BC, hype, supply

FREE BEER!

71
71 Comments

All over BC the decline in real estate is in full swing. When you’ve got more sellers than buyers it takes a little extra to stand out.

And when that extra is FREE BEER! it does stand out.

Allen has had his three bedroom condo on the market for just over a month and says only two prospective buyers have stopped in.

“I have two houses, one in Kelowna and one in Kamloops and I just can’t afford to keep both going.”

The condo located on Springview place in Kamloops, was being rented, but after the tenants moved out and the house went on the market, Allen knew he had to be creative or he could be stuck paying two mortgages.

“I was sitting around thinking, this house is a real pain, it’s not getting nearly as many views as I would like. How am I going to attract people to this house? Well I was drinking a beer at the time and I thought why not just give away beer for a year.”

Allen hopes the free beer initiative will be the final push to get people thinking about buying.

“This place is geared towards students, and that is who I am marketing with this campaign of free beer for a year.”

Here’s the full article.

71 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Anonymous

@N:
Then the bears will be dissappointed again and wish next yr or decade to have their forever-wrong prediction on the market again.Bears are so naive and hopeless.

0
0
N

@jesse:

That’s right. I have a friend who is on the fence about selling. I sent him an earlier article talking about a 10 to 15% drop. His response was, “10 to 15%, we can handle.” For him, a drop of 15% does not mean a loss, so it’s not much to worry about. Also, if 15% down is the bottom, then all he has to do is wait for prices to go up again.

I imagine that, at some point, when prices have been going down for a while, people are going look south of the border and it’s going to sink in. Then the fun begins.

0
0
Patiently Waiting

@Anonymous: “Interestingly, the investor class cap gets reset on July 1st, opening the door to another 700 or so applicants. Could that trigger the return of HAM?”

According to the article I posted earlier, the 700 from this year might not get processed. The Conservatives are so arbitrary with immigration that you can’t assume anything unless your name is Conrad Black.

0
0
jesse

@Anonymous: “there simply doesn’t seem to be much distress in the market right now”

Prices are high; it’s possible to exit without insolvency. If prices do drop, that will change.

0
0
Simpatico

@Navin R. Johnson: I think it’s just sinking in for the top 20% of sellers, but most sellers are still under the illusion that everything is going to work out in Europe, the U.S., China, etc. if they pay attention at all. The realtards just encourage the fantasy that fall will be much better time to sell. In a conversation with several colleagues at work last week, one young woman who bought a house last fall, kept repeating…”we don’t have money for anything right now…we don’t go out anymore…this bubble talk…people are scared…we might also rent out one of our upstairs bedrooms (in addition to the suite downstairs).” How crazy is that? Buy a house that’s really a duplex or triplex, then give up your family’s privacy to service debt. By fall the realtards will be talking a new line…… Read more »

0
0
Anonymous

@an observer:

PR expires if you’re not present for 3 years out of any 5, and there’s more to the eligibility requirements for investors than just having the cash. It’s all on the CIC website.

Interestingly, the investor class cap gets reset on July 1st, opening the door to another 700 or so applicants. Could that trigger the return of HAM?

0
0
Navin R. Johnson

@Anonymous:

Nah, they’ll likely remove from the market for the summer and relist for the fall. Listings don’t get this high unless people are concerned. imho. She’s done. It’ll take a while as we’re only at the beginning. But, I’m very optimistic, especially with all the mainstream media talk of “bubble” “bubble” “bubble”, that the erosion has only just begun.

0
0
Anonymous

Notwithstanding a ‘rush for the exits’, won’t there be downwards pressure on new listings when people are told by their agents that it’s not a good time to list and they’d be better waiting until inventory is lower? I understand there will always be some who have to sell, but there simply doesn’t seem to be much distress in the market right now.

0
0
an observer

@Patiently Waiting, the american investor program (EB5) is going to continue and is very successful and very different than the Canada’s investor program. Here are some key differences 1) In Canada the investment is guaranteed to be returned, in the US it is not. Some EB5 investments lose money, some of the programs lose a lot of money. You are investing in a regional center with ideas on how to use your money to create jobs and ideally preserve most of your capital. Sometimes they fail on both counts. 2) In Canada there are many cases where the investor does not make the move here and instead sends the family and continue to earn income in their place of birth while having the family see all of the benefits of our generous society. In the American Visa program this is… Read more »

0
0
crashcow

Always a comedy show watching the RE ‘experts’ spin the facts. Here’s a great chart showing the US bust with anecodotes from David Lereah. We’ll be recycling this for Canada, replacing Lereah with Helmut/Sewerville.

http://static.seekingalpha.com/wp-content/seekingalpha/images/housing_bellwether.png

0
0
Absinthe

@McLovin: It’s slowed, but it hasn’t stalled yet!

