It’s the end of another week as we wind down another year and that means 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:
–condos see another small down tick
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So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes in the comments below and have an excellent weekend!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Ditto, and thank you for not saying Happy Holidays.
Solstice greetings. Also a very Merry Christmas, and any other holidays anyone wishes to celebrate. The more holidays the better. I try to celebrate every single one I hear of all throughout the year.
today the Sun moves noticeably to longer days, thus the specialness.. some call it the birth of Christ, some, especially during neolithic times, took the opportunity to partake in fertility rituals. It helped if they had a safe and secure place. Not much different today. To the breeders on this forum, have a good romp. Highest rate of birth is 2nd or 3rd Tuesday in September. If you are curious, i will explain more.
Get the hell outta here with that PC bs. Say Merry Christmas damit. Say it!!!
Childless in Vancouver: How do cities keep families from fleeing?
A fast solution, substitute children and families. Introduce provincial Family Express Visa Entry Program (must have children) and send marketers over to China, problem solved. At the same time, it will help stumbling housing industry.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/childless-vancouver-how-do-cities-keep-families-from-fleeing
Get a life you loser roach
Posting again an interesting set of links, originally out together by MarKoz. You can clearly see a pattern. Whenever the Federal government steps in to constrain credit or reduce pressure on prices, Christy Clark puts in new rules that revert the intended effect and let the party rally on.
Christy vs. The Federal Liberals
Federal Liberals increase downpayment requirements own homes over $500,000
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/morneau-home-ownership-finance-1.3360610
Christy reduces property purchase tax on new condos etc. under $750K
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/budget+offers+help+buyers+homes/11723141/story.html
Federal Liberals toughen mortgage qualification rules.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ottawa-housing-tax-real-estate-1.3788725
Christy offers interest free downpayment loans to FTBs.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-government-offers-down-payment-loans-to-first-time-homebuyers
Christy brings in a 15% foreign buyer’s tax
http://www.straight.com/news/742456/bowing-pressure-bc-government-places-15-percent-tax-foreign-buyers-metro-vancouver-real
But really, it’s just a sham
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/1994773/foreign-home-buyers-vancouver-hit-hk-style-15pc-tax
Christy Clark is unashamedly in favor of booming house prices. She has made it clear over and over again.
More affordability in her view means larger and larger mortgages, and debt for life.
Affordable prices are not something she will EVER pursue.
More on Christy Clark’s view of reality!
Don’t Want More Debt? You ‘Don’t Live In Real World,’ Christy Clark Says
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/20/christy-clark_n_13751800.html
>>> very similar to comments she made about Fort St John a while back…
repost links to your hearts content, but not someone else’s comments OR are you trying to convince people here that “Just me” and “bullwhip29” are the same person?
http://vancouvercondo.info/2016/12/realtors-expect-decline-in-2017.html#comment-289901
Sorry, I should have mentioned it was yours.
Not trying to steal it, just find it interesting.
Hi Pope, I reposted the original MarKoz post, with multiple links. It is awaiting moderation. Could you give it the go ahead quickly? It is important people realize what a scammer Christy Clark is.
TransLink stays mum on massive Oakridge Transit Centre sale
http://www.westerninvestor.com/news/british-columbia/translink-stays-mum-on-massive-oakridge-transit-centre-sale-1.2368068
Typical Chinese business style:
“When asked about the Oakridge transit deal, Kunyuan president Kevin Li first asked for the names of WI’s sources. ”
I don’t know about you, but these people scare the hell out of me. There is no transparency, they don’t even accept basic western standard about confidentiality of the sources and freedom of the press.
Is this the future for all of us?
It will take some time to embrace and get used to scummy, dubious and ratty culture, but over time it will just become a second nature here in BC.
Roach will fit in nicely with the rest of the bitter trailer trash on this site….what a sorry entitled bunch…cry me a river losers
Most journalistic sources are not confidential, that is why most articles explicitly state who their sources are.
I also don’t see anything particularly remarkable in asking who a journalist has spoken too, especially when there are confidentiality agreements in play. For example, many NDAs state that the duty of confidentiality does not apply to matters made public by the owner of the information.
