Sales plunge to 10 year low
The June news release from the REBGV has been released and it looks like the market has turned a corner.
As all of you regular readers here know, sales have plunged to a 10 year low.
The HPI benchmark price has also dropped from the previous month in some areas. Oddly enough it’s houses in the desirable west side and Richmond which have both dropped about 2% from May.
Best Place on Meth summarizes the total changes for all areas:
Summary of June HPI:
All -0.7%
SFH -0.6%
Apt -0.9%
T/H -0.3%I was expecting no change for June and declines to start next month so this is a bit of a bonus.
Yes the hot summer market has turned out to be anything but. As prices drop a few percentage points from their all time highs some are calling this a ‘buyers market‘.
Meanwhile at least one local realtor has sold his own house and says it’s time to cash out.
July 5th, 2012 at 3:06 am 1
your quintessential “deer in the headlights” moment…… oh deer!
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:21 am 2
In Vancouver, the seller’s market recedes
Article contains some good stuff mixed with howlers.
Maybe nobody left willing and able to pay absurd prices? Like at the top of every bubble?
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:20 am 3
@2 patriotz: They’re probably still willing, just no longer able. Flaherty is turning off the money tap.
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:52 am 4
But the market had clearly turned before F announced the new rules. Wile E Coyote was already heading down, F just added the anvil.
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:11 am 5
The data shows markets exploding when lending requirements were dramatically loosened in 2006 and sales collapsing leading into their well publicized and predicted retraction in 2012. Sounds like basic economics.
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:38 am 6
Look at this monstrosity they want to build on False Creek where the viaducts currently are. They are going to demolish the viaducts and build a 2000 unit glass tower that is shaped like a square arch. You have to click on the link and look at the picture to see how ugly this building will truly be. This building will ruin Vancouver’s skyline. It looks like a monumnent to Vancouver’s obsession with bad architecture, glass buildings, and cramped high density living.
To top it all off, Mayor Robertson is saying that the viaducts are being demolished to create green space and reduce traffic into downtown. Who actually buys that crap excuse for selling out more land to developers???
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/proposed-complex-would-pump-life-into-dead-zone/article4391250/
Meanwhile, the protests are already starting the Downtown Eastside over concerns about increased traffic congestion on local roads after the viaducts are demolished, just as I predicted:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/proposed-complex-would-pump-life-into-dead-zone/article4391250/
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:43 am 7
This is serious, very serious, the pumpers weren’t able to engineer a buying panic before the new mortgage rules come into effect, has to mean the supply of greater fools is depleted.
Bill Slut may have to be called upon to pitch a few slow ones to the panel of impartial experts, I suggest Pastrick, Calla, and Tsur.
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:51 am 8
The second link in my post should have been this one, Van Sun article about Prior Street protests due to increased traffic from demolished viaducts:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Prior+Street+residents+plan+protest+against+traffic/6884577/story.html
PS: I know you guys like to stick to real estate economics, but this is just insane. Demolish the viadcuts and put up a glass arch of 2000 units! And this is all coming about as the real estate bubble is popping in the public mind!!!
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:03 am 9
@joe_blown_away_by_high_housing_costs: “this is just insane. Demolish the viadcuts and put up a glass arch of 2000 units!”
The glass arch building is at the Plaza of Nations site. It has nothing to do with the viaducts other than being close by. This proposal could go through without the viaducts coming down and is on private land. I agree the building design is hideous. It is only a proposal from a developer at this point.
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:16 am 10
@joe_blown_away_by_high_housing_costs: “Mayor Robertson is saying that the viaducts are being demolished to create green space and reduce traffic into downtown. Who actually buys that crap excuse for selling out more land to developers???”
Mayor Robertson is trying to reduce cars coming into downtown by creating congestion and limiting parking. This is actually worse for the environment because cars are sitting in traffic idling and driving around in circles looking for parking. The current regime likes to brag about less cars coming into downtown but it is as congested as ever. There may be less cars but cars are spending more time on the road with their engines running which makes the city less ‘livable’ and creates more pollution.
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:38 am 11
CityTV morning news,one of those headlines in the bottom had the following message:
“Vancouver home sales hit 10 year low, the board declares buyers market”.
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:41 am 12
REGVB has a guide to explain the methodology of HPI…What gobbledygook… There so many loopholes about determining an appropriate “representative” home from a “typical” neighbourhood. If I was in charge of the local HPI, I could fiddle with the selection criteria to ensure there was never a negative number.
I can’t get over how all the local media bleat the HPI as if it was delivered from Moses along with the 10 commandments.
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:47 am 13
@piklishi:
Same headline on yesterday’s Vancouver Sun website.
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:17 am 14
Good morning fellow Bears. Its a great time to be a bear in Vancouver. I feel as the Allies must have right after D-day. After years of being beaten down the tide finally turned, the war was won and it was just a matter of time. Victory was inevitable and everyone knew it.
Apr 2012 was our D-Day.
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:38 am 15
@Anonymous:
Put bluntly, this is horsesh!t. Extra lanes conjure up extra traffic. Removing lanes causes traffic to disappear — not just to be rerouted, but actually disappear. (Before you get carried away, I didn’t suggest that we remove all roads and dance naked in the forest.)
I’ve recently heard a number of pro-Viaduct arguments purportedly made on my behalf (as a Strathcona resident, for example.) Or, arguments in the name of the environment, somehow claiming that removing the viaducts is a regressive move. In each case, I suspect the argument is being made disingenuously by a commuter who passes through the neighbourhood and likely doesn’t even pay for Vancouver’s road network via property taxes.
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:42 am 16
Wooooooooaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh Horsy……..
Guys, I am probably more bearish than anyone here. Other than my buddy Dave. He is really bearish. (not that Dave, another Dave).
I understand the excitement in watching the inventory build, and the knowledge that rates aint coming down this time, and the further knowledge that people are maxed out. I am also quietly optimistic that the mythical “foreign buyer” has settled down a little, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Prices are still sooooo far out of whack relative to rents, incomes and any reasonable return expectation.
IF this is “THE BEGINNING”, let’s quietly enjoy this zenn moment.
After all, in the words of my former partner “ye who wants it least, wins”. Translate: if you are a foaming-mouth bear chomping at the bit to watch the crash and buy, it will never come to you. You need to turn a blind eye to the mayhem, appear totally disinterested, and then let the “chicken/head-off/levered/monkeys” run amok. Quietly enjoy your non-participation in the mayhem. You don’t want it, therefore, you will win. Let them come to you. If you don’t want it, you will win.
Best Regards,
VC
FYI – as a contest my price to rent is 660. The owners are from and live in Taiwan – that’s China right?
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:07 am 17
@Turkey: “Put bluntly, this is horsesh!t. Extra lanes conjure up extra traffic. Removing lanes causes traffic to disappear — not just to be rerouted, but actually disappear.”
‘conjure up’? ‘disappear’? obviously crippling our transportation system will reduce the number of trips taken as for many the pain will out way the gain of making a trip. but that isn’t a victory, that’s a failure.
you think that each trip represents waste. it doesn’t. it represents a tax paying citizen fulfilling a desire. that desire might be to go to school, work at their dream job, or enjoy the outdoors with their family. by making it harder to travel you are adding extreme inefficiently to people’s lives.
it’s sad that people have as brainwashed as you are. in the end, only the developers benefit. transportation becomes more and more of a pain, so more people pay more money for slices of sky downtown, and developers can sell the same sq ft of earth 10, 12, or 15 times over. meanwhile people give up education, opportunities, and time with their loved ones.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:16 am 18
@starbucker:
“that desire might be to go to school, work at their dream job, or enjoy the outdoors with their family.”
In downtown Vancouver? I think you’re getting a bit carried away – on all three counts.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:20 am 19
@starbucker:
I hate to continue an off-topic conversation but…
@Turkey is right.
