Hypey Valentines Day!

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

3 years 7 months ago

Soon at your local RE agency

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

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Aleksey

3 years 7 months ago

BTW taglines for that movie: “Lie. Cheat. Steal. All In A Day’s Work.”

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Waiting to exhale

3 years 7 months ago

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… Read more »

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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

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… Read more »

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oneangryslav2

3 years 7 months ago

“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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oneangryslav2

3 years 7 months ago

“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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Member

patriotz

3 years 7 months ago

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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Member

vangrl

3 years 7 months ago

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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Peter

3 years 7 months ago

Is there a link to the CTV footage?

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Many Franks

3 years 7 months ago

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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vangrl

3 years 7 months ago

um ya Peter, that would be the post immediately above your post

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Member

taylor192

3 years 7 months ago

#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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Guest

3 years 7 months ago

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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Chuckles

3 years 7 months ago

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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good-format

3 years 7 months ago

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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Anonymous

3 years 7 months ago

You guys are bordering on chargeable harassment.

Drop it.

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Democrass

3 years 7 months ago

“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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Member

VHB

3 years 7 months ago

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… Read more »

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truther

3 years 7 months ago

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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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

“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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Member

/dev/null

3 years 7 months ago

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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4444 4444 4444 4444

3 years 7 months ago

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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good-format

3 years 7 months ago

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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Member

/dev/null

3 years 7 months ago

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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ArthurFonzarelli

3 years 7 months ago

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… Read more »

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Member

b5baxter

3 years 7 months ago

Finally some good news for the BC Film Industry!!!!

MAC Marketing Solutions is creating jobs for actors!

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Member

mac

3 years 7 months ago

I saw this in the comments section of Garth’s blog by pathcontrolmonk. It’s hysterical: A recent story from a friend trying to sell his house in East Van: “My wife noticed another house for sale in our neighbourhood that is basically the same 1970s design as ours, same size lot, but has done extensive renovations. We called to ask the price and found out it is about $200k lower than our asking price. We asked the realtor for his opinion and he said, “One they don’t have a south-facing lot, and Two they probably have some financial issues forcing them… Read more »

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good-format

3 years 7 months ago

Just wrote an email to my MP to complaint about Mac Marketing.

You can find your using the following link:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC

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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

RE ArthurFonzarelli #25,

Ya, a grassroot campaign would be productive. Does someone have a list of condo marketers (i.e. competitors of MAC Marketing)? I can also think of Rennie, but not much else.

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Chabar

3 years 7 months ago

Cartel must be be behind this shit:

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Chinese+singer+songwriter+Wanting+Vancouver+tourism+ambassador/7965085/story.html

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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

The number of hilarious comments on MAC’s FB are exploding:
http://www.facebook.com/MacMarketingSolutions

Don’t you guys want to one-up those comments? 😉

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Short'em High

3 years 7 months ago

dev/null re: RBC’s last drops of blood from a corpse index… One commenter on the G&M story summed up the purpose of the so called RBC affordability index quite nicely. ReMaxed – Out says: …RBC or any of the other financial institutions. They are on a mission to drain every last cent that they can from this overbought Canadian real estate industry. With a reported, and historic, 70% ownership nationwide, record high household debt levels and historic low interest rates, the banks are clearly not acting in the best interest of Canadians. As a shareholder in Royal Bank, Toronto-Dominion, Bank… Read more »

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vangrl

3 years 7 months ago

easy enough to post that “whispers from the edge” link on CBC’s and CTV’s facebook page….no harm in that?

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Many Franks

3 years 7 months ago

Aaand first out of the gate is The Province!
http://www.theprovince.com/Local+real+estate+firm+admits+faking+investor+news/7965588/story.html

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RaggedyRenter

3 years 7 months ago

/dev/null
“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

===========================

Well it’s not really surprising. Most buyers are Joe and Jane Howmuchamonth, following the teachings of Prophet Dave Affordability.
Problem is they are running out of new converts.

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Best place on meth

3 years 7 months ago

Happy Valentines Day to MAC Marketing.

I just LOVE your fake Chinese buyers!

