@VHB: Interesting to see how COV is consistently much stronger than the suburbs.

Dailies – List | Sold

Vancouver East & West*

New Listings – 72

Back On Market Listings – 0

Price Changes -32

Sold Listings -58

Vancouver All Areas*

New Listings – 271

Back On Market Listings – 1

Price Changes – 125

Sold Listings – 169

*Attached & Detached – Date: 04/19/2011 Time:22:05 Pacific YatterMatters.com: Courtesy REBGV. Data believed to be accurate but is not guaranteed.

@120 lol cats: Scratch that one up on the bus after school bunky?

@Absinthe: I should have said 'many' not 'most'. There are probably 5 or so different types of VCI readers:

a. People with resources waiting for a sane market.

b. People frustrated that they can't afford anything decent.

c. Worried recent buyers.

d. People in the RE industry.

e. Trolls.

It would be interesting to see a poll.

"Nobody disputes you’re telling the truth, it’s just odd that a bear argument is that median/average salaries are around $60K in Vancouver, but almost every bear here has anywhere from $300,000 to $3,000,000 in cash sitting around."

I hope not – there are plenty of places to get far better return on your cash than sitting in a bank account. If you're going to have that much liquid asset lying around, at least put it to good use.

@crabman: I would agree that there are a lot of investors with some cash here who are watching bemusedly, but also will note that I and others have 'come out' as having families making close to the average wage. I've got a DP saved, but in this market it's a joke.

@Flip Flop: A lot of the commodities inflation we have seen recently has been absorbed by the margins and inventory in the supply chain. If the prices don't back down, retailers will have no choice but to pass on the higher prices. They're already doing it, but it is selective and sometimes hidden, like with smaller packages or cheaper ingredients.

I would imagine areas that are more vertically integrated or have very short supply chains (raw foods/fruits/veggies) are less tolerant of input costs.

@Anonymouse:

Nobody disputes you’re telling the truth, it’s just odd that a bear argument is that median/average salaries are around $60K in Vancouver, but almost every bear here has anywhere from $300,000 to $3,000,000 in cash sitting around.

Why would someone be here if they had no money? Or if they already bought a place? It makes sense that most people here have the money to buy something but have chosen not to. And while some of the most obnoxious bulls have been calling us losers, we've been saving quite a bit!

@Anonymouse: "I don’t see why somebody on an average salary should necessarily be entitled to buy a million dollar home. An average one, perhaps – and in Vancouver that means a condo." Well, hold up. Trustworthy and most often cited average and median family salaries are based on statscan numbers, and that's census family data. Singles with one person in their households make substantially less by both these measures. Condos certainly serve census families, but there is skew in the data – SFH and townhomes almost never are studios and rarely one bedrooms. Studios and one bedrooms, which will better suit single persons not in census families, therefore are skewed smaller by having almost all of the "one-person-sized" inventory. Which is why it is irritating that so far I've been unable to find statistics controlling condos for family size. Anyway:… Read more »

There are thousands of blog readers here. If 5% have household income over $200K, that's hundreds. If 5% of those feel like divulging their income, you might see 10 bears claiming they make that much. That can feel like a lot given the number of posts we have, and give the impression that "everyone here claims to be a millionaire". Lets not forget the thousands of us who are not posting our annual incomes here. Do you need the hundreds of us less-well-off bears to post to chime in to say "no we don't make that much"?

This is analogous to the "rich Asian foreigner" myth. You get the 10 Asians on TV paying over asking and the hundreds of locals who pay over asking don't get reported, and we think our town is taken over by foreigners. Same idea.