Friday Free-for-all – February 5th 2016

February 5, 2016 VCI Admin

It’s that time of the week again…

Friday Free-for-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:

–Economic ghost town
–Last chance to buy
–First chance to Rolex
–The inevitable drop?
–The infinite job machine
–

So what are you seeing out there? Been to any open houses lately? Thinking about buying or moving away? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

88 Comments

newest

oldest most voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

wwww

4 years ago

The Probability of Negative U.S. Rates Is on the Rise

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/negative-rates-seen-as-option-for-fed-as-boj-ecb-pave-the-way

wwww

4 years ago

Stocks Retreat Worldwide, Credit Weakens Amid Signs of Distress

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-07/japan-stocks-to-drop-on-yen-china-reserves-fall-99-5-billion

Yunak

4 years ago

Reposting from G&M comments for those fucking cheerleaders (they know who they are) who can’t understand basics of what housing is about and not necesarely a trading instrument or slotmachine frantically jerked by some Chinese who happen to get some cash these days. Enjoy… WiseWordsWendy 2 hours ago Let’s have a simpler approach to housing; let’s change our values and our thinking around housing, and let’s be realistic and logical. Housing is outside the scope of a Supply and Demand Model. Housing is NOT an INVESTMENT. It is a necessity. At least, this is true in a country where the temperatures go below -5°C. One cannot use a model of inversely rising and falling graphs of supply and demand on a matter that can never see a fall in demand. One cannot withdraw demand for housing in a country where… Read more »

wwww

4 years ago

The good thing about Vancouver’s increasing embrace of the Lunar New Year is that it gives everyone a chance to revisit those pesky New Year’s resolutions and see where they’re at with them.

Fitness forward: How to keep up the fight for fitness resolutions

http://www.straight.com/life/633196/fitness-forward-how-keep-fight-fitness-resolutions

Yunak

4 years ago

I am reposting the following nice and subtle comment from G&M for all VCI cheerleader-morons (they know who they are) in polite attempt to have them understand a baseline of housing and major frustration bothering people that do not consider RE as investment instrument or a slotmachine. WiseWordsWendy 1 hour ago Let’s have a simpler approach to housing; let’s change our values and our thinking around housing, and let’s be realistic and logical. Housing is outside the scope of a Supply and Demand Model. Housing is NOT an INVESTMENT. It is a necessity. At least, this is true in a country where the temperatures go below -5°C. One cannot use a model of inversely rising and falling graphs of supply and demand on a matter that can never see a fall in demand. One cannot withdraw demand for housing in… Read more »

Best place on meth

4 years ago

These vermin who have turned Vancouver’s real estate market into their own private little game seem to be pissing people off.

Does anyone know where they came from?

Are they locals or did are they from another country?

If they’re from another country, shouldn’t we be sending them back?

All of them?

Shut It Down Already

4 years ago

Reply to Best place on meth

Deport innocent people for participating in a free market within the bounds of Canadian law? You’re hilarious.

Yunak

4 years ago

Already some traction… Kudos to Kathy Tomlinson for the courage and persistence on being after these criminals and parasites.

Vancouver-area home flipping leads to call for inquiry

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/vancouver-area-home-flipping-leads-to-call-for-inquiry/article28641828/?cmpid=rss1&google_editors_picks=true

Yunak

4 years ago

The real estate technique fuelling Vancouver’s housing market

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/the-real-estate-technique-fuelling-vancouvers-housing-market/article28634868/comments/?ord=1

Over 550 comments so far and counting, most of them to the point and very good. People are pissed, lots of anger and disappointment with all levels of government. Hopefully momentum will continue to build up and grow to the point when something will be done to stop this “Chinese Investor” disaster and get Canadians and people of BC to take control over their life, land and future. This is not Chinese playground or a fucking casino!

Shut It Down Already

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

What’s the problem? They agreed to sell at a price they were happy with, and knew it was land value only.

Yunak

4 years ago

Reply to Shut It Down Already

Don’t act as an retarded idiot and play stupid. You know very well where and what problem is. Now fuck off.

Shut It Down Already

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

Ah, I get it. The problem is mention of a Chinese name, amiright?

They accepted an offer and got paid. Their interest in the property ends at that point.

Best place on meth

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

Don’t bother engaging the sleazy traitor.

He’ll get his when the time is right.

Best place on meth

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

That’s a lot of anger, I’m impressed.

This kind of anger needs to be fed and nurtured, like a beautiful flower.

