Friday Free-for-all! Feb 26 2016

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:

–BOC raises flag on debt
–Local buyers pay $750k over ask
–70s vancouver tourism ad
–January sales hit 6 year high
–A short or long term rental?
–Shorter border line-ups
–Inflation up, spending down
–

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

newest oldest most voted

More propaganda from the pro-renting cabal | Vancouver Condo Info

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

[…] the full article here. Thanks to southseacompany for the […]

Guest

Local Refugee

HAM (scum) does matter or speaking of trickle down effect…
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/millionaire-property-owners-exit-vancouver-head-to-country-1.2186395

Member

Best place on meth

IP ban vote update:

Real chinaman leading with 40 votes.

Fake chinaman second with 27 votes.

Conclusion: whether they’re real or fake, people really hate chinamen.

Member

tedeastside

gasoline… 0.56/liter in Calgary. 0.50/liter in Los Angeles

what are gas prices in Vancouver British Columbia

Member

Best place on meth

I filled up this morning and they were charging over 5 yuan.

I was outraged.

Guest

null

Remember when people were predicting the crash would happen after the olympics? lol.

Member

space889

Well, according to bears, the OV village condos are selling before pre-sale prices so crash did happen, in REAL terms. It’s the REAL, not nominal, terms that is the important measuring stick. Never mind most people think in nominal terms.

Oh, it’s also govt fault for slashing interest rate and bailing out banks.

Guest

Mark Etting

I agree with most of what you say: OV village is selling below resale price, which seems like a bit of a drag return. I also agree that real is more important than nominal when talking about inflation adjusted return, and most people think in nominal. I also agree that slashing interest and bailing out banks has kept prices up and I don’t think thats a good thing.

But you also say that the crash DID happen. I don’t agree with that. If there’s a crash it’s yet to come. And if it’s at all related to the run up and current prices, then it’s going to be a doooozy!

Guest

GreenSalad

All Canadians are paying the price for ‘conceal’ estate in Toronto and Vancouver
http://business.financialpost.com/diane-francis/all-canadians-are-paying-the-price-for-conceal-estate-in-toronto-and-vancouver

Member

space889

Well, China is interested in having a lot of those concealed home’s owners deported to China, but Canada apparently have issues with China like death penalty, prison tortures, etc.

Member

southseacompany

“Rent or own? In the superheated Metro Vancouver housing market, the choice isn’t obvious”, The Province http://blogs.theprovince.com/2016/02/28/rent-or-own-in-superheated-metro-vancouver-the-choice-isnt-always-obvious/ “After a few months of fruitless searching, Yee decided to put home ownership on the back burner and revert to renting. “After I ran the numbers multiple, multiple times, I realized I could save significantly more money renting. It was shocking to me,” she said.” “One measure to determine whether it’s better to rent or to buy is a metric called the price-to-rent ratio” “Ratios in the 10-13 range indicate it’s better to buy than to rent, while a ratio in the 18-20 range is a sign in favour of renting over buying.” “Based on the recent figures for apartments, Vancouver’s price-to-rent ratio is 55 in the east of the city and a staggering 72 in the west side. This calculation doesn’t take… Read more »

Guest

null

5 Chinese Military Fails | China Uncensored

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMTZMdWVG1Q

Member

ostritch

Did I say I was unsure what Vancouver will be like in a decade? I have a feeling it will be on its way to this as we are alwaysten years behind Europe:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3468093/Back-school-helicopters-private-jets-flash-cars-Rich-Kids-London-favourite-transport-sneer-peasants-outside-Primark-clean-shoes-50-notes.html

Member

franko

Christy Clark deserves all the flack she is getting and more! But the flow of dirty money from China cannot be stopped without reform to tax evasion and immigration by the federal government. And it’s just a matter of time until our new airhead in Ottawa comes up with a brand new IIP program that will be no different than selling Canadian passports to China. That will become blatantly necessary before his massive deficits bankrupt our country. As long as the NDP remains the only viable alternative to Chrusty in BC, we’re totally screwed. We just have to look at Alberta to see how that has worked out, and that shipwreck goes a lot deeper than just the price of oil as our Patriotz would have us believe to defend that crowd of idiots along with his Führer in Ottawa.… Read more »

Member

space889

NDP did a much better job relative to BC Libs.