The evidence is that removing traffic lanes reduces congestion:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008957.html
And the evidence shows that adding lanes increases pollution:
http://www.sightline.org/research/climate-analysis-gge-new-lanes-10-07/
No city has reduced pollution by building more lanes to “reduce idling.” The only cities that have successfully reduced pollution in recent decades have done so by reducing light duty vehicle traffic and increasing modal share in other forms of transportation.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:24 am 20
Did the realtor Keith Roy take his post down? I can’t seem to find it on his blog….
This morning on Global, they announced that it is a “buyers market” but “prices are still going up, the benchmark price is up”. What a bunch of BS-the average person will sit back on their couch and think “Oh good, nothing to worry about, my house is still worth $X” Meanwhile, the average price of SFH in Vancouver has dropped 14%!
Nonsense!
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:27 am 21
@patriotz
“In downtown Vancouver? I think you’re getting a bit carried away – on all three counts.”
Not necessarily in downtown – for example, I sometimes like to go to Squamish to climb after work in the summertime, but having to fight through downtown traffic after work generally means adding 30 minutes to the drive.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:33 am 22
@BikeMike:
You don’t use the car to climb do you? The best solution to the problem is to get there other than by driving.
If you really do have to drive to Squamish, living in a location that doesn’t require you to go through downtown might make more sense.
It is impossible in a metro with the number of bottenecks that Vancouver has for everyone to expect to drive anywhere they want conveniently.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:38 am 23
It seems the UBC Sauder School of Business has one predominant thought on Vancouver housing: you are displaying entitlement issues if you think housing is here to be used by locals who earn a living here.
OK bears, attack:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.866289
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:49 am 24
Yeah, where did they dredge up Davidoff? He’s more annoying that Somerville, if that’s possible…..
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:49 am 25
@patriotz:
“In downtown Vancouver? I think you’re getting a bit carried away – on all three counts.”
What route do you suggest someone takes if they want to drive from the West Side to Whistler? For many, it’s absolutely necessary to drive their car through downtown in order to live life to the fullest. Public trasport just isn’t an option for many if you’re taking your family to the North Shore mountains or Whistler for skiing or mountain biking. If it’s gridlock and downtown is going to add 30 mins to my trip, I may just cancel the trip and be pissed about it. That’s not progress.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:51 am 26
@patriotz:
“It is impossible in a metro with the number of bottenecks that Vancouver has for everyone to expect to drive anywhere they want conveniently”
You may be right, but why constantly take steps to intentionally increase the inconvenience.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:55 am 27
@Anonymous: “What route do you suggest someone takes if they want to drive from the West Side to Whistler”
I think he wants you to use your jet pack
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:59 am 28
@Anonymous:
“If it’s gridlock and downtown is going to add 30 mins to my trip”
Downtown is rarely gridlocked. Georgia (between Richards and Stanley Park), Seymour (between Davie and Georgia), and Denman (between Georgia and Davie) can be pretty brutal, but in general it’s possible to drive right across downtown at any time of day.
Crossing a bridge/tunnel is always going to be problematic, in any city.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:06 am 29
@Anonymous:
Oh, here we go again, those poor Westsiders. Now they have to endure not having a private, direct access road to Whistler, oh the horrors.
God, this town is filled with whiners.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:09 am 30
23 mac Says: “OK bears, attack:”
Attack? Industry experts telling average local wage earners they’re not good enough to live in Vancouver is gold for bears. BCREA’s brains should be blowing out whenever their Sauder friends make that kind of public judgment. Comedy gold is the extreme disconnect between wages and prices didn’t elicit a comment from a news organization.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:10 am 31
@patriotz:
“The best solution to the problem is to get there other than by driving.”
How else would you suggest getting to Squamish? Buses/coaches still have to queue for the Lions Gate. Neither Taylor Way nor Stanley Park Causeway have bus lanes.
Or are you talking about the ‘best solution’ in a collective sense, leading by example, and all that?
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:11 am 32
@starbucker:
“…are adding extreme inefficiently to people’s lives…”
But cars are probably the most inefficient way to move people around. In therms of:
- energy (no contest here)
- tasks (you can get work done while on transit and exercise while cycling)
- time (for short trips in Vancouver a bike is faster and for longer trips rail could be faster – if we had it).
I haven’t owned a car in over 15 years and still manage to make it to the North Shore, Squamish and Whistler on a regular basis.
I agree that we don’t have enough good alternatives to driving (like a good regional passenger rail network) but we should focus on building those alternatives instead of adding road lanes.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:16 am 33
@Troll: “God, this town is filled with whiners.”
whiners hang around this blog only; they have nowhere else to go . for the rest of the population, they are pretty cool.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:16 am 34
@Anonymous:
(15 points): Define “progress”. Relate your answer to the traffic planner’s traditional role in promoting the efficient movement of goods and labour. Should passenger vehicles heading for Whistler be given special consideration?
Again, it seems like mountain climbing, biking, and skiing are stalking horses for the real topic, which is commuting. If we were really discussing trips out of the city, then why does it seem totally off-topic to mention border line-ups or ferry waits?
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:19 am 35
@ mac. (Nice comments BTW)
Sauder isn’t exactly known for their big picture thinking. The idea of a general equilibrium is a bit beyond them. For instance, if locals can’t afford to live in a city then there are no workers to provide services in that city — this can’t really be an equilibrium. Prices would adjust to bring about an equilibrium with workers living in the city. This argument doesn’t compute with Sauder folks who work in partial equilibria. Sure they know GE effects exist but they never think that they are applicable.
The thing I really fault them on is their lack of analysis of credit markets for housing. CMHC has been such an obvious problem (and the NHA-MBS in particular) for so many years they really should have said something about it.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:19 am 36
Something that made me go hmmm. Just reading the following article in the G&M about June RE sales in Toronto.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/toronto-home-sales-fall-54-in-june/article4391684/
At first, I found that it was just the usual piece about RE and that you could insert any city into the article and just change a few numbers. But….then it hit me. All the prices quoted were averages not benchmark prices. I thought the rationale behind changing the HPI was that it was to be used Canada wide. I guess the Toronto RE board didn’t get the memo.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:29 am 37
@b5baxter:
“- tasks (you can get work done while on transit and exercise while cycling)”
you obviously don’t take skytrain or canada line. it is way too crowded to do work.
“- time (for short trips in Vancouver a bike is faster and for longer trips rail could be faster – if we had it).”
the vast majority of people aren’t within biking distance to work. the place they travel to or from 40 times a month.
“I haven’t owned a car in over 15 years and still manage to make it to the North Shore, Squamish and Whistler on a regular basis.”
How do you manage to get to squamish and whistler without a car? I’m curious.
“I agree that we don’t have enough good alternatives to driving”
then what are we arguing about?
“but we should focus on building those alternatives instead of adding road lanes.”
like the canada line? it’s an improvement but it is very far from a full solution. it works well if you live right next to a station, but the vast majority of people don’t. for example, using buses and the canada line it takes 55 minutes to get from stevston to downtown. that’s 31 minutes by car. and as someone who has taken public transit throughout university and my long career, i can say without a doubt that driving 31 minutes is a hell of a lot better then spending 55 minutes on public transit.
cars are the backbone of our transportation system. ignoring that fact is short-sighted and involves more than a little fantastical thinking.
i get that some of you live close to your work. but guess what, the lower mainland is over 2 million people. as long as downtown vancouver is the regional core, a huge number of people will have to travel to get to work. there is simply not enough room to house them close to their job. that is basic math.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:32 am 38
When we get our first landed immigrant mayor from China elected, you will then see progress on building highways within Vancouver City. For 30 years and more, Vancouver has tried to discourage the use of personal cars. All that this policy has done is to increase grid lock and pollution. My bet is that in a hundred years from now, the personal vehicle will still be the number one choice of commuting. I doubt if the bus will still be here. The bus system is expensive and inefficient way of moving one or two people through a city.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:38 am 39
@b5baxter:
“The evidence is that removing traffic lanes reduces congestion:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008957.html”
that article talks about very specific cases where a careful and thoughtful mathematical analysis was performed and it was determined that shutting down a road in Seoul Korea would speed up traffic and it did.
taking those facts and making general statements that not investing in roads is a good idea ALL THE TIME is ridiculous and dogmatic.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:40 am 40
@Vote Down The Facts:
“Downtown is rarely gridlocked”
I’m not talking about now, I’m talking about the future if Mayor Moonbeam continues to shutdown lanes in and out of downtown.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:44 am 41
@starbucker: the vast majority of people aren’t within biking distance to work. the place they travel to or from 40 times a month.
