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FFFA! We (heart) weekends edition!

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Hey, you made it to the end of another work week, congratulations!

And here at VCI, that means it’s time for another Friday Free-for-all!

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

–Wish I never downsized to a condo
–Mortgage changes in 2014 budget
–Wealthy moving to Vancouver
–Ooops, maybe not
–Every city is just like Vancouver
–Consumer debt keeps swelling
–25 cent Crack pipe vending machine
–Next crisis not from emerging markets
–Craigslist aids crackdown on illegal suites
–

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

 

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Isis

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Vulture Fun

More fun and snark just posted at Vancouver Price Drop:

“Kenneth Chan doesn’t need a picture or a description, just announce the open house and collect your commission on the > $4 million home”

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cris

The reddit site is full of more very intelligent people, very informative, very thoughtful discussions.

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HAMpsted Caucasianfellow

Ham sighting in the wild: grand parents use McDonalds playroom as free daycare
http://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1y4ddw/unsupervised_child_left_at_a_mcdonalds_play_area/

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Snake

Here is the another idiot in PHS who make more than $60,000 a year with my taxpaying money.

just look at his qualification, he worked at A&B as a nerd (as he pointed it out in LinkedIn) he dint go to college or university just graduated High school what a fucking joke.

Stephen Weeds’s

Current
Social Housing building manager/Mental health support worker at P.H.S community services society

Past
nerd at A-B sound

Education
G.P Vanier secondary
Connections

Social Housing building manager/Mental health support worker
P.H.S community services society
May 2004 – Present (9 years 10 months)

nerd
A-B sound
December 2000 – May 2004 (3 years 6 months)

http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/stephen-weeds/6a/432/2b

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Snake

After reading the article above i think mark townsend is the guy who is smoking crack, mind you he make close to $200,000 a year plus his concubine lisa evans also make close to $200,000 a year.

His million dollar house is paid for by our tax dollars.

http://www.straight.com/news/charities-are-big-downtown-eastside-employers-generate-significant-revenues

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Snake

Forget about selling house, try selling crack pipe ,no education or experience, investment of $0.25 net you $4.75 profit.

Mark Townsend director of the PHS Community Services Society out his society and others agencies, including Vancouver Coastal Health, have distributed free crack pipes and smoking supplies for several years — and still do. But, he said, there has never been a consistent supply of clean pipes, which can sell for five dollars or more on the street.

“We had to find a way of augmenting the need, “We’re trying to make sure that there is enough [pipes] out there because there is not enough, despite peoples’ best efforts.”

http://www.vancourier.com/news/vpd-won-t-crack-down-on-vending-machines-1.846124#sthash.ru6qLn4P.dpuf

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Dumb Starbucks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBE0tqqOOIQ Canadians who overpay will go much more politely and quietly when the time comes. The honorable ones should have their neighbour bash in their head with a rock for insurance money to feed the kids. Good on them for having a plan when their mortgage resets underwater as they get that long overdue pink slip from their ultimate boss, the Fed stimulus gravy train. Those that think they earn their wages on the merit of their own skills and talent had better wake up to the reality of now. Every wage earner in Canada is a flick of a monetary switch away from being permananently unemployed. There’s also some pretty dumb theories about why houses and stocks keep going up in Canada. Get a clue. This is also the only reason why: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/visualizing-the-fed/ Put whatever market equity curve you… Read more »

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Aggregator

Bloomberg Video: Japan `Hottest' Property Market in Asia: Ludeman (Cue to 4:30 about Canada) Chris Ludeman, president of capital markets at CBRE Group Inc. The Canadian market has been so active in the last three years and while we expected a bit of a slow down, and we did see that in parts of 2013, with the uptick in their ten year treasury, that activity level seemed to have returned in Canada, and we would see that market remaining good. There are still large outflows of Canadian capital into other parts of the world, and as that currency shrinks against the US dollar, we would expect, actually, more inbound currency into Canada from other places where Canadian capital has been so competitive at keeping others out for a long long time. There you have it. Canadian homes are now on… Read more »

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Snake

Vacant Vancouver jail transforms into affordable, low-income housing

https://www.google.ca/search?q=Vacant+Vancouver+jail+transforms+into+affordable%2C+low-income+housing&oq=Vacant+Vancouver+jail+transforms+into+affordable%2C+low-income+housing&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

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UBC in crisis

On Van West, today there are about 60 open houses for $2 million + properties, among about 600 properties on MLS > $2 million dollars, is this normal (10%)?