Member

patriotz

The provincial government has more than enough power to stop the money from going into RE. I don’t think many people care whether it goes anywhere else. Of course the #1 priority of the provincial government is to get as much local and foreign money into RE as it can.

Member

ostritch

Why? Why should this be their priority. Just for that measly tax?

Member

patriotz

Are you kidding? Christy’s whole political and economic strategy is based on boosting RE prices.

“(levying a tax on foreign buyers) is good for first-time owners, but not for anyone who is counting on the equity in their homes to maybe get a loan or use the money to finance some other projects,” Clark said. But any sudden change could have unintended consequences for those who already have invested in a home, the premier said.
“By moving foreign owners out of the market housing prices will drop,” she said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-premier-christy-clark-opposed-to-taxing-foreign-homeowners-1.3072443

Even before she became premier:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Election-Central/2011/02/22/FalconClarkDonors/

Member

No Money Down

Renters Rule! Sounds like Calgary.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/the-growing-apartment-glut-is-turning-the-inner/7145242

Guest

wwwww

the canada’s trump wannabe is at it again.

Kevin O’Leary hints at possible run for Liberal Party leadership

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kevin-o-leary-liberal-leadership-1.3467710

Member

space889

I don’t think Fed Liberal party is looking for a new leader, least of all Kevin O. I don’t think even the Cons Party wants him either. And if you think he’s out for the average family then I got a golden bridget to sell you for a low price of $1M.

Guest

wwwww

Destination Vancouver: mainland Chinese tourist numbers go off the boil

http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel-leisure/article/1916625/destination-vancouver-mainland-chinese

Member

No Money Down

HAM are done.

Guest

wwwww

And you base your opinion on which facts?

Guest

Zero Down Forty

Canadian bacon keeps frying. Chef Poloz keeps the gas on.

Guest

voter

That`s okay, the Government will just give citizenship with every 2 week holiday. That`ll keep the party going.

Guest

wwwww

Vancouver realtor defends marketing properties at Chinese showcases

http://globalnews.ca/news/2544973/vancouver-realtor-defends-marketing-properties-to-chinese-conferences/

Guest

voter

Yeah, that’s where all the local’s live.They must really be laughing at us over there.

Member

No Money Down

And from Australian 60 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ktN_h7-J4

Moranbah = Fort Mac
Sydney = Vancouver

You get the story…

Member

No Money Down

Comment from Macrobusiness http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/02/weekend-links-27-28-february-2016/ Looked at a few houses on the Northshore of Sydney this morning ……..definitely a more subdued atmosphere …………the throngs of pushing and shoving Chinese of last year are noticeably absent ………and the buyers look more like family people looking for a home ……… Asking prices still in the sphere of the ridiculous These are comments about auction sales. Supports what I am seeing here. HAM are MIA. Looks like 2015 was the big push to get capital out of China, and that had a huge impact on SFH prices in Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, HK… Seems that is done, and the current activity in Vancouver is momentum buying from locals. I have been poking around westside 2br condo open houses in $450k to $650k range. Millenial couples, downsizers and investors. The smell of fear from the millenials… Read more »

Member

ostritch

Is it the end of money from China or is it the beginning of Australian policy to prevent flipping in the SFH arena. Unlike ours, their government has actually done something, and passed a law under which they have brought their first prosecution.

Also I think they’ve had a multi-year run up in prices these past two-three years.

Member

patriotz

What Oz has done is limit foreigners to buying new properties (which includes new houses on the sites of teardowns) – which means that just the kind of foreign buying that people are upset about in Vancouver is legal there too.

How about some details of this “prosecution” – and making the owner sell doesn’t count.