And whose fault is that? One of the reasons I rent is mobility. I can live in the area I want in a residence I enjoy instead of being trapped in an area I don’t like in a sub-optimal home. I can also move at the drop of a hat.
Last time my office moved I did just that because as you say, so much time can be wasted commuting. I choose to walk to work even though I have a car. I find a decent 30-40 minute walk in the morning makes me arrive in a much better mood. When I drive and have to fight my way through traffic I arrive feeling fat and unhappy.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:50 am 42
@patriotz:
Downtown Vancouver has more parks, schools and enploys more people than anywhere in Metro Vancouver. FFS Stanley Park is downtown.
I think it is a great idea to reduce traffic into downtown. There are better ways to do it than create gridlock. Personally I am not opposed the the viaducts coming out because it will make the area nicer and may not make much difference for traffic other than Prior Steet maybe. It is most of the other bone head changes they made that I am opposed to.
If they want to reduce traffic into downtown the solution is get more traffic to use the second narrows bridge. A toll on the Lions Gate would solve the problem without creating congestion for people who live in and need to get into downtown.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:51 am 43
I’ll end my off topoc posts on commuting and transportation by posting this:
OCTOBER 18, 2011
Toronto Board of Trade research on the average total commute time in major metros:
Dallas 53 minutes
Milan 53.4
Seattle 55.5
Boston 55.8
Los Angeles 56.1
San Francisco 57.4
Chicago 61.4
Berlin 63.2
Halifax 65
Sydney 66
Madrid 66.1
Calgary 67
Vancouver 67
New York 68.1
Stockholm 70
London 74
Montreal 76
Toronto 80
we are slightly better than NY (19 million) and much worse than LA (4 million)
if you think neglecting transportation is about the environment, you are wrong. “it’s always about the money”. and developers make a lot of money selling slices of sky. horrible transportation leaves more people with the dilemma of paying a lot for a shoebox or suffering in a horrible commute. guess which option developers and their city hall friends want you to pick.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:54 am 44
@starbucker:
“…you obviously don’t take skytrain or canada line. it is way too crowded to do work…”
Let me repeat myself – we need to improve transit and other options for commuting in Vancouver. They are clearly not adequate. But that is where the focus should be – not on more road lanes.
“..the vast majority of people aren’t within biking distance to work. the place they travel to or from 40 times a month…”
The average commute distance in Metro Vancouver is 7.4 km and has been decreasing.(see: http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/2006_commute_report_30oct2008.pdf)
That is about a 30 minute bike ride. It seems to me that about half the people in Metro Vancouver are within biking distance to work. And for the others we need to improve transit.
“How do you manage to get to squamish and whistler without a car? I’m curious.”
Greyhound (with service several times a day), SnowBus, Car pooling (Club Tread, Wanderung, network of friends), Car sharing (Modo). But I would really like to see passenger rail service restored.
“cars are the backbone of our transportation system. … the lower mainland is over 2 million people. as long as downtown vancouver is the regional core, … that is basic math.”
Cars have been. But the overwhelming evidence is that we have to change that.
Cities that are the same size or bigger than Vancouver have private auto modal shares that are less than half and sometimes one-third of what we have here (New York City, Bern, Zürich, Copenhagen, Berlin, Stockholm, London, etc).
Why we can’t do the same here?
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:56 am 45
@lavarocks:
@starbucker: the vast majority of people aren’t within biking distance to work. the place they travel to or from 40 times a month.
“And whose fault is that?”
physics? two bodies can’t occupy the same space.
i’d love it if more business and offices moved out of vancouver and downtown core. but it isn’t happening at enough scale to make any difference.
the RCMP is already moving to surrey. move the court house there too. the federal department of justice offices would follow.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:59 am 46
@b5baxter: “Greyhound (with service several times a day), SnowBus, Car pooling (Club Tread, Wanderung, network of friends), Car sharing (Modo). But I would really like to see passenger rail service restored.”
lmao. come on. you are using the roads, but someone else is driving. bahahaha. ok, i’ve had enough, i’m closing my browser rofl.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:01 am 47
@b5baxter: “we should focus on building those alternatives instead of adding road lanes”
Who said anything about adding lanes…they’re trying to take lanes away.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:05 am 48
@starbucker:
“the vast majority of people aren’t within biking distance to work. the place they travel to or from 40 times a month.”
I disagree… I know several people who commute from central Burnaby to downtown by bike. It’s a comfortable hour for even fairly unfit people, and includes enough hills. I would guess that is the median size of commute, roughly 18 kms. The real problems are the incessant rain, the lack of bicycle-only routes, and the inconsiderate, unempathetic, oblivious, aggressive and entitled commuters who occupy every 7th car one encounters.
“cars are the backbone of our transportation system. ignoring that fact is short-sighted and involves more than a little fantastical thinking”
Correct, they are currently the backbone of our transit system. That is why our transit system bites. Just curious: have you ever lived in London, Tokyo, Singapore or Paris? Can you imagine a world where trains are every 5 minutes, stations are 5 minutes walking distance of anywhere, and people actually prefer transit? Like it or not, mass transit is the most efficient way of getting people around a metropolitan centre and it is the first choice in infrastructure for many urban centres of the world for a good reason.
However, before you can get to a stage where mass transit works for most people, you need a large investment in infrastructure. Its a chicken or egg situation in places like Vancouver: no one takes transit because it sucks. So no one invests in transit. So no one takes transit because it continues sucking. And so on it goes. It would take a politician with truly colossal stones to make the kinds of investment needed to make transit a viable and efficient alternative for everyone’s commute.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:06 am 49
@b5baxter: ….I haven’t owned a car in over 15 years and still manage to make it to the North Shore, Squamish and Whistler on a regular basis. …
Getting rid of your car and buming rides off your buddies isn’t a legitimate solution to anything.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:07 am 50
@TPFKAA:
there you go. B5baxter actually has data.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:09 am 51
Interesting developments in the other HAM land, down under…
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.ca/2012/07/record-number-of-homes-for-sale-in.html
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:11 am 52
@TPFKAA: Or maybe allow private enterprise solution? You know the mantra – private does everything better at a cheaper price.
Though seriously, $1.8B dollar for a 17KM Skytrain line from Lougheed to Coquitlam Center??? With that kind of price tag, we just can’t afford to build much mass transit options without tripling or quadrupling the populations and have most of them taking the new train. I think we are only break-even operationally on the various skytrain lines, never mind paying back the interest or the money borrowed to build them. This is not sustainable.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:11 am 53
@Turkey: “again, it seems like mountain climbing, biking, and skiing are stalking horses for the real topic, which is commuting. If we were really discussing trips out of the city, then why does it seem totally off-topic to mention border line-ups or ferry waits?”
