Its the end of another week and that means its Friday free-for-all time!
This is our regular end of the week news round up and open topic discussion thread for the weekend.
Let’s kick off the chat.
-links to come soonish
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
[…] world markets report showing Vancouver condo prices barely budging in the last five years, and now Ulsterman points out the […]
@82
I do and I’m not buying. Enjoy your white picket fence.
Car loan debt bubble at risk, some comparison to our ‘sound’ housing mortgage lending practices:
@80: “Normal working people are not the drivers of the market, the marginal (highly leveraged and/or ultra rich at the bottom and the top ends, respectively) buyers are.”
Normal working people who buy aren’t highly leveraged? You think they all have a spare half million or so?
Why do you feel threatened by other people’s point of view?
Cultural differences exist. That’s reality.
When Chinese people get together they talk about Canadians too. When Cantonese people get together they talk about mainlanders.
Stop being so butt hurt.
@79
While I agree with/appreciate the sentiment, a boycott against Maseratis or Tiffany jewelry would be about as effective. Normal working people are not the drivers of the market, the marginal (highly leveraged and/or ultra rich at the bottom and the top ends, respectively) buyers are.
Not sure what good this would do, but someone has started a “Boycott the Canadian Housing Market” petition; http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/boycott-the-canadian-housing-market “The purpose of this petition is unite potential Canadian homebuyers for the purposes of regaining control over runaway prices in the Canadian Housing market. We want to pay affordable prices for houses. By banding together, we can swiftly reverse the perversity of housing prices in Canada. Alone, we are unable to initiate such changes. However, united we will easily and swiftly topple the market. The market is far, far from proper valuations, and buyers are unwittingly locking themselves into a lifetime of hardship by purchasing for such prices. By signing this petition, I agree to: a) Not purchase any house in Canada in the next 6 months (till end of May 2015). b) After this date, I will only purchase a… Read more »
@ Whistler or bust?
I don’t cross the bridge myself…just speaking for many others I know that do. Glad you enjoy getting your wallet emptied while Sea to Sky got their $$$$ in new highway for free.
The most recent foreclosure was a Chinese restaurant owner with two mortgages.
My Chinese neighbors compete with each other to see who’ll get the goodies out of my blue box first.
@73 “These are big problems that need immediate attention”
@74 “Your post would be funnier if it were not a little closer to the truth than you think.”
http://www.webmd.boots.com/mental-health/mental-health-delusional-disorder
@72 Insecure White Guy:
Your post would be funnier if it were not a little closer to the truth than you think.
Political correctness has made all allusions to race, ethnicity, cultural values, language, citizenship, etc unmentionable, except to say that they are all equal and wonderful and irrelevant. Consequently, in (usually) polite discourse, such as this blog, we cannot hope to analyze impartially the enormous demographic & other changes that have occurred in the Lower Mainland in the last 30 years. This is not realistic.
Hey, insecure white guy – you sound like you are ignorant too.
McDonalds is junk food. Many homes are left vacant and used for investment purposes only. Tax evasion is a big problem that the CRA is looking into. “Discarded pop can someone “through” threw in the bushes should be picked up and recycled.
You are pathetic because you are stupid. I love this country and I get upset when others don’t. These are big problems that need immediate attention, and if you don’t care then shut up.
I saw an Asian guy in a Mercedes. He must be a corrupt Chinese government official. I mean how else could someone have a nice car? He must be insecure if he has nice stuff. Only an insecure person would buy an expensive car. People who are secure drive Kias and old Chryslers not newer German cars. There was a Chinese women at McDonalds taking food to go. She is so cheap and must be picking up junk food for her kids. What a terrible mother. I saw a sold sign go up on a Westside house yesterday. The realtors name on the sign had an Asian last name. It must have been sold to a foreign Chinese person who will let the house sit vacant and rot. There was Chinese family walking in Stanley Park. I bet they don’t… Read more »
UBC = University of Beautiful Cars
short anecdote for a slow w/e:
While grocery shopping yesterday, on a whim I dropped by Binning Tower
presentation centre at UBC’s Wesbrook village:
Spoke (after a fashion) with a perfectly nice sales lady whose command of English was shaky at best…and I expect that this language limitation is irrelevant to her sales endeavours.
Surrey doesn’t need light rail nearly as much as they need that insidious toll taken off the Port Mann bridge.
I love that toll. No more traffic. For the price of a Gande Super-Mocha Fudge Latte I don’t waste 30-45 mins a day. You don’t get something for nothing. Everything needs to be paid for.
@bobwestsiderealtor
Condos and townhouse market is driven by locals. SFH market is driven by HAM and locals are almost completely excluded from it.
@58 Everyone is breathlessly talking about the gains made on SFH’s in the Westside but condo’s and townhouses (where the vast majority owns) have at best flatlined and at worst down 20% in inflation adjusted dollars.
Soft-landing. Just not evenly distributed.
Lots of court ordered sales in Richmond all of a sudden. Statistical anomaly or something else?
Chinese national arrested while trying to flee US months after high-speed car chase
Depends when it sold in 2009. Early 2009 was the bottom of the mini-bust. By late 2009 the REB average price had already passed the previous 2008 peak.
@62:
I’m not a big fan of the HPI but I will say as a quality adjusted benchmark, not an average or median, it shouldn’t be affected by changes in sales volume by size.
Another way of looking at it is since it comes from the REB, I doubt the index would look bad if the reality wasn’t bad.
Also @57 is talking about an actual sale in 2009, which was the bottom of the mini-bust. If the owner had bought a year before or later the decline would be even greater.
The problem with the numbers are they don’t account for the decreasing size of units. Many new builds since 2008 are sub-500 square feet per unit. The large sales numbers of these smaller new builds over the last 5 years dramatically skews the indexes.
The reverse is likely true for SFH. The new builds in this segment have if anything gotten larger since 2008.
Earth to Hepner: First things first….Surrey doesn’t need light rail nearly as much as they need that insidious toll taken off the Port Mann bridge.