Open Topic

Friday (afternoon) Free-for-all!

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174 Comments

It’s that time of the week again!

Let’s do 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:

–Ottawa making housing fix a top priority
–Thanks for the help
–Impact of housing on economy
–Fake assets
–Goodbye Vancouver
–Empty Land
–Household debt bigger than GDP
–Average Weekly Inventory chart
–Why the borrowing binge will end badly
–

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

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Oracle

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/commons-committee-urges-reform-for-temporary-foreign-worker-program/article31959815/?service=mobile

Liberals about to open TFW floodgates.

Also, they don’t have to leave after 4 years anymore. Wow. Wow

Wow.

Basically another immigration program. Rents are going to soar.

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Oracle

Christy Clark going to BUY 2900 condos and make them rental units.

Hahaha. What a scam. Buy new ones from Rennie and old ones from other sellers. Kick out the current sellers and rerent them to new clients

This will:

1) Cause inventory in condos to go down and cause a spike in prices.

2) do they realize of the 2900 units, most already exist. Who they trying to deceive? No mention that even if this was new units, they fill in 1 month with the inmigrants, foreign students, tourists.

What a scam.

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Just me

Wow. Is this even legal? Can this woman use public funds to buy units already built by her developer friends?
BC is quickly becoming a banana republic, where the government can direct funds to their business friends with no supervision or restraint.
I am honestly in shock. Nobody bats an eyelid about this scam? She is taking already built stock from the hands of the developers and using public funds to do that.

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Boombust

Don’t be ridiculous.

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Boombust

I don’t think even SHE would be stupid enough to have tongues a waggin’ about such a conflict of interest before an upcoming election.

However, perhaps Bob Rennie could weigh in on this. Bob? You there?

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HAMster

More changes:
New position created to oversee local real estate industry.
http://www.news1130.com/2016/09/19/new-position-created-to-oversee-local-real-estate-industry/

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Best place on meth

I hope he speaks mandarin, if not he’ll need to learn quickly.

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Combat roach

The position should be RE Sheriff with at least several deputies being fluent in mandarin as well as heavily armed so they can efficiently deal with all this gangsters and criminals who came abroad and took over BC RE industry.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Good except that the quotation suggests he has been given a mandate which is not quite broad enough. “…. to serve the interests of real estate consumers,” depending on what that phrase means exactly.

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squeak

From BNN site: “Canadians say that owning a house is a top priority for them, yet they’re not willing to invest in housing right now,” Kevin Headland, senior investment strategist of Manulife Investments, said in a release. ” With all this talk about how deep in debt Canadians are, one has to wonder why they want more debt as in buying a house/condo. Obviously many cannot afford it. On the other hand, why is it a top priority? They need to change the rental laws to make renting a viable desirable way of living: Don’t allow slum lords, put some solid laws in place, and enforce. Stop treating tenants as 2nd rate, they are valuable citizens that contribute: allow them to have kids, allow them to have pets, allow them to decorate their rental to their liking with some conditions… Read more »

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Newcomer

While you cannot legislate respect, it is certainly true that lax rental laws have been a net negative in Vancouver. Specifically, allowing rental suites in buildings not built as multifamily dwellings has been a terrible idea. It has greatly contributed to house price inflation.

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squeak

Yes, you can legislate respect in many different ways, as in rights and responsibilities and expectations.

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Newcomer

You can legislate behavior, that’s not the same thing. But I get your drift.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

People tend to develop an attitude to correspond to their behaviours. If people behave in respectful ways (because of those behaviours being legislated perhaps), then they become respectful. The exception is if the people are from authoritarian countries where there is no room for the personal responsibility/sense of autonomy bud to bloom so that any behaviour that is not compelled by the state becomes only reactive and almost childish. Other than that exception for the victims of authoritarianism, the behaviour you are habituated to for whatever reason is how you start to think. imho.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

I agree, though, with newcomer’s point about basement rentals probably contributing to house price inflation.