The point is that many trips into downtown do not have downtown as their destination. For many, it’s necessary to go through downtown on their way to North Van, West Van, Squamish, Whistler, etc.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:16 am 54
@shriller: Well I object mostly to the use of the term “entitlement”. It’s a term I associate with psychology, not economics or business. And it kind of suggests a spoiled, entitled brat and juxtaposed with the video of the young dad not able to buy a house (and by the way it’s a condo and not even a house he would settle for) I think it leads the viewer to the conclusion that housing is naturally an open market, like gold, or caviar, or anything else highly desirable.
I find it offensive that a school, where basic economics should at least be discussed, instead comes out in the press all hot and obviously horny for the object of discussion and then uses this type of terminology. I do concede that in the end, they may be right. The market is open and it’s possible that all desirable forms of housing in this city will be sold off to those who don’t work here but you’d think they’d have at least a few words to say about the relationship of housing to the local economy. And then maybe CTV could head over to the Poli Sci department and see if anyone there has anything to say about the population voting on what housing should be used for. But who am I kidding?!
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:19 am 55
@TPFKAA:
It’s fairly easy to say, but it comes down to trying to fund the retrofitting the transit infrastructure of this city. Who’s going to pay for it? Most people don’t want to.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:23 am 56
@starbucker:
“..lmao. come on. you are using the roads…”
Of course. But in a much more efficient manner than a low occupancy vehicle. Which means less congestion requires fewer lanes. Is that so hard to understand?
“..that article talks about very specific cases …”
It does give a few examples (Seoul, London, Manhattan, and Boston) and there are others (Amsterdam) where cities have reduced congestion and pollution by reducing road lanes.
All of this was in response to a comment from @Anonymous that “…trying to reduce cars coming into downtown by creating congestion and limiting parking. This is actually worse for the environment…”
But can you give one example where there is evidence that reducing road lanes has been “worse for the environment”? I have given a few examples of where the reverse is true.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:28 am 57
Just stop it with all this biking nonsense.
For many of us, this is simply not an option.
I have young kids who I need to get to preschool and daycare etc.
We have rain here probably 100 days out of the year.
Many work places don’t even have showers or bike locks.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:29 am 58
@TPFKAA: …The real problems are the incessant rain, the lack of bicycle-only routes, and the inconsiderate, unempathetic, oblivious, aggressive and entitled commuters who occupy every 7th car one encounters. …
You left out a major reason why folks don’t and won’t bike in this city. As a bike commuter, I can tell you that if you work regular business hours, you bike much of the year in the dark! It’s not safe (even worse when it’s dark and raining – which is just about always the case at the time of the year when the days are short) and riding in the dark is boring!
People won’t even take transit in this city because of having to walk and wait in the dark and the rain. Unless you can change the weather and the earth’s orbit, the prejudice against transit is never going to change. It’s just a reality.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:31 am 59
@mac: How can an economist call Vancouver “the most beautiful place on earth”? That may be his opinion, but there is no data to back it up. Its entirely subjective.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:37 am 60
@space889: I think we are only break-even operationally on the various skytrain lines, never mind paying back the interest or the money borrowed to build them. This is not sustainable.
Public transit such as skytrain is (heavily) subsidized, but roads are free for cars to drive on as well.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:45 am 61
@b5baxter: “It does give a few examples (Seoul, London, Manhattan, and Boston) and there are others (Amsterdam) where cities have reduced congestion and pollution by reducing road lanes.”
Wrong. They ran a computer simulation and ASSUMED it would speed up traffic. And this is the stuff you base your world view on? Hahaha.
“Of course. But in a much more efficient manner than a low occupancy vehicle. Which means less congestion requires fewer lanes. Is that so hard to understand?”
Yeah, I understand. Roads are necessary for people to get around and do the things they want to do. Save the judgemental self righteous crap b5baxter. You are no better than the people riding by themselves in their car. You don’t have a car because you don’t need one. Guess what, not everyone has your life. Who are you to sit on your low occupancy high horse and tell everyone else how to live?
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:45 am 62
@Pricedoutfornow
Regarding Global reporting that prices are still rising, I am convinced that this is their standard marching orders from the RE masters to keep the “sheeple” that there is no need to panic – just hold on. As we all know, this is the function of the RE manipulated HPI. Global cannot avoid reporting that sales are down, but if they can prevent homeowners rushing to the exits, the crash this rush would cause can be avoided. Judging how crazy this town is in regard to RE and how far too many view Global as Gospal – it may indeed work to delay the inevitable.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:47 am 63
@b5baxter:
One could argue that the congestion that the Hornby bikes lanes has caused may not be a positive for the environment. I know when I sit in the lineups of cars waiting to turn right when there are no bikes in sight causes me to slightly shake my head.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:48 am 64
@Re-diculous: Once the benchmark has turned negative YOY there aren’t many ways to report that prices are rising.
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July 5th, 2012 at 11:51 am 65
@kansai92:
“Just stop it with all this biking nonsense.
For many of us, this is simply not an option.
I have young kids who I need to get to preschool and daycare etc.
We have rain here probably 100 days out of the year.
Many work places don’t even have showers or bike locks.”
I ride my bike from Richmond to Vancouver a few days a week when it’s nice out. I think it is ridiculous to come on here and preach to others that they should be doing the same. Obviously it isn’t going to be for everyone. Having a medium sized dog is probably just as bad for the environment as driving. But I don’t see any fido hate, only car hate. When I don’t ride my bike I take transit ( It’s hell ).
Vancouverites are such a finger pointing, navel gazing lot. Not everyone has your life or even wants it. The idea that everyone can live in the core, have no kids, be able bodied, bike a few clicks to work is asinine.
Increase the PAIN in people’s lives to force them to live the way we want them to is cruel, vindictive, and counter productive.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:00 pm 66
I learned something today;
PaulB isn’t the only Realtor with integrity.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:06 pm 67
@b5baxter: But can you give one example where there is evidence that reducing road lanes has been “worse for the environment”?
Vancouver.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:07 pm 68
@Not much of a name…:
“…One could argue that the congestion…”
Yes you could make all sorts of crazy arguments. But I was asking for evidence to support that argument.
There is evidence that cities what used road dieting and increasing non-vehicular modal share have reduced GHG emissions (eg. Amsterdam saw a double digit reduction over a decade).
I have yet to see any evidence that reducing road lanes has had any negative measurable affect on environmental indicators.
@starbucker “You are no better than the people riding by themselves in their car.”
The evidence is that on average a single occupancy car creates five times as much emissions as taking a bus.
“… tell everyone else how to live?”
I don’t recall telling any one how to live. If I did show me the quote. People asked for examples of how to get to Whistler and Squamish without owning a car and I gave some examples. I am simply pointing out that there are other options available. I haven’t told anyone that they should always use those options.
You are the one that seems to be offended that I would even suggest that there are other options available.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:08 pm 69
@space889: Anyone who doesn’t understand the need for the Evergreen Line, should visit Port Moody during rush hour. A lot of high density development was allowed with the understanding of future rapid transit.
The options are expand rapid transit or slash immigration. I’m open to either, but one has to happen.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:12 pm 70
I’ve been scratching my head ever since F’s bombshell went off 2 weeks ago. The weirdest thing about it was that everyone expected the move to 25 year mortgages would be announced in the federal budget, but it wasn’t. Then the announcement comes out of nowhere, several months later. Why the sudden 180? There’s more to this story than we were told.
Here’s what I think happened: F had a chat with Mark Carney, who basically spends his time as close to the nucleus of the global financial/banking elite as you can get. Due to his very privileged position, Carney knows that the world economy is deteriorating quickly. He tells F that another globally coordinated round of central bank intervention is coming, ie a repeat of 2008. So rather than raising rates which everyone assumed would happen, he’s going to lower them at the next BOC meeting on July 17.
Carney wants to stimulate the economy without further inflating the housing bubble, and interest rates are really the only tool he has. There isn’t much room to lower them, but there is some. This would explain the severity of new mortgage rules, as well as the July 9 deadline. Thoughts?
