data, Holiday, hype, supply

Hypey Valentines Day!

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A few random tidbits today:

First off we’re right up around 15,000 listings for sale and we’re not even half way through the month. According to numbers from inventory we’re at 15,007 but Paulb’s numbers show 14,993.

So today will either be a record breaking sales day or we’ll get nudged over the 15k mark no matter how you count it.

If you’re the sort that just can’t wait, VHB is hosting a 15k party over at the Vancouver Peak now.

In other news earlier this week the question was “hey, isn’t that supposed foreign buyer on the evening news a local condo marketing employee?”

Turns out the answer is yes, according to Village Whisperer.

Over on the MAC Marketing Facebook page a CBC reporter is asking for clarification on this issue.

Matthew Black I was the CBC reporter on this story and feel some clarification is in order:

*Can you confirm that Amanda is the employee you refer to in the post above?
*Is Chris Lee (from the TV pieces) actually Amanda Lee’s sister?
*Is Chris Lee a genuine prospective buyer from China, or, is she also a MAC employee?

I trust you still have my contact information…

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Aleksey
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Soon at your local RE agency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0

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5 years 7 months ago
Aleksey
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BTW taglines for that movie: “Lie. Cheat. Steal. All In A Day’s Work.”

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5 years 7 months ago
Waiting to exhale
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I have been following the MAC marketing solutions story the past couple of days without having a chance to see the actual video “news” reports. When I saw the CTV version I almost fell out of my couch. I know Amanda Lee. More accurately I knew her from about 8 years ago. She is from Taiwan not China!!! The CTV story clearly stated that Chris Lee was waiting for her parents from China and that she came to Canada two years ago. Based on her accent I do believe Chris is from China but not Amanda. The BS in this fiasco is getting better and better. I doubt they are actually sisters. On the other hand, I guess they could be sisters from a different mother/father. But I highly doubt it. But honestly, how hard is it to find a… Read more »
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5 years 7 months ago
gokou3
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Re #3, Yes, based on my observation of Amanda’s FB profile, I would say Amanda is a Taiwanese based on the pages that she “likes” on FB. Also, from her photos (no longer publicly viewable), I learned that she’s recently married. Yet, in her approx. 10 wedding photos I don’t see her sister “Chris Lee” in them at all. Beside, you can all see from the CTV crap that Amanda and Chris don’t look like each other at all and have different accent. Before you guys criticize me for going through her FB profile and that kinda BS, think about what MAC has attempted to do to the gullible public. They perpetuated a grand scheme of tricking people into the urge of quickly committing large amount of debts into purchasing an asset that’s falling in value each and everyday. Not… Read more »
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5 years 7 months ago
oneangryslav2
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“I doubt they are actually sisters.”

That’s exactly what I thought from the still photograph in the CTV piece. I then asked my spouse–a self-proclaimed expert in this type of thing–if she thought the two were sisters and she said ‘no way!’

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5 years 7 months ago
oneangryslav2
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“If the MAC people are stock market participants instead of RE market sales, they would have long been prosecuted for securities fraud.”

Agreed. I think it’s about time for some good-ole political activism and a push to get our elected officials to produce legislation which would make it illegal–large fines and jail time–to do many of the unethical things that are currently being done in the real estate biz. A quick example is the Toronto condo king Lamb (can’t remember his first name) who publishes flyers promising ROIs in the hundreds of percent.

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5 years 7 months ago
patriotz
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Seniors piling on debt faster than other groups
Top comment:

I’d be interested to see how much of this additional debt is accrued by helping out their children and or grandchildren who may not have had as easy a go as they may have liked.

Like “helping” them buy a house maybe?

Remember that if the average senior household debt is $47K, some households must be much higher.

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5 years 7 months ago
vangrl
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ugh, it infuriates me re-watching those videos knowing what I know now.

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/year-of-the-snake-nets-condo-sales-developers-1.1150505

Matthew Black the reporter from CBC better follow up on this.

He should include this scam as well:
http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainforest.blogspot.ca/2012/04/mon-post-2-more-on-latest-cam.html

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5 years 7 months ago
Peter
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Is there a link to the CTV footage?

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5 years 7 months ago
Many Franks
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Uh oh — just when you thought this couldn’t get any worse, it looks like the Hot African Money may dry up.

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5 years 7 months ago
vangrl
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um ya Peter, that would be the post immediately above your post

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5 years 7 months ago
taylor192
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#7 patriotz

Seniors also represent the highest income group in Canada, so it would have been nice if they had broken down why seniors increased their debt load. Was it CCs? LOCs? mortgages? cars? …

The last paragraph paints a bleak picture. 1/3 of seniors have debt, so the average excluding those without debt is 3x$47K.

