The Vancouver Sun has an article about compromising to get that ‘affordable’ home in Vancouver.
..And by Vancouver, They mean Squamish. That’s one of the places they suggest you could compromise to buy in since by there estimation it’s only a “45-50 minutes to downtown Vancouver”. Google maps estimates 1 hour 9 minutes. Just pray you don’t run into any traffic.
Commuting for several hours a day sounds like fun!
[…] at vancouvercondo.info August 4th, 2011 at 8:39 am – “My girlfriend and I have now completed our move. $1650/month rent for a very likable house […]
@McLovin: I'm not as wealthy as most of the bears, so probably my own opinion is mitigated by the fact that in absolute terms, a dip down is fewer dollars for me, even if our percentages are the same. But I think it's also because I'm invested long — dips to me look like exciting, everything's on sale buying opportunities! If they dropped and stayed down for awhile, hey: more bang for my tiny monthly purchase! When I get a little closer to retirement (30 years from now), I'll start shifting my portfolio balance to a less volatile mix. Of course, I'm a terribly pedestrian investor, but I wouldn't think we're all that different than most average RRSP investing Canadians.
“50% of Canadians have no retirement savings or RRSPs”
50% of all Canadians, or all taxpayers?
I think that's 50% of all adult Canadians.
"Canadians" by itself includes children, and "taxpayers" is highly ambiguous depending on whether you mean income tax payers (which is nowhere near all adults because a lot are housekeepers, students, unemployed, etc) or someone who pays any taxes at all (which essentially includes everyone except babies, since it includes sales taxes and kids do buy things).
I have money, in stocks, gold, cash, commodities, etc. No real estate. I am not cheering for a stock market crash, I am cheering for a return to a healthy, productive and innovative economy where everyday people actually work for money and take pleasure in producing something that other people actually use. Now, I believe that today’s economy is based on gambling and speculation and not production and innovation. In order to return to an economy where production and innovation becomes the primary focus of people, the economy has to shed itself from its non-productive assets which would lead to a significant repricing (downward) of many of these assets including stocks. For me, a stock market crash (or correction) is simply an indication that we are in the process of returning to a healthy economy therefore the faster we hit… Read more »
@McLovin: In cash. Not so much cheering as I am tired of the stock market BS. Printing money makes the stock market go up – I get that. It's not intelligent, it doesn't fix any of the myriad structural problems in world economies, it actually damages the little guy with higher prices, and it erodes the profit margins of companies, ultimately damaging the economy in the long run e.g. as in Japan.
That is what your market rally is built on. That and accounting fraud. Mark-to-market is still MIA as of 2009. This is not a durable foundation on which to build a global recovery, and if we had any plan aside from further enriching the wealthiest 0.001%, maybe I would have something to cheer. We may have (had?) a cyclical bull, but this is still a structural bear.
For what it's worth, Squamish to downtown Vancouver in 45 minutes is totally do-able in good trafic. I do it frequently although not in rush hour.
Chuck thanks for the input but some people here have a lot more money than you and aren't bragging about it. No one really cares that you have $800K.
Interesting responses. Any of you who have been here know I have been a VCR RE bear since the time of VHB. We have people who are 100% gold and that's about it. I congratulate those people. While I have some assets in gold and gold stocks like K and ABX (underperforming the asset I must say) I guess I am the only person who has a widely diversified portfolio of high quailty yielding stocks and corporate bonds and cash that got kicked today. That said, I was on this blog in 2008 telling people to buy stocks and I got flamed then as the world was about to end. (For those of you who quote the Asian markets, they are laggards not leaders. The US market sets the tone) I say again, if you are cheering for the stock… Read more »
Vancouver East & West*
New Listings – 80
Back On Market Listings – 2
Price Changes – 19
Sold Listings – 29
Vancouver All Areas*
New Listings – 226
Back On Market Listings – 8
Price Changes – 94
Sold Listings – 91
*Attached & Detached – Date: 08/04/2011 Time:21:55 Pacific YatterMatters.com: Courtesy REBGV. Data believed to be accurate but is not guaranteed.
Let's hope we get some relief at the gas pump this weekend or we r getting hosed…..this could help general consumer sentiment
Perhaps
Today was a gift to long term investors
Stock mite
Seems overdone to me
I was buying today
And yesterday
Own lots of golds
Lots of oil too….was there a big new discovery? Did folk stop driving today? I will buy black gold too
VCR housing going down
Stocks…well we shall see but last summer they fell nineteen percent so this is just a flesh wound and lots of noise so far imho
Mclovin – $800,000 in cash, stocks, bonds, gold and gics. Some down some up some even. Gross income over$200k per year. Rent 1200 sq foot 2 bedroom $1,400 per month. If rates aren't going up I want this market to correct from a loss of confidence. I am willing to watch my blue chips fall to see that happen.
For this evenings entertainment, I present this graph:
http://www.yattermatters.com/2011/08/vancouver-av…
From 2008 on, in video form:
Meth,
I looked too……all red. If this continues, can't be good for HAM flowing into Vancouver real estate
Sorry for off topic….greedy banks
Bank of New York Mellon adds fee to deposits
Citing cash influx, Bank of New York Mellon adds 0.13 percent fee for large deposits
"Geller believes that the fee on deposits could soon trickle down to consumer deposits too"
If you have a weak stomach and are prone to throwing up on your monitor like the E-trade baby then please don't look at the Asian markets this evening.
http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia
I said don't look.
@Van MD:
Make sure you remind them that last year in the summer sales were lower, but prices continued to climb. This is not just a seasonal effect
Does anyone have today's numbers? I am dying to see them.
@Bummed-out renter: Not much to say there, except you should spend more time and care picking your landlords. Indiscriminate landlords will rent to anyone with a pulse, then complain about crappy tenants and damages to property. Finding a home is a pretty big deal, treat it as such. There will always be lemons you run into that are not so easy to filter out, just like finding out the day after you move into your new house the neighbour is an asshole.
Nice try….
We might be RE bears (and rightfully so in my opinion) but for some of us,
it's been….
@McLovin:
>>>It seems that most of you are cheering for a RE correction while at the same time cheering for a stock market correction.<<<
I certainly am because I'm in physical gold as well as shorting the financial sector.
When the time is right I'll go long stocks again but right now I'm as happy as a clam.
@vangrl: Nice catch. Garth is as cluecless as they get.
_______________
Why not check out his post tonight…..he covers himself…
@McLovin: RE and stocks are totally different markets. RE is 'all eggs in one basket' while equities can be sold off in parts and diversified.
I don't know if 'cheering' is the right word, but even as someone who holds mostly stock I'm glad to see downturns like this because that's when you can make money.
If my timeline was shorter I'd be more concerned, but it's not like there hasn't been gloom and doom on the horizon for markets, you'd have to be blind to have missed it – so that put my stock money into about half cash to be ready for buying opportunities.
It's not like you can sell half your house in an instant if you get a feeling that the market is going to take a dive, that's why I prefer stock.