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:13 pm 71
@mac: “Well I object mostly to the use of the term “entitlement”. It’s a term I associate with psychology, not economics or business.”
The thing is, real estate is a highly emotional investment. Thanks to emotions like fear and greed, business and economic theories don’t really work in the real world. Psychology generally trumps logic. This is why people overextend themselves to buy houses here. For whatever reason, even though this guy has a household income of $97,000 and can’t seem to save up for a $25,000 down payment, he’s frustrated because he thinks he should have a $500,000 house? If that’s not a sense of entitlement, I don’t know what is.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:14 pm 72
@Anonymous:
Pollution is going down not up:
http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/LowerFraserValleyAirQualitySummaryReport-2011.pdf
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:15 pm 73
@b5baxter:
On average there are 25 more bicyclists a day on Hornby for the first three months of this year compared to last. You tell me if removing 1 vehicle per hour per day is better for the environment that having all the vehicles idling at intersections waiting to turn right.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:15 pm 74
“But in a much more efficient manner than a low occupancy vehicle”
Absolutely not true. The bikes lanes are the most inefficient mode of transportation Vancouver has. Nobody uses them. The energy put into building and maintaining them on a per person bases would be much higher than the road next to it
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:19 pm 75
@van_coffee:
“IF this is “THE BEGINNING”, let’s quietly enjoy this zenn moment. ”
What’s your Zenn like advice on sporting events? Specifically golf? I mean I got this intermittent fade, verging on an outright hook. I was planning on hitting some balls, trying to work it out, but you may be onto something here.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:21 pm 76
@Yalie: I can’t help but wonder whether he was giving “insiders” time to dump their properties before the changes were announced.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:24 pm 77
realtor on BNN right now saying he sold his own house!
and yes it’s Keith Roy
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:24 pm 78
@Not much of a name…: On average there are 25 more bicyclists a day on Hornby for the first three months of this year compared to last
Most of those new cycleists either took transit or walked before. Even less impact than 1 car per hour I bet. My experience as a cyclist Is the segregated bike lanes on Hornby and Dunsmere are more dangerous and more confusing than the painted bike lanes they replaced. If I bike it is in place of walking not driving.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:25 pm 79
Keith Roy is being interviewed on BNN right now.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:26 pm 80
@starbucker:
“you obviously don’t take skytrain or canada line. it is way too crowded to do work.”
Starbucker, not at all, LOTS of room;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzLtF_PxbYw
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:28 pm 81
goof…said he’s probably buying back in to the market in Sept or Oct….wtf, why sell and go to the media with your news, when you’re planning on buying back in 7 weeks…..Hope that works out well for you Keith
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:32 pm 82
@space889:
You think that’s outrageous? You should see how much money we are losing on public libraries and hospitals!
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:39 pm 83
Vancouver needs a congestion tax.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:39 pm 84
@b5baxter:
olution is going down not up.
Although there have been a couple of lanes taken out downtown there have been a lot of new roads added or existing roads expanded across the lower mainland. So net more roads. That supports more roads reduce polution if polution is going down.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:43 pm 85
@vangrl: said he’s probably buying back in to the market in Sept or Oct…
I guess he thinks he crash will be more severe and quicker than most around here. Let’s hope he is right. Either way good to have realtors bearish and on TV.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:54 pm 86
@Anonymous:
Objecting to government policies which artificially inflate the price of RE so that buying is much more expensive than renting (when the economically sound norm is for it to be cheaper) is in no way asking for an entitlement. It’s the RE industry that’s asking for and getting the entitlement.
The BS from Sauder is just more of the Orwellian crap that we get every day about RE.
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July 5th, 2012 at 12:59 pm 87
@Anonymous: My experience as a cyclist is that the segregated bike lanes are much safer. It’s a lot tougher for a car to turn into you which is the whole point of the lane being segregated.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:02 pm 88
Keith Roy:
“If you are on fence about selling your home, thinking of cashing out, nearing retirement or need your equity to buy your next home, now might be the right time to call a REALTOR. Otherwise, I’d plan to hold on for another rough ride. I think 2012 will be another one of those years where Summer is better than Fall.”
http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip715413
my bad, he said he’ll probably buy back in Oct/november to avoid the mortgage penalty.
O.k so ARE YOU KIDDING ME, you’re telling non-realtors that now is the time to sell, and to call your realtor, but on the other hand tell everyone that you’ll probably buy back in in a couple of months?
this guys a nutball, has he any idea that we pay realtor fees? on top of all other closing costs? and does he seriously think that the correction is only going to last 2 months? does his “holding on for a rough ride” mean a whole 2 months? what is he 11?
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:06 pm 89
@b5baxter: “It seems to me that about half the people in Metro Vancouver are within biking distance to work. And for the others we need to improve transit.”
Not everybody likes cycling in the rain and needing a change of clothes and/or shower once they arrive at the office. Not all employers provide secure bicycle storage. Not all residences have secure bicycle storage. Not everybody who you consider to be within cycling distance is physically capable of cycling. Or perhaps they need to drop their kids off at school on the way to work.
Cycling isn’t for everybody.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:12 pm 90
Here’s the million dollar question!
If you had the following graph back in 1999, could it have been more obvious what year our real estate market would experience it’s colossal peak?
http://www.nowandfutures.com/images/crb_1900on.png
Houses and land are essentially nothing more than commodities. Throw in a commodity-based economy like yours truly W Canada, and it was a no-brainer when real estate would peak.
It doesn’t get any more obvious than the following sequence 1921, 1951, 1981, 20??
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:19 pm 91
Attention all knife-catchers!
You now have just 72 hours left to get a 30 year mortgage.
Please proceed in an orderly manner to your nearest realtor/brokers office as soon as possible.
Again, this is your last chance to act before prices go down.
Thank you for your cooperation.
~BPOM~
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:21 pm 92
#82 @Troll: “You think that’s outrageous? You should see how much money we are losing on public libraries and hospitals!”
Never mind roads and bridges. Why should *I* have to pay for *you* to go somewhere? A private system with tolls on every block would create wealth, as the free market is apt to do.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:23 pm 93
One of the reasons we rent is so that my husband can bicycle commute. My husband does 11km each way, half an hour each – and it’s not so bad with the right rain gear, but more than that would be too much.
I recently got a job where driving is a requirement, and I must admit it’s been a relief. We’re no longer in an easily walkable area, which was necessary to find family-space in our price range. We’ve only owned a car for one year after a lifetime of trying to minimize our ecological footprint – so imagine my shock to figure out we have *more* time and money since giving up transit.
And oh my goodness it is a lot easier not to have to carry a feverish child to the bus stop to take the bus to the clinic to get a prescription for antibiotics. I spend a lot less time in frustrated exhaustion.
This is why I don’t really get the eco-density that’s been implemented: when it was just the husband and me, bikes and transit were fine even when we weren’t in a densely walkable neighbourhood, because all of our needs were fewer and we could carry them home on our bikes. But as a family, that walkable neighbourhood was vital to stay car free.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:23 pm 94
#71 @Anonymous: “The thing is, real estate is a highly emotional investment.”
I recall the 1990′s, when stocks were a highly emotional investment.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:23 pm 95
could i get some clarification. I read on here that SFH are down 14%.
but i also read YOY house prices have risen? I believe this was the quote:
“(in Vancouver)while the price for detached properties increased 3.3 per cent from a year ago to $961,600.”
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:36 pm 96
@Anonymous:
“Getting rid of your car and buming rides off your buddies isn’t a legitimate solution to anything.”
It’s a great solution. I wish more people would do this. Way too many cars around, usually large ones with just 1 person in them.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:38 pm 97
Maybe we could find a way to blame the traffic on Asians, then we could stay off topic forever.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:49 pm 98
@Not much of a name…:
I think you are over-estimating the emission from idling (especially as more people switch to hybrids). Again, if you have any actual evidence to support your claims please supply it.
