Racist marketing and fact-free media
Look at this garbage. It’s an article submitted by “The BC Real Estate Convention” and printed as if it’s actually news in the Vancouver Sun. First off, the writing is atrocious. Don’t they even have an editor read these advertorials before they’re printed? Second, there are lots of statements presented as fact that have absolutely nothing to back them up:
Experts claim that the Chinese Mainland buyers and investors will continue to seek for overseas investment opportunities, in Vancouver.
Which ‘experts’ are these? Oh never mind, we’ll just take your word for it then.
As it is more cost efficient to purchase a property rather than renting, and considering the long term returns of the investment, purchasing properties in Vancouver become high on demand.
Yeah, somebody is ‘high on demand’ if they really believe that current prices in Vancouver make buying ‘more cost efficient’ than renting. There are many many markets around the world where buying is ‘more cost efficient’ than renting, Vancouver ain’t one of them.
However, as much as Feng shui is a well respected practice by many Chinese immigrants and potential home buyers and investors, there are always those “intelligent” ones that seek to obtain the optimal economic value from their investment in Vancouver’s real estate.
Wow. I don’t even know how to respond to that.
If you go to the The BC Real Estate Convention web site you’ll see that this trade show is sponsored by The Vancouver Sun and Province.
Then there’s this piece over at 24 hours:
Metro Vancouver will receive an influx of businessmen from mainland Chinese this week, intent on spending their two-week Lunar New Year holiday with family, as well as scooping up significant amounts of real estate.
Julia Rowell, sales manager at downtown Vancouver’s Maddox development, said this phenomenon has been going on for over 25 years, but 2012 looks to be especially busy.
Yeah? I think TPFKAA says it best:
HAHAHAHAHA! That’s absolutely hilarious!!
So in 1987, (a full five years before Deng Xiaoping’s reforms that enabled creation of individual fortunes) HAM from mainland China was increasing sales just after CNY.
/facepalm.
The hype seems to be working on the listings side. This year started off with the second highest number of listings in the last ten years and has grown at a faster rate than any of those years, especially on the west side:
I’m sure those sellers are hoping this hype pays off, and maybe it will, but then again maybe our market isn’t driven solely by wealthy offshore buyers. Most local first time buyers aren’t in the market for multimillion dollar homes anyways, so how would this even affect them?
Blaming ‘Chinese buyers’ for out of control prices is simplistic and racist. This city is nearly half asian so of course ‘Chinese buyers’ have an impact, but what about easy credit, low rates, CMHC pumping and local speculators?
Just for comparison, the city of Monterey Park in California has the highest percentage population of Chinese Americans of any US municipality. Here’s what home values there look like over the last few years:
This post was submitted by RTYT.
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Still Ignorant After All These Years – “During our lunch my friend told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. He seemed surprised by my comments about the market, and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before, and wouldn’t e Says:
January 27th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
[...] “Recently had lunch with a friend of mine. During our lunch he told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. Was quite surprised as he was just promoted and is doing very well. I launched into the usually bear arguments: debt-to-income, easy lending standards (CMHC), risk of further restrictions regarding mortgages, housing starts and that most economists are waving red flags regarding Canada’s RE market. He seemed surprised by my comments and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before and wouldn’t even begin to know where to look for that kind of information. We’ve talked about RE before and as I pointed out to him that I’m still wrong but have been right about every other housing bust I called, from the U.S. to Ireland to Spain — Australia’s right around the corner, and that at some point I’ll be right about Canada’s as well. In any event, I didn’t dissuade him. He is a great salesman and will undoubtedly have success regardless of getting in at the top of the market, taking on tonnes of listings and having to deal with future sellers that will refuse to lower prices because their house is worth more. I wished him luck and told him to make sure that he had plenty of cash set aside to grow his business.” – Manna from heaven at vancouvercondo.info 25 Jan 2012 11:09am [...]