0
0
Anonymous

@McLovin:
Check out Larry’s last post,
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/06/vancouvers-mountain-of-listings/
Listings may be slowing, but that’s some inventory …

0
0
Anonymous

@McLovin:

(Sadly inventory growth has stalled. I don’t think we’ll see a 20K party this month unless it picks up.)

Cause Chinese new comers are start buying in drone.Bears have to take China factor in the self-fulfilled formula otherwise, you will keep humiliating bear camp once again like 2008.U have to realize China is already a pivotal force in shaping Canada and US economic future.Canada,Australia,US,Russian and the whole world are depending on China rescue;once Chinese buy spree in full force,inventory will be down to zero.

0
0
patient renter

@condo watcher

i just checked out prices in Whistler on the mls. If prices have crashed, they still have a long way to go. The prices still seem ridiculous to me.
Maybe if you could get a good deal there it would make the news….

0
0
McLovin

“tracking 2010 perfectly.”

More like 2008 Dumbass!

0
0
Tacky Tocker

Only 817 more listings till the June 20K Party! 14 more business days to do so! no probs!

0
0
Bull! Bull! Bull!

@McLovin: tracking 2010 perfectly.

0
0
condo watcher

@Vangl

“what i want to know is, why have they not talked about the massive hit that Whistler has seen, or am i missing something? i don’t recall hearing anything about this in the news.”—— here are a couple of past links from Whispers blog concerning Whistler pricing

http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainforest.blogspot.ca/2012/03/noose-tightens-whistler-is-down-50.html

http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainforest.blogspot.ca/2012/05/whistler-at-65-off-now.html

many posters on the various blogs have commented on what they have seen concerning the downward pricing in Whistler–stay tuned –i’m sure there will be more (check the links in the comments on the two above)

0
0
McLovin

Sadly inventory growth has stalled. I don’t think we’ll see a 20K party this month unless it picks up.

0
0
patriotz

University professors are supposed to tell it like it is, not make people feel good, and if Somerville can’t bring himself to do that then he should at least STFU.

0
0
JR

@patriotz: Quite apart from their vested interests, I think you’ve also got to factor in the “don’t want to start a stampede” syndrome with these guys. Sommerville gets quoted a lot as does Pastrick. Local “jounalists”, and, I use that term loosely, follow these guys like hounds. The masses eat their perspectives up. They are capable of sending lemmings over a cliff, faster and in more volume than what might otherwise be the case, and they know it.

0
0
VHB

Jun-2012
Total days 21
Days elapsed so far 9
Weekends / holidays 4
Days missing 0
Days remaining 12
7 Calendar Day Moving Average: Sales 114
7 Calendar Day Moving Average: Listings 270
SALES
Sales so far 1106
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 1370
Projected month end total 2476
NEW LISTINGS
Listings so far 2578
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 3245
Projected month end total 5823
Sell-list so far 42.9%
Projected month-end sell-list 42.5%
MONTHS OF INVENTORY
Inventory as of June 13, 2012 19183
Current MoI at this sales pace 7.75

0
0
jesse

@paulb: I was stuck in “rut” now I’m “moving up” to “rut-roh”

0
0
patriotz

@Jim:
Somerville is a business school prof, not an economist. Pastrick calls himself an economist but works for a business.

In fact it was the academic economists in the US, such as Krugman, Roubini, Shiller, Leamer, and Thornberg who saw the bust coming. It was Somerville’s and Pastrick’s counterparts at the “joint institutes” (great name, what were they smoking) and financial institutions who didn’t (or wouldn’t), likely because doing so would offend their paymasters.

It’s difficult to understand something… etc.

0
0
paulb

New Listings 266
Price Changes 164
Sold Listings 103
TI:19183

http://www.laurenandpaul.ca

0
0