymore when the practices of the cops wasn’t questioned., We all see now what a fetid rathole the cops administrative ranks are. The Federal government has rightly begun to tear down the walls of secrecy and power within these organizations. If it were a fair world we’d see the entire top handed their heads. On the stand these morons are going to be shown for the low quality ape shit that they really are.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:36 am
Summary of July MoM average & median sold price changes from Larry:
Area / Avg Sold / Med Sold
————————————-
Van West / -12% / -9%
East Van / 3% / 6%
West Van / -22% / -15%
North Van / -9% / -4%
Richmond / 2% / 3%
Burnaby / -6% / 0%
July 31st, 2010 at 11:36 am
@anonymous: Don’t know why someone would vote you down. There’s nothing in the picture to believe that after the initial shock wears off prices will plummet. Just as likely, even more so, we are looking at a slow one or two decade long melt, Japan-style, absent dramatic external events. No one anywhere in the world is in a hurry to raise rates to historical norms, certainly not governments who have mountains of debt to service. A long slow process of deflation and deleveraging is upon us. The consumer won’t be back in force until their debt levels go back to the 30% range, that’s a long hard way down from 150%.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:27 am
@fixie guy: “Couldn’t be priced” that’s nonsense. The “toxic assets” couldn’t be priced, because they were never given a chance to. Bank accounting rules were changed to allow banks to mark their assets to fantasy, thus preventing the market from finding out what those MBSs were worth.
Asset price discovery always happens, when it is allowed to. And there’s a buyer for every asset, at some price.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:23 am
@fixie guy:
Regardless of what Clinton had done, Bush became president in Jan 2001 and the Republicans had full control of Congress in Jan 2003 before the bubble became serious, and they had ample opportunity to reverse previous policies and prevent the crisis from ever happening. Instead, Bush made promoting home ownership at any cost or risk a central policy of his administration. Indeed he wanted to do away with whatever lending restrictions had existed under Clinton, as he said himself in the video I posted. He also appointed Bernanke as Fed chair one week after Bernanke told Congress in 2005 that there was no RE bubble and a fall in RE prices would not harm the financial system.
Bush wanted his “ownership society” and he would have got it no matter what Clinton or any other predecessor had done. The idea that policies made under Clinton inevitably led to the bubble and crisis is ridiculous. It makes about as much sense as blaming Clinton for the invasion of Iraq.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:18 am
@chilled: Drugs, corruption and crime aren’t the only thing festering in this city. Don’t forget about the bed bugs too.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:13 am
@Anonymous: Haha, Ian Watt, what a tool. Why do I care to impress or excite the sellers? No financing? No inspection? No documentation? No conditions? Here’s how sellers will be impressed soon: an offer > $0.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:00 am
fixie guy:
The upcoming BC bust will be big, no question. The current Alberta bust started in 2007 and much of the damage has already been done. Alberta also has the advantage of oil prices that are unlikely to go down much, so my guess is that BC/Alberta going forward from now will be about as big as BC/Alberta in the 80′s. BC worse, Alberta no so bad.
And that was the worst bust since the 30′s, but no level of government bailed anyone out, CMHC paid out mortgages as they were contracted to do, and life went on.
The upcoming Toronto bust will be slower as it’s not anywhere near as overpriced. Might not as bad as the one in the early 90′s.
My point here is I think that perhaps some people are getting a bit apocalyptic about the coming Canadian busts because they don’t remember previous ones. Indeed the Bank of BC and two Alberta banks went down in the 80′s, and I don’t anticipate any bank failures this time. Just think of it as a buying opportunity.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:00 am
‘Landtricks’ Accusations
“I worked for a large developer until recently. Even I wasn’t aware of all the tricks, because only the owners of the largest development companies know of them.”
A series of accusation that developers in Vancouver and the lower mainland manipulate land transactions to their own advantage has been posted anonymously, and undated, on a website ‘landtricks.tripod.com’.
Archived and Discussed:
http://wp.me/pcq1o-18q
July 31st, 2010 at 10:42 am
Those van west numbers are as bad as west van. Everyone keep their pants on though–likely a big shift in sales mix accounts for a good chunk of this. Wait for the benchmarks.
But, once again, the west leads the way down.
July 31st, 2010 at 10:23 am
@anonymous:
Just like back in 2008, when a huge wave of buyers rushed in once prices had dropped 10%. “Excuse me for a second [holding my hand to my ear, as if listening through my ear piece to somebody giving me instructions, a la John Stewart on the Daily Show]…oh, they didn’t?!? You mean buyers didn’t rush in when prices in Vancouver last dropped 10%?!? Oh, prices dropped 15% over the course of 9 months in 2008 and didn’t stop dropping until the Bank of Canada essentially slashed interest rates to zero? Oh. Never mind, then!”
July 31st, 2010 at 10:20 am
So let me get this straight; I pay you $920/month and you get to tell me what time I go to bed.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.....63855.html
July 31st, 2010 at 10:02 am
@McLovin:
I believe, the inventory reduction will slow market drop.
As for developers slashing prices, my guess is that they will include “free” upgrades to compensate for the additional cost of HST, so the market value will not drop by much initially.
Also, the interest rates are still at historical lows unlike 2008 when bank prime was still above 4% and 5 year fixed were around 5%.
http://www.canequity.com/mortgage_rate_history.stm
With the BOC in no hurry to raise rates to historical levels anytime soon, there will be no crash but rather a slow multi year decline similar to Japan.