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Its_the_ALR_stupid

Those are all fine suggestions, but you left out the most important one: make renting more affordable. Right now in GV it is not nearly affordable enough. And since rent prices are based on fundamental supply/demand dynamics (unlike purchase prices which can be speculative), the only way to lower rents is to either increase supply or reduce population growth. Which means either build more condos or curb immigration to Vancouver. McCallum has made it abundantly clear that that the latter isn’t going to happen, so I would hope that we are at least going do something to make it easier for developers to build more product. I realize that might make me sound like a pro-developer stooge, but math is math.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

McCallum is just going to chase away people who are established, and who able to share local culture and history and know-how and (yes, dont’ laugh at me) cascadian charm for people who might as well be anywhere else as here for how they live their life and what they know of the locale. All knowledge will be passed down through literature printed for tourists: the tourist brochure will be our text. Petroglyphs will get graffiti. Apparently he wants bland superficial and often dishonest commercial culture to permeate us through and through.

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Combat roach

Renting is not necessarily well accepted in some Asian cultures which are very big part of the Canadian landscape. Renting animosity is at the level of religious fanatism which is very hard to change toward something progressive and pro-western socially accepted.

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tim

You can see Space’s disgust and classism toward renters upthread. Of course he doesn’t speak in those terms; he speaks of the “facts” of markets, and how it’s impossible for “freely entered” contracts to be unfair.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Yes, exactly. He has no idea how narrow and cramped his view is.

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space889

So one you think landlords have social responsibility like say law or medical professionals? If so then you would have to provide some comp for tat responsibility cuz not everyone or company is doing this for charity or social good.

Second, about pets, so if a pet pees on carpet and causes a fee thousands in damages, there will be an easy way to force renters to pay damages? Same for other types of damage that exceeds security deposit?

It goes both ways.

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tim

Housing is favoured by government policy, in many ways and at many levels. It is NOT “private property”. It’s value is derived from location – infrastructure and network effects, built and cultivated by government.

So yes, landlords benefit from policy aimed at providing HOUSING. So they therefore have a responsibility to provide that housing to people, and not be assholes about it.

As for “easy way” to enforce damage deposits etc; the rentals office situation helps nobody. IMHO its purpose is to just prevent the courts from clogging up by diverting claims between tenants and landlords to the “listen then do fuck all” file.

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squeak

How about legislating proper flooring in rentals and none of this carpet garbage, which is unhygienic, pollution, filling landfills. Proper flooring will outlast carpeting at least 20 fold. Who is to say not a grown up or children accidentally can pee on a carpet, or spills, etc.

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Nom Nom Nom

Space… you have to be one of the most horrific human beings I have ever encountered (virtually in this case). Its not that your arguments are without reasoning…. its that they are bereft of any compassion, or understanding, or for that matter any perspective outside of the self serving myopic lenses through which you must view the world. Were you not hugged enough as a child… or as an adult for that matter? Were you a product of the one child policy years and hence never learned the advantages of sharing with others? Or are you just a self serving prick?

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tim

Actually he’s not far from the norm for RE “investors” in the Vancouver area, for any background. This is what classism does to people.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

But sheesh. It’s so unmerited. How can such a thoughtless base person consider himself to be high class? How can he make such stupid assumptions about the amount of money people might have even if they rent. Does he think that everyone wants to play the same game he wants to play. Space, you have a stupid stupid game.

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Combat roach

Born covetous in the shitty society, brainwashed and educated
all about the wrong values. What else to expect from a result of the miserable, social experiment.

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Boombust

Just another psychopath; he fits the descriptors.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Space, citizens as such have social responsibility.
Your ignorance proves that you are completely disconnected from the history and meaning of democracies. Your views wouldn’t merit membership in a wolfpack.

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Best place on meth

You can see by Space’s condescending, contempt-filled attitude towards renters (an attitude I’m sure is shared by many amateur landlords in this city) that the only solution is to build massive amounts of public housing.

Leaving the rental market to greedy private enterprise has been a total disaster.

Our leaders need to go on a field trip to Vienna to see how it’s done. They started building enormous amounts of public housing in the 1920’s and today over 60% of residents live in high quality, low cost housing and have a lot of money left over to spend in the local economy.

http://dirty-mag.com/v2/?p=16686

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southseacompany

“Janet Yellen conducts a giant experiment as Fed decides whether to raise rates: Don Pittis”, CBC News

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/federal-reserve-central-banking-critiques-1.3765256

“The strange new world of the Federal Reserve is not your daddy’s central banking system”

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southseacompany

“A Quiet Announcement That Could Have a Big Impact on Future Canadian Mortgage Rates “, Move Smartly Toronto RE Blog
http://www.movesmartly.com/2016/09/a-quiet-announcement-that-could-have-a-big-impact-on-future-canadian-mortgage-rates-september-19-201.html

“The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) recently launched a proposal that could push future Canadian mortgage rates higher.”

