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FFFA! Late breaking edition!

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Whoa! Is it Friday already?

We almost forgot.

But if it’s Friday, that means it’s time for our Friday Free-for-all!

This is our regular end of the week news roundup and open topic discussion thread for the weekend.  Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–CMHC to increase insurance premiums
–A little math
–Housing and debt, don’t worry!
–Boom expected to cool, crash
–Statscan rearview: RE makes us richer
–Inflation rises in January
–Party over for high end housing?
–Canadian dream a ‘myth’
–

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

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Egg Hunt
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As for foreign students in Canada,
I believe parents get companion Visa, or some sort.
They are not able to work, nor study.
(not allowed to do volunteer work which is one of the
local Canadians’ job steps)

With over $10K tuition public shcools charges / year,
they pay big fees to the school agents who bring in
foreign students.

I heard sometime in early 2000’s, like
a few thousand dollar commission, my associate agent
admit schoolbord making this as business and
agents are very motivated.

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4 years 11 months ago
Best place on meth
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Wow, what an earth shattering announcement from CMHC.

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4 years 11 months ago
drugwelfaredependant
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BPOM, it’s Welfare week in Canada… maybe wait another week for the hangover or crack head-ache to ease off.

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4 years 11 months ago
taylor192
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The Statscan article is a bit deceptive without considering demographics. Demographics are skewed due to boomers, as there are more 50-60yos than 40-50yos, or 30-40yos or 20-30yos.

Older people tend to have more wealth and less debt. This will skew the averages.

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4 years 11 months ago
UBC in crisis mode
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Delusional listing: new on the market,
4041 W. 13TH AVE, VANCOUVER

Assessed: $3,650,000

Asking for $5,190,000

http://www.realtylink.org/prop_search/Detail.cfm?MLS=V1048429&REBoards=All&From=MLS

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4 years 11 months ago
No Noise
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@114 Rainmaker (previous discussion topic)

Perhaps some posts re Canadian banks facilitating dirty Chinese $ coming into Canada are being voted down because they support the HAM theory of high Van RE which some dont want to believe? To me, even if it is only a small factor at worst, it’s wrong and it hurts middle-class Canadian families and the future of their kids. Shouldn’t the Government of Canada be protecting its citizens from having to compete with dirty foreign money? Its the massive lower-classes in China that this money should be going to anyway and that’s why China has the law (although how many non-corrupt lawmakers support it in China?). There’s been a ton of concrete examples of this issue on this blog over the years. When is the Canadian Govt finally going to do something about it?

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4 years 11 months ago
M-
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@ UBC #5: What an utter monstrosity of a house.

Personal tastes aside, why would the owner of a 5,000 sq.ft $5.2M house want a 672 sq.ft laneway house?

Another note: the developer job did a terrible job of hiding the sump-covers in the front yard.

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4 years 11 months ago
franko
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Warning: Off topic, even for a Friday.

Was puzzled for a while when the DOW dropped over 150 points today in about an hour until I heard about Putin sending troops into Crimea.

I expected this to be all over the news channels, but they were too busy speculating about the Oscars. Finally found a brief comment on CNN by some young babe warning us not to jump to conclusions as it had not been confirmed that the troops were actually Russian. This after reports on the net that airports had been taken over, military helicopters were seen flying across the border from the east, and armoured personnel carriers were rolling along roads.

Hello? who the fuck did she think they could be? Martians?

Just another indication that Putin is a Stalin wannabe.
The little prick should be stopped before it’s too late.

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4 years 11 months ago
Son of Ponzi
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# 8
not off topic at all.
Any armed action in this region could be the black swan event that could seriously affect financial markets world wide.
And as we have seen in 2008, global financial uncertainty leads to a downturn in local RE.

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4 years 11 months ago
space889
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Nobody is going to war over this. Putin don’t want a war, US don’t want a war, and MATO can’t fight a war with its atrophied army.

This will eventually get resolved via some compromise that wouldn’t be at all in Ukraine’s favor and all those protestors will find out that they protest for naught.