Debt being so cheap and Vancouver being a desirable city, if the market drops 10%, people will jump in, stabilize prices for awhile until the demand wanes, then the cycle will repeat itself until all of the buyers are exhausted or an external event causes additional downward pressure (higher interest rates, double dip recession etc…)
There’s still too many people that believe that Vancouver RE always goes up. Until sentiment changes prices will remain elevated.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:27 am
“F/F should have gone bankrupt. Period.”
That’s where ‘too large to fail’ comes in. It was recognized the financial actors which sold them poisoned assets falsely as AAA paper had flooded the credit market with something that couldn’t be priced. The feds had to buy it back in order to replace the ‘junk’ with something of known value to get the loans needed for business flowing again. BTW, it’s Clinton/Bush. This couldn’t have happened without the idiocy of both.
That’s why I’ve always said what happens here will be very interesting. The fed/CMHC essentially bailed the banks out in advance and was directly complicit in generating junk paper with a taxpayer guarantee. It’s ‘value’ when mortgages inevitably go severely underwater lies in the federal enforcement – i.e. either the Government of Canada becomes the strong arm collection agency of the banks or it let’s banks and buyers off the hook, buying gambler’s houses on the backs of savers and earners. Harper fucked us for a generation.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:21 am
@Best place on meth:
Don’t worry about those people, remember they are all rich Asians. They probably spend that much taking their private jets to Vancouver each time they come to buy more real estate. Besides, what fun is it owning real estate in a world class city without world class price reductions.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:04 am
Dear god, West Side is getting just POUNDED for the second straight month.
Median down 8.6% and almost 13% in the last 2 months.
Average down 12.7% in just the last 30 days.
Sales down 60% from June.
Price reductions 4 times greater than sales.
http://www.yattermatters.com/n.....more-19187
Anyone who bought 2 months ago has already lost WELL OVER 200K.:)
July 31st, 2010 at 8:15 am
I wonder if the massive reduction in new inventory will slow the market drop? In 2008 a lot of developers got caught with their pants down and had to slash prices. Is this the case this time or have they learned their lesson?
July 31st, 2010 at 8:14 am
@Anonymous:
post 91
What idiot would use that guy as an agent? What a tool. Seems well coked up too.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:22 am
@Jonathon:
Purchase of RE is investment, not consumption, so demand to purchase RE is investment demand. As is demand to purchase stocks. A fall in consumer demand means people are drinking less beer or going to fewer movies, etc.
But being able to articulate the difference is clearly not one of Cam’s job qualifications.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:52 am
@domus:
What would be the same in Canada? We have no equivalent to F/F. In Canada you either have a Crown agency (e.g. CMHC) or a private business.
I stand corrected on F/F buying subprime mortgages. But IMHO that’s even more reason for the Federal government not to have bailed out the bondholders. The bondholders were active enablers of F/F.
As was the Bush administration. Including Hank Paulson. It’s ludicrous for Paulson today to criticize the agencies and policies that lead to the housing bust when he was one of the highest places actors in that fiasco.
Let’s not beat around the, er, bush. Bush and Paulson actively promoted the US housing bubble, and then stepped in and guaranteed F/F debt because their rich friends would have lost a lot of money if they hadn’t. “Not guaranteed by the US government” means exactly that. It was an outright gift of taxpayer’s money to bondholders who had no claim to it.
F/F should have gone bankrupt. Period.
July 31st, 2010 at 2:03 am
New home sales are down -70% ***lowest sales since 1995
July
“NEW” unit sales
YEAR= UNITS
1995 = 296
1996 = 442
1997 = 350
1998 = 311
1999 = 298
2000 = 205
2001 = 288
2002 = 221
2003 = 488
2004 = 343
2005 = 724
2006 = 445
2007 = 503
2008 = 215
2009 = 441
2010 = 129 down -70%
July 31st, 2010 at 2:00 am
Final numbers unit sales are -45% down ** 2nd lowest in a decade
July = UNITS
1995 = 1978
1996 = 2100
1997 = 2303
1998 = 1816
1999 = 2181
2000 = 1710
2001 = 2737
2002 = 2759
2003 = 4140
2004 = 3114
2005 = 3825
2006 = 2802
2007 = 3955
2008 = 2215
2009 = 4197
2010 = 2297
July 31st, 2010 at 1:31 am
@100
Congratulations. You actually *have* got me thinking: “Is this the stupidest funny thing I’ve ever read, or the funniest stupid thing I’ve ever read?”
July 31st, 2010 at 12:12 am
oh yeah nutsters! welcome to raincouver! remembers, you might find IAN Watt at the pride parade, but you will not find
“a land making machine”
remembers “a nutslap’s a nutslap”
July 30th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
@McLovin:
McLovin Says:
July 30th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
For all the slagging that goes on on this blog about Vancouver being shitty this and shitty that I want to post something positive.
I just took a swing by Davie St and it was going off! Its a huge street party for Pride weekend and there are people from all over North America here. It seems like a super fun party with bands and a DJ. An event like this going on and being welcome by the people is still quite rare in this world.
I know this has nothing to do with Vancouver real estate but things like this make me proud to live in this city!
+++++++++++++
I’ll be riding my bike from the North Shore downtown both Saturday and Sunday. The festivities downtown will be entertaining and interesting, no doubt. I look forward to the weekend.
This still doesn’t negate the fact that Vancouver is an overpriced, deluded real estate market, festering in a denizen of drugs, crime, corruption and illegal activity.
Your pep talk is almost George Bush-ish in its suggestive, “you are either with us or you are not.” Too bad critical thinkers can sometimes be critical.
July 30th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
@paulb.:
Tabbies are the best mousers.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
@Dave: “you cannot deny that I have called the big picture stuff correctly.”
I deny it. QED