I certainly don’t see anything that is different from what I would expect from a person with a European background.
Perhaps we are viewing two different movies. the one I see features a rather secretive corporation, loaded with cash, which provides absolutely no information about the nature of this massive acquisition and future plans.
When asked about the transaction, the gut reaction of the corporation is to figure out who leaked the price.
reminds me of the Chinese foreign minister lecturing a journalist in Ottawa for asking about human rights. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Of course, Canadians are not any better; they pocketed the $440 mils, and played along. Business as usual.
OK the buyers are assholes, but a lot of other business people are assholes too. Shouldn’t the guiding factor be getting the most money for the taxpayers, not how nice the buyers are? As for future plans, they can do whatever they want within the zoning, like any other property owner.
So your company disclose everything? Like price they pay to vendors, salaries of its officers & employees, their cost basis and profit margins, etc?
When Uber was asked by California to get a permit for their autonomous vehicles they immediately shipped them all to Arizona to continue testing in order to avoid not only paying the tiny permit fees but also disclosing their accident history. They also have a piss-poor attitude to workers rights (which directly impacts the safety of their customers).
But that’s ok because they’re not Chinese?
If someone unknown to you came up to ask you about something that you thought was confidential, is your first instinct to answer the question or ask how the person got that information?
“When you think it can’t get any worse, it does. So you keep adjusting your expectations, you know?”
Give it a rest you trailer trash bitter loser
So if your company secrets got leaked out, your company should definitely not investigate who leaked the info right? Cuz, there should be no privacy what so ever?
And why is Wikileaks & its founder in such trouble? Doesn’t US gov’t respect confidentiality of the sources and freedom of the press?
obviously the us government does not. and many people in the us are unhappy about it.
Just Me is a bitter trailer trash who will point a finger at anyone ….dont speak on behalf of western standard you dumb redneck
@Newcomer
>Also, in the event of a disorderly collapse, there may not be any money to move.
this certainly won’t be the case. the last ten years have been all about laying the ground work for this move.
I think the point of disorderly is that things don’t go as planned.
they are anticipating disorderly.
I get it. You have more confidence in their estate planning skills than I do.
I have faith in their ability to smuggle money, hide money, and get legal status buy any means possible.
That’s what the last 15 years have been all about. Am I the only one seeing this?
No, Oracle sees it too.
And here is the original link to Christy’s tax giveaway to homeowners (especially to the rich ones, who can defer many tens of thousands every year!)
More than 6,300 households in the city delayed paying their property taxes in 2016, under a provincial tax deferment program. Although that is only about three per cent of total residential properties in the City of Vancouver, it amounts to a $36.8 million tax bill footed by the B.C. government for just the one municipality.
To justify this socialism for the rich, Christy Clark uses the usual sob story about elderly ladies unable to cope with taxes and facing eviction.
Poor, elderly multimillionaires.
Plans to lay pavement, crushed gravel and bark mulch along Vancouver’s Arbutus Corridor delayed
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/plans-to-lay-pavement-crushed-gravel-and-bark-mulch-along-vancouvers-arbutus-corridor-delayed
Gateway Theatre’s Chinese outreach gets funding boost
Theatre needs to foster more dialogue with Chinese community to expand customer base: Mayor Brodie
B.C. election spending spree ramping up
http://globalnews.ca/news/3145867/b-c-election-spending-spree-ramping-up/
FBI probes FDIC hack linked to China’s military: Sources
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/23/fbi-probes-fdic-hack-linked-to-chinas-military-sources.html
China’s Alibaba back on US counterfeits blacklist
From 1965 – Charlie Brown’s Christmas – Real Estate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzHF0TlAIYA
Merry Christmas!
Canada’s real-estate boom: a Chinese perspective
Think prices in Toronto or Vancouver are crazy? Try looking for an apartment in Shanghai, and you’ll understand Canada’s appeal.
“https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/12/23/canadas-real-estate-boom-a-chinese-perspective.html”
Close the gates now. Keeping them open spells disaster for the Lower Mainland.
