I wonder how any reputable economist can bring out the soft landing theory, when in the history of mankind, there has never been a soft landing after a boom, ever? Wikipedia tells me so. It just boggles my mind that anybody can put this forth as a realistic scenario when apparently, it has never happened! Oh, but I guess Canada is different.

Perhaps this soft landing is akin to Wylie Coyote going over a cliff. The bumps are him bumping against the rock face as he goes down, painful by not too bad. This of cause says nothing about what happens when he reaches the ground.

I think that this is going to be the hardest landing, biggest bubble pop in history. It seems that the economist are so scared and they have so much pressure ATM. Big bubble, huge price drop on RE coming.

“Ms. Gulati noted that national prices would have climbed 3.2 per cent over the year if Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal were factored out.”

Now they need to factor out Montreal too.

Hmmmm, whenever a bubble pop, the first few steps look like a soft landing. Then it goes on and on and everyone figures out that when you keep losing altitude after you’re below sea level, the landing feels more like a crash.

But in markets where Price/Rents are still between 12 and 18 (it’s the case where I live), we’ll see P/R decrease to 8-10 and call that landing kinda soft.

“Vancouver, where sales plunged almost 29 per cent in November alone and MLS-measured prices have slipped 4.5 per cent…”

Can anyone tell me how they measure these “sales”? Is it the number of units or a dollar amount? Is the real volume drop 29% or 33.5% ? Either way it’s a lot less commish to go around for realtors, but what’s the real number here?

@N
If they could just factor out all those goals Luongo allowed 2 years ago, the Canucks would have won the Cup! Hey, you can use this factoring out thing for anything. Awesome!!

Ian looked a bit sheepish in that clip. I think even he knows that what he is saying is bull shit.

Hey wait a minute. They told me Real Estate never goes down. That means NO landing. Hard, soft or otherwise.

We all know Vancouver prices have been out of whack compared with the rest of the country. But what about the level of activity? Is there any reported measure or comparison of the number of transactions per capita in different markets? Does the 30% drop in activity mean we are suddenly slower than other cities or are we perhaps approaching a normal compared to the rest of Canada?

Regarding the story posted earlier: “Realtors blame Flaherty as slump deepens”

Flaherty should be credited by the RE industry for the volume of sales over the past few years. Smart agents have probably been storing away their nest eggs.

Might have to get used to it because It’s not just happening here either

Singapore tightens home loan rules

This is priceless. A soft landing, just like… erm… The States! Where they had (in mid-2006):

– the majority of economists expecting prices to glide to a soft landing
– falling volumes
– decelerating prices
– cooling of the overheated markets

http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/23/home-prices-sales-cx_jh_0823homes.html

I think I’ve seen this movie before.

“…..Smart agents ….”

Oxymoron.

My definition of soft landing is when prices decrease less than 10%/year (absolute). So, 5 years of 9.99% decrease (and let’s say 2.5% inflation) and you get a soft landing into which every specuvestor has been slaughtered.

Re. #21

“”…..Smart agents ….” Oxymoron.”

PaulB?

Anonymous, desperately seeking thumbs up, but unwittingly insulting some of the VIPs of this community.

Don’t you have to land first to call it a soft landing? We are at 25,000 ft heading into Las Vegas in the summer.

Re #21

Well actually rarely any agents are dumb. The dummies are the people who believe them and basing their buying/selling decisions from their words.

I agree 100% percent with the economists stating that Vancouver has achieved a soft landing – providing the world ends next week as planned.

Still waiting for that rate hike vreaa! It’s only been 3 years…

vreaa Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 9:14 am
It looks like everything is set up for a big rate hike if needed (for instance, a 1% first step), with the BOC, and all the banks, able to say that they very clearly warned everybody.

Might want to brush up on your ‘Fedspeak’ skills pricedoutfornow 😉

pricedoutfornow Says:
May 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I heard the interview with Mark Carney last week, I also read between the lines and it seems that he’s suggesting it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be able to keep interest rates so low for as long as a year.

Was housingsuperbulltime correct or not? You decide 🙂

housingsuperbulltime Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
One thing is clear and that is you cannot lose by buying a condo in downtown vancouver right now. Here’s some bull facts for you bears:

1) Interest rates at all time lows

2) Networth destruction party was defeated, leading to cautious bulls re-entering the market after getting jitters prior to the election

3) International investors from asia are back spending lots of money in Vancouver after realising that the best place on earth’s economy is largely unaffected by the “recession”

Market up day … and no trolls. Just sayin’

I upvoted Blast From The Past. There is value in checking the accuracy of everyone’s prognostications, whether bear or bull.

But, I don’t think Patriotz’ call was wrong. He said CMHC will not get reined in while we have a Conservative minority. That turned out to be correct. CMHC was reined in after getting a Conservative majority.

Yeah I like to see more blast from the past

“….management fees, strata fees, property taxes, mortgage interest, utilities, and various expenditures required to maintain one’s spot in the rental pool-new carpets, new tv etc etc….”

And don’t for get the much loved ‘Resort Fees’ which are brutal! Owners get the privilege of paying for all the Resort marketing to bring in tourists so that businesses can stay afloat (which gets tougher every day).

Yvr2zrh or someone else….curious what the selling price was for the King Ed and W Van places. Both appear to have been listed at $1.5

I really miss the reply link…I suppose it was removed for security purposes…?

patriotz in such denial. Even when the guy is flat out wrong he still can’t except it.