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4 years 11 months ago
crikey
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On a recent thread somebody said that reporting illegal rental suite income would be pointless because in many cases the owners are losing money. I would suggest that amidst the constant hoopla and cheerleading from the real-estate-controlled media, a lot of owners actually don’t realize the extent to which they are losing money on a real estate “investment”. They’re too busy feeling smug because e.g., the teevee cheerfully said again tonight that “we’re different” and that housing is flat for the next few years! (read: the best case scenario is that we’re in for a 2% annual decline in value in perpetuity, which is a 4%-5% decline when you factor in inflation!). Anyways, my point is, every time an illegal suite is audited the owner is forced to actually look at the numbers, and ignore the hallucinogenic teevee reports. This… Read more »
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4 years 11 months ago
Melba
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…..why would the owner of a 5,000 sq.ft $5.2M house want a 672 sq.ft laneway house? ……

Because it can be rented out for $10k per month ($15k if it’s furnished). Didn’t you notice: rich people from all over the world want to come to Vancouver to live in laneway houses. Small is the new big! I know that’s true because a professional Realturd told me just last week. :0=

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4 years 11 months ago
paulb
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New Listings 187
Price Changes 67
Sold Listings 100
TI:14392

For weekly sales intel on a specific neighbourhood/city email me and I will add you to my Friday list. I send this info to a lot of VCI members and it’s no problem. http://www.paulboenisch.com

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4 years 11 months ago
tedeastside
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the Canadian dream must be a government job or flipping houses or scamming disability, Canada (especially vancouver)just attracts the dregs of the world.

would John Elway be a Star Quarterback if he was from Vancouver instead of Seattle…..would Bill Gates have started Microsoft if he was from Vancouver instead of Seattle….not a chance!!!!

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4 years 11 months ago
YVR
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@14 “would John Elway be a Star Quarterback if he was from Vancouver instead of Seattle…..would Bill Gates have started Microsoft if he was from Vancouver instead of Seattle….not a chance!!!!”

Being from the Vancouver area didn’t seem to stop Steve Nash or Jimmy Pattison from succeeding. Tedeastside do you ever think just maybe it is not Vancouver that is holding you back from success?

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4 years 11 months ago
Best place on meth
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tedeastside, there are a lot of places I’d rather be than Vancouver but come on man – you make it sound like we’re in Beijing for gods sakes.

Lighten up a bit.

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4 years 11 months ago
crabman
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That Lampier guy is pretty clueless. As long as we have jobs (which are dependent on the housing boom continuing) and high net worth (which depends on high house prices) then the debt being used to fuel that boom is, like, totally sustainable as long as interest rates remain low forever…

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4 years 11 months ago
Yunak
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…why would the owner of a 5,000 sq.ft $5.2M house want a 672 sq.ft laneway house?

To shovel parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts in it so they can all enjoy Canadian low income assistance, medical and other benefits that Canadian taxpayer has to offer to locusts.

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4 years 11 months ago
Best place on meth
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Hilariously enough, Global reported on the CMHC story and in the process referred to “Vancouver’s overheated real estate market”.

In reality we just completed the 32nd straight month that failed to reach 3000 sales, a number that used to occur with regular frequency.

In other news, North Korean state media reported a record rice harvest this season.

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4 years 11 months ago
mac
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Where are the listings?

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4 years 11 months ago
patriotz
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@6: “Shouldn’t the Government of Canada be protecting its citizens from having to compete with dirty foreign money?”

For every buyer using dirty foreign money there are hundreds using easy borrowed money courtesy of the federal government. That’s what responsible buyers need protection from.

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4 years 11 months ago
patriotz
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@11: “Looks like the Bears were expecting a touchdown goal, but instead just got a field goal..”

There is no such thing as “the Bears”, just individual bears with varying views. Just go back to the previous thread to see what they were expecting.

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4 years 11 months ago
patriotz
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@10: “Putin don’t want a war, US don’t want a war, and MATO can’t fight a war with its atrophied army” (sic)

It’s Russia that has the atrophied army. They can’t even secure their own territory in the North Caucasus. There’s a reason why they pick fights with small and weak neighbours. They’d be hard pressed to take on the likes of Turkey or Poland, never mind the major NATO powers.

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4 years 11 months ago
Johnny-boy
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Typical Ottawa BS. This tiny tinkering of the CMHC even has a two month lead time, so that the mortgage brokers can panic some more losers into buying and building more liability for the tax-payer.

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4 years 11 months ago
crikey
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Some food for thought for the resident habitual trolls:
A new study out of Manitoba claims that internet trolls are often “not particularly mentally healthy individuals in real life”.

“Internet trolls fell into the so called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others).”
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/study-shockingly-suggests-internet-trolls

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4 years 11 months ago