“Close the gates now…”
And not because of real-estate, fuck the real-estate, but because of the overall social and human disaster in making. This lucrative but wild model of forced and enormous
settlement of one “unfit” group of people on the general detriment of another, is poised for a catastrophe sooner or later. Rational balance is already broken, local people are not happy, neither Chinese. However, most of them offset discomfort with the fact that they moved money out of China and that comes with the price. Whoever thinks that such chaotic and unfounded social and cultural changes can succeed without ugly consequences is going to get badly surprised.
I think you will be unhappy no matter where you live…well maybe except certain parts of SouthEast Asia where they love you long time for $20 still?
Speaking of “long time”, isn’t it time for you to find a new hobby?
look in the mirror loser if you want to blame anyone
again its neo nazi dicks like Just Me who hides under trolls clothing to take cheap rants about any group that is doing better than this trailer trash….
get the stimulus!
Canada’s Economy Shrinks on Worst Factory Output Since 2013
I remember looneys on sale for 62 cents. Maybe we could go for 50 this time.
Saved from a Chinese dog meat festival, 110 pooches arrive in Canada.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/saved-from-a-chinese-dog-meat-festival-110-pooches-arrive-in-canada-1.3215949?autoPlay=true
30 million dogs are slaughtered for meat every year around the world, the majority of them in China.
What can anybody even say about a disgusting practice like this? And it’s not just the consumption of the dogs, but the methods used in how they are captured and killed which I won’t get into here. Sickening animal cruelty of the worst kind.
And this relates to real estate how?
It might relate when due to a real estate boom some buyers of certain background and exquisite taste get urge for some special homemade delicatessen here in Canada. Would you ever think before that in the middle of Canada, BC, Mao Zedong would be worshipped and celebrated more than Canadian heroes and veterans?
Roach is a chicken shit hiding in a white hood…
It doesn’t. It’s just the usual suspects trawling for negative articles about their favourite topic – but not because they’re a little racist, oh no.
Merry Racemas, you round eyed prick!
the only thing that’s round is your butt hole, closet case…
Mainland communist China is not a race, dipshit.
So uhm…how many cows, pigs, chicken, horse (yes horse!) are slaughter in Canada each year??
“110 pooches arrive in Canada”
I can see it now on xmas in space cadets house. Hey dad I didn’t know there was such thing as a 4 legged turkey?
Space, do you prefer the taste of cat or dog?
I’m more of a cow/pig/chicken guy myself.
we don’t care what you do sexually with these animals…stay on topic you dumb banjo f—
Btw, care to back up your claim with some facts cuz even in Chinese cities with millions of people and sizable Korean population, it is damn hard to find any restaurant that serves dog meat.
“it is damn hard to find any restaurant that serves dog meat.”
Hard to find but easy to eat in any Chinese restaurant. Dog meat is spelled “chicken” on the menu.
YVR, if you let go of your boyfriend’s 1 incher, you will taste what meat you are eating….
I was in Taiwan for two months way back in 1993. My Canadian co-workers there told me never to worry about being served dog because they keep the good stuff for themselves.
Sailor55 – with your banjo playing background you wouldn’t know if you were eating your own mother’s feet….
@50 cents.
Your insult is not working because you do not understand the culture well enough to know the breadth of associations with banjos. The one you’re thinking of is not the main one.
I know enough to reconize the squealing you do every night trailer trash
I know enough to reconize the squealing you do every night trailer trash
This is a product of a grossly overpopulated country that has seen waves of famine throughout history and thus people adapted. But what does Canada do to make matters worse? We implement immigration policies that only encourage world overpopulation. We allow immigration that circumvents Chinas very legitimate one child policy. We have even allowed Chinese ‘refugees’ who’s primary complaint was not being allowed to have more than one child.
I know a mainland China Chinese couple who came here on the basis of the wife’s prc (obtained via Cdn experience qualifiers- langara early childhood education, hahaha). She worked at a daycare, but had literally been on maternity leave for five years straight birthing son after son after son. Her husband does not appear to be employed, and I have observed them driving several different luxury vehicles that certainly no one else working at the daycare could dream of affording. Creative !
I hope beside food stamps, they get enough social assistance to at least cover up for maintenance and insurance of all those luxury vehicles.
“Food stamps”? Check which side of the border the website is on before posting.