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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

Re #34 MF:

“Multiple calls to Mac Marketing Solutions Thursday morning have yet to be returned.”

If someone called them and say he wants to buy 10 Madoff — i mean Maddox — condos, I am sure they will pick up the phone. THEN he makes the inquiry about Amanda. 🙂

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Not much of a name...

3 years 7 months ago

@gokou3

If someone called them and say he wants to buy 10 Madoff — i mean Maddox — condos, I am sure they will pick up the phone. THEN he makes the inquiry about Amanda.

But, that would be decepti…oh wait, nevermind…

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Makaya

3 years 7 months ago

For the record, it’s not the first time that MAC is pin pointed by the Bear community… Remember back in October last year… CAMERON McNEILL: “Whenever the market goes near the top part of the cycle we always do hear pessimistic economists talking about bubble, et cetera. But the reality is that the fundamentals that are driving the market below the surface are just too strong for any sort of bubble circumstance to happen.” (…) CAMERON McNEILL: “In Yaletown, one of the boroughs within downtown Vancouver over my shoulder here, just 10 years ago you wouldn’t see a baby carriage.… Read more »

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Not much of a name...

3 years 7 months ago

Wasn’t there another CTV “news” piece a while ago that a real estate investor was featured in the story who also worked for the featured marketing firm?

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Bull! Bull! Bull!

3 years 7 months ago

Congratulations bears! After 8 years you’ve managed make some small impact in the real word!

Your years of hard work have paid off!

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HFHC

3 years 7 months ago

New Listings 125
Back On Market Listings 0
Price Changes 49
Sold Listings 95

as of 12:15pm

ALL LOWER MAINLAND

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VanRant

3 years 7 months ago

Re: #34 Many Franks

Why did the article appear in the entertainment rather than the news section? I am not entertained.

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Many Franks

3 years 7 months ago

@VanRant: Are you kidding? I’m totally entertained; this is the best show I’ve seen in a while. The problem was the original bit being categorized as news.

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yvr2zrh

3 years 7 months ago

Now that MAC has been called out (and I did call them and the system completely disconnected me . . ) . . . one thought I did have is that, in VAncouver, although we all have our views on the business or real estate/ the prices/ the likelihood of long term large price declined – – I could not help but think that someone like Rennie would never be dumb enough to do something like this. . . . Not that they would not think of it – but you have to be completely stupid to try to pull… Read more »

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Bag it and tag it

3 years 7 months ago

Cam Good was a former top salesman for MAC, in case you’re wondering where he learned the tricks of the trade.

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Short'em High

3 years 7 months ago

@HFHC Says:Back On Market Listings 0 Sold Listings 95 As already pointed out in yesterday’s thread, this WILL BE the next big revelation for the unwashed masses. Attention sellers withdrawing your listing: Your realtor is permanently unloading their real estate interest on the dwindling pool of suckers. They are cashing out their home equity for top dollar while yours dwindles and goes underwater. So, I ask again, what percentage by client representation of practicing realtors themselves have a position in real estate? Answer this question generally, and specifically to your own representation, and the daily numbers will take on a… Read more »

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Harry Wang

3 years 7 months ago

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/real-estate-firm-confesses-after-employees-pose-as-buyers-in-news-stories/article8688210/

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gokou3

3 years 7 months ago

Re #48:

““All I can say is that I deeply apologize for having misled the media for being there,” said Mr. McNeill”

So is this Mr. McNeill the same person as the Cameron McNeill who is the president of MAC Marketing? I am not so sure of anything anymore, after the Amanda Lee incident.

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Makaya

3 years 7 months ago

Somebody posted this thoughtful comment on the Whisperer: I would reiterate my post from last night – there are a lot of players who want to see this story die before the scratch starts getting through the surface. Its highly likely that these parties will ensure this gets blamed on some scapegoat renegade account manager, with MAC issuing apologies downplaying this to a management glitch that it regrets and will ensure is rectified….local rags will then report how quickly and responsibly MAC addressed the situation, and MAC will be restored to its ability to spend advertising dollars… Its up to… Read more »

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Vancouver Condo Info

Hypey Valentines Day!

Bubble? What Bubble?