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5 years 7 months ago
JB
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Well what we need now is a strong influx of immigration to BC, because soon we will all be so poor that we won´t be able to afford a house. I suggest we can invite more Chinese with their money, because in China, it is almost obligatory for a guy to have a place to live before he gets married! Or we should implement this tradition in Canada and force young men to take a mortgage.

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5 years 7 months ago
Chuckles
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Is there an official channel we can all email to demand a public story retraction? This story has overstepped the line and is now into pure fiction. There should be a televised apology.

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5 years 7 months ago
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Search Amanda Lee on Google. Pay attention to the first search result.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=amanda+lee+linkedin+mac&oq=amanda+lee+linkedin+mac&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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5 years 7 months ago
Anonymous
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You guys are bordering on chargeable harassment.

Drop it.

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5 years 7 months ago
Democrass
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“You guys are bordering on chargeable harassment”

Not even close. Don’t try to shut down discussion about the RE industry’s fraud with ill-informed intimidation.

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5 years 7 months ago
VHB
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Public MLS on realtylink.org shows +43 VW SFH since yesterday. Nice. Now at 843. Last year at this time–785. We didn’t hit 843 until mid-April last year. And last year wasn’t exactly a good year. We have a shot at hitting 1000 by end of March. March. What the heck is that going to look like by July? The only way to clear inventory of that size is for people to start buying. How can that happen? a) people get more income. Not going to happen fast enough. b) HAM helicopters arrive. Anyone got Amanda Lee’s number? She needs to find about 1000 friends. c) interest rates go down and make debt more affordable. No. d) banks loosen credit; OSFI etc. loosen rules. e) prices start dropping faster than anyone though possible. Of these, I think (d) and (e) are… Read more »
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5 years 7 months ago
truther
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lol, it’s HIL-AR-I-OUS listening to all of your consipracy theories and whacked out bizarre ideas. truly this is tin foil hat center.

oohh, the media is all against you! people are deleting their profiles! oooh! the truth is out there! oooh scary stuff! better go all dorner. get real.

no one cares what a bunch of paranoid nerds on blogs think about anything.

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5 years 7 months ago
gokou3
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“You guys are bordering on chargeable harassment.”

You mean, the MAC marketing guys et al who constantly harass me with mis-information during TV news hours?

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5 years 7 months ago
/dev/null
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Perhaps it’s discourteous to Mr. Black, since he seems to be following up with the new details of the story, but this latest episode of the VanRE drama reminds me of nothing if not this:

Reporters are faced with the daily choice of painstakingly researching stories or writing whatever people tell them. Both approaches pay the same.

-Scott Adams (The Dilbert Principle)

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5 years 7 months ago
4444 4444 4444 4444
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Realty radio infomercial on now.

The totally unbiased Bill has a guest who is also a Totally unbiased expert.

Bridge for sale.
Buy now before it’s too late

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5 years 7 months ago
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Google cache about Amanda Lee who showed on the CTV.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jES8To_vgssJ:ca.linkedin.com/pub/amanda-lee/43/27a/81+%22amanda+lee%22+mac+linkedin&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=caa

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5 years 7 months ago
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I just learned something new: Price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios are not relevant to the housing market.

Housing-crash prophets should check their numbers again

Some people are predicting a crash in the Canadian housing market because price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios have gone up a lot. But these ratios omit mortgage rates, a key determinant of prices. A better guide, in my view, is the housing affordability index published by Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investor-community/trading-shots/housing-crash-prophets-should-check-their-numbers-again/article8611843/

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5 years 7 months ago
ArthurFonzarelli
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Chuckles – a lot of people have been talking about using the CRTC to complain but I suspect that’s a lengthy and fruitless avenue. The BPCPA (Consumer Protection BC) – http://www.consumerprotectionbc.ca/about-us – is probably a better avenue. If you’re drafting a letter though I’d send to both. I suspect that if a group of individuals who are considering purchasing real estate at some point – i.e. most people on this forum presumably – were to write to the BPCPA about this and various other borderline illegal tactics – such as paying people to stand in condo lines, falsifying statistics, misleading consumers regarding potential financial gains, etc., that they might do an omnibus review/investigation into not just the MAC case but the overall RE marketing system. As a consumer you are afforded rights to factual information about the products and services… Read more »
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