It’s that time of the week again!
Friday Free-f0r-all time!
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:
–Some bears cash in on HCG drop
–BOC has lost its mojo
–The future of the CAD?
–Realtor vs Realtor: How stupid are you?
–Planning to leave?
–Will she or won’t she?
–
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
[…] –Canada’s economy: a rough ride –Have more kids and move to BC –Rents in vancouver high or low? –QE in Canada? –Fix Canada with US-made tools? –20% overvalued in Canada –Rennie raises funds for BC Liberals –Secret data? –Ghost town back on market – […]
[…] Southseacompany points out that Green MLA Andrew Weaver has asked the finance minister what is being done to prevent a Vancouver housing bubble from bursting. Unfortunately there appears to be some logical inconsistencies in the MLAs statements: […]
@ 159. You might want to be cautious with the “last laugh” bit.
I thought your name was realist?
@ 161 space889
I stated a fact about investment: monetizing profit. I have made no assertion boosting about anyone’s investment returns, much less my own. And I never laugh at any investor for being wrong – all are from time to time.
You might want to consider the proposition that discussion and disagreement do not necessarily entail disrespect and mockery.
The OV is a great model for the condo market’s future. Sales of condo units in new areas going (thinking Cambie corridor and QE park) in the multiples to HAM.
Think 11 townhouses at a time. Or 20 units. Then the locals here: white, asian, who cares, call them taxed locals, rent them. Whoever said before that Vancouver will be a case that other cultures study at school is right. You can expect the Cambie Corridor and QE park to follow the same path as the OV. And every corridor in this city to follow suit.
So much for these developments meeting demand. More like on-demand rental buildings for foreigners to buy and hold and control. Because if your 11-unit guy and your 22-unit guy don’t want to pay for repairs, repairs ain’t gonna happen.
@ 158 space889 “Don’t bother arguing with Patriotz cuz even though the guy has no degree and likely never took any courses in stats”
No one needs a degree or a statistics course pass grade to make sound arguments, including (and perhaps especially) about economic matters.
@realist – By the same argument, you don’t realize your profits in stocks & bonds until you sell them all and be out of the market. So why you are laughing and boosting about your investments returns when by your logic you don’t have returns/gains until you sell and move out of the market?
@ostritch – actually if the Asian owner is a VIP purchaser or client of a VIP agent, the purchse price is probably a lot lower than the advertised sell price to the public. S/he would be in phase 1 selling where they get to pick the best units at the best prices so the developer pretty much locks in a good chunk of profit and financing from banks. That’s why half of the buildings already have sold sign by the time those who camped outside for the whole night makes it into the sales center, even if they are like in the first 10. And as I said, the only reason it is a good deal is probably because the mgmt co is taking the lazy road to collect its $100/month pay and the owner either don’t care or don’t… Read more »
@ 156 ostritch “Except that your Asian owner man paid only 350K for the place. Last laugh is on you.”
You might want to be cautious with the “last laugh” bit. We know who is laughing now, but we don’t know who will have the last laugh, or when that will be. “Owner man” still landlord and has not yet realised his profit; time and the housing market march on to …?
@Shut It Down Already – Don’t bother arguing with Patriotz cuz even though the guy has no degree and likely never took any courses in stats, the guy will still insist he is right and you are wrong, all without offering any concrete stats evidence/proof. For some reason he believes the burden of proof always lie on the other party and without it the other guy is always wrong. Yet somehow that rule don’t apply to him.
For the record, asset returns tend to be auto-correlated – look up in Google Scholar search, lots of research papers on that – and hence why technical rules work to some degree, even though they shouldn’t in a perfect market which incidentally don’t exists in the real world.
[…] Ulsterman points out one take on this situation: […]
“I rent a 600 sq ft condo parking and storage in Wall Centre OV same floor plan recently was in market for 459. ..I pay 1500 all in and that’s via a professional property management co…. so bs that rent is high here. BTW management takes 100$ a month plus 325 strata and props taxes leaves a little over 1000 to asian owner man I could get that in a high interest savings account. .silly owners helping us poor renters”
Except that your Asian owner man paid only 350K for the place. Last laugh is on you.
West Van homes for sell $1M+ over asking but sorry no HAM….
