Uncategorized

Friday Free-for-all!

189
189 Comments

It’s the end of the week and that means it’s time for another free-for-all, our regular end of the week news round up and open topic economic discussion thread. Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–Vancouver Real Estate professionals all a-twitter
-Vancouver Real Estate explained by cartoon characters(vids)
–Stress test your mortgage for higher rates
–Canada’s worst spenders: British Columbia
–Neil Mohindra of Fraser Institute on CMHC liabilities (vid)
–Home renovations a bad investment?
–BC Commercial Real Estate hits record high
–Gov spends money to let people know it spent money
–Alberta now home to cheap housing
–US Home sales rise, prices fall
–Spain hobbled by Real Estate bubble fallout
–

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

189 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
crabman

@chip: Yeah, it's amazing what a unilaterally undervalued currency, a communist government, no workers rights, no environmental laws, no respect for patents and the world's biggest housing bubble can do for a country!

As far as China "steamrolling" the west is concerned, I expect their depression to kick in long before that happens.

0
0
chip

China is the biggest exporter of mobile phones, TVs, CD players, washing machines, silk and perhaps most importantly for Vancouverites on those long rainy winter nights, sex toys.

Face it, China is moving up the value-added ladder even quicker than the Japanese and Koreans. I wish it wasn't so but Asia is going to steamroll many Western countries that are more interested in running up debts, happy clappy schools and banning the internal combustion engine.

0
0
Devore

@jjbink: You would pretty much have to stop using computers.

0
0
jjbink

It'd be interesting to see if people can really boycott 100% everything that comes out of China including those precious iPhones. Or is it all just big talk?

0
0
Anonymous

I am desperate for a retail store the sells stuff made in Canada, by Canadians, and that did not travel thousands of km to break after using them for 2 days. Any address?

0
0
asia man

@ best place on meth. I am on a different clock so forgive the lapse, yes I thought that was funny too and meant to write in my comment she pulled out the last stick! how ironic!

0
0
Westside Hag

Ha! I've had the same idea, so a lot of people must be thinking the same way.

0
0
jesse

@chopper: "If we chose quality over price"

Given the construction quality of houses in Vancouver, is it any surprise people choose items whose quality matches their living quarters?

0
0
chopper

@Best place on meth: ''If we had any decency we’d boycott China 100% for as long as they thumb their noses at basic human rights and rule of law.''

I couldn't agree more. I've been thinking for some time about opening a retail outlet and naming it something like ''Nothing from China'' and stocking it with crap from any other country but China, Like a lot of people I'm sick and tired of buying chinese crap, it's time to let some other third world country have a go at selling us crap.

On a serious note though, they sell this crap to us because North Americans are obsessed with buying the cheapest crap we can find. Other nationalities, like the Italians, focus more on quality – shoes, furniture etc. If we chose quality over price, China would suffer.

0
0
Keeping An Eye On Th

@Patiently Waiting:

Patiently, I thought this was one of the funniest lines:

"The project was received favourably in a 1999 New York Times article, based on information provided by Wellsby."

I guess the New York Times doesn't do its research as stringently as Realty Radio 98, The Province, or The Vancouver Sun!

0
0
Bubba

Golf courses are no different than Whistler…

The recreation facility anchors residential development.

I think the Chilliwack developer is full of shite re sewers (no pun intended) that's a red herring, as my travels in the Shuswap have shown many mini " poopoo and peepee" stand alone treatment plants for development at waterfront.

Basic answer is frivolous residential developments that lose their anchoring cachet are bad investemtns when RE tanks, especially given they likely have some strata components that further gouge the purchasers.

0
0
Patiently Waiting

A planeload of Rich Asians should take care of this:

Rick Wellsby’s vision of a luxurious golf resort and housing development in Chilliwack has faded like a bad putt on the 18th green.

The company Wellsby founded, Blackburn Developments Ltd., has been granted creditor protection in B.C. Supreme Court with debts of about $75 million held by dozens of chagrined investors.

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/Chilliwack+developer+g…

0
0
Bubba

166 Priced Out Canadian Says: February 27th, 2011 at 3:48 pm Canadians will just stay here and declare BK as they always have. As for the “rich Asians”, I thought they all paid cash? ***** Rich asians may have the cash, but they don’t pay in cash. They borrow as much as possible from the banks because they view it as shorting the dollar, and if shit hits the fan and they need to walk, the Canadian taxpayer is on the hook instead of their own assets. ===================== Bang on…. A neighbour sold to some Asians…who offered them a good deal….over $1 million Out of curiosity, I did a title search, and they hold a mortgage registered with a major bank. My guess is these offshore interests can and will bail if the SHTF…..ie go back the Asia if the… Read more »

0
0
Bubba

Gee……the truth oozes out….at the 11th hour,

Vancouver = # 1 City = why…..world's biggest $$$ laundry machine on perpetual "spin cycle".