Still Ignorant After All These Years – “During our lunch my friend told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. He seemed surprised by my comments about the market, and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before, and woul Says:
January 27th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
[...] “Recently had lunch with a friend of mine. During our lunch he told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. Was quite surprised as he was just promoted and is doing very well. I launched into the usually bear arguments: debt-to-income, easy lending standards (CMHC), risk of further restrictions regarding mortgages, housing starts and that most economists are waving red flags regarding Canada’s RE market. He seemed surprised by my comments and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before and wouldn’t even begin to know where to look for that kind of information. We’ve talked about RE before and as I pointed out to him that I’m still wrong but have been right about every other housing bust I called, from the U.S. to Ireland to Spain — Australia’s right around the corner, and that at some point I’ll be right about Canada’s as well. In any event, I didn’t dissuade him. He is a great salesman and will undoubtedly have success regardless of getting in at the top of the market, taking on tonnes of listings and having to deal with future sellers that will refuse to lower prices because their house is worth more. I wished him luck and told him to make sure that he had plenty of cash set aside to grow his business.” – Manna from heaven at vancouvercondo.info 25 Jan 2012 11:09am [...]
Still Ignorant After All These Years – “During our lunch my friend told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. He seemed surprised by my comments about the market, and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before, and woul Says:
January 27th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
[...] “Recently had lunch with a friend of mine. During our lunch he told me that he was going to quit his job to become a realtor. Was quite surprised as he was just promoted and is doing very well. I launched into the usually bear arguments: debt-to-income, easy lending standards (CMHC), risk of further restrictions regarding mortgages, housing starts and that most economists are waving red flags regarding Canada’s RE market. He seemed surprised by my comments and said that he hadn’t heard any of this before and wouldn’t even begin to know where to look for that kind of information. We’ve talked about RE before and as I pointed out to him that I’m still wrong but have been right about every other housing bust I called, from the U.S. to Ireland to Spain — Australia’s right around the corner, and that at some point I’ll be right about Canada’s as well. In any event, I didn’t dissuade him. He is a great salesman and will undoubtedly have success regardless of getting in at the top of the market, taking on tonnes of listings and having to deal with future sellers that will refuse to lower prices because their house is worth more. I wished him luck and told him to make sure that he had plenty of cash set aside to grow his business.” – Manna from heaven at vancouvercondo.info 25 Jan 2012 11:09am [...]
January 26th, 2012 at 7:05 am
@DEFAULT NAME: …ohmylord…a $20mill house with a laneway house…
http://www.realtor.ca/property…..1719136260...
And a 'herb' garden! Maybe a hydroponic herb garden with a security guard staying in the laneway house.
January 26th, 2012 at 3:10 am
@patriotz: Yes but the complaint is about new Chinese buyers ruining the Canadian society, social norms, etc, etc, etc. So in that case, if all sellers cared about is $$$$ and don't care about the buyers and what they do, then are we only blaming buyers for the problems and not the sellers who put $$$ above all else and sold to these people?
If you put $$ above all else then don't complain when the neighborhoods get ruined because why should buyer do what you want them to do? They pay for the place, they live here now, and they can do whatever they want as long as it's legal. So if they don't feel like saying hello to you, host block parties, give out candies, etc then that's their choice. I don't see why they should get 100% of the blame while the sellers who allowed them in for big wad of cash gets no blame.
January 26th, 2012 at 1:47 am
@fixie guy: Well, if you really cared about neighborhood, social norms, and all the other stuff that was listed, then as a condition of sale, you can always demand info like – are the people new immigrants, are they planning to live and get involved in the local neighborhood, how did they made the money, etc, etc.
Yes, it's government responsibility to screen out the bad apples, criminal proceeds, etc. However, I believe lots of posters on this board believe in personal responsibility, especially when it comes to your own personal finance. So if personal resonsiblity applies for purchasing homes, why wouldn't it apply to selling homes and safe guarding basic social fabric as well?
I'm not saying you have to do a thorough background check, just some basic info about the buyer. If you feel the buyer is sketchy, eg) oh I'm a carpenter from Russia but I'm buying this $2M house, alarm bells should be going off. Or oh I'm this business man in China but no I wouldn't tell you what business I'm doing.