“To account for increased market risk in future, OSFI will add a “countercyclical buffer” to its toolkit.”

“Bluntly put, this buffer gives our policy makers a clever way to increase mortgage rates while leaving other interest rates unchanged”

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patriotz

West End Vancouver condo owners say they’ve been harassed to sell

He says the bullying tactics started around the time the province made changes to the Strata Property Act with Bill 40, removing the requirement that all owners agree to liquidate in order to sell a building. Now, only 80 per cent of strata owners need to agree in order to start the process.

Thanks Christy!

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YVR

80% seems like a fair number to agree to sell a building that some developer is probably offering 1.5 times the market rate per unit for. So you are saying it should be 100% of a strata must agree to sell like it used to be?

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patriotz

What’s fair is the rule that was in place when the property was bought. Now there may be a better way to do things than the old rule, but what Christy has brought in obviously isn’t it.

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Combat roach

It works well for the entitled and preferred type of BC population.

“One of the challenges we have seen is there’s a sense of basically running your building to failure. You use it as best you can, and then you sell it off because land is in such high demand,”

http://www.richmond-news.com/news/chinese-only-strata-council-prompts-human-rights-complaint-1.2137818#sthash.4D5BTQQF.dpuf

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Billybonger

I think oracle has a valid position point.

The tax dodge is massive.

Hoping car gets their head out of their butt and does something meaningful here.

Oracle while the majority of voters don’t care and or don’t pay attention, the minoritybof us I think are growing and becoming more vocal. So…wouldn’t shock me to see a real regulatory response.

Ross Kay radio interview posted earlier…wow…he thinks Vancouver is in full blown crash mode although won’t become evident to the mainstream for 4-5 months.

Did you see Steve starkesky (sp) email thos morning? Detached sales to sept 15th are cratering and condos and townhouses are slowing down and catching up…once the lower end slows (coming, or so it appears) things could unfold quickly.

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Oracle

My landlord owns 4 detached houses and when he sells them, I want him to pay capitals gains on the 3 he doesn’t live in.

Something tells me that he is going to declare principle residency prior to selling each house. And do the same thing with the other 2.

And something tells me he will get away with it. How can I stop him from fraud ing the system?

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patriotz

This poster’s fantasies don’t merit any response, but for the benefit of the forum I will point out that a change of use from investment property to principle residence is treated as a sale for tax purposes.

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Oracle

Of course because I’m brave enough to mention the “I” word.

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Oracle

And like any ‘investor’ buys a property without declaring it their primary residence. They’re most likely all primary residences.

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No Money Down

Yes but capital gains tax is payable on the increase in value while the property was an income property. However, the CGT can be deferred until sale of the property if the capital cost allowance (CCA) has not been claimed. I have done this.

But ultimately CRA will get you.

http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/propertyrental/changeinuse.htm

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Tim

The cra won’t get them. Unreal estate, they look the other way. They’re too busy auditing small business, tech startups and bus fare claims, where the real money is.

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Oracle

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/15/china-tulip-fever-sees-house-prices-skyrocket-76-to-close-in-on-san-jose.html

Vancouver is #5 in the world right now. Shenzhen prices up 76% year over year.

Vancouver will hit #1 one day. This is the most corrupt place on earth right now and the populace is the most ‘schooled’ and obedient.

Result is total corruption in all facets of life here. That is why blogs like this are sprouting up.

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Diadora

2 asians were shot to death in my neighbourhood last night. House were purchased with cash two years ago. Draw your conclusion.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Vancouver Sun still hasn’t filled out the details of the story but some other newspaper has some.

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Diadora

A liitte more detailed report
http://globalnews.ca/news/2947544/2-bodies-discovered-in-east-vancouver-home/

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2.9millCrackHouse

At the rally I noticed a significant lack of representation by HAM.
I’m not sure if Oracle showed up.
I’m guessing Best place on meth was the guy constantly yelling obscenities into the air.

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space889

Photo evidence of BPOM actually getting off his butt to go out and actually something??