You can get the data from the downtown air quality monitoring station and check this out for yourself. Let us know what you find.
Also I don’t think it is very useful to just look at just one bridge or intersection. These are part of the overall infrastructure for both cycling and cars and could affect behavior in the whole system.
The overall picture is that during the last 15 years cycling infrastructure has been added in Vancouver. At the same time cycling modal share has gone up and pollution has gone down.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:51 pm 99
Anyone else had enough of the car vs bike debate?
I come to this forum to get educated about the real estate market in Vancouver.
If you are that interested please visit ihatecars.com or ihatebikes.com.
Now (hopefully) back to reading about real estate…
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:54 pm 100
@giantsloth@Anonymous: My experience as a cyclist is that the segregated bike lanes are much safer. It’s a lot tougher for a car to turn into you which is the whole point of the lane being segregated.
Actually accidents involving bikes are up in the areas with segregated bike lanes. Cars still cross over and you still have to get to the bike lanes crossing traffic. The painted lane makes more sense where you ride using vehicle rules. Unless you can do something like the seawall the painted lanes are best for everyone.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:57 pm 101
@Yalie I’ve been thinking the same thing. Central banks in China, the EU and Australia have all been cutting rates. It looks like the pressure for rate increases is off with the developing countries’ economies cooling. Everyone is just catching up to the malaise in the UK/US where rates are lowest.
I doubt Carney will lower them at the next meeting. But at least now he has wiggle room and can lower them in the near future.
As for all this cycling talk… it’s interesting how this blog brings together people with different viewpoints. I’m sure there are both Tories and NDPrs on here… all united in our distaste of credit bubbles.
Anyway to that point, I’d take civilized Copenhagen over Houston any day.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:57 pm 102
@Anonymous:
There have been more than a couple of lanes downtown. The bike lanes on Beatty, Carroll, Pender and 41st Ave (maybe 4th too?) all removed traffic or parking lanes. The only difference is that the media didn’t make a big deal about them.
It would be interesting to compare the lanes lost with new roads over the past couple of decades against the population growth.
And then compare that with cities that have increased roads at a greater rate than Vancouver (eg. Houstan). And compare that with cities that have reduced roads available to cars at a greater rate than Vancouver (eg. Copenhagen). And then compare pollution levels in those cities.
Please feel free to look into that and get back to us with the numbers.
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July 5th, 2012 at 1:58 pm 103
@SoldAndLeft: Anyone else had enough of the car vs bike debate?
Maybe come up with something to talk about? Well then F- off.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:11 pm 104
Tsur it up, little darling, Tsur it up.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:16 pm 105
As I understand the recent federal budget, F basically shifted CMHC to his portfolio and away from HRDC. He’s also neutered the board of directors (seriously, who would think appointing developers to head the CMHC board was a good idea — do we let drug addicts be pharmacists?). So he probably waited for a department review of CMHC and some `simulations’ before making changes. He doesn’t want to crush housing in places like T-Bay, the ‘Peg, Peterborough, etc. So I’m sure these changes were taken in order to stop the Vancouver and Toronto crazy-train expresses. And he needed a review of CMHC data to see what the relevant policy changes should be.
As for entitlement, it’s probably a fine word for economists. Buy for whatever reason you like. Feel entitled for whatever reason you like. Why should I care why you do something or why you feel a certain way. The problem has been that I’ve needed to care because you’ve been dipping your hands in my wallet to pay the tab. Apart from that, people have felt entitled for generations but others have tended to work hard and get stuff done. Over the centuries it’s tended to lead to social mobility….
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:29 pm 106
Even if you don’t plan to buy, make sure you are able to near the bottom.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/americans-caught-by-rental-credit-squeeze/article4392820/
“One night last spring, David Hall returned home to his studio apartment outside Boston to learn that his monthly rent had spiked from $725 (U.S.) to $995.
It would be much cheaper for the maintenance manager to buy a nearby starter house than to stay put. But his mortgage broker told him that while his credit score was good, it was not high enough to meet banks’ tough standards, he said.
“I know if I walk into a bank, they are just going to laugh at me,” Mr. Hall says. “So I’m stuck.”
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:38 pm 107
In regards to our realtor friend who sold his place.
OK Mr. Keith what’s your name? Just bite the bullet and pay the freakin mortgage penalty. You made the corresponding gain on the asset. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.
You did say some decent statements at least and you seemed to have some idea what a cap rate was althought you could not quantify it as a cap rate percentage.(it’s probably in the low 2-3% rate now).
And – as for selling east side attached properties in June – that was actually the only hot market there.
Note his desire to buy a west-side home. He is trying to affect his future trade by playing down the market so he can buy there too. Somehow he does not seem unbiased any more.
How’s the weather in Vancouver? Brussels has been great for 3 days.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:50 pm 108
@lavarocks: “I can also move at the drop of a hat”
I see lots of people say this about renting, but don’t you have a rental contract/agreement of some sort? Seems like the “drop of a hat” is overstated. And if you do’t have a rental agreement, the flip side few of us talk about (I’m a renter) is that we can be asked to move at a drop of the hat too. Better than being saddled with owning a place that you don’t want, but it hardly seems as idyllic as everyone makes it sound.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:54 pm 109
Just noticed there is another sub-million house listed west of Granville (non Musqueam): V946282
That makes: 2
An increase of 50% since I last checked a few days ago. This could be an interesting metric to watch (total number not % increase).
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:56 pm 110
@Anonymous: Are bikes also stolen way more often than a car? It seems like stolen bike is like a rite of passage in this city if you want to ride a bike to/from work.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:57 pm 111
@Bear Vancouverite:
If you live in in a proper apartment building you are likely to be month to month and only have to give a months notice to leave.
If you’re renting from an amateur landlord you’re more likely to have a lease and be at the mercy of the amateur landlord who can sell at any time or evict you for “personal use”.
The lesson here is: don’t rent from amateur landlords.
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July 5th, 2012 at 2:59 pm 112
oops I should say an increase of 100%
Anyway the little sub-million house red dots on MLS look like soldiers coming in from the East side. Can’t wait until more breach the Cambie line and make it deep into Westside territory.
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:19 pm 113
Could this be a reason why the mortgage rules were tightened?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/07/05/pol-weston-public-service-severance.html
Seems like a least some of this 6 billion will flow into real estate.
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:26 pm 114
Not sure if that last comment went through. Anyways, for those interested there is a discussion on the Vancouver Bubble over at RFD (RedFlagDeals) which is interesting:
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/vancouver-bubble-road-50-housing-crash-w-monthly-stats-1194032/
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:27 pm 115
@space889 Bike theft here is huge – just had mine stolen last week as a matter of fact. Apparently bike theft is double the norm this year, as it turns out.
Sadly, I think that this is the side of the real estate slowdown that people don’t really consider – increased property crime. I’ve lived in Vancouver 7 years now, and in that time period, I’ve had my place broken in to 3 times. (no, I don’t live in a crack shack – when I did, never had any breakin problems)
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:29 pm 116
Here is one of the most interesting stats posted from that forum thread: Quoted from thread:
BOOM #1
– Mar/79 @ $73,200
– Apr/81 @ $181,200 (147% increase in 25 months – 102% with inflation)
– Mar/85 @ $127,000 (30% decline in 47 months – 46% with inflation)
BOOM #2
– Jun/88 @ $177,100
– Jul/96 @ $426,400 (140% increase in 97 months – 92% with inflation)
– Feb/99 @ $339,900 (20% decline in 31 months – 23% with inflation)
BOOM #3
– Jan/02 @ $363,900
– Feb/08 @ $920,600 (153% increase 73 months – 100% with inflation)
Prices start dropping after Feb 08… it’s supposed to end here, right? Wrong. The government steps in with super low interest rates and prevents the normal cycle from happening. So what ends up happening?