There are a lot of people who need to be held accountable.

wwwww

4 years ago

Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Lunar New Year Greetings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdr8cL4OCM

Turist

4 years ago

Reply to wwwww

Über Clown.

null

4 years ago

West Side house, possibly used by squatters burns down

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/hoarder-house-fire-considered-suspicious-in-vancouver-1.3437028

wwww

4 years ago

Wanted in China: More Male Teachers, to Make Boys Men

Chinese news media warns of a need to “salvage masculinity in schools.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/world/asia/wanted-in-china-more-male-teachers-to-make-boys-men.html

Husband abuse rises in Hong Kong (2002)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2497689.stm

Oracle

4 years ago

My last post hit a nerve.

Can’t handle the truth I see.

Ps. This new commenting arrangement sucks.

Shut It Down Already

4 years ago

Reply to Oracle

Where’s Stupidity Check when you need him?

wwww

4 years ago

Crystal Mall Parking…….

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

crabman

4 years ago

Eagerly awaiting to see how Moonbeam and Krusty dismiss the latest G&M expose. Probably will involve the terms “racism”, “free-market” and “equity”.

patriotz

4 years ago

Reply to crabman

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/vancouver-mayor-wants-a-flipper-tax-and-thursdays-other-reasons-to-fear-for-humanity

“Vancouver’s mayor wants the province to take drastic steps to curb the speculative mania that is making Vancouver’s housing even less affordable than ever. In a letter to Premier Christy Clark, Gregor Robinson asks for a provincial “luxury housing” tax, a levy on property flippers, and the power to reduce the number of unoccupied homes by tracking down owners and limiting “excessive vacancies.” ”

This is from June 2015.

Doomcouver

4 years ago

Reply to patriotz

If I remember correctly Christy Clarke rejected this proposal because it would damage people’s home equity. Apparently she fails to grasp the concept of a real estate bubble entirely…

patriotz

4 years ago

Reply to Doomcouver

Oh she grasps it. That’s the point of the opening post of this thread.

The fact that this government has been taking one measure after another to prop up prices speaks for itself.

diadora

4 years ago

A deadly 6.4 earthquake hit Taiwan today with much destructions leads me to think about the looming 9 to 10 thats going to level Vancouver soon. Maybe its time to get the hell out of dodge.

Many Franks

4 years ago

Another day, another big expose in the media.

The real estate technique fuelling Vancouver’s housing market

There’s too much good stuff there to pull just a single quote. Go read it.

patriotz

4 years ago

Reply to Many Franks

“It’s obscene,” Ms. Rappaport said. “I had no idea our house was going to be resold. We were shocked when it was flipped.”
Shocked, shocked that someone else would want to make money on the house besides them. If you don’t want someone flipping the house, don’t sell it. Once you’ve accepted an offer it’s not yours any more.

Guest

4 years ago

Reply to patriotz

I am shocked that insiders can flip assignment contracts on the underlying property transfer-tax free. System appears broken.

patriotz

4 years ago

Reply to Guest

PTT is set up to tax changes of title.

However the entire gain of the assignment is taxable as business income. That’s also the case for assignments of pre-sales.

Guest

4 years ago

Reply to patriotz

So its okay if a business property owner has to pay PTT and income tax, but a real estate insider avoids the PTT?

Charlie

4 years ago

Reply to patriotz

As usual patriots you focus on the least important part of the article. Trivial nitpicking and point scoring. Why?

Lets deal with the real issue, we are being screwed by political denial and deception. ‘Experts’ like on this very site. and politicians have made it their duty to largely blame us for this mess. Middle class on cheap credit.

Pretty much what you’ve been saying for the last 6 years..

patriotz

4 years ago

Reply to Charlie

The real issue is that local homeowners want to get something for nothing, so the politicians have set up a system that abets this.

Complaining about RE agents and foreigners who exploit that is the real nitpicking.

Charlie

4 years ago

Reply to patriotz

Everybody knows that local homeowners aka boomers are in on the denial. We know who’s doing the selling. Tell us something we don’t know, or continue to obscure or nitpick.

The real issue is that boomers, politicians and ‘expert analysts’ like you have stubbornly/inexplicably continued to propagate the myth that its been largely the middle class double-incomed doing most of the west of Main SFH buying because of easy money cheap credit. And consequently it’s pretty much our fault that prices are where they are now. Impossible! That’s a HUGE chunk of Vancouver btw before you try to play it down.

And before you throw another confusion post, yes we know we buy condos and east side houses…

Zero Down Forty

4 years ago

Reply to Charlie

Actually, there were 2,000 detached sales on the West Side last year.

http://www.vancouver-westside-real-estate.com/vancouver-westside.asp

That’s out of a total of 42,326 in the REBGV area (not including Surrey, Langley).

http://www.rebgv.org/monthly-reports?month=December&year=2015

That’s only 5% of all sales. Not a huge chunk.