No, our retarded Gov't/s allow offshore investment while pappa san goes back to the Far East, runs a sweatshop to manufacture i-pods, cheap electronics and 99% of most Wal -Mart stock etc.

Family is parked here, taking advantage of our hard earned and overtaxed social systems ie education, medicare , 17 year olds driving $ 50,000 cars…..driving up our ICBC rates. Universities WE pay for abuse the system and their lands hel in trust,….RE developemnt to attract offshore money……drive up the fees to de-facto exclude their own citizens.

Now there is an outrage re extended family immigartion restrictions, when an actuarial analysis indicates the STHF if we don't close the borders.

a major clusterf*ck….

0
0
Best place on meth

@rosy:

It's mind boggling to me that western nations like Canada are so hypocritical when it comes to a totalitarian, polluted shithole country like China.

If we had any decency we'd boycott China 100% for as long as they thumb their noses at basic human rights and rule of law.

Instead, we not only trade freely with them but we suck up to them with our political and business leaders kissing these scumbag's asses every chance they get.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/ap_on_re_as/a…

We don't have a moral leg to stand on.

0
0
Bubba

171 Best place on meth Says:

February 27th, 2011 at 5:01 pm

@Boombust:

Top cities for what?

What does Vancouver have that anyone would want?

Melbourne and Vienna are both awesome by the way, although Melbourne is suffering from the same real estate stupidity we are at the moment.

==============

Yeah….you can tell a lot by watching Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee and Amadeus …..meth man

0
0
N

@Patiently Waiting:

"I was saying basically the same thing. "

Cool. I misread you. Sorry. I'm just so used to hearing people talk about things the other way that it makes me jump to conclusions.

0
0
rosy

China bracing for demonstrations … maybe "I buy three,my husband by three" wasn't such a bad idea.

0
0
Best place on meth

@Boombust:

Top cities for what?

What does Vancouver have that anyone would want?

Melbourne and Vienna are both awesome by the way, although Melbourne is suffering from the same real estate stupidity we are at the moment.

0
0
Boombust

On CNN this morning, they reported the TOP cities of the world in which to live…

Number ONE: Vancouver

#2 Melbourne

#3 Vienna

BTW…Honolulu was 30th, He he…

0
0
fixie guy

@64 patriotz Says: "…. the RE pushers are the ones who have a “socialist” entitlement mentality, not us."

Precisely, and it's point which inexplicably finds itself in the blind spot of new-'Reaganites' and Laffer-believers. The body of law protecting corporations is staggering, as is the amount of tax-payer funded stimulus, so don't bother with that 'open law of the jungle' BS.

0
0
Patiently Waiting

@N: I was saying basically the same thing. You can hear what you want.

0
0
N

@patriotz:

"We don’t want anyone to “provide” jobs, we just want this idiocy to end so the real economy can have a fighting chance."

That's alright then. It's not what Patiently said, but as you are using the first person plural, I am going to take it that you are speaking for him (as a member in good standing of the Bear Block, I guess) and that that is what he meant. In which case I agree. BC would be more competitive if people spent their time making things instead of repricing land.

0
0
Priced Out Canadian

Canadians will just stay here and declare BK as they always have. As for the “rich Asians”, I thought they all paid cash?

*****

Rich asians may have the cash, but they don't pay in cash. They borrow as much as possible from the banks because they view it as shorting the dollar, and if shit hits the fan and they need to walk, the Canadian taxpayer is on the hook instead of their own assets.

They didn't get rich by being stupid – they got rich maybe through embezzelment, drugs, skimming from state enterprises – but not from being stupid.

And before this statement begs the question, "if they are so smart, why are they buying at peak pricing and not following fundaments" the questions has already been addressed many times – money laundering, buying citizenship, speculation.

0
0
chip

@fixie guy:

"Governments can work towards providing the social environment that generates long term competitiveness and jobs, "

People are inherently competitive and people will produce things whether there is a govt or not. Job creation usually increases as govt interference declines. Texas created half of all US jobs last year even as its legislature is limited to meeting for 140 days a year and China/India only took off once the govt got out of the way.

We used to think that govt was necessary for basic infrastructure, defense and a smattering of other things. Now they have to provide all of our health care, insure our housing loans, tax carbon dioxide, provide daycare, fund films on Argentinian socialism by Naomi Klein, tell MacDonalds they can't fire employees with skin disease, mandate mercury-filled light bulbs and god knows what else.

0
0