BC, hype, opinion, west side

Welcome to zombie town

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Vangrl posted a link to an article over at the Globe and Mail this weekend about the growing number of new and empty homes in Vancouver.

Ms. Cullen and others said their once-ordinary street has an eerie feel. Large new homes loom darkly over their smaller, lived-in ones. Gardens and big trees have been mowed down. There are fewer parked cars, she said, and it is too quiet.

“There is a slight feeling that it’s almost unsafe, too – like if I suddenly run into trouble in the street, whose house would I knock on?” Ms. Cullen said.

Read the full article here.

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[…] variation –No more goofy superstitions –Reverse mortgages popular –Mo Debt –Royal Bank scraps limit –Uncle and Aunt-ecdote –Times they are a changin’ […]

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bestplaceonearth

remember back then when bears talked about the OV as a ghost town? look at what is happening there now! don’t bears just wish they had a piece of it! get your heads out of your sorry fat arses, bears. there is always something to whine about, right bears!

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@ZDF

@Zero Dow Forty

Zero Dow Forty keeps saying ONLY 3-5% of sales are over $3 million!

Zero Down Forty conveinently includes every single tiny condo sale in Metro Van to get down to his ‘only’ 3-5% over $3 million!

Lets take out condo eh ZDF. Lets talk about structures fit for more than 1 person. i.e Houses.

What % of total sales over $3 million is it ‘only’ then ZDF?

What % of house sales (excluding boxes) are ‘only’ over $2 million ZDF?

And what percentage of house sales (excluding tiny shoeboxes) are ‘only’ over a ‘measly’ $1 million, yes ‘only’ $1 million-frikken dollars Zero Down Forty?

When you’ve finished trying to play down the significance of house sales in Metro Van (why btw?) you can start on Van proper. That should be funny.

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@ZDF

@Zero Down Forty wrote @114 wrote:

“The average homebuyer can now borrow twice as much as they could 15 years ago.”

That is actually complete BS. The average home buyer can borrow X times income – pretty much exactly the same as 15 years ago.

Now you tell me how it’s possible for 99% of X times income Vancouverites (most on on less than $50,000 per year) to get near a $2 million house. Don’t forget this is thousands of times a year.

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space889

@w – BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT every bear on this blog INSISTS that rental deals are everywhere in all nice neighborhoods!!! You just have to look around, grabbed the over-leveraged over-indebted landlord by the balls, and bargain HARD! The landlords are all begging for good tenants!

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space889

@Vanco – Stop it Vanco, you are making too much sense and logic, it’s going to cause their heads to explode and they will blame you for it! And no, this isn’t a small % of the population…they are just more brave saying it anonymously online. I doubt they act nearly this tough in real time. Heck, some of them might even be working for a communist overload…hahahaha…. btw, the big mansion with 888 street number in my neighborhood was occupied by people of Southeast Asia or ME descendent. Needless to say I was absolutely shocked, SHOCKED! Since you know…only Chinese would be tasteless enough to live in a big tacky mansion with 6 bathrooms and a superstitious 888 number. Any normal rational person would only want to live in tiny old bunglow that requires constant work & repair. If… Read more »

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Puzzled and Confused

Here’s an anecdote as to low/no inflation. The Subway I occasionally frequent just raised their prices by 10% across the board. I just filled up my car today and gas was ten cents more per litre than it was two days ago which is a 10% increase. But we are told NO inflation.

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[…] more news about Canadians taking on record levels of debt – a recent story linked to by southseacompany is on this […]

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space889

– Cuz the supply of big lots & SFH on Westside Vancouver has kept up or even exceeded general population growth right??

Maybe you should read up on supply and demand elasticity first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_supply

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Zero Down Forty

@#111
In economics 101 we learn that it’s the marginal buyer that sets the base price…IE prices are pushed up from the bottom. The average homebuyer can now borrow twice as much as they could 15 years ago.

The so called “higher end’ is actually quiet small.Only 3-5% of Metro Van yearly sales are for homes over $3 million.

The ‘fire hose’ analogy is quite good, since our central bank ‘firemen’ have eased and printed trillions of dollars into the world economy. Over the last 15 years +$1 trillion dollars has been ‘sprayed’ into the Canadian housing market by the lowest interest rates in history and CHMC mortgage subsidization.

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Puzzled and Confused

I sure can’t figure out what going on in the economy. Things seem to be roaring ahead with property prices out of control and now we hear record auto sales over the last few months. People out spending money like mad at all the stores. Yet we are told we need zero percent interest rates because the economy is in the tank. Cheap money (credit) everywhere just for the taking. Cash seems to not be worth anything when you can borrow half a million dollars or more for two grand a month. Try to actually save up half a million from normal earnings; it would take most people a lifetime. Total madness and none of it makes any sense.

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realist

@104 Shut It Down Already says:
“Ulsterman, the “trickle down” theory is nonsense and you know it.”