Guest

Shhhh

Shock in Chinese village as women’s corpses stolen for use in “ghost weddings”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/12176054/Shock-in-Chinese-village-as-womens-corpses-stolen-for-use-in-ghost-weddings.html

Guest

Runawayscreaming

I fail to see what relevance ghost weddings have to this forum. Ghost weddings are illegal in China. On the other hand I suppose renting an apartment in Vancouver could be considered to be relevant to a ghost wedding. One falls in love with beautiful Vancouver with the intent to marry her by purchasing a modest home but before the marriage takes place real estate speculators and money launderers kill Vancouver and take possession of her corpse for nefarious real estate transactions. The shadow-flipping of ghost brides may well be the precedent for the shadow-flipping of Vancouver houses: “One woman died over the lunar new year in February 2012 and was sold by her family to the family of a recently deceased young man for about £3,700; soon afterwards, police caught a graverobber selling her twice-exhumed body to another family…”

Member

Best place on meth

Looks like a bunch of drunk Christy Clark voters just showed up at VCI to trash the place.

Member

southseacompany

“G20 to say world needs to look beyond ultra-easy policy for growth”, Reuters

http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKCN0W004T

“SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The world’s top economies declared on Saturday that they need to look beyond ultra-low interest rates and printing money to shake the global economy out of its torpor, while renewing their focus on structural reform to spark activity.”

Guest

p123

Interest Rates not going up in the US it looks like

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/when-will-interest-rates-bottom-out/2016/02/26/2f148b14-d71d-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html

Guest

SHHHH

http://49.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3x3h2kaII1rvwq31o1_500.gif

Member

space889

Don’t dash bear’s last great hope.

Guest

GreenSalad

Advisory group named in wake of “shadow flipping” scandal
https://www.biv.com/article/2016/2/advisory-group-named-wake-shadow-flipping-scandal/

Guest

null

https://media.giphy.com/media/10KEZs0WcRerrG/giphy.gif

Member

patriotz

Are you trying to bring Korea into the discussion, or are you just too thick to recognize that writing?

Member

space889

Not much different from your baiting.

Member

patriotz

There is no scandal. This is just a fake issue that is being pushed to take attention away from the government’s policy of continuing to inflate prices.

Guest

Runawayscreaming

Even if a real investigation of Chinese shadow flipping were conducted (Ha, ha, ha – that will never happen – it’s Vancouver!) it would be too late to fix the sorry state of affairs that Vancouver has become:

biv.com: Peter Ladner: Real estate flippers driving city to ‘economic ghost town’ status

Guest

null

Chinese New Year 2016 at Robson Square Ice Rink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIF-P26STWg

Member

Best place on meth

It appears that in the 6 months since this story was published, the money laundering has only intensified and has reached a fever pitch.

http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/08/25/chinese-money-laundering-in-canadian-real-estate/

It can’t continue indefinitely though, it’ll burn out and then we’ll see panicked faces across the city.

Guest

voter

Why wouldn’t it continue .The Chinese Government can just print as much money as they want and what’s to stop them from sending 1 million party members to Vancouver to buy property.Certainly not our government.

Guest

OpenCourse

Their banks are already printing fake bills of exchange.\

Member

patriotz

Yuan doesn’t buy you much anywhere except Zimbabwe.

Guest

voter

Okay, i guess they’ll just use all the canadian and american dollars we;ve been paying for all that junk that the we buy from them.

Member

BPOE boyfriend

BPOM = bitter loser, gang banged by cousins, anger all the time….dude, where are my trailer keys?

Guest

Cousin of ChinaOne

ChinaOne tell me to post this as last post since he now banned.

“You refuse to see truth so ban ban ban. Many cousin come here and buy house. Immigration minister triple parent application last month. Not double it to 10,000. Read article. But you hate truth. So bye. What you say, group think make you guys even more separated from reality. Article say “They had signalled the move was coming in January, when rather than cutting off intake of new applications at 5,000, they accepted over 14,000.”

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/9332268