- Feb/12 @ $1,235,200 (239% increase in 121 months – 177% with inflation)
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:29 pm 117
@b5baxter: “Pollution is going down not up”
Probably due to worse weather. ie, more rain and wind.
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:38 pm 118
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/05/tepid-numbers-spur-call-to-cash-out-of-housing-market/
Tepid sales numbers spur call to cash out of housing market
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:42 pm 119
@Makaya: True. However, regardless of whether transit should be run for profit, or heavily subsidize or whatever, if we don’t pay back the construction debt and simply paying the ongoing interest, then that debt will act as a constraint on transit funding and any maintenance and expansion. As we keep piling on more debt onto Translink to pay for the various skytrain lines that are run at a loss/operational breakeven, and use taxes to offset the losses and interest, we will eventually hit a wall, just like those PIIGS country. Especially when we are piling on debt when interest rate is so low.
Higher population density and ridership would help with the funding and profit/loss issue as the line, even without subsidies, could potentially pay for itself or at least require less taxpayer money to support the debt.
If you look at Expo, Millenium, and Canada line, it’s really only Expo and Canada Line that are heavily used, though gave away any potential profit on Canada Line to a private operator while we are stuck with a huge maintenance bill at the end of the 20 year contract with no current reserve being set aside for that. The millenium line ridership is fairly low and will likely remain that way for a long while. Spending another $2B to build to Coquitlam is only going to make translink’s fund problems even worse. A well planned and built route to UBC I think is probably a better bang for the buck and it would have quite high ridership, shorten ride time for people from Richmond/Burnaby, potentially ease congestion on Broadway, and even make profit that would pay for at least some of the line’s construction cost. I think for Coquitlam, Surrey with low population density/ridership, express bus might be a better short & medium term approach.
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July 5th, 2012 at 3:51 pm 120
@ shiller
I agree with you regarding F’s intent, but I have a feeling it’s not going to play out that way. It is too late to protect Ontario. Remember Greenspan wanted to be careful with the US house o’ cards back in 2004-06 by raising interest rates just 25 bps at a time and then Bernanke stopped it when he saw the first cracks develop in the housing market in 2006. However, once the decline got going, it took a hell of a lot of stimulus, rate cuts, etc, just to stabilize a 40% national decline.
I suspect in the end the Canadian housing bust will play out badly everywhere…including some surprising places. If you follow the path between blow-ups in the Vancouver / Toronto condo markets…to losses at lenders and shadow banks … to restrictions in credit availability … to reduced economic activity … to reduced taxes … to government cutbacks (I’m just really paging through old US developments, here)… then you may find we get big real estate blow ups in some surprising places. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the places things turn out the worst is in Quebec … which if you strip out federal subsidies has an underlying economy that might look a lot like Greece. BC will also be a gong show, but Toronto and southern Ontario have a fairly high concentration of FIRE sector jobs (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) and so they should be vulnerable too.
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July 5th, 2012 at 4:01 pm 121
@Patiently Waiting: I don’t doubt it…heck even non-rush hour the traffic isn’t great. However what I’m saying is that the population level (ie. absolute amount of people who would use the new line) is high enough to justify the estimate construction cost which currently at $2B might be under-estimated as well, and also the operating cost.
Also, building the skyline wouldn’t change the fact that people who don’t live in high density buildings close to the stations will still need to drive and still cause congestions on the local roads there. It will help reduce congestion but probably not that much if there is no convenient local transit network to feed into skytrain.
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July 5th, 2012 at 4:16 pm 122
@ScubaSteve:
I’ll preface this with that I do believe a large correction is coming. But I want to add a bit of caution as a professional number cruncher.
One of the problems that I have with numbers, number like these, is what is the sampling population that give you these stats. Do they include West Van? If you were to break this down by West Van, N Van, Van West etc how does this break down. It’s one thing if W Van does this because the rich just get richer, but what about neighborhoods that in 1980 would be considered a middle class income family neighborhood. And what about displaced neighborhoods, ones that once were affordable but then got overrun.
I want to give an example. I live in BC but I was born in a small town called Redmond. My parents built their home for $100k including a lake view lot for $10k. This is in 1980. Around the same time two college dropouts formed a computer company, who’s headquarters is now a few miles from my parents home.
What I’m trying to convey is there are instances where an ecosystem changes in a natural fashion, like my example of a large corporation coming into town. Had Microsoft been based in another state my parents home, while in a nice neighborhood, would be worth considerably less then over the million it is worth today. There are undoubtably many instances in Vancouver where the money flowing in is natural, it’s a beautiful city, there are some large companies, natural resource companies, and people who feed of those employees. There is a lot of natural wealth. Where things become unnatural is the inclusion of speculation and lax lending standards.
I’m sure there are events in those last three bubbles that were a natural part of the process since each bottom is still substantially higher then the start (Boom #2 is still a roughly 14% increase year over year after the burst). Where things go sour, like they did in the US, is where the bubble is fuelled by the bubble. Money is being lent against money lent. That is when you get a correction back to where you started. I don’t think we are going back to Jan/02 @ $363,900 in all neighborhood, but in some it could happen.
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July 5th, 2012 at 4:21 pm 123
Regarding traffic, the topic of the day apparently, I went for a 3pm walk this afternoon. Georgia street was backed up southbound as far as my eyes could see standing on Burrard street.
That street seems to be clogged much of the day, one direction or the other. It’s insane that people going from one end of the lower mainland to the other have to drive on local roads much of the time.
I find traffic on the weekends is worse than rush hour because the rush hour parking rules and left turn rules are not in effect, which can turn a 3 lane road into a one lane road.
People just don’t want to leave their neighbourhoods any more. Mission accomplished green team.
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July 5th, 2012 at 4:24 pm 124
@Mick Murphy: “People just don’t want to leave their neighbourhoods any more. Mission accomplished green team.”
And I don’t really have a problem with that, if that’s the way people want it, except for the fact that provincial, municipal, and regional (translink) tax dollars seem to be funnelled to a few neighbourhoods. Which is simply unfair.
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July 5th, 2012 at 4:50 pm 125
New Listings 339
Back On Market Listings 51
Price Changes 228
Sold Listings 148
AS of 4:49pm ALL LOWER MAINLAND
Sorry guys I have hockey soon so I’ll post end of day stats later tonight
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:03 pm 126
ScubaSteve says
“Prices start dropping after Feb 08… it’s supposed to end here, right? Wrong. The government steps in with super low interest rates and prevents the normal cycle from happening. So what ends up happening?”
Actually, the normal cycle happened exactly on schedule. Homes and land are commodities as is our economy very reliant upon their export. All you need to track is the 30 year commodity cycle to understand our property prices. http://i.imgur.com/aSNjA.png The blue line is now down around 500 and will continue falling to 400 or lower before stabilising. Of course property prices always lag due to illiquidity, but will continue falling 50% or more from peak like the 80s.
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:05 pm 127
The “index price” bs is ridiculous.
Here’s a clear sign of a falling market. 3270 W. 5th Ave, V958606, prime Kits location, two bedroom basement suite, larger than normal frontage. List was 1.55 million, sold under for 1.505.
First, last year that house would have been 1.7 and easily sold for that price.
Second, the vendors (properly) priced it competitively and it STILL went for under.
That’s the new benchmark in that area.
1.3 by next year.
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:21 pm 128
@shriller:
“As for entitlement, it’s probably a fine word for economists.”
Not at all, it has no relevance to economic or financial theory.
IMHO the gang from Sauder is using it to provoke an emotional response against those looking at the RE bubble in objective terms, rather than engaging in any objective economic or financial analysis themselves. It’s just a variation on “permabear” and other ad hominem labels.
Economists do use the term “entitlement program”, but it means a social program that the government has decided to make available to everyone. It doesn’t mean that the users have some moral right to it, i.e. entitlement in the usual sense.