I would think owners of these million dollar properties would not do open houses to protect their privacy. Unless due to recent changes?

Again, this is a separate market which has nothing to do with local economy, household income, etc.

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Ray

I wonder what the B21 guidelines including the 10% DPs coming in March will do to this slowing market. Time for the straight jacket and ensuing suffocation.

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Heard Herd selling

The sunny weather over Chinese New Years will have upped sales, but even with that sales are below average, I’m in thelluxury car business, and and know for a fact a lot of Chinese are not replacing maturing leases as they are headed back to the motherland, so house sales along with auto sales will slide:-)

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yvr2zrh

#74 – – your post caught me a bit off guard. Are sales really slowing that fast? So far it seems like “Yes”. This February is on pace to be the 3rd worst February in 15 years – with only 2013 and the abysmal 2009 being lower. Sale to list is not great either. Are we now finally seeing the market run out of steam? Also – We have seen some prominent people in the market specifically say that the elimination of the investor immigrant program will have an impact. Do we think that there will now be some properties listed by people who had purchased anticipating clearing the wait-list but now have had their visas cancelled? 2014 will not be great but we will have to see how it plays out with all the negative news and changes that… Read more »

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Babcock

“Canada = developed country.”

once you remove credit from the system there is not much left from the word “developed”.

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patriotz

@75:

Terry Guo is from Taiwan and Foxconn is a Taiwanese company.

It employs a lot of people in China but of course so do many other companies from more developed countries.

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tedeastside

he’s CEO of a sweatshop…..good for him

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DanS

“China has never produced a great Entrepreneur like Steve Jobs” – I suggest you check out Terry Guo, CEO of Foxconn. Jobs figured out how to make nice stuff, but his attempts of selling his stuff often failed due to pricing. It was Terry Guo who figured out how to make Apple products affordable and a to produce a huge amount of iPhones when others said it wouldn’t be possible. Very few people know of this relationship. Not even business degree holders I have met in Canada have heard of this relationship. That’s Western propaganda for you.

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BWilson

OK so December sales were 8.1% above 10-year average, January sales were 7.3% over 10 year average. Unless we see a big pick up on sales over the next 2 weeks February sales will be well below the 10 year average.

Need over 1500 sales over 10 sales days to get back to the 10-year average.

Just sayin’

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ReadyToPop

This will be a rough ride. JP Morgan’s Haibin Zhu says the shadow banking system alone has jumped from $2.4 to $7.7 trillion since 2010, and is now 84pc of GDP. To put this in perspective, the total US subprime debacle was $1.2 trillion.

World asleep as China tightens deflationary vice

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tedeastside

China has never produced a great Entrepreneur like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, maybe Canada should attract Americans, not that an American would ever waste their time in an irrelevant country like Canada

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patriotz

@69: “We need Chinese Entrepreuners who want to set up businesses with access to the US market and make high paying jobs”

But the Chinese economy is based on exporting to the US and other Western countries by exploiting low paid labour. Making high value products while paying high wages is not their modus operandi.

I don’t think you’re going to get the leopard to change his spots just by bringing him over here.

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patriotz

@62:

Keep in mind that when the Chinese are talking about the “welfare system” in Canada, they mean free or low priced government services, which China doesn’t have.

Not what we call “welfare”. I doubt many of them would be crass enough to apply for welfare as having any financial assets anywhere is enough to get you busted.

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Johnny-boy

Thank God this hare-brained investor scheme is over. We are all a few generations at most away from immigrants. Immigrants who came to work hard and build this country as do the current batch from where ever they come. But this scheme was just pure lunacy Leave $800,000 with the Feds for 5 years! What’s that? How does that help anyone. MAybe when rates were 5%, but now that they are 1%. The ‘investor’ misses out on $8000 a year. So what? Just a way for the feds to get some free money and damn the futures costs. Even those coming in as nanny’s were found to be paying more tax in the long run. We need Chinese Entrepreuners who want to set up businesses with access to the US market and make high paying jobs, not their corrupt nepotistic… Read more »

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Snake

Mystery buyer snaps up clifftop home destined to crumble into the North Sea

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560239/What-earth-thinking-Mystery-buyer-snaps-clifftop-home-destined-crumble-North-Sea.html#ixzz2tQTmbYMG

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