Food stamps, food aid, whatever, you know exactly what is it about…
Combat is this 5 foot nothing white trash hillbilly chicken shit trolling on sites with his bitterness…
and white trash like you are selling meth on Hastings daily….
Borabora – all I can smell is your bitter trailer trash rant….go back to banjo playing families
F loser
Dogs are animals.
How many kids are killed in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine by Canadians, Americans and Juice.
You are a sick man, putting animals before innocent children.
same logic – based on your name you must be a terrorist ….
New
25
Price Change
4
Sold
66
TI:7332
Yo Funkey Monkey,
Your listing in question asking 2.988 sold for 2.940 after 3 days on market.
Pretty sharply priced for a large, modern west side house that includes a 1000 sqft laneway house.
Sharply priced for who?
A lady on CKNW summed up the Vancouver situation nicely. She said Asians don’t like to rent and when they send heir kid over for education, they buy so child can focus on study.
She said 500 million middle class and those that come will spend $1.5 million on home.
BS. Dorms at UBC a full of mainlanders renting. They just built 2 x 18 story towers to house them.
Most of that 500 million Chinese “middle class” couldn’t afford an airline ticket to Canada.
China’s average annual wage was 56,360 yuan ($8,655) in 2014
YVR – you will say anything and do anything to support your Nazi rant – go back to your trailer
When you think about it, does writing 20 replies make your message stronger, or weaker?
20 copies of the same reply.
CanNever
More like Can Never cry loud enough for people to hear your entitled rant….mommy help me…
This lady sounds like a realtor.
Either that or it’s Oracle calling in from Hawaii.
Ha ha ha. “Focus on study”.
Chinese “middle-class” can’t even afford a 1-bedroom condo in Vancouver.
Stop making up shit with CKNW you bitter trailer trash…
Thanks! The house had a for sale sign for at least three weeks.
The Sun feels it necessary to tell stories about sales that happened in May, presumably because people want to feel good at Christmas.
It sold in May!
Yes, that’s what I said.
The hidden costs of foreign student policy: Academic insiders respond
http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/the-hidden-cost-of-foreign-student-policy-insiders-respond
“Moreover, there is no question that some prospective foreign students are cheating on language tests.
I spent many years marking the Language Proficiency Index, so I speak from experience here.
This kind of cheating can be difficult to prove and it is impossible to stamp out entirely. But it is definitely a factor in enabling some foreign students to gain entry to Canadian institutions.
“There is no question that some prospective foreign students are cheating on language tests. I spent many years marking the Language Proficiency Index, so I speak from experience,” says this former associate dean.
Moreover, students entering directly from China supply their grades from their Chinese high schools. If I were an admissions officer, I would consider these grades highly suspect.”
Cheating, eh? That’s quite a surprise.
Thanks for the link. From the comments:
“our job as Canadians to share with them our values and beliefs, so that when these students/immigrants realize the costs of living in Canada, perhaps they will return to their country of origin with the values and attitudes required to help their own societies. As for Canadians, the friendships and cultural awareness we gain from interactions with foreign students are invaluable. Canada has much to offer the world, so we shouldn’t worry about burdens to our social and economic systems”
Messiah complex? Troll?
Masochistic tendency mised with an evagenlical narcissism.
I am sure thr Chinese have equally benevolent feelings towards Canada and its population. (It is Christmas after all)
In California jurisdictions attempting rent control, realtor associations and ‘apartment associations’ block action:
South Bay: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/23/mountain-view-rent-control-measure-sidelined-by-judges-order/
Rural North Bay:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/4392104-181/santa-rosas-great-rent-control?gallery=5128231&artslide=0
Those collecting signatures for the anti-rent control petition were paid $5 per signature and misled signatories about what the petition meant, according to NPR.
New listing: 6088 Newton Wynd, UBC: $12,500,000
Purchased Feb, 2004 for $2,500,000, try to sell just for $10,000,000 more.
What you should actually be able to buy in Vancouver for $2.5 million (plus inflation).
Who cares, I cannot afford either…
The thing is, somewhere the music stops with debt. Imagine what it means to real estate in Vancouver if it stops simultaneously in China and Canada.