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Boomers should consider ‘for sale’ signs

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Interesting bit over at the Globe and Mail: Nearly a third of our population is boomers who will be nearing retirement soon. Should they be cashing in on the housing boom and sell early to fund retirement?

This could be one of the most important questions that baby boomers deal with as they enter retirement, and the financial impact will be widely felt. Expect a slowing in today’s hyperactive housing market, but not right away.

“There’s this idea that when the kids leave home, boomers will downsize,” said demographer David Foot, author of the influential book Boom, Bust & Echo and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Toronto. “Well, that doesn’t happen. You hold on to the family house, probably into your 70s because you want grandkids to come and visit.”

So figure on having about 10 years before a downsizing bulge alters the balance of sellers and buyers in our housing market. Should retiring baby boomers wait that long? Mr. Foot’s analysis certainly doesn’t suggest a bright future for house prices.

Read the full article here.

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Sheesh

For what it's worth, our financial advisor (who works on Vancouver's Westside) says many of his clients are planning to sell their houses and put the money into fixed income.

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Sheesh

In Boom Bust & Echo, which was published in the 90s, David Foot said that rising house prices would soon be a thing of the past in Canada because boomers were past their prime real estate purchasing years. So much for that prediction!

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Troll

@fixie guy:

You caught me. I personally accept responsibility for shoveling hundreds of billions to the banks. My bad, but society’s to blame.

Well, personal debt ratios of 150% show that yes, the 99er's are just as dumb and greedy as the banks. So get off your juvenile moral high horse and start thinking about these issues like an adult.

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fixie guy

137 Troll Says: "….seems to lay all the blame at the corporate and also goverment level and bristles at any suggestion that the 99ers also contributed to this mess…"

You caught me. I personally accept responsibility for shoveling hundreds of billions to the banks. My bad, but society's to blame.

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Troll

@patriotz:

We’ve learned that when the big guys and their mouthpieces – including the NP – talk about “personal responsibility” they really only mean it for the little guys.

Before you get too dogmatic, read the quote again. It talks about responsility at the personal, corporate and government. The point is that the "Occupy" movement seems to lay all the blame at the corporate and also goverment level and bristles at any suggestion that the 99ers also contributed to this mess by living beyond their means and voting in governments which kept the gravy train going.

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Jack Nicholson

Majority of VCI poster " CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH !!!!! "

Remember I won ( 2 )Oscars and was THE BEST JOKER !!!!

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Anonymous

@900kCrackHouse:

"Your comparing a homeless guy spinning you a story (which happens all the time) to a little girl bleeding lieing in front of you on the street. No comparison at all."

The homeless guy died. It wasn't a story.

But here is how we treat our little girls in BC.

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/…

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patriotz

@Troll:

We've learned that when the big guys and their mouthpieces – including the NP – talk about "personal responsibility" they really only mean it for the little guys.

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Anonymous

@chip:

"And you want to compare it to a child lying bleeding in the street …"

Why would you be so concerned about the girl in China? She was Chinese and aren't all Chinese bad people?

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Anonymous

@900kCrackHouse:

"You guys are sick and twisted implying that serial killers represent the general Canadian populace vs. Chinese walking past a 2 year old girl dieing on the street. No one here is implying that the Chinese guy who chopped off someones head"

No, but you are implying that Chinese HERE are bad because 18 people in China walked past a injured girl before someone did help her. You are also ignoring that 100s of white people walked past a dying man and let him DIE right here in Vancouver in one of the whitest neighborhoods near Commercial Dive. Both stories unrelated to Vancouver real estate but which one gets posted here over and over again.

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jesse

@Yalie: "I can’t help but wonder if they are sill able to have an outsized-effect on the market as a whole simply because they have such deep pockets." You "can't help but wonder"? How about comparing your wonder with the actual data? The "rich (insert group here)" theme is always the same, but few actually put numbers to the effect and when it turns out the numbers don't match the assumption the market collapses. Here are some rough numbers to get started: There are about 40,000 RE transactions in Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley. Each transaction averages $500,000. That's a $20BB market. How big is the "rich (insert group here)" market? As for the perception = reality argument, I guess that's just an indication of the folly of man. But then it's not the "rich (insert group here)" that is… Read more »

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Vote

@patriotz:

"Great post from Mish on the moral vacuum in China:"

Keep it up. You are neck and neck with Meth for the biggest racist. I think you can win!