Personality responsbility.
PS – there is a Chinese saying that roughly translates into "When the country is in trouble, everyone has responsibility to help". So if you think these newcomers Chinese buyers is ruining Vancouver then every home seller has responsibility to not sell to these people and contribute to making the situation worse.
January 25th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
@DEFAULT NAME:
It may be worth noting that in 2011 it took a month (Jan 7-Feb 4) to add 3k inventory.
In 2012 it only took just over 2 weeks (Jan 6-Jan 20)
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/01/vancouvers-d…
January 25th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Posted to Garth's site, BoC historical bank rate:
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/201…
Note this is the upper end of their target. You can really see what did it in 2004 and 2005.
January 25th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
@VMD: "Oh yeah, entry to the VCI 2012 RE Price Prediction Contest ends in 6 days!"
I predict an 8% year over year gain by May.
January 25th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
@DEFAULT NAME: "ohmylord…a $20mill house with a laneway house…"
Back in the day it was called a guest house. A nice perk as long as you don't have to give up the garage to get it.
January 25th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
@Fenchie:
Projected month end total 1529 +/- 83
you have divide the total inventory by this number
January 25th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
ohmylord…a $20mill house with a laneway house…
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?proper…
January 25th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
@VHB: How does the MOI get calculated at 8.61? Dividing inventory of 13168 by sales of 1169 = 11.26 Am I missing something? Is it somehow prorated because the month is not yet complete?
January 25th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Default Name @175
Regarding Reggie postings on Larry's site…I was wondering the same thing myself. I'd like to think he's doing it tongue-in-cheek. If he isn't…wow….he takes RE cheerleading to a new level and he needs professional help.
January 25th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
@VMD: I already registered my predictions, prices up by June! Marginal prices are marginal
Thanks for organising the entertainment!
January 25th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
@DEFAULT NAME:
What makes it a scam is the fact that they artificially inflated prices to get increasingly large loans that they had no intention of ever paying back. Many cases involved kickbacks to mortgage appraisers and loan officers at banks who approved falsely inflated valuations, among other tricks. After the bubble, much of that money ended up in off-shore banks or otherwise just disappeared… leaving the government to pick up the tab when the loans defaulted and the perpetrators skipped the country.
And, yes, the banks should have used common-sense valuations, but due to perverse incentive structures that rewarded employess whenever they made a loan, they didn't care. Many of those bad loans were packages off and sold as MBSs anyway, all given AAA ratings by corrupt ratings agencies.
Basically, the US housing boom saw unprecedented corruption running right down the line, from small-time buyers engaged in mortgage fraud all the way to the big Wall Street banks, and everything in between. And my main point of all of this is to suggest that we'll likely see similar corruption stories when our own bubble finally bursts.
In fact, I'll be amazed if we don't hear about our own locally-grown fake buyers, fraudulent loan applications, and kickbacks to loan officers, etc when our ponzi prices inevitably crash. How many of those empty west side multi-million dollar houses were paid for with CMHC-backed mortgages? Yes, many of them were bought with cash, but I'm equally certain a lot were financed with zero-down mortgages by someone who can easily skip the country with their gains and stick the taxpayer with the bill when the tide finally runs out.
And I'd be willing to bet they will do exactly that.
January 25th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
@RippedtoShit:
Alright RJ, what did you do with the condo? (And the girlfriend). 13-hour days don't bode well. Something tells me you're a singleton. ?
January 25th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Happy Robbie Burns Day everyone!
For the next several days, planeloads of drunken but very savvy Scottish investors will be in town to drink scotch, eat bagged up animal innards, chase women, curse like Englishmen and of course snap up loads of real estate.
Local realtors are standing by to assist them.
Please be careful out there and watch out for the puke.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
@jesse:
I suppose Spring 2012 prices can increase relative to Dec 2011, but I think chances are slim that we'll see the June 2011 all-time-peak beaten this year (or next 3 years..).
However, I don't mind price jumping this spring. It may actually force Flaherty's hand to deliver another round of mortgage rule tightening.