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2.9millCrackHouse

No photo evidence. Could have been DTES crack addict.

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Newcomer

“The Bank for International Settlements warned in its quarterly report that China’s “credit to GDP gap” has reached 30.1, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia’s speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis.”
…
“Outstanding loans have reached $28 trillion, as much as the commercial banking systems of the US and Japan combined. The scale is enough to threaten a worldwide shock if China ever loses control. Corporate debt alone has reached 171pc of GDP, and it is this that is keeping global regulators awake at night.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/18/bis-flashes-red-alert-for-a-banking-crisis-in-china/

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Best place on meth

Hold off on the atom bombs, it looks like the shithole is going to blow itself up!

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HAMster

Premier doubts source of documents detailing $57 million in student-owned property.
http://www.news1130.com/2016/09/18/premier-doubts-source-of-documents-detailing-57-million-in-student-owned-property/

Christy, don’t let facts get in the way of your pre-concieved beliefs.

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Just me

What beliefs? She knows it is all true. Jst trying to get re-elected.
She is cunning, and smarter than she looks.

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Combat roach

No surprise here…

Trudeau Government’s First Months Were Least Productive In Decades

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/17/justin-trudeau-least-productive_n_12066614.html

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Best place on meth

It’s hard for our little communist to get much done while frolicking shirtless for the cameras.

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southseacompany

“A Fed Insider Warns of the Risk of Low Rates”, Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fed-insider-warns-of-the-risk-of-low-rates-1474196402

“Among concerns behind Eric Rosengren’s call for central bank to act: soaring commercial real-estate market”

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southseacompany

“US Federal Reserve expected to keep interest rates on hold”, The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/18/us-federal-reserve-expected-to-keep-interest-rates-on-hold

“Financial markets have become over reliant on central banks, a leading international body said on Sunday, as investors prepared for the latest announcement on interest rates from the US Federal Reserve.”

“The Fed is expected to keep interest rates on hold, despite concerns that the strength of the world’s largest economy warrants a rise in borrowing costs.”

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

How to get gigantic sums of money out of China:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-11-02/china-s-money-exodus

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Item #5: Get an Overseas Mortgage Based on Your China Savings

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Oracle

So transit funding has been decided for the next decade.

1) small rise in property taxes.
2) some development charges.
3) tolls on new bridges. And 1 toll on Alex Fraser once they say there is a crisis. Lol
4) Fares going up by 30% over 10 years. 10% in first 3 years.

Soon will cost $13-17 for round trip from Surrey into Vancouver.

And they want a skytrain into UBC. UBC will be 60% foreign students by then and they don’t come here to take trains when paying $100,000 year for the education costs.

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YLTNboomerang

They don’t need a skytrain to UBC just valet parking for all the Lambo’s

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Shut It Down Already

Many foreign students are sponsored by an employer in their home country. Paying $100,000 a year doesn’t mean they’re rich, because they’re not necessarily the ones fronting the costs.

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space889

At which point, a reasonable person has to ask – what’s the point of taking transit in a crowded train??

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space889

UBC will never be 60% foreign students unless it decides to stop to even try to be a serious university. But given the biz focus, maybe I could be wrong and $$$ rules above all else.

The current Chinese students influx has hit pretty much a plateau. A non-Ivy league type foreign univ degree is no longer look upon as anything positive or in awe now. Rather, first impression most people have is that you ain’t smart enough to make it into a first tier Chinese univ and you are just lucky you got rich parents. If your English (or French or whatever) is not fluent, you are actually at a disadvantage compared to local univ grads.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Space, I don’t want to hear your opinions about UBC in your paltry attempt to sound worldly and sophisticated.

Why don’t you instead go to the MOA at UBC and study the ancient treasures there dating from before the time Mao’s gang destroyed all the art in China and be grateful.

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Sellnoworbepricedin4evah

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-becomes-no-1-us-market-for-chinese-homebuyers/

Seattle the new HAM target.

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Best place on meth

Sorry Seattle, but it’s your turn to deal with this human garbage.

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Sellnoworbepricedin4evah

I never really thought of Reno as a place that was running out of land… things are just so weird.

http://reno.craigslist.org/apa/5786508419.html

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Oracle

World is awash in money.

What if you can take out a $10 million dollar loan via help from some banker ‘friends’ and go shopping overseas. And then declare bankruptcy here.