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Troll

@Anonymus:

ahhh National Post, The Fox (Faux) News of the white north and their neo-con demagoguery

So you don't agree with the concept of personal responsibility?

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Troll

Sales picking up again this Fall as predicted. Listings higher which will put a lid on prices, but don't expect big drops either unless sales dry up. Looks like a carbon copy of 2010 in terms of prices. However, the low affordability seems to be finally resonating with Joe6P that maybe it's not a good thing. First the bearish RE stories in the Sun and this morning a lengthy discussion on a local pop radio station about high prices and how its pushing people out of the city. They actually connected the dots that maybe that would lead to lower demand and lower prices, which would be good. This is from DJ's who usually spend 10 minutes discussing Lady Gaga's latest fashion trend. So it seems like sentiment is slowly shifting in the city. BTW, all this racism sh*t on… Read more »

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Anonymus

ahhh National Post, The Fox (Faux) News of the white north and their neo-con demagoguery

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Troll

The “99%ers” need to look in the mirror. The answer to this crisis is not wealth redistribution or taxing the rich. It is a revival of personal responsibility, at all levels: individuals, who need to stop buying more than they can afford; financial institutions, which need to stop dangling the credit carrot in front of anyone who can sign his or her name; and governments, which need to live within their own means and encourage their citizens to do the same.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/17/ta…

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Re-Focus

Alright, enough with the HAM stories, nation bashing, knee jerk responses and threats from the PC police. Lets refocus as we have exhausted the previous topics of discussion and their perceived or real impact on RE.

It looks like inventory has stalled for the month. I believe someone posted back that by October, sales would pike up. The last couple of days have certainly seen a more average sales list ratio.

Is 17k the peak for this year now? Are we going to see that flood of listings we had in 2008 mini-crash?

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900kCrackHouse

@Li Kai Shing: Li Kai Shing, moral question for you. Would you walk past a 2 year old girl lieing on the street bleeding in front of you?

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bubba

Flaunting wealth…

Family members ,professionals, doing volunteer work, were stationed in South America.

They would be invited into homes of the upper class, but you would never know it from the outside. The homes looked plain on the outside, no bling, but totally different aka more opulent on the inside.

Flashing bling can be a recipe for trouble when things go south, it sets the seeds up for class distinction, especially if the middle class is getting nailed.

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900kCrackHouse

@Anon: @Anonymous: You guys are sick and twisted implying that serial killers represent the general Canadian populace vs. Chinese walking past a 2 year old girl dieing on the street. No one here is implying that the Chinese guy who chopped off someones head on a Greyhound bus in Saskatchewan represents the average Chinese person. And the story of the homeless guy in the park compared to this little Chinese girl? Your comparing a homeless guy spinning you a story (which happens all the time) to a little girl bleeding lieing in front of you on the street. No comparison at all.

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jesse

@chip: The two are directly comparable, and further, IMO, goes part of the way explaining why HAM has such a large effect on broader prices in Vancouver. People do not evaluate a situation like that based on reason. The risk statistically was very low helping that man. Stating that people perceive danger is not the same as actual danger. HAM effecting prices — little direct impact, but perceived impact is inflated.

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Li Kai Shing

I tink the quality is goink down a bit.

Too many racist provacateurs on here, upset the sexist pigs!

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chip

@Anon:

"He had been asking people in the park to please call 911 or if he could use their phone and no one would help him."

What is more likely when an apparently homeless guy asks to use your phone; that his friend just died and he needs help or that he just wants your phone.

The media is forever telling us that most of the homeless have psychiatric problems. The people in this situation were using suspicion as a rational defense mechanism.

And you want to compare it to a child lying bleeding in the street …

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white guy

patriotz Says: 'Great post from Mish on the moral vacuum in China:'

What that has to do with RE prices in Vancouver? Why are you stirring the pot with meaningless race issues? READ this carefully: FUCK YOU piece of shit and take a hike from the board.

Signature:

white ass guy.

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Anon

MORAL DEGRADATION IN THE HEART OF WHITE CANADA, I am sick to my stomach of racism in Canada. Shame, Shame, Shame.. "When I asked him why it took him that long to phone 911, he started crying and he said that no one would help him. He had been asking people in the park to please call 911 or if he could use their phone and no one would help him." "But my question is this: if he had been clean shaven, if he had been well-dressed, if he had been non-aboriginal and he had come up to them and said, 'My friend just went under in the water,' would they have believed him then? "It's too bad that that had to happen and it's too bad that that many people dismissed him based on what he looked like. Yes,… Read more »

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