Oh yeah, entry to the VCI 2012 RE Price Prediction Contest ends in 6 days! Check out the forums for contest rules and current contestant predictions : )
January 25th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Is that "Reggie" guy that posts over on Larry's blog for real? or is he just playing with Larry all the time? I can't figure out if he's always just being super sarcastic or if he's saying it the way he feels.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
http://www.saintjosephsellshomes.com/
I am not making this up
Yes, it's true folks, if the Year of The Dragon, doesn't do it, you can bring in some real heavy duty holy guns to help you push real estate.
"St Joseph for Realtors pay only $2.95 ea with order for 20 @$59.80"
http://www.goodfortuneonline.net/promo.html
January 25th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Jan-2012
Total days 21
Days elapsed so far 17
Weekends / holidays 8
Days missing 0
Days remaining 4
7 Day Moving Average: Sales 90
7 Day Moving Average: Listings 268
SALES
Sales so far 1169
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 360
Projected month end total 1529 +/- 83
NEW LISTINGS
Listings so far 4802
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 1071
Projected month end total 5873 +/- 181
Sell-list so far 24.3%
Projected month-end sell-list 26.0%
MONTHS OF INVENTORY
Inventory as of Jan 25, 2012 13168
MoI at this sales pace 8.61
January 25th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Jessie, I agree….it will take many many years
that said, i'm hopeful that the peak is BEHIND US now….we are over one hundred large below the peak, so I don't see that being surpassed. let's see what happens.
as for a cold one, thanks, I think I will!
cheers.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Hi Boom,
Good to hear from you.
Thanks for the comments. I just like to play with people's emotions, especially that loser McLosin.
Anyways, I think this is the big one, we could see year over year declines in a couple of months or so. They what will the great unwashed go on about?
Watch them turn to the stock market, after all these years (once it's up twenty points from here). Dumb is what dumb does.
I guess I'm just bloody impatient, all this waiting…I'm saving loads and loads and I'm betting big on commodities/gold…I did what I said last summer/fall, every decline I bought more and more and more…let's see what happens.
That said, this I want the bloody fools who kept telling me RE RE RE RE to eat their fucking words. I don't hate them or anything, I just want basic math skills to trump dumb lemming behaviour.
How are you doing? Hope your having a great year thus far. All the best.
RJ
January 25th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
@RippedtoShit: I still think prices are going to increase. That is not a bullish call. If prices are going to crash it's going to take several years so get comfortable and grab a cold one.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
RippedtoShit,
When are you going to stop playing "good cop, bad cop"? It is truly getting "tiresome".
Oh, and BTW, nobody here gives a rat's ass what Chipman has to say…about ANYTHING.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
We could see record listings by May.
You read it HERE FirsT!
January 25th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Thanks PaulB
Hope you guys had a blast up there!
I was working yet another 13 hour day. Glad you have achieved some balance in life, and hope you have a terrific year ahead!!!!
Love your dailies, thanks again.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
@Yalie: "In the case of the Florida scam, there were apparently several properties involved, and they basically bought and sold enough houses to artificially raise the appraisal values for the other homes."
Is it scam? I'm not sure. If someone wants to buy and sell houses to each other why can't they? Just because the banks and purchasers are stupid enough to take only past sale values of other properties to determine what a house is worth then they get what they deserve. For example what if the banks and purchasers used rental value as a factor like everyone around here? Common sense to me.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Sorry for the late update. Was skiing with the family up Grouse. Tons of snow falling up there!
New Listings 218
Price Changes 63
Sold Listings 62
TI:13168
http://www.laurenandpaul.ca
January 25th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Tuesday sales stats came in at 435 new listings, 85 price changes and 189 sales.
Sell/list was 43.45%.
Notice that price changes have dropped considerably in relation to sales. In a market with high sell/lists but lots of price changes it seems clear that demand is not high enough to take care of inferior listings, so price changes result; the cause of the high sell/list is usually a low number of new listings.
Right now we’re seeing a pick up in sales, few price changes, but still lots of new listings. Inventory should pick up, but don’t look for big price drops.
the MonkeyMan (Chimpman) is bullish again.