Happening everywhere. Money printing goes on. Just got to know people.

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patriotz

It’s student accommodation walking distance from the university. Look at the map. Looks pretty reasonable.

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Sellnoworbepricedin4evah

For Reno? No. not that reasonable. (I do realize for Canadians this seems ok. They build nicer there) but If it were not for SF peeps being pushed out, this wouldn’t be happening. This is a result of west coast bubble pushing east. Reno largely hell on earth. Sacramento is back in massive price escalation also. Flipping back with a vengeance. It’s largely another gang infested hell hole. Tho has a few decent parts.

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southseacompany

“Fed to end guessing game over interest rates move”, The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/18/federal-reserve-ends-interest-rate-guessing-game

“Will they, won’t they? The answer to the stock market’s latest guessing game will come on Wednesday, when the US Federal Reserve reveals whether it plans to raise interest rates this month.”

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space889

Nobody from VCI or team BPOM showed up? Too chicken or too lazy to show your faces? No waving signs about killing locusts and nuking China? C’mon, I thought you people were passionate about that.

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Slava

I showed up looking for you. Why didn’t you show your face?

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space889

Proof? And I got better things to do than attending this rally which will accomplish exactly 0. Not to mention most of the things / policy they push will not work and only make things worse – I thought most people here would actually get that, but as usual, maybe I’m giving the bears too much credit. The fix is very simple – actually enforce the existing anti-money laundering laws and tax laws. Seriously, if some Chinese official immigrates to Canada and buys some $3M+ house, alarm bells should be ringing very loudly. Every freaking anti-money laundering training course will state that any public foreign official is a higher risk profile for money laundering and extra caution should be exercised. If immigration Canada followed the same rules that banks has to follow, a lot of these corrupt officials wouldn’t be… Read more »

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space889

Proof?

And I got better things to do than attending this rally which will accomplish exactly 0. Not to mention most of the things / policy they push will not work and only make things worse – I thought most people here would actually get that, but as usual, maybe I’m giving the bears too much credit.

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Sellnoworbepricedin4evah

Spacey on this I disagree. The grassroots movements are what has finally caused the media to delve into the crisis. Yes prices had already plateud. But the momentum now is thanks to efforts like this rally.

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space889

The fix is very simple – actually enforce the existing anti-money laundering laws and tax laws. Seriously, if some Chinese official immigrates to Canada and buys some $3M+ house, alarm bells should be ringing very loudly. Every freaking anti-money laundering training course will state that any public foreign official is a higher risk profile for money laundering and extra caution should be exercised. If immigration Canada followed the same rules that banks has to follow, a lot of these corrupt officials wouldn’t be in Canada right now.

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space889

Now, biz person would be harder but there are ways to limit their influence as well if there really is an appetite to do something about hot foreign money. At the end of the gov’t, Canada whores itself out for the $$ and no amount of protesting will really change that now, especially if it means a huge housing bust. But then again, if NDP is elected here, who knows, since a lot of them seem to like economy destroying policies and hate wealth.

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Shut It Down Already

They’re only passionate about it when afforded anonymity.

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Tim

Do say.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

I can’t speak for others but I doubt that that’s true of most. I talk to everyone who will listen, including arbitrary people I meet in the ‘hood, friends and people at work. Instead of me bringing up the subject, other people are bringing it up to me. We are all of one mind. There is a horrible crisis in Vancouver that all three levels of govt are only beginning to come to terms with and which self-serving short sighted and to some extent criminal people are trying to shove under the carpet..

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Best place on meth

Say’s the super secretive asshole who posts exactly zero information about themselves during several years of trolling the site.

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history

my bro showed me something cool tonight. Say you have a winning ticket. Draw a figure 8, 8 times on the ticket, put it in your wallet for 8 days, or 8 weeks, or 8 months. 8 is the figure of Infinity, so dont be fooled by some other suggestion of the significance. Ok? so the ticket is in your wallet or purse… keep it there…. draw a figure 8 on your g/f’s bum… draw a figure 8 on the subway, draw a figure 8 on your favorite protest sign, draw a figure 8 on the curb… get it? Figure 8 is Vancouver… Draw a figure 8 on your forehead and eat Chinese… and dont forget the figure 8 on your shitkicker boots.

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