UnagiDon

4 years ago

Reply to Many Franks

I would vote for this as my favorite quote:
“I am disappointed in the Canadian government. They don’t have the sense to look at what’s happening out there. Poor Canadians – they just don’t understand.”

Freddy

4 years ago

An excerpt from the piece

And then you have real estate agents and lawyers with no understanding of economics claiming that the influx of foreigners and property price boom is good for an economy. Real estate, unlike other forms of capital investment, is not productive – in that other than actually building a structure, it does not produce ongoing economic good the way a factory does. And yet journalists continue to reference the uninformed opinions of these “experts” and contribute to a nice echo chamber of convenient but completely baseless conjecture.

Freddy

4 years ago

Local entrepreneur Saied Fard writes about the destruction of Vancouver. A beautifully written piece which we should send to all our friends, contacts and politicians!

http://saeidfard.com/post/113616107456/the-decline-of-vancouver

paulb

4 years ago

New
245
Sold
116
TI:7663

For weekly sales and/or new listings info on a specific neighbourhood/city of your interest, email me and I will customize a weekly update for you. The daily sales numbers only mean so much. Each neighbourhod and market segment can be quite different.

Cheers!

http://www.paulboenisch.com

Oracle

4 years ago

Vancouver is seeing the greatest Boom in is real estate history right now. Almost every house going for over asking.

The flood of international students who get PR via the Canadian Experinec class are to blame. No need for immigrant investor visa anymore. Send son or daughter.,,,pay 2 years tuition to private school…apply experience class…sponsor family and grandparents…launder money by buying house…leave empty until family comes.

The marriage changes are gonna cause a huge spike in prices. Watch and see. And Christy wants more immigration.

Unless you guys become proactive about the situation, your kids are gonna become the slave class of Vancouver.

Yunak

4 years ago

Reply to Oracle

I don’t think so, if you scenario pans out there will be a civil car in the mean time to take care of situation.

Yunak

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

lol, meant to say civil war

Best place on meth

4 years ago

Reply to Yunak

No need for violence, we can just refurbish some old internment camps.

This time they’ll actually be justified.

joe

4 years ago

China’s crackdown on dissent goes global.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/04/asia/china-dissident-crackdown-goes-global/
Doesn’t look good for Michael Ching Mo Yeung.

Chabar

4 years ago

Reply to joe

He is Prominent Vancouver developer, if needed either Bob Rennie or Kristy will hide him in their closets or bathrooms.

Best place on meth

4 years ago

Reply to Chabar

Just like Anne Frank. Except it’s a despised, money laundering chinese scumbag, but other than that, just like Anne Frank.

tedeastside

4 years ago

dont know about the west side but most east side houses going well below asking

Brian Ripley

4 years ago

Average SFD prices in Vancouver have been rising at 1.2% per month since the last major low in January 2013.

My “Double Double” chart http://www.chpc.biz/vancouver-housing.html#Double

…has average SFD prices in Vancouver hitting another double in April 2016 since the last one at April 2008.

This is a huge bet on housing price inflation that is counter to actual deflation going on in the commodity sector.

One side of this equation needs correcting…. or both.

UBC in Crisis Mode

4 years ago

Reply to Brian Ripley

Time to buy condos if you can borrow from the bank at still pretty low interest rate.
No one can afford houses in Vancouver (even doctors/lawyers), condo price will go up.

Vanco

4 years ago

If you look at the recent sales, properties are going for 15-20% over asking! And this is after the run up last year. This won’t make the Bears happy.

Bull! Bull! Bull!

4 years ago

Reply to Vanco

bears don’t like numbers. they like to trust their gut lol!

Reasonfirst

4 years ago

Reply to Vanco

My 94 year dad is selling in Richmond after 60 years somewhere in the 1.2 to 1.3 range for a teardown. – I am a happy bear.

Bull! Bull! Bull!

4 years ago

Chinese New Year Celebrated in Three Charts

Yes, it’s the Lunar New Year, and cities from Shanghai to Singapore to Vancouver are preparing to usher in the Year of the Monkey.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-04/chinese-new-year-in-charts-pollution-spikes-bak-kwa-prices-jump-and-tourists-disappear

bloomberg agress with me, vancouver is in the sinosphere.

Chabar

4 years ago

Reply to Bull! Bull! Bull!

Yes it is and that’s why Krusty will get reelected and stay in power until retirement. After that probably spaceshit or Victor Wong will become premier.

Vancouver Condo Info

Friday Free-for-all – February 5th 2016

Bubble? What Bubble?