January 25th, 2012 at 11:59 am
A friend of mine who owns 6 investment condos has had two unrented for a few months. One will be rented Feb 1st, the other (hopefully) March 1st.
With some special assessments and a few periods of lost rent, he's now up to his eyeballs in credit card debt. He's going to list two of the six properties and when we ran the comps, based on recent sales, he's going to buy a big bar of soap.
For the massive bath he's going to take.
Better now, before it turns into a flood, this market is slowly going to get completely fucking jacked.
January 25th, 2012 at 11:50 am
@Devore:
I am? I'm basically saying a pumper/scammer is a bigger lowlife than your typical "average dimwitted buyer". I know many of these koolaid drinkers and other than being brain-dead when it comes to real estate they're basically good people. And if you actually read my post, you'd see that I fully acknowledge they're mostly to blame for price increases. Intentional scammers, on the other hand, are not only contributing to the bubble (however minor their overall influence) but they're also knowingly out to fuck over others for their own gain, which makes them bigger dickheads. How is that scapegoating?
January 25th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Jesse:
You must be SMOKING CRACK COCAINE.
You are stoned out of your gourd.
There will be no new price peaks for at least fifteen years.
Put down the bong and study some history, you dimwit.
January 25th, 2012 at 11:43 am
And another one!
Canadian home prices dip for first time since fall, 2010
With the recent flood of bad RE news, I would be surprised if people's perception doesn't change radically (i.e. prices don't always go up)
January 25th, 2012 at 11:19 am
@MadasHell: "where’s all the CNY sales!?"
Sales are reported after subjects removed (I think), so most of the sales that are reported are from the last 1-3 weeks. If there is a spike due to CNY it will register in early February.
And yes sales in February will be higher than January. This year, however, it looks like sales need to be significantly higher to keep pace with inventory or prices will be on the weak side. That said I still think we'll be testing new highs for the benchmark this year.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:57 am
@DEFAULT NAME:
Indeed, this graph will be going to 2 Chinese forums when I get home :）
Larry's Total Inventory seems like a lump sum of 3 boards, I guess it's REBGV + FVREB + OMREB ?
January 25th, 2012 at 10:53 am
@Yalie: You're just looking for scapegoats.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:19 am
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/01/vancouvers-d…
Ummmm…dumb de dumb de McLovin….
If this isn't bearish, then what is?
This market could free fall – NOW.
You heard it here first.
RTS
January 25th, 2012 at 10:12 am
Mad:
Let's hope this trend continues and that this is the year the shit hits the fan.
Even with the Belmont sale, I think this month prints ugly.
Bring it on. Let this market crash hard and fast.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:49 am
@Yalie:
But the real point is that a group of people selling houses (or anything else) back and forth to each other can't drive up the market price anyway. The market price is determined by what the high bidder is willing and able to pay at time of sale. I doubt that 1 buyer in 10 even knows anything about the prior sales history of a property. And if they went to the trouble to look at it, don't you think a property being bought and sold at at a rapid pace by the same people would signal to anyone with any sense that those sale prices were not indicative of the general market?
I repeat – market prices are driven by the general cohort of buyers, not scammers playing games.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:42 am
hey VMD, this link looks like it belongs on some of those chinese websites/threads
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/01/vancouvers-d…
January 25th, 2012 at 9:34 am
New Listings – 211
Back On Market Listings – 5
Price Changes – 60
Sold Listings – 61
*Attached & Detached – Date: 01/25/2012 Time: 17:20 Pacific YatterMatters.com: Courtesy REBGV. Data believed to be accurate but is not guaranteed.
where's all the CNY sales!?
January 25th, 2012 at 9:33 am
@patriotz:
I more or less agree, but I suppose I'm distinguishing between evilness and volume. The ignorant masses are only worse simply because there are so many more of them, so their overall influence is greater. But pound-for-pound, the average pumper/scammer deserves to be placed in a much deeper and darker level of hell than joe sixpack, imho.