Non-Chinese agent, 9 offers, buyer local.
@152
The BOC is a de facto arm of the Ministry of Finance. There’s no puzzle, Poloz says what his handlers tell him to say (i.e. Joe “there’s no recession” Oliver).
Sales are soft and I think softening.
Will buyers rush out and increase borrowings and drive the market even higher?
Or…Are debt weary Canadians getting the message that the party ain’t all they thought it was, the drug of choice, cheap and easy credit, distorted the picture and reality is setting in?
I can easily see a situation where debt is cheap but the appetite to eat up more of it is just fully satiated…
WSR
Here’s how Poloz described our country’s lack of export momentum.
You ready for this? “PUZZLING”
You know that something is seriously amiss when you hear that word from a central banker who we are paying 3 times the remuneration Ms. Yellen. He has enough access to data to melt the icecaps, and if he doesn’t know what’s going on, we’re in deep $hit.
At least six missing after clampdown on human rights lawyers in China
Can China takes its political system back 40 years without taking the economy back as well?
@149: “Er, I never said I could.”
No, but @94 did. You joined a discussion in progress.
“If you’re saying that if you took the durations of all the “up” trends and the lengths of all the “down” trends then a normal distribution emerges, then I’d probably be closer to agreeing with you.”
That is exactly what I’m saying.
Er, I never said I could. You definitely win no prizes for that strawman. For what it’s worth the oft-quoted “reversion to mean” would also imply predictive powers based on the past, but that one seems to be acceptable somehow.
If you’re saying that if you took the durations of all the “up” trends and the lengths of all the “down” trends then a normal distribution emerges, then I’d probably be closer to agreeing with you. That’s not really how those “symmetric” bubble graphs are derived, though – because magnitude and timing of the peak now become relevant.
The fact remains that many bubbles do appear to be symmetric. The question is whether therein lies any predictive powers. Possibly, possibly not.
@143:
Of course the price series themselves in the various cities are not independent, the fact that you have the peaks near each other (i.e. a national bubble) means they are not.
The issue at hand here is whether the shape and duration of the downturn in each city is or isn’t dependent on the upturn. These are the random characteristics in question. My point is that averaging these out over all cities will give an aggregate that looks dependent even if in the individual cities they are independent.
If you can prove that future price movements in any market are dependent on past movements, you have proved that technical analysis works, and you have Nobel Prize in Economics waiting for you.
Indians Are Spending Millions Buying Homes Online
http://tinyurl.com/ndpd4xj
China regulating internet financing now
People’s Bank of China issued new guidelines over the weekend, calling for closer supervision of China’s online financing sector such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending.
Beijing is worried about informal stock financing, which investors use to buy stocks on loans apart from the formal margin financing services offered by securities companies.
The size of informal stock financing is substantial. According to the Securities Association of China, by the end of June, the three largest external systems, HOMS, Hithink RoyalFlush and Merct, provided 500 billion yuan ($80 billion) of financing.
* interest: 18-24%
* once sub-account is closed, there will be no record in HOMS. In other words, the leverage ratio and the identity of the stock traders behind these sub-accounts are unknown to regulators or even the system itself.
http://tinyurl.com/pbl5c6h
“Fitch: Canadian Homes 20% Overvalued, Correction Coming”, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/20/canadian-housing-correction-fitch_n_7833600.html
“Some parts of Canada have seen runaway house price growth so far this year, but Fitch ratings agency says all that is coming to an end soon.”
“The agency estimates that homes are about 20 per cent overvalued, with some variation depending on the region, and the market is headed for a correction. But it sees low odds of an out-and-out price collapse.”
Snivel servant layoffs… Not Gonna Happen
Slippery weasels draped in their rainbow flags, got all the propaganda covered. Government worker cocks$ckers, pulling in their $100G salaries. What bullsh$t can they dream up on their computers tomorrow?
Patriotz is constantly implying that the bubble is going to burst but never comes out and says it. Not even when confronted. What a weasel.
I think the Central Limit Theorem does not apply – the samples are not independent. You could likely prove otherwise by counter-example; 2 cities in the same country, one of which was near its price peak whilst the other was simultaneously near its trough. I suspect you’d struggle to find something even close.