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:37 pm 129
New Listings 281
Price Changes 184
Sold Listings 112
TI:18972
http://www.laurenandpaul.ca
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:38 pm 130
Well this is a surprise! A bearish, and rather anti-real estate industry article posted this afternoon in the …..Vancouver Sun! Essentially, don’t get sucked in by the “buyer’s market” nonsense….wait for prices to drop.
I had to read it twice to ensure I wasn’t losing my mind.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/buyer+market+wishful+thinking/6889931/story.html
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:46 pm 131
@Re-diculous:
Sun: “A buyer’s market is loosely defined as a market condition in which supply exceeds demand.”
So loosely that it is never used in microeconomics. Supply always equals demand at the market price.
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July 5th, 2012 at 5:56 pm 132
so 121 is the sales rush before 9 july
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:05 pm 133
@Anonymous: …..“Getting rid of your car and buming rides off your buddies isn’t a legitimate solution to anything.”
It’s a great solution. I wish more people would do this. Way too many cars around, usually large ones with just 1 person in them.
…..
Except that after a while, buddies don’t appreciate freeloaders. Finding it difficult to get in touch with your buddies recently?
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:24 pm 134
Sales coming in higher than expected in July so far. We normally see 15% or so less sales in July than June; so far we are matching June’s pace. But, we’re only three days in . . .
See y’all at the BIG 19K Party, Part II here tomorrow!! (Just a warm up for the 20K party later this month, we hope!)
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:28 pm 135
Another Kits house under a million hits the market.
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11854923&PidKey=-339589804
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:34 pm 136
Freakonomics Asks: Does your real estate agent have your best interest in mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jO_w6f8Ck
Wonder what Keith Roy got for his place…
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July 5th, 2012 at 6:44 pm 137
“I’m a REALTOR…”
I’m a REALTOR. You don’t understand, I NEED this commission.
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July 5th, 2012 at 7:55 pm 138
Best place on meth Says:
July 5th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
If you’re renting from an amateur landlord you’re more likely to have a lease and be at the mercy of the amateur landlord who can sell at any time or evict you for “personal use”.
The lesson here is: don’t rent from amateur landlords.
A lease is binding even if the owner sells –you cannot be evicted unless you screw up–many web sites cover all aspects of tenancy law—read more here
http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/00_02078_01
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:02 pm 139
That kitsilano house has been reduced twice now to get under a million
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:06 pm 140
And Omni news is again going on forever about real estate, looks bearish, can’t understand a word they’re saying, not sure why I’m watching:)
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:26 pm 141
@space889: hmmm, where do I start?
Let’s give you some insider information.
Evergreen line: will never been profitable, simply not enough ridership. You would need one high rise condo tower erected every month for 20 years along the corridor to get enough ridership… ain’t gonna happen. Decision made for political reason. Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but taxpayers will have to pay the bills.
UBC line: not a bad idea, ridership will be there… half of the year! Ain’t gonna be built. Too many wealthy and influential people on the westside. You know, nimby mentality…
Canada line: great ridership success, although they screw up on the design. Procurement procedure was not “fair” (ie some people at SNC have deep connections…), which means stations are not designed to allow for easy expansion (have a look at Yaletown station to see what I mean). Will be costly to expand in the future.
I don’t want to get into a debate whether skytrain is good or not. What I can say is it costs a lot to built but operating costs are among the lowest in the industry. The technology is not bad, not perfect either. Vancouver is stuck with this technology for, well…, ever.
If it was just me, I would develop light rail (tramways) in the city, but that’s way too controversial today and Vancouver is not mature for that… yet.
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:30 pm 142
@vangrl:
Re: Keith Roy
“goof…said he’s probably buying back in to the market in Sept or Oct….wtf,”
I called it yesterday — this guy is just another crapweasel looking for a commission. He doesn’t give a shit about a bubble, he doesn’t give a shit about household debt, fundamentals, cap rates, yields, credit, collapsing values, or any of the other issues facing this bloated market. He found another angle to use to get people to sell their homes and use him as their realtor. That is all it is. If he was so sure prices were crashing he wouldn’t be buying back in Sep/Oct, the very idea is absurd. Prices crashing and recovering in 2 months? Don’t think so, crapweasel.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all this stuff about him selling his house is a total lie.
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July 5th, 2012 at 8:59 pm 143
Building the seawall to UBC is the best idea I’ve heard in ages. Maybe we can also tear down those big ugly houses that loom over the Point Grey beaches. Vancouver waterfront for the masses. I like it.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/07/05/bc-vancouver-seawall.html
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:11 pm 144
@Dr. Nick Riviera:
Lets try and not become cynical twisted worms on this blog.
The guy says he sold, we will take him at his word, he told everyone to get out and sell coz the market is toast. That doesn’t sound like the kind of message that generates lots of eager sellers wanting top dollar.
Lets give him the benefit of the doubt.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:42 pm 145
@Dr. Nick Riviera: “I wouldn’t be surprised if all this stuff about him selling his house is a total lie.”
Who really cares? As long as he is telling it like it is ie the market is correcting that is all I care about. I could care less if he sold his house or not. I doubt he would lie as his realtor buddies could expose him pretty easily. If he is just trying to get listings out of fear that is fine by me too. Hopefully more realtors do the same. We need more fear out there. If he does get some listings that gets us to 20K a little quicker.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:51 pm 146
I think Garth is finally right…
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:53 pm 147
Today we went a bit off topic but I would not blame anyone. This is the reality, this is the place we live. It is not only the high prices but there are other things and problems that you all mentioned, part of our life that we have to deal with. It is good sometimes to give your opinion on different topics. Above all though as we started today : Sales plunge to 10 year low… and counting. TGIF.
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July 5th, 2012 at 9:53 pm 148
http://www.donrcampbell.com/commentary-on-the-vancouverbc-real-estate-market-video
haw haw haw
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:16 pm 149
But pry through the pocketbooks and bank accounts of the average Canadian and the country looks remarkably like the America of 2005—or even worse by some measures—complete with record house prices and unprecedented debt.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/28/youre-about-to-get-burned/
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:26 pm 150
Long time listener, first time caller – just sold the last of my 3rd consecutive properties in Vancouver – 1 BR Condo, 2 BR condo, and 4 Br detached (North Van, Burnaby, East Van respectively). Very happy to be out of the market now. The money I make off interest pays the rent for my family of 4! Let alone the drop that’s just beginning..
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:40 pm 151
@Dan:
“the little sub-million house red dots on MLS look like soldiers coming in from the East side. Can’t wait until more breach the Cambie line and make it deep into Westside territory.”
You, or somebody, should take daily snapshots of the sub-million house red dots and put together a little animation in a month or two that shows the RED SURGE attacking the westside territory.
That’d graphic would speak wonders, and even the usual naysayers would have problems speaking their usual BS past it.
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:47 pm 152
Copied from PaulB’s number. Thank you PaulB.
http://www.laurenandpaul.ca
Date List Price+- Sold Xpired Inv+- Inv S/L(%) 12.06.29 244 166 67 100 77 19630 27 12.07.03 304 188 116 1000 -812 18818 38 12.07.04 324 145 165 83 76 18894 51 12.07.05 281 184 112 91 78 18972 40 Total-Cur 909 517 393 1174 -658 July-Avg 303 172 131 391 -219 43 List Price+- Sold Xpired Inv+- Inv S/L(%)Like or Dislike:
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July 5th, 2012 at 10:59 pm 153
@VHB: “Sales coming in higher than expected in July so far. We normally see 15% or so less sales in July than June; so far we are matching June’s pace. But, we’re only three days in . . .”
I know what you mean, but I’d say sales are coming in lower than expected considering the rule change deadline this weekend. Get ready for some serious crickets next week!
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