When it comes to the “trickle down” theory of supply-side economics such as promoted by Mr. Laffer, you’re right…even Pope Francis dismissed as “without empiric evidence” the theory that making the rich richer also enriches the poor.

But when it comes to a real estate market with a fire hose spraying millions of dollars into its higher end (often sight unseen), please explain to me how this is without effect on the market. Please!

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elvince

@BBB: Both. Bulls were right that price went up (at least in detached, not so much in condos for the last 5 years).

Bears were right: anyone investing in the stock market has done better than anyone investing in RE. Especially in condos. Actually, anyone leaving his money in an ING.Direct account has done better than investing in a condo.

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elvince

@101 “whether you are a bull/bear/somewhere in between, the question really is: What decisions should I make now to better my financial future? ”

Rent or move away. Moving away actually helps fix 2 problems: your financial problem, and the lack of housing problem, by lowering demand.

The only other option is “Make more money”. But even then, as you say, better investing options are available, so it doesn’t matter how much you make/have.

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Bull! Bull! Bull!

now tell me, who was right and who was wrong, bulls or bears?

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southseacompany

“From ZIRP to NIRP”, Financial Post http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/from-zirp-to-nirp “The ZIRP adopted by the Fed (and other central banks) may have begun as a means of “stimulating” economies, but by now, given ZIRPs’ power to artificially depress bond yields, they’re being retained mainly to provide cheap funding for deficit-spending governments.” “The longer the Fed waits to “normalize” the Fed Funds rate, the more likely it’ll face some new economic-financial “crisis” that allegedly justifies a further delay in rate-hiking. Result: perma-ZIRP” “There’s an estimate of a negative rate for the ECB, which implies a shift from a ZIRP to a NIRP (negative interest rate policy). That shift wouldn’t be unprecedented. Central banks in Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland already have adopted NIRPs and since 2012 the ECB itself, with a policy rate of merely 0.05 per cent in the past year, has said that… Read more »

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vangrl

“Rampant land speculation fuelled by an avalanche of offshore money has driven new condominium prices to the tipping point, a senior real estate analyst warns. “At a certain point buyers will just say ‘no,’” said Michael Ferreira, managing principal of Urban Analytics Inc., following his address last week to the Urban Development Institute, Pacific region. Ferreira said “an immense amount of offshore capital” flowing mostly from mainland China into multi-family land speculation has nearly doubled the price of land this year and could drive future condominium prices into the stratosphere. So far, buyers appear eager to pay what are already record prices, Ferreira told a lunch meeting packed with members of the development community. In 2015’s first nine months, 2,000 more new condominiums sold in Metro Vancouver than in the same period in 2014, a 20% increase. The standing inventory… Read more »

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w

Rental vacancy rate in Metro Vancouver is at almost zero: CMHC

http://www.news1130.com/2015/11/02/rental-vacancy-metro-vancouver/

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Shut It Down Already

Ulsterman, the “trickle down” theory is nonsense and you know it. Nobody has even attempted to demonstrate that it’s consistent with the available stats. It’s just a thin veneer around the other racially-motivated assertions. It’s the real estate equivalent of Intelligent Design (religion masquerading as science). If it’s getting tiring “explaining” to people perhaps it’s because they’re right and you’re wrong?

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david

Vancouver: The ‘new Zurich’ for hiding money.

Complete with the complicity and/or complete state of denial by politicians, and the surly, unengaged populace.

But without the incredible efficiency or public infrastructure.

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Vanco

whether you are a bull/bear/somewhere in between, the question really is: What decisions should I make now to better my financial future? And why am I focusing so much on Vancouver RE when there are better investment opportunities with lower risks out there?

BTW, this is why I think the angry priced out bears on the blog presents only a tiny fraction of the Vancouver population, thankfully.

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Vanco

Yet, the anger is misguided. Never mind that we don’t know whether these people with Chinese surnames are Canadians or not. (excellent research methodology on assuming Chinese surname = money launderer from mainland, btw). People by nature, black/white/yellow/brown, try to take advantage of the system for personal gain.

Oh, an article on how the snowbirds cheated Canada out of hundreds of millions. (viewers caution advised. They all look……. White!) http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-border-security-benefits-seniors-1.3290299

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Vanco

To the lynch mob:

I understand the anger. I really do.
It sucks to have to move every few years.
It sucks to not be able to live in the neighbourhood you want.
It sucks to be priced out and having to move out further and further away.
It sucks to have a spouse who nags you about the decision to keep renting.
It sucks to miss out on a once in a generation opportunity. (For a middle class family who bought SFH a decade ago, they are sitting on a capital gain, TAX FRIGGING FREE, that probably exceeds their life time earning). They could retire, cash out, buy a mansion in a sun-soaked country and drive up local real estate.

I feel so angry that I want to go out and kick my dog.

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Softy

On last night’s news all the politicians hid themselves behind the race card.

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